Stateless Society Research Articles

Social Equality and the Stateless Society

Social egalitarians are clear that the ideal of social equality applies both to private and public relationships—friendships and marriages as well as political and economic associations. Most social egalitarians support democratic procedures and institutions as a way of counteracting the subordinating nature of state power. On this view, social egalitarianism can be compatible with state power and social egalitarians needn’t be anarchists. In contrast, I argue that social egalitarians' tolerance of governments is misplaced and social egalitarians should be anarchists. Even when state power is wielded by elected officials, it is still subordinating to those who are subject to it. Just as social egalitarians would reject oppressive private relations, even if democratic, they should also reject the oppressive relations between private citizens and public officials.

Anand Teltumbde on Globalization and Ambedkar: A Left Perspective

The left leaning or the Marxian school deals with the social, economic and political ideology or a movement, which aims at establishing a communist stateless society. According to the left-leaning thinkers, the proletarian rule will exist for some point of time, after which the state will wither away. In this case, understanding Ambedkar from a left perspective would be a new paradigm. Anand Teltumbde on one side says that Ambedkar was not a Marxist and that he was under the intellectual influence of his teachers, who were known as the Fabian socialists, and on the other side says that he practiced the class politics.

"Sworn" friends: Russia and Germany in M. Bakunin’s political journalism

M.A. Bakunin is known all over the world as one of the founding fathers and major theorists of anarchism. His ideas of social revolution and future stateless society have become the subject of reflection for succeeding generations of revolutionaries, theorists and researches. However, some aspects of Bakunin’s creative legacy haven’t been explored yet. The article is dedicated to the analysis of the issue of Russian-German relations and their reflection in Bakunin’s political journalism. Both famous and little known works were analyzed. The author concludes that Bakunin considers Germany as embodiment of the idea of the State. This idea, in turn, is antagonistic to the thinker’s global goal — the social revolution.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF COSMPOLITANISM IN THE CONTEXT OF WESTERN VIEW

This article describes that cosmopolitanism reflects the nature of capital, striving towards where the best conditions are created for it and it is possible to obtain the greatest benefit. In the history of industrially developed countries, a complex interaction of cosmopolitanism with the idea of a nation-state is traced. The elements of cosmopolitanism were also present in communist ideology. It is in the context of cosmopolitanism that his basic thesis of building a classless and stateless society on a global scale can be interpreted. In the USSR, where during the first decade of Soviet power the expectation of a world revolution was replaced by the predominance of political principles in politics, the concept of cosmopolitanism acquired a persistently negative meaning and was perceived as a bourgeois ideology. After World War II, the state periodically campaigned to combat "rootless cosmopolitanism" and adultery in the face of Western scientific and cultural achievements. Furthermore, we can point out that a different interpretation of cosmopolitanism has led to frictions of various kinds. In essence, it should have been one of the most important factors in solving world problems. In this research work, special attention is paid to the notion of cosmopolitanism in the context of the current situation in the world. An important problem is the place of the human being in the world as a matter of philosophy or the place of the human being in the system of state politics as a matter of political science.

Taming the Bubble

Taming the Bubble

Domination and enforcement: The contingent and non-ideal relation between state and freedom

It is common to think that state enforcement is a restriction on freedom that is morally permitted or justified because of the unfortunate circumstances in which we find ourselves. Human frailty and material scarcity combine to make the compromise of freedom involved in exclusive state enforcement power necessary for other freedoms or other goods. In the words of James Madison, ‘if men were angels, no government would be necessary’ ( 1990 : 267). But there is an opposing tradition, according to which the very idea of freedom in society entails the necessity of state enforcement. However morally good human beings are, or whatever material conditions they find themselves in, on this view, the ideal of freedom we ought to be concerned to realise is such that it cannot be attained without state enforcement. It follows a priori from an important ideal of freedom that a state with exclusive enforcement power is necessary for individual liberty in society. In this paper, I argue against what I take to be the strongest argument of the a priori kind, which begins from the neo-republican ideal of freedom as non-domination, and thereby in (partial) defence of the alternative, Madisonian, view. Insofar as it is true that some sort of problematic domination will inevitably be present in a stateless society, I argue, the introduction of a state can do nothing to eliminate it. For the state to improve on even an ideal stateless society, it would need to give individuals control over the interference of potential dominators of a sort that could not be achieved in the ideal stateless society.

