The state and society


The state and society

Postby holy vehm » Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:45 pm


What is a state?
by Devin Finbarr
In order to think clearly, I find it useful to think long and hard about the precise definition of words. I have found that the word "state" has generated enormous confusion with its various definitions.

A good definition of a word a) precisely describes a distinct, real phenomena and b) matches our intuitive use of the word.

David Friedman's definition of a state is an "organization that exercises legitimate coercion." What is coercion? Anything that a private actor is not allowed to do. This definition is a tad bit circular, although I think I know what he means. A private property owner cannot arrest and jail someone for refusing to pay rent, a government is unique because it can jail someone for refusing to pay rent (taxes). Two things bother me about this definition. Imagine the U.S. government changed its laws so that the worst punishment for failing to pay taxes or taking prescription meds without approval was to be exiled (evicted). Would this mean the U.S. was a stateless society? That is intuitively absurd. My second problem with the definition is that it defines based on the symptoms, not the underlying phenomena.

The other common definition of a 'state' is the "the organization that holds a monopoly of force within a territory." This definition is better than Friedman's, but it's not precise enough for my tastes. By common, intuitive use of the word "state", nineteenth century England certainly had a state. But that state didn't have a complete monopoly of force. There is no "Her Majesty's" army because the central government was not allowed to have an army. Gentlemen were still allowed to carry arms and exercise police powers themselves. The modern U.S. government is certainly a state, but there a variety of local law enforcement agencies, mall security, private arms holders, etc, that all use force.

Here is my better definition of a state:

A state is the alloidial property owner of a territory. It is an organization that charges rent/taxes and exercises police power over a territory. There is no higher organization that charges taxes or exercises police power over it. It is the final word within a territory.
By this narrow definition, an American state government or a city government is not the state. The federal government is a separate and higher authority that exercises authority over the city government.

This seems a bit counter-intuitive. The defining aspect of a state seems to be that it can lock a person up and deal punishment. In other words, a state exercises full police powers.

So a looser definition of the state is: "A state is the organism consisting of the organization that holds an alloidial title to a territory, plus the interlocking network of organizations that the alloidial holder allows to exercise full police powers."

This seems quite close. But it still defines small sedentary tribes as states or feudal lords as states, which is a bit counter-intuitive. We can add an addendum to the above definition:

"The state is an alloidial owner of sufficient size that the people running the state are not personally kin, family, extended kin, or personally in contact with the majority of the subjects. The dividing line between a tribe or a feudal duchy and a state is gradual."

Associations of States And Pseudo-States
There are three basic types of associations of states:

a) A confederation (or league) b) A federation c) A unitary system with semi-autonomous provinces

In the confederation the common government exists under the full control of fully sovereign member states. The common confederate government has little or no power to enforce its decisions, other than trade sanctions or exclusion from the confederacy. The confederate government does not operate a police force that could remove a local state governor. Member states can secede at will. Examples of confederation: the League of Nations, American Articles of the Confederation, the Hanseatic League, the European Economic Community.

In a unitary system, the member "states" are really non-sovereign pseudo-states (better referred to as provinces). The province is under full control of the central government and is completely subject to the police powers of the central government. The central government is free to remove a provincial governor for failing to obey its laws. Examples: most modern governments, such as the British government, Chinese government, etc. Despite what your civics textbook said, the post-Civil War U.S. government is really a unitary state. If a governor defies the mandates of the central legislature and/or supreme court, the governor is subject to police action.

In a federal system it is ambiguous who exercises ultimate power - the local state or the central government. The difference between a confederation of sovereign states and a unitary government is that in a confederation the central government does not exercise police powers over the local states, and the local state can secede at any time. In a federation the answer to both questions is ambiguous.

The United States from 1789 to 1865 is the classic example of a federation. The feudal order is best understood as a federation in miniature. Local lords exercised police powers and power of taxation over their dominions. A central king exercised some powers of taxing and enforcement over the land as a whole. But it was always quite ambiguous to what extent a king could exercise police and taxing power over the lords.

The ambiguous nature of federalism inevitably leads to conflict. The U.S. suffered a civil war that resulted in an unambiguous unitary state. In England there was recurring violence between the king and the lords, until the Tudors decisively forged England into a unitary state.

