[BRIEF NOTE] Thoughts on the State
Aug. 9th, 2004 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldYesterday, discussion was given to the topic of anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism, and the role of the state in these two related ideological complexes. I've recently posted briefly on this, in this post referring to Abiola Lapite's criticism of the situation as fundamentally unstable. The discussion was continued by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyfelicity over at her livejournal.
creases, in commenting to the post on my livejournal, made four comments that I'd like to specifically address.
But there's no reason to assume that a private security organization would devolve into a state.
I'd just like to note that the choice of the word "devolve" is interesting, inasmuch as it assumes the superiority of non-state structures to state structures.
In fact, Mr. Apolita's reasoning is totally backwards: what he thinks he proves of statism with respect to anarcho-capitalism, he actually proves of anarcho-capitalism with respect to statism. Who is the "body of men with more firepower than others around it" if not the state? Who is in more need of being checked against one or more equal powers within a given geographical area and in the affairs of a given population?
Arguably, almost all social structures are founded by people who can command disproportionate power, whether a particularly strong ability to persuade people or a particularly strong force at their command. In a situation where established centers of power are eliminated, unless alternative structures can be imposed on the general population, there will be a Darwinian competition between groups.
On a more general note: The Warring States period, the state of affairs in a civil war, and the like, are not comparable to the state of affairs that anarcho-capitalists want to achieve, for one simple reason. Every single one of the "negative examples" ever cited as disproof of the a-c position is characterized by one or more factions who reserve sovereignty (either as a normative category of political legitimacy, or as de facto monopoly) to themselves. The a-c model is based on the premise that individuals will take what action they can to prevent this monopoly from forming in the first place.
In order to avoid this competition, one would manage to convince different non-state groups inside the newly stateless region and the various states located outside not to compete to restore some version of the state following the state's removal.
Note that early feudalism included many democratic features (such as the Germanic "thing", elected dukes/kings, etc.), equality of freemen, etc.
This is true. At the same time, though, the feudal system was fundamentally incompatible with modern definitions of human rights. The transformation of free peasants into serfs is the most graphic example. At the same time, the origins of the feudal system in the context of the general collapse of Roman civilization in northwestern Europe makes it a poor control for the establishment of non-state structures in the 21st century, on Earth or beyond.
All social structures need to be governed by rules. In the absence of a state, traditional customs apply; in the presence of a state, legalistic structures apply. Without a state, customary traditions--family ties, religious structures, neighbourhood organizations--will be left to take over. I still have no idea what will keep them from aggregating into new states anyway. Leave that aside.
The major problem with anarchist visions of a stateless future is that non-state entities in Europe have a very bad record in regards to the defense of the rights of their constituents. The Scottish clans not only failed to resist the extension of Scottish and later British state power into the Highlands, but they were willing to turn upon one another, the most notorious example being the Glencoe massacre. Iceland was absorbed into the Norwegian polity just four centuries after the first settlement, weakened by incessant internal feuding that, at one point, reduced the survivors to eating their sheepskin manuscripts. The Basque fueros not only failed to persist on their own merits, but helped lay the prerequisites for an exclusionary and illiberal definition of Basque nationalism and identity that is only now being superseded. The Swiss cantons, despite their prosperity, are quite closed bodies, excluding immigrants even unto the third generation. In North America, local communities have too frequently been very exclusionary and hostile towards unpopular minorities--the very need for a civil rights movement in the United States, complete with intervention from the supralocal level, speaks volumes about the serious issues with unchecked local governments.
In the end, the elimination of the state would. Consider what happened to England after the Norman Conquest. The Normans came in, with their superior force, destroyed or coopted the native factions which contined to resist after Hastings, ordered the composition of the Domesday Book in what must be the perfect demonstration of Foucault's ideals of the state as an unchecked regulatory body, and then proceeded to create an Anglo-Norman state without any opposition. Unless, somehow, people manage to prevent the idea of the state from being recreated, I suspect that the state would be quickly recreated, this time in as brutally and directly exploitative a manner as possible. (Remember what happened to the anarchists of Barcelona in the 1930s.) Anarcho-capitalism, at least in its relationship to the state, may well be as fundamentally unattainable as Marxism or Islamism, all three pointing towards a brilliant future that can be reached--but only if, ah if only if.
ladyfelicity over at her livejournal.creases, in commenting to the post on my livejournal, made four comments that I'd like to specifically address.But there's no reason to assume that a private security organization would devolve into a state.