The Law and the Stateless society

This paper presents the main attributes of the law with regard to the development and prosperity of an economy, following the principles set forth by the Austrian School. The law has an intrinsic nature with themarket economy and yet is ignored by its researchers. The libertarian legal theories allow us to fully understand that since its inception, the law is a means of structuring the behaviors of individuals. And the stronger and spontaneous were its institutions, the more the society thrived. Nevertheless, the State significantly weakened the pillars of the law, seizing its foundations and making itself its sole operator, rotting its most vital roots. We must treat the State as a player in the vast market of government. In so doing, it will be responsible for its mistakes because only competition in a huge market can drive a nation to prosperity with the right laws.

Государство-Коммуна: эксперимент рабочей демократии в России 1918 г. и причины его крушения

Цитирование: Медушевский А.Н. (2019) Государство-Коммуна: эксперимент рабочей демократии в России 1918 г. и причины его крушения // Мир России. Т. 28. № 2. С. 63–83. DOI: 10.17323/1811-038X-2019-28-2-63-83
 Утопическая идея государства рабочих, приведенная в действие в России после захвата большевиками власти в 1917 г., породила новые типы социальной мобилизации, адаптации, доминирования и политических институтов. Сердцевину этого эксперимента составляла концепция профсоюзов как формы непосредственной демократии, которая потенциально могла трансформироваться в форму Государства-Коммуны, основанную на самоуправлении, коллективном производстве и распределении собственности, благ, социальной ответственности между широким спектром рабочих союзов. В социологической литературе и огромной интернациональной историографии русской революции этот социальный эксперимент всегда являлся предметом тщательного анализа как редкий, даже уникальный, исторический пример осуществления абстрактной синдикалистской концепции бесклассового общества – нового социального контракта, основанного на кооперации и солидарности, а не на бюрократическом контроле. Эта форма правления интерпретировалась как содержательная историческая альтернатива традиционному буржуазному государству с такими его главными институтами, как парламентаризм, разделение властей и независимая судебная система. В некоторых современных левых теориях этот эксперимент выступает как модельный – успешный, последовательный и эффективный на начальной стадии (в период так называемого военного коммунизма 1918–1920 гг.), но пересмотренный и окончательно отвергнутый в последующий период бюрократического коммунизма – однопартийной гегемонии и сталинской диктатуры. Чтобы оценить научную ценность подобных утверждений, автор провел детальный анализ принципов, исходных форм и результатов рабочего самоуправления в период его непосредственного формирования (1918 г.), основанный на изучении многочисленных и ценных первичных источников – стенограмм и протоколов центральных и местных профсоюзов (старых и новых), представляющих социальную, профессиональную и административную стратификацию русского революционного общества в процессе его формирования. Центральный пункт авторской аргументации состоит в том, что так называемая деградация рабочего самоуправления в Советской России коренилась скорее во внутреннейтрансформации союзов, нежели во внешнем давлении на них или стратегических ошибках. С самого начала революционные профсоюзы не были аналогами регулярных социал-демократических профсоюзов западного типа, они имели иное, более традиционное социальное происхождение, играли другую роль в социальной трансформации. Комбинация внутренних и внешних факторов этой трансформации создала институциональные основы для формирования нового социального неравенства, развития олигархических тенденций в советских профсоюзах и новой трудовой бюрократии. Большевистская партия просто использовала, формализовала и направила этот тренд, но не она его создала. Это означает, что весь эксперимент по конструированию рабочей демократии как новой формы управления изначально оказался фундаментально нереализуем и должен быть отправлен в музей всех утопических проектов человечества.

The Distributed Stateless Society. Liberty, Manorialism and the State

A distributed stateless society is formed via online networks and blockchain technology. Decentralisation, creativity and freedom are the key notions describing all the major trends on blockchain network. The distributed stateless society has no territory, sovereignty or central authority with coercive power. The core values of the stateless society are liberty and co-operation based on anonymity and voting. The economic development of the distributed stateless society is based on smart contracts and cryptocurrency, which enable the exclusion of intermediaries. At the same time, the digital territories or digital manors are under the control of digital monopolists, which substantially influence the formation of a new digital social structure. We are in transit from intermediaries' monopolism to distributed manorialism. The distributed stateless society keeps attempts to fight for freedom and human rights. The anarchist strategies of the online community in respect of sovereignty include Terra nullius, Motus Corporis and Political migration strategies. It should be reasonable to build the co-operative distributed society, where all interested parties rely on a self-governance system recognised and legitimised by a state authority.