What is statelessness (anarchism)?
So what type of state-less societies can exist? Let's list them:

Non-sedentary populations are stateless, because there is no permanent ownership of territory.
Really small authorities - small tribal villages - are sub states, since the political structure is based on families and blood ties.
Two or more separate military organizations are competing to control a territory, with neither neither organization exercising police powers over the other. This is known by the term "anarchy". "Anarcho-capitalists" believe that the ideal form of society would involve overlapping, for-profit, "protection" agencies. Other anarchists believe that the ideal form would be no military forces greater than the individual, or believe in overlapping mutual aid security forces.
Feudal societies have occasionally been called stateless. But as noted above, a feudal society is perhaps more properly seen as a miniature version of a federation of states. Each feudal lord runs his own mini-state, and the king acts as leader of the federation.

The concept of "extra-territoriality" and/or private law has often been confused with anarchism or statelessness, but in reality has little to do with it. Extra-territoriality and private law are common even in societies with strong states. In the U.S., Amish law, the special treatment of diplomats, or universities' disciplining their own student drug offenses are all good examples. Allowing extra-territoriality is a policy decision of an existing state. It may be quite a good policy, too. But seeing as the federal government has spent the last 200 hundred years crushing independent state and local law, it is quite unlikely that there will be any expansion of extra-territoriality until there is regime change at the national level.

The central problem of the state
States are infamous for behaving badly by the standards of non-state actors. No business would last a nano-second if it had the balance sheet and cash flow of the U.S. government. No individual could stay out of prison if it behaved as a state. States lie, cheat, and kill.

The reason states act so badly is that, by definition, there is no higher power that holds them accountable. This has two implications a) opportunistic, predator states will behave badly because if they are strong, they are rewarded for behaving badly b) responsible states will have to make hard decisions about defending against and pre-empting enemy states. Unlike the like individuals who live under a state, the state itself is completely responsible for protecting itself. And of course, the boundary between a predator state and defender state is never clear. Most empire builders claim they built their empires purely through defensive wars.

Since states behave so badly, some think that state-less societies may behave better. But this is a total misreading of the situation. As we noted above there are three types of stateless society. Two of them - the roving tribe, and the tribal village - are by definition unavailable to us because of the scale of our society. That means the only possible stateless society is a society where there are multiple competing militaries with none exercising police powers over the other.

The mistake the anarchist makes is that he thinks states are bad because they have a monopoly over force in a territory. In reality states are bad because they have no one higher holding them accountable. By adding two or three or more militaries together in a territory, you have made the problem much worse. Now you have three militaries that are not accountable to any higher power.

States often behave badly, but there are two factors moderating their behavior. One, if you have a selection process selecting responsible men and women to lead the state, the state may behave reasonably well. Two, even if you have selfish people running the state, if the state has secure ownership of a territory it will try and grow the economy like a master grows a garden, not exploit it like a roving bandit. The state will invest in infrastructure and education, provide rule of law, and tax at a rate low enough to encourage economic growth.

If you have multiple militaries contending over a territory, both moderating influences are lost. First, with no secure title there will be underinvestment in city infrastructure, and over taxation of the peasants. Furthermore, the competing militaries will be in a Darwinian situation in which the one emerging most dominant will be the most ruthless and violent.

Empirically, no society with multiple, competing militaries in a given territory exhibit a quality of governance that is anywhere close to bad Western governments. And in 99% of the cases there has been a horrific level of violence.

"Public" and "private" two evil, Orwellian words
There are two words relating to states and government that I absolutely despise. Those words are "public" and "private". These words are Orwellian, inaccurate, deceptive, nonsense. When I'm czar of the language a special microchip will be implanted in all writers and speakers and they will get zapped when they use the words. I beseech all those writing about political theory to pretend said microchip has already been implanted.

Usually the word "public" is used to refer to the state or government. "Private" refers to non-state. But why these words? Is a state actually more "public"? Here is an experiment: try walking into the offices of the NSA and taking pictures of the people walking through. Then go to a "privately" owned shopping mall and do the same. Which is really more public?

Or try enrolling your kid in the school of the richest neighboring suburb. Then try enrolling in the nearby catholic school. Which is more public? Note that the "public" school is actually way, way more expensive, since you need to pay for residency in the town to access the school.

The fiction is that since the government is responsible to the voters, it is public and anything it does is "public". The reality is that the government is no more responsive to your votes, than any "private" actor is responsive to your dollars as a consumer or your votes as a shareholder. In fact, the "public" government is actually much less responsive to the general public than say, Microsoft, is, because the public government has a dysfunctional management structure. If the "public" vote with their wallets for Apple, Bill Gates throws a fit and the Windows product improves. When the "public" votes with their ballots for Obama, you get a continuation of the bailouts, a continuation of the middle east wars, a continuation of the entire civil service and the gazillion things government does that no one pays attention to.

