[lbo-talk] Let Practice & the State was Ron Paul...

Eric Beck ersatzdog at gmail.com
Tue Jan 24 08:57:03 PST 2012


On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 7:18 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


> This is crucial for left thought and action. Many of our campaigns _favor_
> more use of state power. E.g. We attack the government for its _failure_ to
> use its power to enforce OSHA on reluctant capitalist frims. And as I said
> in the earlier post, this presents a real problem:
>
> .a) We must coalition with Anarchists
> .b) Anarchists have great difficulty in seeing state power as other than
> unadulterated evil.

Carrol, this is really moronic. It'd be like if I said, "All Marxists see the state as necessary and good." Yes, some anarchists, a very small minority for sure, see things in those terms, but most see the state and capital as mutually constitutive "systems" of control. The emphasis placed on each changes from anarchist to anarchist and situation to situation, but only fools see the state as "unadulterated evil" and the one true enemy.

Speaking of, "evil"? Really? I'd imagine you'd hit the roof if someone characterized your views of something as evil. You might want to have more respect for the positions of the people you want to form coalitions with.

Your intimation in these posts is that, aside from popular action, only the state can smooth out capital's striations. This seems like pretty noncontemporary view of things. No doubt the state has had this job historically, but that's not as true today: NGOs, human relations departments, corporate charities, foundations, etc., are all nonstate, capital-created institutions that reterritorialize. It's not just the state anymore. Sure, there are limits on how far those institutions will go, but that's the case with states too.



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