File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/97-01-24.005, message 139


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 


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