Jeremy Weiland takes a stab at this important question on his blog, and I think it prudent to offer my own thoughts as well.
Before reading Francois Tremblay's response, I immediately thought of Richard Dawkins' memetic analysis of religion, as Francois apparently also did. A meme need not benefit all of those it affects in order for it to propagate; indeed, we often see the opposite effect. A meme may benefit only a certain class of people, not necessarily the whole, if the other classes are indoctrinated well enough.
I generally agree with the rest of Francois' analysis. The state began "as a consequence of war," as Francois puts it. This is pretty commonly accepted by anthropologists, both statist and anarchist, today. I think the standard Marxian analysis gives us some valuable insight as well; as agriculture develops and a certain class of people are able to acquire an oligopoly on the means of production, it uses its power to subjugate others in order to maintain its privilege and the state rises in tandem with capitalism. The state thus serves the interest of the capitalist class (or bourgeoisie, to use Marx's terminology), exercising its coercive power on behalf of this elite. Once the vast majority of the world is ruled by state governments, it's easy to see how states maintain power. Jeremy makes a good point about the common belief in delegation of power: people believe that delegating power to others is often the most effective solution. (I partially agree with this belief, actually; if specialization is seen as delegation of power, then that does often seem to be a good solution.)
Nowadays, anarchy has become such a bad word that it is synonymous with "chaos," pundits pointing toward Somalia and Iraq as examples of what would happen without a strong state. Without the state, there is no organization, assert the pundits. Without laws, people will just go around murdering each other for pocket change. The propaganda machine is effective. If you all haven't read Hobbes, I encourage you to do so. Chapter XIII of Leviathan is a good place to start, and it's available online for free. It provides valuable insight into the statist mind.
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3 comments:
To wit:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/hobbes-lev13.html
We're likely both right; I took more of a tack of "why do people psychologically find themselves organizing into societies with centralized authorities", whereas you looked more at the historical and political evolution.
Right. I think one important thing to note is that people don't really organize themselves into societies with centralized authority so much as they find themselves organized by others into societies with centralized authority. It's not much of a conscious choice on the part of the working class...rather, they find themselves in this position and unwittingly accept the propaganda that is thrown in their direction by the ruling class. This is where the Marxian perspective becomes valuable...rather than looking at it from the psychological perspective("Why would them make such a dumb choice?"), we might look at it from the class theory perspective.
I think if we look at what you've said as the reasoning that has been planted in the minds of the people by the ruling class, then you're absolutely right (although there are probably other reasons too, which might ultimately be explained by class theory as well...reverence of "tradition," fear of radical change, etc.).
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