libertarian socialism

JKSCHW at aol.com JKSCHW at aol.com
Sat Sep 30 14:56:33 PDT 2000


I appreciate your thoughtful reply.

I didn't actually even mean to raise issues like control of sociopathy--crimes that are, as we in the law biz say, malum in se, murder and the like. I listed among what you call primary functions:

(1) Means of peaceable dispute resolution that avoid people, as one says, taking the law intio their own hands,w hich needn't be sociopathic in the way that murder is,a lthough it may be very bad;

(2) Means of arriving at and enforcing collective decisions, i.e,. democracy;

(3) Providing what economsits call public goods.

We might also add your (4), preventing sociopathy, taht is policing crime.

You object to the idea that welfare and other concessions wrung from the state and the ruling classes are positive benefits because they are linked to systems ogf domination and oppression. I agree they are, and I explained them that way. That does not mean they are not positive benefits. You say we need to think beyond a situation where domination exists, to where there will be no subordinate and dominant groupsm and Ia gree there too. But none of this means that in the world as we know it we should not fight for the state to give us more of a welfare state, better antidiscrimination laws, etc. That was my point. Calling for the state to just back off here and now is counterproductive. We want the state to do things _for the oppressed_. This is only part of fighting for a day when there are no more oppressed for the state to help.

--jks

In a message dated 9/30/00 11:50:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time, gcf at panix.com writes:

<< I think you're conflating two different functions of the State.

One is one of several possible social strategies for handling

significant sociopathy -- the vigilantism, feuds, crimes, and

so on that you mention. By inventing slavery, some people

discovered the method of incorporating and institutionalizing

certain kinds of sociopathy as an antidote to the others,

hence we have government, the unique monopoly of force. This

invention does not prove that better strategies for the control

of sociopathy are not possible, but it does meet an undoubted

need.

The other function, which grows out of the first one, is to

defend and advance all the interests of the ruling class in

the community where the State is established, not just its

immediate safety from competitors. These concerns often

express themselves in procedures for threatening, disciplining,

deceiving, and buying off the lower orders, hence we have alms

or Welfare or social democracy and "gains" which are actually

crumbs from the masters' table. They can evidently be withdrawn

at any time when the forces of revolt and potential revolt

are in abeyance, or are overshadowed by some worse threat.

Whereas the control of sociopathy is a requirement, the other

functions of the State seem vulnerable to question and review,

especially its class and caste systems. For instance, do we

need to gather the young into concentration camps called

schools? Or could they be trained and informed in some better

way? Should the poor be whipped and hounded by social-democratic

benevolence, or could we establish some kind of convivial order

where people get what they need without question? Must everyone's

means of production be the private business of elites, whether

these are capitalist or "socialist" leaders and bureaucrats?

Thousands of years of authoritarian darkness need to be

cleared away before we can even begin to think properly about

these problems, but we can start by doubting that anything

the State does in its secondary role are necessary or beneficial

except by accident, or that we need to live forever in societies,

like the present one, based fundamentally on one man pointing

a gun at another's head.

I suggest we think radically.

>>



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