> Matthias: If it's the latter (i.e. Liphardt's "most people" definition) all
> you're
> saying is that people tend to fare better under efficient and consistent
> administrators than incompetent and corrupt ones, which while not precisely
> a tautology does seem rather trivial.
>
> [WS:] All I am saying is that it depends on historical circumstances and
> that it is outcomes not how these governments come to power that counts.
> For example, the government of Portugal that came to power in 1974 was a
> result of a military coup, but it instituted policies that moved the
> country
> toward democracy than the elected chatterbox on the Potomac ever did.
> Bhutan is a constitutional monarchy, but arguably more democratic than the
> elected government of, say, Indonesia.
>
> The key to understanding my argument, which somehow many on this list have
> problems getting, is the concept of a "strong state" meaning state
> administration capable of resisting and overcoming pressures from special
> interest groups (particularly the wealthy) in acting for public benefit
> (i.e. policies that benefit society as a whole rather than specific
> pressure
> groups or even individuals.) It is totally independent from the
> repressive
> capacities of the state - but how it uses them, under what circumstances,
> and against whom makes all the difference. Benito Juarez's government
> repression directed against the arch-reactionary Catholic church in Mexico
> was "authoritarian" but also had a democratizing effect. Ditto for the
> Kuomintang government "repressing" the landed oligarchy of Taiwan, not to
> mention Castro government "repressing" Cuban oligarchs cum US mafiosi.
>
> Again, it is the specific circumstance that matters, not the general
> properties. The devil in the details, as they say in the vernacular.
>
> Wojtek
As far as the substance goes (let's put aside the semantic dispute) we're in agreement, I think. I'd only add that "the state" is an idea which groups together a bunch of different institutions with no neccessary connection to one another, and that these institutions can both pursue and serve different interests from one another, et cetera. Everyone who watches the news even superficially knows this, of course.
If I were to come up with my own grouping I'd say that there's the celestial level of the definitive state functions - the guarantee of violence neccessary for the basic rules of a society to exist - and the terrestrial level at which businesses and most governmental institutions act mostly within those rules. This is arbitrary as well, but perhaps a little more analytically useful.