The word "public" is thus Orwellian, because it is a) untrue and b) is self-serving to the existing ruling elite. But defining the government as "public" it gives the government (and the rulers) a much higher level of legitimacy. It skews the entire debate. For instance, if I say, "should schools be public or private", of course I want them to be public!. If I say, "should schools be unaccountable to the public, or accountable to the public", of course I want the latter. But in truth, the "private" schools are the one's accountable to the public, and the "public" schools are unaccountable since teachers unions and civil service rules prevent it. Thus by changing language, progressives have made black turn into white, public private, and private public.

Unfortunately, libertarians fall into the same trap, for their own reasons. The libertarian wishes to maintain the idea that the government is categorically different from "private" individuals, and therefore cannot own property like a private person. The libertarian accepts that a private person can charge taxes/rent, or can control who opens a store in a mall. But by maintaining the distinction, the libertarian tries to delegitimize the government doing the same thing.

Yet the libertarian buys into the language of the ruling class, and therefore the battle is already tilted against him. Worse, it is quite confusing what the libertarian thinks is the problem with public ownership. When a libertarian says, "schools should be privatized" presumably he means that the organization that operates the schools should be separated from the organization that exercises police power. But then what does it mean to privatize the police? Or to privatize a city? The word "privatize" becomes confusing and meaningless.


The concept and actuality of the nation state can be compared and contrasted with that of the city state.[2][3][4], empire, confederation, and other state forms with which it may overlap. The key distinction from the other forms is the identification of a people with a polity.

This article primarily treats the topic from a Western viewpoint. China generally considers the Qin Dynasty to have founded the imperial system, the original Chinese nation-state, which was replaced by the Peoples Republic of China.

The United Kingdom is a complex example of a nation state, due to its "countries within a country" status. The UK is a unitary state formed initially by the merger of two independent kingdoms, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, but the Treaty of Union (1707) that set out the agreed terms has ensured the continuation of distinct features of each state, including separate legal systems and separate national churches.

In 2003, the British Government described the United Kingdom as "countries within a country".[13] While the Office for National Statistics and others describe the United Kingdom as a "nation state",[14][15] others, including a then Prime Minister, describe it as a "multinational state",[16][17][18] and the term Home Nations is used to describe the four national teams that represent the four nations of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales).[19]

A unitary state is a state governed as one single unit in which the central government is supreme and any administrative divisions (subnational units) exercise only powers that their central government chooses to delegate. Many states in the world have a unitary system of government.

Unitary states are contrasted with federal states (federations):

The United Kingdom is an example of a unitary state. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland which, along with England are the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom, have a degree of autonomous devolved power – the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament in Scotland, the Welsh Government and National Assembly for Wales in Wales, and the Northern Ireland Executive and Northern Ireland Assembly in Northern Ireland. But such devolved power is only delegated by Britain's central government, more specifically by the Parliament of the United Kingdom,[clarification needed] which is supreme under the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy. Further, the devolved governments cannot challenge the constitutionality of acts of Parliament, and the powers of the devolved governments can be revoked or reduced by the central government (the Parliament with a government comprising the Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister). For example, the Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended four times, with its powers reverting to the central government's Northern Ireland Office.
Ukraine is another example of a unitary state (see Constitution of Ukraine). The Republic of Crimea within the country has a degree of autonomy and is governed by its Cabinet of Ministers and legislative Council. In early 1990s the republic also had a post of president which was terminated due to separatist tendencies intended to transfer Crimea to Russia.
An example of a federal state is the United States; under the United States Constitution, power is shared between the federal government of the United States and the U.S. states. Many federal states also have unitary lower levels of government; while the United States is federal, the states themselves are unitary under Dillon's Rule – counties and municipalities have only the authority granted to them by the state governments by the state constitution or legislative act.

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Re: The state and society

Postby holy vehm » Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:50 pm



Feudal societies


[edit] Industrial societiesMain article: Industrial societies


[edit] Post-industrial societiesMain article: Post-industrial society

According to sociologists, a society is a group of people with common territory, interaction, and culture. Social groups consist of two or more people who interact and identify with one another.

