Graeber and Grubacic anarchist critique of liberal state
2020-09-10, 2020-09-12
Some notes on the anarchist ("stateless socialism") critique of the liberal state.
The reigning political common sense. That is, how societies must be organized. Our current one is the liberal state.
Theories of social evolution (dominated the 19th Century and remain with us today)
human societies can be organized according to stages of development [an invented notion]
each stage has its own characteristic technologies and forms of organization
how much "freedom" and "equality" is consistent with an advanced commercial society based on a sophisticated division of labor
social evolution called "progress" early on
not just a matter of increasing complexity, differentiation, and integration
- but a kind of Hobbesian struggle for survival
the phrase "survival of the fittest" coined in 1852 by Spencer to describe human history
this ides taken up by market liberals to propound a "gladitorial view" of human history in which only the strong survive
Anarchist critique of this liberal state
the rule of law is ultimately based on arbitrary violence
(a secular version of an all-powerful God that can create morality because it stands outside of it)
the need for punitive law and the apparatus of the state is not because of a flaw in human nature
they (punitive law and the state) exist owing to the existence of the institutions of private property, and money
the existence of these institutions by their very nature drive people to act in ways that make coercive means necessary
equality is the condition for any meaningful freedom