I'd just like to note that the choice of the word "devolve" is interesting, inasmuch as it assumes the superiority of non-state structures to state structures.
In fact, Mr. Apolita's reasoning is totally backwards: what he thinks he proves of statism with respect to anarcho-capitalism, he actually proves of anarcho-capitalism with respect to statism. Who is the "body of men with more firepower than others around it" if not the state? Who is in more need of being checked against one or more equal powers within a given geographical area and in the affairs of a given population?
Arguably, almost all social structures are founded by people who can command disproportionate power, whether a particularly strong ability to persuade people or a particularly strong force at their command. In a situation where established centers of power are eliminated, unless alternative structures can be imposed on the general population, there will be a Darwinian competition between groups.
On a more general note: The Warring States period, the state of affairs in a civil war, and the like, are not comparable to the state of affairs that anarcho-capitalists want to achieve, for one simple reason. Every single one of the "negative examples" ever cited as disproof of the a-c position is characterized by one or more factions who reserve sovereignty (either as a normative category of political legitimacy, or as de facto monopoly) to themselves. The a-c model is based on the premise that individuals will take what action they can to prevent this monopoly from forming in the first place.
In order to avoid this competition, one would manage to convince different non-state groups inside the newly stateless region and the various states located outside not to compete to restore some version of the state following the state's removal.
Note that early feudalism included many democratic features (such as the Germanic "thing", elected dukes/kings, etc.), equality of freemen, etc.
This is true. At the same time, though, the feudal system was fundamentally incompatible with modern definitions of human rights. The transformation of free peasants into serfs is the most graphic example. At the same time, the origins of the feudal system in the context of the general collapse of Roman civilization in northwestern Europe makes it a poor control for the establishment of non-state structures in the 21st century, on Earth or beyond.
All social structures need to be governed by rules. In the absence of a state, traditional customs apply; in the presence of a state, legalistic structures apply. Without a state, customary traditions--family ties, religious structures, neighbourhood organizations--will be left to take over. I still have no idea what will keep them from aggregating into new states anyway. Leave that aside.
The major problem with anarchist visions of a stateless future is that non-state entities in Europe have a very bad record in regards to the defense of the rights of their constituents. The Scottish clans not only failed to resist the extension of Scottish and later British state power into the Highlands, but they were willing to turn upon one another, the most notorious example being the Glencoe massacre. Iceland was absorbed into the Norwegian polity just four centuries after the first settlement, weakened by incessant internal feuding that, at one point, reduced the survivors to eating their sheepskin manuscripts. The Basque fueros not only failed to persist on their own merits, but helped lay the prerequisites for an exclusionary and illiberal definition of Basque nationalism and identity that is only now being superseded. The Swiss cantons, despite their prosperity, are quite closed bodies, excluding immigrants even unto the third generation. In North America, local communities have too frequently been very exclusionary and hostile towards unpopular minorities--the very need for a civil rights movement in the United States, complete with intervention from the supralocal level, speaks volumes about the serious issues with unchecked local governments.
In the end, the elimination of the state would. Consider what happened to England after the Norman Conquest. The Normans came in, with their superior force, destroyed or coopted the native factions which contined to resist after Hastings, ordered the composition of the Domesday Book in what must be the perfect demonstration of Foucault's ideals of the state as an unchecked regulatory body, and then proceeded to create an Anglo-Norman state without any opposition. Unless, somehow, people manage to prevent the idea of the state from being recreated, I suspect that the state would be quickly recreated, this time in as brutally and directly exploitative a manner as possible. (Remember what happened to the anarchists of Barcelona in the 1930s.) Anarcho-capitalism, at least in its relationship to the state, may well be as fundamentally unattainable as Marxism or Islamism, all three pointing towards a brilliant future that can be reached--but only if, ah if only if.
