[lbo-talk] Corey Robin wonders...

[Max Sawicky]

Without a state assorted commercial interests would organize armed groups
but the lack of coordination -- the absence of a monopoly on the use of
force -- would seem to hamper commerce, as would the relative inability to
enforce contracts.  Yes deals could be made and codes of honor upheld, but
I would guess it would all take place on a degraded level, in contrast to
the relatively superior efficiency in the use of force and enforcement of
contracts in rapidly growing capitalist economies.  Kind of like the
difference between wildcat banking and the institution of the Federal
Reserve.  Inadequate provision of other public goods (roads, for example)
would also be a huge problem.  Capital doesn't absolutely need a state, but
it is much more powerful with the benefit of one.

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> [Corey writes...]
>
> I've been kind of following a bit the debate on your lbo list re my
> article and the larger questions that come out of it.  One thing keeps
> coming up that I wanted to ask you about: the anarchists -- and they all
> say this -- insist that capital and its various powers could not exist
> without the state.  And I get, and agree, with the basic
> descriptive/analytical point. But there seems to an implication they draw
> from this that I don't get. And that is:
>
> If the state did not exist, capital would not have any means of violence
> at its disposal to defend itself.  Therefore capital wouldn't exist.  Now
> if they mean all the sophisticated modern instruments of derivatives,
> central banking, and all the rest, fine. But if we think of this in a much
> more primitive sense of control over material resources, why do they think
> that?  Why wouldn't the situation be one in which someone or some group has
> a set of resources -- minerals, food, whatever -- and a goon squad to
> defend it?  Why do these people, in other words, assume that without a
> state, capital -- or the controller of resources -- wouldn't have other
> means at his/her/their disposal to protect those resources?  It's almost as
> if the anarchist presumes that without the state, capital would be much
> more vulnerable to the organized cry and violence (or maybe non-violence0
> of the masses, where I would assume just the opposite (and everything we
> know about societies where the state c!
>  rumbles tells me I'm right): you'd have a situation of warlords in which
> people would be even more vulnerable.
>
> Your thoughts?
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