/lit/ - Literature

>>14907870
read leviathan literally everything you're looking for

>>14907879
Is that the one where he says any government is better than no government?

>>14907870
>>14907870
that's not true, individuals can also kill people f.e. in self-defence, deterrence and threat of retaliation is the only way to maintain social order and cohesion, the State is simply a producer of order on a large scale that benefits from returns to scale

>>14907870
Stirner, Proudhon and all the other anarchists answer and challenge this.

>>14907879
What exactly is Hobbes ideas on this? I’ve heard some of it

>>14907870
social contract

>>14907870
We collectively agree that the state should have a monopoly on violence so that capacity for violence doesn't get commoditized.

>>14907911
The State can get away with it no questions asked more often though
>>14907916
Why did anarchy die and wither away like it did?

>>14907935
You just rephrased the original question to be honest
>>14907940
Is this really the answer?

>The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.
Max Stirner

>>14907935
But I never agreed to it

>>14907941
Why did capitalism whither away like it did?

>>14907955
>people unironically think this is deep

>>14907996
You are, so the elites and their state officials say, a piece of property. The working class are mere wage slaves.

>>14908021
It’s apparently deep to you, since you don’t get it.

>>14907996
Read Leviathan, it explains all of this. If you don't agree to it then that's fine, but in doing so you return to the rule of nature which might be described as "every man for himself".
As long as you have the power to defend yourself from the sovereign you can do what you want. Good luck.

>>14907996
you never agreed to be born either and yet you were

>>14908007
Corruption I suppose. It's still here though

>>14908021
who are you quoting?

>>14908549
I’m quoting every one ever, dumbass.

>>14907870
because they have guns

>>14907870
The state isn't one coherent thing. The term was a fucking mistake. There's little difference to simple clans agreeing to traditional law that punishes murder overseen by prominent community members and 'the state' doing so. It's formalised and complex but effectively the same thing, individuals the consensus whether you explicitly agreed or not (did you agree to hold the tenets of your culture that you undoubtedly do?).

>>14907870
see Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau, Hegel, Deleuze et. al

>>14907916
The begining of leviathian is relatively easy to read. He basically has an argument from power. Humanity would be constantly at war, and the highest good is freedom. However, to decrease conflict, man voluntarily or involuntarily gave up some freedoms to an indivugual (Person or state) "corpore" who has the gestalt right of the people and is able to enact a general greater will. However, Hobbes is more nuanced than just that, he believes that the people can overthrough the government to make a new gestalt body, but the state equally has the right to prevent this. DESU its more an analysis of how things work instead of what should be the right way to do things.

>>14907870
Read Schmitt and Bertrand de Jouvenel

>>14907870
The state has more guns. It also has an army of plebs it has indoctrinated to defend itself. These are literally the only reasons. Everything else is a cope.

>>14907870

Three words:

Might is Right

>>14908656
>indivugual

>>14908754
Unironically this

>>14908768
Indivigual as in any body. Sorry, bad wording. Could be a counsel, direct democracy, or King.

>>14907947
>Is this really the answer?
Yes. You don't want a free market of violence, because the obvious suspects will become very successful in it. Best keep violence under government's bureaucratic incompetence.

>>14908781
You have corrected one of the two typos, ESLchan, keep going! You can do it!

>>14908110
Domestic terrorists are merely defending themselves?

>>14908784
But isn't violence (economic and physical) committed by market actors all the time? Granted, that's not a free market, really, but the government hardly has a monopoly on violence.

>>14907870
it only has the right because it has the power. the state is the leading mafia. Even if you are a statist this is a statement of fact.

>>14908595
>>14908716
>>14908754
>>14908889
Why do people get addicted to power? What is it about it that is so hard to give up? All throughout history we see example after example after example of people getting power unable to relinquish it after. From Caesar to the Dynasties of Ancient Egypt and countless other examples in other countries.

>>14908919

once you get powerful you have to maintain it or get killed. simplest reason, but there are plenty of others

Read Rousseau's social contract

>>14908768
Shut up you mutt

>>14907901
Based if true.

>>14907870
>Why does the entity that uses force to determined what is and isn't allowed allowed to use force to do things we're allowed to do?
Because nobody's stopping them?

>>14908919
Two reasons. One, because power is similar to energy. You can't create or destroy it, only transfer or transform it. Every bit of power you relinquish doesn't vanish, it goes somewhere else or to someone else. Caesar letting himself get weaker is functionally the same as letting all of his enemies (or some unknown, potentially dangerous element) get stronger. Secondly, because it's extremely comfortable. Giving up power means less comfortable beds, less tasty meals, and less attractive women. It's extremely easy to rationalize any number of terrible decisions if they help you hang on to the things every living creature on the planet is designed to pursue.

>>14907941
The state will always be questioned when it sanctions killings. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I assume you meant to say that the state has a lot more accepted validations for sanctioned murder.

>>14908963
Power sounds delicious now. How hard is it to get?

>>14907941
>Why did anarchy die and wither away like it did?
It's weak. States are too good at violence and organization. That's why they were born in the first place.

