I believe that the only human future, that is, a future with humans in it, is one in which violence as an acceptable mode of human interaction is renounced. This renunciation will make the state, as we know it, impossible. Every power of the state rests, ultimately, on its power to “legitimately” kill its citizens. I realize that I’m repeating myself, but there seemed to be some disagreement over my claim and I thought it worth while to clarify my position and attempt to come to some understanding before I go on and make yet more outrageous claims.
I am not claiming that the only action that state agents can take against a citizen is to kill him or her. I have been fined and put in jail. I hear they have over two million people in prison, so yes, I understand that alternatives to execution exist for the government. However, I can’t imagine very many of those 2 million would have gone willingly to prison or would be easy to keep there if the death of an inmate at the hands of a policemen or guard were considered murder (which, by any objective standard, it is).
People submit to state agents specifically because those agents are authorized to kill people who resist. Nobody surrenders to mall security*.
Without the ability to drag people to jail, authorized to kill resisters and escapees, how does the state level fines? Unless they can take houses, killing those who defend themselves as they would against any other home invader, how can they levy property taxes? Without threatening employers, how do they collect income taxes?
This stands separately from the claim that they shouldn’t do these things. It’s not a novel position that they should, but it cannot be claimed that these powers ultimately rest on anything other than the power to kill people.
Everyone likes to call out state violence–well almost everyone–that they don’t agree with while justifying or redefining the state violence that they support. This argument is as old as time and has gotten humanity nowhere**.
While we may disagree about the necessity for violence to maintain social order, provide for the sick and the old, or educate the young–it is disingenuous to deny that, ultimately, agents of the state require the monopoly on violence and the “authority” to kill citizens to enforce the preferences of the ruling class.
*Actually, I take that back: there are people, broken people, who will submit to any authority figure. I submit, without evidence, that those people were likely broken by violence at some point in the past. Broken by aggressors who, explicitly or implicitly, threatened death for continued resistance. That’s a topic for the future.
**In reference to the undeniable increase in the standard of living and the no-longer-being-as-frequently-killed-to-death of huge swaths of humanity under state control: These victories resulted from a multitude of individuals sacrificing their lives and wealth to drag the state kicking and screaming out of some aspect of barbarity. In reference to the idea that, for example, not arresting homosexuals who marry (or those that marry them) is a good use of state violence: it is a good renunciation of state violence–yet another subject to revisit.
That’s not strictly true. If someone’s pointing a gun at me, I’m pretty likely to submit to them if I think they’ll pull the trigger, on account of not wanting to get shot. This happens all the time. Whether they’re authorized to shoot me is irrelevant. (Of course, it’s relevant to the left hand side of the equation—how likely are they to pull the trigger?)
I don’t think this is a quibble. States and their agents aren’t imbued with magical legitimacy. They have exactly the authority we collectively grant them, and it is not impossible for others to gain such authority.
That’s funny. I was under the impression that the state, presently, does not care one whit about whether gay couples say they’re married. I thought the current debate in the U.S. over gay marriage was not over whether or not over whether sodomy laws ought be enforced, but rather whether the state will use its monopoly on legitimate violence to force hospitals to allow loved ones to visit and banks to release funds of the deceased to their partners. My partner and I had a ceremony this summer; I wasn’t aware we were risking arrest.
My point wasn’t that those would necessarily be proper uses of violence, either. My point was that the presumed effects of state-recognized gay marriage—hoped for by gay activists, feared by the right—go vastly beyond some hospital administrators and bankers being told what to do.
Putting it another way: Do you think it’s possible for any person, group, community, organization, or institution to effect social change without violence? Do you think there is any way of affecting human social structures and behavior without violence and the fear thereof? If so, why do you think the institutions of state are somehow incapable of it?
(If the answer is, “because deep down, every institution of state is funded by violently-acquired resources,” I suggest that you think harder on the first question. To a first approximation, everyone on this earth—and without a doubt, every colonist in western nations—benefits from violence in a similar fashion. State violence in particular.)
I’m not disagreeing that we should renounce violence, and that such a renunciation will make states in their current forms impossible. I’m not saying that radical organizations shouldn’t work to build institutions outside of state structures, precisely because those structures are used so frequently to perpetuate violence against marginalized communities. But saying that all the state can do is rooted in violence while simultaneously saying that “we” can come unrooted from that violence and build a Better World strikes me as a particularly problematic kind of special pleading.
Good point, but that left hand side fluctuates tremendously based on the likely reaction of a society. Criminals are hunted down and punished (or ostracized) which is a pretty heavy downside for them to consider (or would be if law enforcement were even remotely competent). State agents are praised for their courage, for protecting the citizens from evil-doers, or in the worst case, put on paid leave. For truly egregious atrocities with a whole host of witnesses and video/audio recordings, they might lose their job.
I put all violent actors in the same category–I’m no fan of non-state murderers either. But to my point: an individual can take measures to defend against non-state thugs and in many cases can prevent a crime against their person. An individual cannot, under any circumstances, defend him/herself against state aggression. The violence will be escalated indefinitely until he/she submits or is dead.
I’m not sure what this even means. I would say the collective granting of authority is about as close to magic as can be–certainly neither even appear to exist without a lot of handwaving. I never granted anything, nor do I believe did anybody else who’s alive–I’m not against them doing so, but I think they should at least be asked. If memory serves, several dozen dead white men may have signed something, and that’s fine for them, but it has nothing to do with the 300 million people living “here” today.
Re gay marriage: fair enough. I guess having the state force state chartered institutions to change their rules is aggression. It’s already a situation created, perpetuated and protected by violence–I hadn’t thought it through. That the state doesn’t enforce laws that it did previously is evidence of actual social change–the evolution of attitudes away from ignorance and toward understanding. When this has progressed sufficiently, the state will change it’s laws and claim credit for the progress of human kind in this respect.
I think it’s impossible to effect social change with violence. Social change happens when people’s minds are changed by the efforts of educators, advocates, and other contact with enlightened persons. Everything else is simply putting something into the political arena, which will perpetuate enmity between the ignorant and their victims until actual social change occurs.
As to why state institutions are incapable of creating non-violent social change: that’s not their purpose. State institutions exist to protect the priviledge of the ruling class. Sometimes different state entities (say, federal and state governments) will clash and gain or lose power wrt one another, but neither (none) has as it’s purpose the elevation of the disempowered at the expense of the ruling class. Rather, their purpose is just the opposite.
Thanks for keeping me honest, or at least trying to. I appreciate the comments.