Territory: Most countries have formal boundaries and territory that the world recognizes as theirs. However, a society’s boundaries don’t have to be geopolitical borders, such as the one between the United States and Canada. Instead, members of a society, as well as nonmembers, must recognize particular land as belonging to that society.
Example: The society of the Yanomamo has fluid but definable land boundaries. Located in a South American rain forest, Yanamamo territory extends along the border of Brazil and Venezuela. While outsiders would have a hard time determining where Yanomamo land begins and ends, the Yanomamo and their neighbors have no trouble discerning which land is theirs and which is not.

Interaction: Members of a society must come in contact with one another. If a group of people within a country has no regular contact with another group, those groups cannot be considered part of the same society. Geographic distance and language barriers can separate societies within a country.
Example: Although Islam was practiced in both parts of the country, the residents of East Pakistan spoke Bengali, while the residents of West Pakistan spoke Urdu. Geographic distance, language differences, and other factors proved insurmountable. In 1971, the nation split into two countries, with West Pakistan assuming the name Pakistan and East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh. Within each newly formed society, people had a common culture, history, and language, and distance was no longer a factor.

Culture: People of the same society share aspects of their culture, such as language or beliefs. Culture refers to the language, values, beliefs, behavior, and material objects that constitute a people’s way of life. It is a defining element of society.
Example: Some features of American culture are the English language, a democratic system of government, cuisine (such as hamburgers and corn on the cob), and a belief in individualism and freedom.

The United States is a society composed of many groups of people, some of whom originally belonged to other societies. Sociologists consider the United States a pluralistic society, meaning it is built of many groups. As societies modernize, they attract people from countries where there may be economic hardship, political unrest, or religious persecution. Since the industrialized countries of the West were the first to modernize, these countries tend to be more pluralistic than countries in other parts of the world.

Many people came to the United States between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Fleeing poverty and religious persecution, these immigrants arrived in waves from Europe and Asia and helped create the pluralism that makes the United States unique.

Pluralism in the Neighborhood

Both cities and regions reflect pluralism in the United States. Most major American cities have areas in which people from particular backgrounds are concentrated, such as Little Italy in New York, Chinatown in San Francisco, and Little Havana in Miami. Regionally, people of Mexican descent tend to live in those states that border Mexico. Individuals of Cuban descent are concentrated in Florida. Spanish-speaking people from other Caribbean islands, such as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, are more likely to live in the Northeast.

Some practices that are common in other societies will inevitably offend or contradict the values and beliefs of the new society. Groups seeking to become part of a pluralistic society often have to give up many of their original traditions in order to fit in—a process known as assimilation.

Example: When people arrive in the United States from other countries, they most likely speak a foreign language. As they live here, they generally learn at least some English, and many become fluent. Their children are most likely bilingual, speaking English as well as the language of their parents. By the third generation, the language originally spoken by their grandparents is often lost.

In pluralistic societies, groups do not have to give up all of their former beliefs and practices. Many groups within a pluralistic society retain their ethnic traditions.

Example: Although Chinese immigrants started arriving in the United States 150 years ago, Chinese-American communities still follow some traditions, such as celebrating the Lunar New Year.

Melting Pot?

The United States is commonly referred to as a melting pot, a society in which people from different societies blend together into a single mass. Some sociologists prefer the term “multicultural,” pointing out that even if a group has been in this country for many generations, they probably still retain some of their original heritage. The term “multiculturalism” recognizes the original heritages of millions of Americans, noting that Americans who are originally from other societies do not necessarily have to lose their individual markers by melting into the mainstream.

In a truly pluralistic society, no one group is officially considered more influential than another. In keeping with this belief, the United States does not, for example, put a legal quota on how many Italian Americans can vote in national elections, how many African Americans may run for public office, or how many Vietnamese Americans can live on a certain street. However, powerful informal mechanisms, such as prejudice and discrimination, work to keep many groups out of the political process or out of certain neighborhoods.

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Re: The state and society

Postby holy vehm » Mon Jan 23, 2012 10:01 pm

Legal definitions.









The government’s act of incorporating creates an independent legal person with limited liability and so it is not done lightly. In regards to non-profit corporations, also known as societies, the Government generally limits the purposes for which a non-profit may be created.

A citizen - The status of an individual as owing allegiance to, and enjoying the benefits of, a designated state.

Legal status of an individual who enjoys the benefits of, and must respond to, the allegiance of a state. Citizenship is often acquired by birth within the territorial limits of the state.

There are many benefits of citizenship, one of the most basic being the right to move freely within, and to re-enter if they leave, the state which has recognized citizenship.

