2024-01-13 03:30:00
There were societies without a state. The hunter-gatherer communities that existed in prehistory did not have a state. Even the few that remain today – in the Amazon jungle, for example – do not have a State either. They are very small societies, with few functions and very unsophisticated in terms of the life they lead: at most they gather a few hundred people. There was also a gigantic and very sophisticated society, which lived for centuries without a State: this anarchism was what happened to Europe and North Africa in the 5th century following the fall of the Roman Empire in the west. It emerged from a historical collapse, not as something planned.
No one who today lives in a populous and complex society and minimally knows how communities have lived in the exceptional cases in which there was no State might understand that a lucid person has the realistic project of building a society without a State. However, the dream of the current Argentine president, Javier Milei, is that in the near future we can achieve that. To achieve this, he is now trying to withdraw the Argentine State from everything that political reality allows.
When the Roman Empire collapsed, not only did the central political power disappear, but also an enormous number of institutions that guaranteed citizen life at all levels.even in relation to security or education (which is why, very quickly, the European populations, who had all been literate – including slaves and women – became illiterate and only 13 centuries later, with modernity , public school was re-established). When the Roman Empire collapsed, the first thing that emerged were mafias.
The State withdraws and the space is occupied by someone: the strongest. What happened with the fall of the Roman Empire is seen in modern societies when the State abandons the poorest sectors: in those spaces a mafia begins to establish itself that, at the same time as violently coercing citizens, also protects them, imposes its order and create new institutions.
This was seen in Rio de Janeiro when the mafia took over the favelas starting in the 90s – following the withdrawal of the State – and in Ecuador in the last 10 years, lor that transformed it from one of the most peaceful countries in America into the fifth most violent on the planet.
When the State disappears or withdraws, paradise does not arise.
That never happened: Armed gangs appear that take over everything by force and impose their law, which is the whim of the gang leader, without controls or possibilities for debate. Only another gang, equally savage, can challenge him for power.
This was what happened to Europe following the fall of the Roman Empire, and the first armed bands that seized power in the small towns and founded minimal kingdoms were the bands of border guards – the only armed ones left standing – who They had created the last emperors, who no longer even had an army like in the old glorious times.
Something similar happened in Russia following the fall of communism: agents of the intelligence services and the military and police formed criminal gangs that disputed and shared political powercreating a new oligarchy, which is the one that has dominated Russia since then, under more or less civilized forms following years of savage struggle.
In all cases the same thing happens: When the State withdraws, it is not the utopian kingdom of freedom that the anarchists proclaim, but the kingdom of the mafias. and once the mafias are enthroned it is very difficult to remove them, as seen in Rosario.
Argentine history is pendulous. We went from the liberal capitalist modernization of the 90s to the glorification of state intervention during the 20 years of Kirchnerism.
We go from one extreme to the other without stopping at a reasonable middle. We want “all or nothing” (even now it is a government slogan).
We come from a Present State that regulated absolutely everything to an Absent State that does not want any regulation to remain in place. The President has already said that, if it were up to him, he would allow drunk driving, he believes that it is authoritarian to require seat belts and he thinks it is bad that there are traffic lights. All or nothing.
The problem with total deregulation and the withdrawal of the State from everywhere is that it creates the breeding ground for mafias to emerge. What the State does not give, the mafia lends. We wanted to escape the suffocation of freedom that the four statist governments of Kirchnerism meant and now we have the other extreme: the total absence of social solidarity and state protection.
Will we ever vote on a rational proposal?
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#utopia #society #State