Date:          Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:10:07 GMT + 2:00
Subject:       Re: Strategy and violence


Laura:

> But I do not agree with Franco's last sentence below: capitalist state do
> not "claim" monopoly of force, it *has* the monopoly of force. To counter
> it on a
> practical ground means or self-defence or to play the power game. The limit
> between the two is so narrow that even to garantee self-defance political
> sustainability becomes a problem in itself. I think we have to invent more
> effective weapons than mere force.

I confirm what I have written: I don't think that the state 
necessarily has the monopoly of the legitimate force, and that is one 
of lessons learnt from the Zapatista struggle. Laura is correct: we 
need something else, apart from force; but I think that this 
is exactly what I wrote, and what the EZLN had shown: the use of 
force should not be discarded as *one* of the ways through which the 
opening of a space of political confrontation, discussion and debate 
becomes viable. But starting from the assumption that the state *has* 
the monopoly of force may lead us to a very dangerous conclusion: 
that the upper end to the development of the antagonist process is 
given by the repressive capacity of the state, or that, short of a 
total revolution, the movement ends where repression begins, and I am 
not quite convinced of that.

Hasta siempre

Franco

Franco Barchiesi
Sociology of Work Unit
Dept of Sociology
Private Bag 3
University of the Witwatersrand
PO Wits 2050
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel. (++27 11) 716.3290
Fax  (++27 11) 716.3781
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http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/aut_html
http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~mshalev/direct.htm

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