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My views on the State--a clarification

Posted by Iron Marxist on 2010-June-09 07:56:51 EDT, Wednesday
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This post is in response to the many anti-state posts I have received when I am attempting to discuss youth liberation or other subjects. I want to clarify my views on the state and explain why I mention what I think the state should and shouldn't do under the current system if I am against the concept of the state.

Okay, as I said above, I do not--repeat, do not--support the concept of the state, nor do I believe the state always will--or always should--exist. However, the fact of the matter is, the state exists now, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future, likely throughout the lifetime of everyone in this community. As everyone here knows, I support long-range goals of a classless society that will be without the need for a state, but I also realize that it's highly unlikely that such a system will be achieved within my lifetime. Consequently, I have to accept the fact that I will have to live with the state for the rest of my life, and as such, I have developed a stance on encouraging my fellow progressives into doing our best to push the state into being less of a rights-curtailing abomination and to work as much for the common people as we can reasonably expect for as long as it continues to exist. These are not attempts to tame the state, nor is it a case of my forgetting why the state actually exists.

Now, to all you anti-statists out there: I am more than well aware that the state is designed to be the regulating body of the ruling class, and it's main purpose is to preserve the status quo, or at least a status quo that works in the favor of those with the most wealth and economic power. Nevertheless, most of the Western nations do have a nominal political democracy, and I believe that our short range goals should be to do our best to push the state into being as "small" as possible in regards to how it intervenes in our personal lives or how it regulates human behavior, and we should also do our best to try and maneuver it towards preserving our basic civil rights, and expanding these rights whenever possible or necessary.

This is not support for the concept of the state, nor is it based on a belief that the state will inevitably end up serving the common good, nor is it a misunderstanding of what the actual purpose of the state is. Rather, it's based upon a simple acceptance of the fact that the state is likely going to continue to exist for the rest of all of our lifetimes, and as such, we must develop short range goals of limiting its power and focusing the purpose of the state throughout the duration of the present system, just as many of us have long range goals of achieving a new type of world order that has no need for the existence of a state.

Hence, when I discuss how the state should or should not intervene in the lives of youths within a youth liberated society, this should not be taken as eternal acceptance of the state on my part, nor should it be assumed that I support the concept of the state. The fact of the matter is, youth liberation will likely occur before the state is eliminated. As long as capitalism continues to exist, we are going to have to rely on the state to preserve order, and we are going to have to rely on it to protect our civil rights. As much as many of us do not like the state interfering in our lives because of its rampant corruption, let alone how much we dislike the existence of the state in the first place, it's unrealistic to limit all of our discussions of subjects like youth liberation to how it will function under a future system that no longer has a state. We have to understand that youth lib will very likely be established prior to the abolition of the state, and as such, like it or not, we are going to have to rely on the state to enforce the civil rights of the newly emancipated youth. Again, this is not an example of showing support for the concept of the state, or trying to paint it as an inherently good agency, or resigning ourselves to its eternal existence; it's simply accepting that it will likely be around for a long time, and while it continues to exist, we need to do our best to shrink its control of our behavior to the minimum required to insure that incidents of people inflicting demonstrable harm on others or infringing upon the civil rights of others remain as infrequent as possible under the current system.

Some people seem to feel that we should limit all of our discussions about youth liberation or any other subject to how things will be under a future stateless system. It's wonderful to speculate how that will be, and I fully agree that youth liberation would exist naturally and fully without a state to enforce parental control or to enforce the inability of young people to participate in running the society, etc. But it's not realistic to assume that the state is going to die before youth liberation is achieved, or that eliminating the state and forming the new type of society that many of us long for is going to precede the establishment of youth liberation. It simply makes sense to discuss how youth liberation will occur within the confines of the current system, and in what ways the state should or should not be involved with youth liberation.

The fact of the matter is, if youth liberation is achieved before society switches to a classless and stateless society, then we need to discuss the role of the state in the lives of these emancipated youth. Limiting our conversations on this subject to how youth lib will function in a future stateless society is not only alienating the pro-capitalist supporters of youth lib, but it's also incorrectly making the assumption that everyone who talks about the functions of the state must somehow support its existence or at least have resigned themselves to its eternal existence. I do believe in other functions for the state to serve for as long as capitalism continues to exist, but I am not going to mention them in this particular thread because it will likely incite a totally off-topic conversation within this thread, and I do not want that type of distraction from the main topic.

So let me make a few things clear to everyone on this board who hates the concept of the state and does not want it in our lives:

I do not support the state, yet I understand it will likely continue to exist for the remainder of our lifetimes. As such, I feel it's important to discuss how a youth liberated society would be under the continued existence of the state. If we accept the fact that youth liberation will likely be achieved before the state is abolished, then we have to accept the fact that the state will play some role in these emancipated youths' lives, and in fact, there really is no way for this not to be the case. What we should focus our short term goals on is insuring that the state intervention in the lives of these emancipated youths remains in as benevolent and libertarian a way as possible, i.e., protecting their rights rather than continuing to control them. If we insist that the state have absolutely no role whatsoever to play in their lives due to our dislike and mistrust of the state, then we need to ask ourselves the following questions:

If the state doesn't enforce the rights of emancipated youths, then who will? What will stop parents from forcing their kids not to seek emancipation, not to allow their kids to work if they so choose, or simply not to honor the newly established youth freedom in any way if the state doesn't protect this emancipation? Who or what will enforce the right of young people to work under capitalism if employers continue to refuse to hire competent and qualified younger people due to continuing ageist biases if not the state? We need to be mindful of these questions, because we have to face the following fact: it's very likely that youth liberation--and other forms of civil empowerment--are going to occur prior to the global switch to a new, stateless economy. As such, we have to find ways of keeping the state as benign as possible for as long as it continues to exist. Discussing the role of the state in youth liberation is not tantamount to supporting the state or assuming it will always exist; it's simply a case of accepting the fact that the state is likely going to still be around when youth liberation is achieved, and we cannot only discuss youth liberation within the context of a stateless society. If you want to say, "I think the state should stay out of our lives because parents have the 'natural' right to control their kids," then that is on-topic in the sense that it's accepting the fact that the state will be around for a while. But saying something like, "The state sucks, it's totally corrupt, I don't want it to have anything whatsoever to do with enforcing youth rights because I do not trust it" without suggesting an alternative as to how we will guarantee the rights of these emancipated young people being honored and respected as often as possible if youth liberation is achieved while the current system still exists is counter-productive and fails to accept the reality of the situation.

I am not asking anyone on this board to like the state, to support it, to think that it's "good," to assume it's designed to work for everyone, or to assume it's always going to exist. I am simply asking those who--like me--dislike the concept of the state and strongly believe in "small" government in our personal lives to simply accept the fact that it's likely going to still be around when youth liberation is achieved, and to please understand that it's not possible to totally eliminate discussions of what the state should or should not do during our discussions of youth liberation or any other topic. I have no problems with discussing the need to eliminate the state and how much it contributes to the problems of both MAAs and youths, because those discussions are very relevant, but when it gets to the point where some people get on our cases when we attempt to discuss aspects of society that occur within the context of the state, they are not only being off-topic in those particular discussions, but they are refusing to accept the reality of the situation as it exists today and likely will for the forseeable future.

Iron Marxist

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