“¿Es la "demokratía" semejante a la democracia? Lecturas contemporáneas de la democracia ateniense

En este artículo analizaré dos importantes aproximaciones contemporáneas a la democracia ateniense. Se trata de las interpretaciones enfrentadas de dos helenistas que han arrojado nueva luz sobre el conocimiento de la democracia clásica. Mogens H. Hansen se ha centrado especialmente en el estudio de las instituciones como fundamento del poder democrático, mientras Josiah Ober, basándose en los textos retóricos, pretende reconstruir la ideología popular a la que hace responsable del dominio político del dêmos sobre la elite. Intentaré, a su vez, trazar las líneas de filiación teórica de ambas posturas y, para ello, abordaré una segunda cuestión, la de qué es la polis griega, un estado o una sociedad sin estado. Mi conclusión es que la lectura de Hansen está muy cercana a la historiografía liberal de G. Grote, mientras que la de Ober no es ajena a las lecturas antropológicas y comunitaristas.

Rethinking the Public-Private Law Divide in the Age of Governmentality and Network Governance

This article presents an analysis of the ways in which the public-private law divide is envisioned in French, English and Dutch law. First, it explains why French law’s tradition of regarding public and private law as ‘two separated worlds’ is now outmoded, failing to live up to the present trends of ‘governmentality’ and ‘network governance’ determining the modern art of government. Subsequently, it argues that the holistic idea of English ‘common law’ as French law’s conceptual counterpart is equally outmoded, with its ideology of ‘self-government’ within a ‘stateless society’ being out of touch with an age of managerialism and ‘governmentality’ in which the state withdraws from society only to increase its grip on societal processes. Finally, it proposes a paradigm recently developed in Dutch doctrinal thought as an attractive theoretical framework for structural innovations that may contribute to a stable and legitimate system of modern European public law that attunes to its present context without being alienated from its central classical tenets – be it either those rooted in the French or the English tradition.

Libertarianizm nie jest utopizmem. Dlaczego twierdzenia o utopijności libertarianizmu są fałszywe?

The article presents the basic principles, rules and assumptions on which the libertarianvision of a stateless society (libertarian anarchy) where all goods and services would be produced and delivered by private entities could work. Throughout the paper the main counterarguments against the most common doubts and objections towards the libertarian order have been delivered. Furthermore, the fallacies and sophisms frequently used in debates and discussions on libertarianism by its opponents have been identified, answered and refuted.

O prymacie secesji względem reform liberalnych

The most important libertarian strategies are secession and liberal reforms. These strategies are based on certain visions of attaining the political goal of libertarianism which is stateless society. While liberal reforms are based on „brick” vision of the state, secession takes into account the complex nature of relationships between individuals and the state. The seccesionist strategy turns out to be a supreme method of libertarian political action.

Anarchy and Legal Order: Law and Politics for a Stateless Society, written by Gary Chartier

Anarchy and Legal Order: Law and Politics for a Stateless Society, written by Gary Chartier

An Army of Shadows: Black Markets, Adaptation, and Social Transparency in Postwar France

Few facets of French culture in the three decades following World War II are as storied as the antagonism that beleaguered the relationship between state and society. Anxiety underlying this relationship confronted officials, intellectuals, and society at large with a severe conflict over the transparency of social relations: the state was prying into society, prying it open, while elements of society, in turn, at times seemed noncompliant to the point of threatening the stability of France as a governable unit. In the midst of a strongwelfare state, with high regard and legal protections for the individual and privacy, and with laws that even allowed for feedback from families and social organizations in the planning of everyday life, sectors of intellectual life, politics, and society bent nevertheless toward antistatist paranoia, occasionally even the celebration of a stateless society, on the grounds of the state’s reach into everyday life. The tension has long been explained as a result of a communism-driven intellectual scene that decried the republic and the state as violent bourgeois shams ðan approach mirrored in the 1950s anti-tax poujadiste movement’s denunciation of machinations of the “corrupted brain” and the “vampire tax state” against the “little,” “free,” truly FrenchÞ; as a result of the experience of Vichy and the heroization of the resistance; as a general Western phenomenon; or as the afterlife of a disappointed early postwar hope for a superior political regime ða hope that returned at important moments, notably the later 1960sÞ. Such explanations mistake particular political constellations for a set of concerns that reached deep into the tissue of everyday life; this article proposes to address the mutual constitution of state and society, and the antagonism between them, by focusing on the complex imagery of social transparency negotiated in this competition from 1944 to about 1968.