Citizenship is typically evidenced by a passport issued by the state.

Citizenship obliges the individual towards a state in the payment of taxes and the provision of military duty. Citizenship benefits the individual in access to the state and public services it provides.

In Lavoie, Justice Wetson quoted these words:

"Citizenship is a juristic and political status in which an individual enjoys full, legally sanctioned membership in a state and owes full allegiance to it. All free and democratic states at all times have established a unique status of this kind and all such states have always accorded some special rights and privileges to their citizens. In all free and democratic states of which I am aware, citizens enjoy certain exclusive rights and privileges; these include the right to vote in national elections, the right to enter and reside at will, and preferential treatment in access to employment in the federal public service. Other rights and obligations that are commonly but perhaps not universally tied to citizenship concern jury service, military service, treatment under the tax laws, travel documents and procedures, access to public services, and immigration privileges for family members."
In Taylor, Justice Martineau wrote of the history of the legal term citizenship:

"[C]anadian citizenship represents a sharing of sovereignty and a social contract between individuals and our society as a whole. Citizenship is no longer viewed as a privilege. Practical benefits flow from this status, such as the right to vote, the right to enter or remain in Canada, and the right to travel abroad with a Canadian passport. Canadian citizens also enjoy privileged access to the Federal Public Service....

"In its original sense, the term citizen referred to a member of a free or jural society, who possessed all the rights and privileges that could be enjoyed by any person under its constitution and government....

"The concept of citizenship was revised during the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance to include membership in a free town or city ... the basic distinctions between citizens and others remained. Only citizens could participate fully in all aspects of community life."
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Re: The state and society

Postby pitano1 » Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:37 pm

By Omission or Commission,
You are
Whereas, if you use a REGISTERED NAME, you are a FOREIGN
COLONIZER/INVADER and guilty of crimes by Omission or Commission for, of and
SEE/ VATICAN CITY/ THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE and are guilty as follows;
1. By swearing, attesting, agreeing, affirming, recognizing, aligning or allying with, via
oath or ignorant acquiescence to any and/or all aforementioned
CORPORATIONS/INSTITUTIONS you are hereby guilty by association with all
associated criminal activities including but not limited to GENOCIDE, WARS OF
AGAINST HUMANITY etc. et al and;
2. With any and all use of a NAME that is in BOND FORM and REGISTERED with the
CROWN you are, in fact committing FRAUD since BIRTH via the BIRTH
CERTIFICATE and are in fact, a slave to the aforementioned entities .

all goes back rome,and the kiddyfiddlers of old.
Henry David Thoreau
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Re: The state and society

Postby wanabfree » Sun Jan 29, 2012 3:33 pm

There is No such thing as a “state”, only a State of mind

There are NO “nations”, only halluci-nations
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Re: The state and society

Postby pitano1 » Sun Jan 29, 2012 3:48 pm


their is of course `abomination,which man
has been living under since..circ..1302

but these spe...lls are in the process of being

Henry David Thoreau
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Re: The state and society

Postby Chug » Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:00 pm

my definition is anyone claiming authority over me as part of a collective who agree with each other, and each others rules by popular vote, and which rules they are willing to force me to comply with, but rules with which I don't agree.

Love n harmony in the community
Enemy of the state
You can fool some people sometimes But you can't fool all the people all the time, So now we see the light, We gonna stand up for our right, So you'd better, Get up stand up, stand up for your right, get up, stand up, don't give up the fight.
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Re: The state and society

Postby pitano1 » Mon Jan 30, 2012 1:30 pm

3. Any use of GOVERNMENT IDENTIFICATION is, in fact, fraud since a BIRTH
CERTIFICATE cannot be used for identification purposes as stated clearly on the
original or copied document. ALL GOVERNMENT IDENTIFICATION is created from
the BOND INSTRUMENT COPY. You do not have, nor will you ever see the
ORIGINAL because it was sold and the copy ACTS merely as the proof of sale and is, in
fact, a receipt only for the sale of the INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY of the NAME that
belongs to the CROWN CORPORATION and;
4. Any attempt to ask, force, coerce, threaten etc. et al anyone who knows this truth is, in
fact, aiding and abetting a fraudulent action and is guilty of a crime upon that act and
furthermore by IDENTIFYING themselves with this fictional CROWN CORPORATION
ACTING in fraud ab initio and;

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Re: The state and society

Postby holy vehm » Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:49 pm

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