What I really want to find is a middle-ground philosophy, one that rejects what is most dangerous and oppressive about the existing State, while saving the aspects of government and collective power that might actually create progress.
If you are strict Anarchist, you have probably already stopped listening. If you haven't stopped, hear me out.
In libertarian capitalist circles there are roughly speaking two approaches to the state, anarchist and minarchist. Anarcho-capitalists share with leftist anarchists a political commitment to abolishing the State. Minarcho-Capitalists share with other conservatives the view that the State is necessary for collective institutions like armies and police.
Minarchism is a funny little word. It was coined by a theorist, Samuel Konkin III from the "agorist" left-wing of the Libertarian capitalist movement. Konkin meant the term as a label with which to distance his more strictly anarchist views from those who defended voting, armies, and police.
Most socialists in theory seem to defend a massive State apparatus that manages the economy, guarantees full employment, and acts to redistribute wealth. In addition, most socialists consider armies, police, and other coercive functions of the State as continuing under a socialist administration.
While I've been anti-capitalist for most of my life, I have also been anti-war and advocated nonviolent policing. At one point, I did call my view anarchist, but as I have thought it through further, I think it might be better use that funny little word for my position. While I may not be original, I certainly may be one of the few minarcho-socialists on the planet.
In fact, a google search reveals usages of minarcho-socialist back as far as 2006. The most interesting page is here.
Peace! Charley
Doing away with The State doesn't work so long as there are authoritarian mini-governments, aka 'corporations,' in control of our basic livelihood.
ReplyDeleteWith good luck and vigilence, The State can serve as 'the enemy of my enemy', as the bandit-in-chief to keep the banditry orderly and limited (Lao-Tse's theory of how govt began.)
With a population brainwashed to idolatrous regard for 'their' government, corporations, the various orthodox sources of information-&-opinion-- One ends up instead in the condition we in fact enjoy: a government captive to the worst predatory economic institutions.
Even in Europe, where there've been relatively humane & liberal governments for some time now... Inequalities in wealth & power have a way of eroding the State's benevolence, turning it increasingly mechanical & subject to manipulation by economic powers.
So it doesn't make a lot of sense to think about what ideal state of affairs we might theoretically achieve--as much as "How might we do better if people could wise up a little?"
What did you think, by the way, of Ursula LeGuin's _The Dispossessed_?
Forrest,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I read "Dispossessed" ages ago, but without a lasting impression. That probably says more about me than LeGuin.
For me, the dominant social problem of our time is the concentration of wealth in the hands of the capitalist classes and the defunding of education and other social goods. If this was the 30s, we'd have massive labor marches protesting this mess. Today, unions are so eviscerated that there is weak organized resistance to capitalism's latest barbarities.
How to move forward opposing this situation is the question. I don't yet have the answers, but I want to find them, desperately.