I think you’re conflating/mixing the state and the government. The government serves a necessary function of organisation and administration. The state is the organised institutions of class rule.
I think what I mean to say at heart is most governments suck and we can do better as people. Because as other commentors and yourself in a way said, a government can be your community in a building together counting raised hands.
Because as other commentors and yourself in a way said, a government can be your community in a building together counting raised hands.
That’s not really what I’m saying. I’m not arguing for reducing society to loosely linked city-states or town halls counting raised hands for everything. That would be a massive regression. I like hospitals, public transport, social safety nets, infrastructure, large-scale planning, disaster response, and all the other things that require complex administration.
I believe taking issue with the notion of government in and of itself is slightly silly. A government is necessary in any complex modern society. The real issue is the state, and more specifically the class character of said state.
In most countries today, the state is a bourgeois state: its courts, police, bureaucracy, laws, military, and political institutions ultimately defend private property, capital accumulation, and the rule of a small owning class over the masses.
It is much more logical and reasonable to fight to replace bourgeois class rule with institutions serving the working masses, while keeping and in places expanding the necessary administrative capacity for modern society. Than it is to fight to destroy large scale planning and administration as a whole.
I think you’re conflating/mixing the state and the government. The government serves a necessary function of organisation and administration. The state is the organised institutions of class rule.
I think what I mean to say at heart is most governments suck and we can do better as people. Because as other commentors and yourself in a way said, a government can be your community in a building together counting raised hands.
That’s not really what I’m saying. I’m not arguing for reducing society to loosely linked city-states or town halls counting raised hands for everything. That would be a massive regression. I like hospitals, public transport, social safety nets, infrastructure, large-scale planning, disaster response, and all the other things that require complex administration.
I believe taking issue with the notion of government in and of itself is slightly silly. A government is necessary in any complex modern society. The real issue is the state, and more specifically the class character of said state.
In most countries today, the state is a bourgeois state: its courts, police, bureaucracy, laws, military, and political institutions ultimately defend private property, capital accumulation, and the rule of a small owning class over the masses.
It is much more logical and reasonable to fight to replace bourgeois class rule with institutions serving the working masses, while keeping and in places expanding the necessary administrative capacity for modern society. Than it is to fight to destroy large scale planning and administration as a whole.