Is the state necessary ?

The state is often considered a necessary condition for the existence of social order and economic development. However, except for the group of developed countries, most states are incapable of providing services which are commonly attributed to them. In this paper an approach, according to which the state is the best possible form of political organisation, is confronted with the case of stateless Somalia. Without government since 1991 this country provides an opportunity to investigate the emergence of institutions and supply of public goods in a stateless society. Using the comparative institutional approach the situation in Somalia is compared with the period before the collapse of the state as well as with the situation in other countries of the Horn of Africa region, showing a relative economic improvement after 1991. Considering economic development as an essential indicator describing the stability of social institutions, this corroborates the argument according to which a hierarchical form of political organisation not only may destabilise social order, but also that anarchy can be more successful than the state in providing stabilisation and economic development.

The Igbo: “A Stateless Society”

For sometime now there have arisen some interests and controversies among scholars and observers as to whether the Igbo had a political system that could be considered centralized. Some scholars and opinion are of the view that the Igbo did not organize themselves into states and so, had no kingship institution. In other words, the Igbo political institutions and structures did not constitute credentials of statehood. The British anthropologists and colonial administrators with limited knowledge of the type of government in Igboland have tended to classify the people as a stateless society. To them, what existed were federations of autonomous villages without any single individual endowed with the attributes of a king or ruler as was the case with the Benin kingdom, the Empires of Oyo and Kanem Borno, and the Hausa States. The purpose of this study is to interrogate the appropriateness or otherwise of this assumption because the people’s institutions and structures met their aspirations just as those of the so-called states in the pre-colonial days. The paper is a departure from the widely held but misleading conceptions and stereotypes about the Igbo political system before the colonial era. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n27p1315

The Libyan Drawers: ‘Stateless Society,’ ‘Humanitarian Intervention,’ ‘Logic of Exception’ and ‘Traversing the Phantasy’

In this article I examine the Libyan case through diverse theoretical lenses. For this purpose, I inquire into the ways Libya under Qadhdhafi previously has been investigated in order to deconstruct the Orientalist vision of a ‘stateless society’ and to reveal the ideological interests that the stigmatization of Qadhdhafi as a ‘mad dog’ served. By looking at the current situation, the article inevitably interrogates the role of ‘humanitarian intervention’ and its ideological kernel that seems to parallel the incapacity of academic scholarship to move beyond the notion of ‘statelessness.’ Then, it investigates whether a continuation of the logic of exception that seemed to characterize the Jamahiriyya under Qadhdhafi is still present and, finally, it proposes the possible embracement of a new radical position through the Lacanian process of ‘subjective destitution’ or ‘traversing the phantasy,’ as elaborated by Slavoj Žižek.

Anarchy and Legal Order: Law and Politics for a Stateless Society

<i>Anarchy and Legal Order: Law and Politics for a Stateless Society</i>

Daniel Bell e lo Stato post-industriale: percorsi di "assemblaggio" dello Stato americano

Discusses Daniel Bell’s reflections on the American State between World War II and the political, economic and social crisis of the 1970s. The A. rejects the traditional image of US as a stateless society and shows how Bell’s sociological approach permits rethinking the American State, pointing out how the coming of post-industrial society brings about a new political organization, which draws on the interplay between public, private and hybrid governmental structures. This fluid and polycentric political organization - the post-industrial State - is presumed to reduce the increasing administrative overload, fueled by the expansion of social programs, and to defuse social unrest. Bell calls for a privatization of some social functions of the State, foreshadowing the contemporary transition from government to governance.