This is why I hate it when people say stuff like “Do you support [state]’s right to exist?” No, no I don’t. I don’t think any state has a “right” to exist. People have a right to exist. A state is something different entirely.
“I’d rather have my country die for me.”
-James Joyce (as Stephen Dedalus)Careful, you mention hating the state get everyone riled up. Conservatives, Liberals, Communists, all of them.
Especially on an ml instance. I’m waiting for some bozo to post Engels’ “on authority” again.
ML’s explicitly are anti-state and believe it to be in charge of managing irreconcilable class differences so it must be destroyed and replaced with something else. This is written explicitly in Lenin’s State and Revolution.
I’ve lost count of how many times MLers were trying to school me of how anarchism’s end-goal is delusional.
What an insufferable human. Fuck the police and fuck the state.
that’s why they’re on crazypeople.online. lol
Yeah, I don’t identify as a ML I just read books lol. Most people don’t
Really, just about anybody that looks to historical examples to inform their perspective.
There are examples of non states working, but it is unclear if it would be possible to maintain large societies.
Non-states or weak states very quickly run into collective action problems which are made significantly worse at large scales. Generally, they work when the material conditions allow for it, for example, the Zapatistas are in rural mountains that nobody really cares that much about. If they happened to be sitting on top of a bunch of oil, then the situation would be quite different.
States are the most effective means of solving collective action problems that currently exist. Even the fundamental goal of keeping people safe from other states cannot be achieved in most cases without some degree of centralization. “I can’t go up and defend the pass, I have to stay here and protect my farm.” That’s what decentralization gets you, and the result is that the enemy, who is solving such collective action problems through the mechanism of a state, is (generally) able to subdue each individual with overwhelming force. But it extends beyond defense, “I can’t help build that bridge so we can all trade with our neighbors, I have to tend to my crops or I’ll starve.” While these problems can be solved on a very small scale, on a local level where people know and trust each other, it generally cannot be scaled up to similar situations beyond that.
Very white take, congratulations.
Only white people have states, yes.
Very disingenuous of you to not recognize white people wielding the state have persecuted indigenous people all over the world.
Yeah and white people have also done that while having teeth so clearly that means we need to knock out all our teeth.
The state has been used to persecute and exploit people because it is an effective means of wielding power, so virtually everyone everywhere uses it, if they can. There’s just this silly martyr complex where people would rather lose and get themselves killed in practice, so that they can remain pure in their ideals. I suppose it’s useful for winning arguments. Not so much at actually achieving anything.
Show me a state that’s never persecuted people.
That’s an impossible standard, and doesn’t really have anything to do with anything. I’m not interested in impractical moral perfectionism.
Damn, I wish I could upvote this more…
In 100 years people are gonna look back on these 'phobes in the same way that we look back at slave owners… ignoring the fact that a lot of the 'phobes would probably be okay with modern slaves anyways.
Right, I’m in BDSM relationship with another femboy.
And this right there, is true love. The queerer, the better.
❤️
NiceOne
I would strongly advise to not confuse the “state” with the “resulting de facto inferences of the richest and most powerful few” in a “coordinated effort of a collective society to protect us from those few” with the later, because those few also want to destroy it for their own benefit… a “state” made up of all the society is the only coordinated thing protecting us from those few human predators
The rich didn’t create themselves, buddy.
By their direct attempts in interfering in the state or manipulating its supporters (voters in a democracy), good luck protecting from them without an organised society, call that collective force/entity “state” or whatever you want…
Groups can organize without a leader. Rules can exist without rulers. It is silly to say the only thing protecting us from the wealthy is the state, when the wealthy are far more protected by the state.
But, I do understand what you’re saying. What happens when someone breaks the rules? Who enforces those rules? But when the wealthy capture the state (and that is ultimately the goal of the wealthy), the rules will still be unenforceable against them. So, I’d say it kinda fundamentally falls apart eventually.
But, that’s not an answer. The real answer is that it is on the citizens to topple corrupt states, but they don’t necessarily need a state to make that possible.
