could we make the case that the USA is, and perhaps has always been in
principle, a stateless society?
We continually see this pathological fear of the state in america;
there is a suspicion of taxes to the extent that people would starve
the government entirely out of existence if they could. There is also
the will to annihilate all sense of public commons and to privatise
all things, even to the extent of having gated communities with their
own police forces. Then there is stateless communities in fact, such
as rural settlements such as some amish and mormon communities and
also the ozarks.
Could it be that some parts of the USA all along have really resisted
statehood to the extent that this antagonism is what is being played
out now? Are using the terms of libertarianism and maverick capitalism
actually misplaced?
Well I think its built into the history of America in terms of their strong sense of individualism which also ties into their concept of democracy as a kind of collective celebration of individualism as well as the revolutionary wars which defined them as a sovereign nation. Why did Australia never have a revolution against England, I guess it explains a lot.
ReplyDeleteBut I also think the distrust of and call for small government is a relatively recent, its a 1970's Milton Freedman Neo-liberal reaction against the benevolent big post-war governments.
And also, when people say they want minimal or no government, I think they don't take into the account the amenities that it provides that they take for granted which provides the basic conditions for the market to operate in the first place, like the mere concept of a government is necessary as an invisible guarantor of all contracts.
WEll what I am getting at with this post is kinda against that approach. Like the standard account of american politics is that its been driven by neo-liberalism for the last few decades, and also to do with their tradition arising out of both the revolution and the civil war.
ReplyDeleteSo I am thinking that maybe that account of US history is actually a post facto ruse. Do you not find that if you adopt the paradigm that the american heartland is actually deeply suspicious of the state in general, owing to its frontiersman history, that a lot of the contradictions fall way. It sort of shows how in US politics any act of government is criticised for one flaw and simultaneously its opposite.
Can this approach be helpful?
The reason Australia never had a revolution is because we weren't an astonishingly wealthy country that had to taxes off shore for seemingly no benefit. The US revolution was more about money than just about any war ever.
I wonder if the two points converge-I mean, does the concept of the entrepreneur who is at the center of the Neo-liberal model similar to or at least parallel with the idea of the individualist, outlaw mythology of the frontiersmen? I'd like to link it back to the point at the beginning, that often organized crime and criminal activity only steps in when the state is absent or fails in its duties, from piracy in Somalia to the mafia and yakuza working in 'waste disposal'. Like black market and alternatively 'informal' economies are criminal yet extremely entrepreneurial and provide the model for how business and the market should work unregulated?
ReplyDelete