From: "Jukka Laari" <jlaari-AT-dodo.jyu.fi> Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 22:16:52 EET+200 Subject: M-TH: Re: Trust/state Well, Chris I asked because I wanted to know. You provided an answer that told quite a lot. > The old classical liberals > who pioneered class analysis before Marx, suggested that it was state > action that was at the foundation of the formation of classes, and I think > that class warfare is something that requires a state. I don't see logic why from (a) state action --> classes, follows (b) class warfare requires a state. I mean, in (a) should be applied some dialectics, I think - surely there was some class-like group behind the emergence of state? (Unless it wasn't god-sent) > ... libertarians do make > important historical points about the spontaneous generation of legal and > judicial functions outside the state apparatus. What all libertarians > seem to agree on is this: the notion of a politics that harks back to the > ideal of a community of autonomous individuals united by common values > and the rule of law, voluntarily and peacefully interacting. What if there isn't common values to unite individuals? What if some kind of state formation is needed in order there to be autonomous individuals? How the rule of law will be maintained without any state-like entity? I somehow like the idea in first sentence. One Swedish historian said in eighties that it was northern Europe, especially eastern part parts of it (he obviously meant contemporary Finland, Karelia and Lapland), where spontaneous and non-Roman social forms were developed more extensively than anywhere in Europe (because christianity and Roman law hit this area only about 1000 a.d.). To put it bluntly: according to that historian there were rather developed social, political and cultural orders without Judeo-Greco-Roman influence. Secondly, it seems quite probable that slavery have never had such societal role here than in rest of Europe. There have been slaves, perhaps one or two in one family/social unit (like, perhaps, in all almost archaic forms), but slavery was never major cause of 'wealth' or basis of social organisation. When we combine this with more or less well known fact that in these areas have been stable population about 6000 years, we can imagine that there have been some quite interesting social characteristics, I would say, of egalitarian and democratic mood (and yes, there was some kind of juridicial system in those days). And all that without any state machinery (which was brought here about from one thousand years ago on by Swedes (from west) and Russians (from east)). I suppose it has been quite similar development throughout this northern belt from eastern Siberia to west (I'm not sure). That kind of historical evidence might be behind your libertarian arguments? The problem is that it's not very fruitful to compare past and present as such. Population density was low, there was room for such fisher-hunter-agrarian economies in those days that it wasn't necessary to strenghten the juridicial-political system into stable state form. It's like with Americas: we will never know how it all would have developed if Europeans haven't conquered... Jukka --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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