The State as Sadist The webpage Golem XIV, of the Debt Generation, raises interesting questions about the state. Specifically, the author addresses the nature of the New Praetorian state, particularly in the western world, as a source of hidden and unchallengeable power: “They are already operating without oversight and outside of the laws which we thought were there to protect us from the state.” “None of them are content any longer with rule by consent. They all now want control. And given the endless financial and economic situation, the ratcheting of austerity, embedded and growing inequality, and the likelihood of another financial crisis within 5 years, they all feel they must have control and they are right – they will need it.” I propose that all current theories of the state, the dominant theories, are obsolete. The classical liberal view of the state as a social contract is defunct. The state openly serves a small segment of the 1%, and it is discarding the democratic façade. Capitalism has indeed evolved into a neo-fascist construct, with privatized profits, socialized losses, and an erosion of civil liberties. On one level, the state serves banks and corporations, but there is more going on behind the scenes. The Marxist view of the state as primarily an institution to protect economic power is also mistaken. But there is much more going on here. The modern western state, particularly in the United States, has become an instrument of power for its own sake. Well, that is not entirely correct. It has become an instrument of power for the sake of mass dehumanization. So the system’s pathological greed serves a higher (or lower) pathology. The high-brow thinkers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, as they ruminated on the nature of the state, and the purpose of the state, particularly in the western world, never considered the state as sadist: that states can be hijacked by a closed circle jerk of power-trippers who feed on the fear and stress of war, and who revel in pushing humanity deeper into the mud. Andrew Bosworth golemxiv.co.uk/2013/07/nsagchq-the-new-praetorians/
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 12:28:56 +0000
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