>>14908972
Oh boy, that's a short-ass question with a long-ass answer. The basic version is to study powerful people of the past, determine what realm your power stems from (politics, business, religion, self help, etc.) and study it thoroughly, create a cult of personality around yourself, turn your identity into a symbol for others to identify with, structure the cult to reward zealotry, plant zealots in selected positions throughout society for maximum leverage and just kind of improvise from there. As for how hard it is, depends on how much effort you're willing to put into the aforementioned process. You can cut corners but that inevitably results in compromises, which isn't what power is about.

>>14907870
Read Weber

>>14907870
https://discord.gg/g3TttsV

>>14907870
>>14907940
tbqh the state is the remnant of whatever sacred power held smaller communities together in prehistoric times. At the end of the day, monopoly on violence or not, you only believe in it (or act as if you do) only because of its power, that has something to do with magic and thus the sacred.

According to Agamben the core of western politics since the time of the ancient greeks is the decision on life itself, that is the bios, what it is to be alive and to be dead, who shall live and who shall die, and how. To live is primarily a political fact (and not a biological) and someone revoked this power for himself. Today this power is scattered, held and practiced by means of what we call right and law, and right is the structure by which said power is reified.

>>14907870
The State rules by authority vested to it by the people it rules.
If the people did not vest the powers the State has to it, then the State would not be able to exercise those powers in question.

>>14909214
what if I don't want the State to rule me and keep out of my life no matter what?

>>14907870
Read Kaczynski. Especially Anti-tech revolution.

>>14908792
>>14908768
You have yet to provide any argument of substance or contribute in any meaningful way to the thread you pedantic faggot

>>14909214
how can the people vest powers in the state if the people themselves do not have those powers?

>>14907870
>The State can sentance people to be murdered
Murder is an unjustified killing. Execution is not murder
>The State can take your money
That money isnt "yours"
It is printed by a government sanctioned institution and thus is under the sovreignty of the government
>The State can force you to do anything it wants you to do
Not really
>The State can prohibit you from doing something if it wants
You couldnt have any laws at all if this werent the case

>>14907996
Read the Crito

>>14907870
All order is imposed. Individuals are weak so any rules you try to make and enforce may not stay in place long.

>>14909246
You can reject your citizenship and start living outside their law and territory.

Monopoly on violence.

>>14909390
I don't know how.

>>14909284
>indiviGual

>>14907870
Here's your answer OP

>>14909420
You mean on legitimacy. There's a lot of violent actors.

>>14907870
This is basic political theory, its what I'm studying in my first year polsci class.
Basically read Hobbes, Locke, Weber, and Huemer.
The state has a monopoly on legitimate physical violence. This monopoly is legitimate basically because we treat it as legitimate.

>>14909796
This.
Really readable and good breakdown of what the state is and how it operates.
It'll make you an anarchist tho so watch out.

>>14907870
I feel like your post may have been inspired by pic related. If not you should definitely check it out.

>>14908023
What kind of jobs have you worked past high school?

>>14908110
If the state justifies it's authority through its capacity to assert dominance than shouldn't we treat is as an enemy to be destroyed?

>>14907996
you agree to it every time you pay taxes

>>14910757
>every time someone steals money from my paycheck by threat of force, i agree to an unwritten contract that says they can steal money from my paycheck by threat of force

>>14910764
exactly, you submit to the taxation and thus perpetuate the state
a legitimate state is one that people will pay taxes to

>>14910780
just because i let someone mug me for $20 as opposed to fighting them and getting shot doesnt mean i agreed to the mugging contract, it just means i would rather let someone steal some of my money than live the rest of my life in jail

>>14909337
Well they do in a sense. In theory you have the power to murder, imprison, torture, etc. someone, but people give up those powers in exchange for security in a State. Instead, that institution is invested with that the powers to do that.

>>14910836
so if the state did not exist, all of those behaviors would be acceptable on my part?

>>14910967
No retard the point is that those things will occur with or without a state, so it’s preferable to invest those powers in a process we can at least attempt to reason about and to shape

>>14910803
We all have to make decisions. You presumably also prefer the comfort and stability of "civilized" life over scrounging for roots deep in BLM land. But in making that decision, you've also decided to put up with the state occasionally getting into your business, not least because the state getting in people's business is what creates comfort and stability. This is all to say, we live in the real world of hard choices, not the fantasy land of moral or political theory.

>>14910985
but that gives up your previous position. how can the people vest powers that they themselves do not have?

>>14911026
>we live in the real world of hard choices, not the fantasy land of moral or political theory.
then stop saying i agreed to a fantasy contract faggot

>>14907911
i see you're american, my friend. russian justice is blind, deaf and severely retarded.
women often get a sentence or felony record for injuring or killing a rapist, same with men who try to protect their home and belongings, some kid with couple grams of weed gets a sentence 3x longer than people stealing millions.

>>14907870
The state can do what it wants since the ability to conceive of yourself as an individual independent from the state is a learned behavior and therefore can only exist within a social order, you effectively owe your individuality to the state because of this. Even if you disagree with the state you always owe some element of yourself to it even if it's as fundamental as the language you learned to use to convey your disagreement. Because the state is so essential in creating these fundamental aspects of humanity it will logically have authority over them.

>>14911058
you had the powers. you gave them to a greater entity in exchange for not having them done onto you, you can take them back at any point, but the greater entity will end your life for it

>>14910025
>monopoly on legitimate physical violence
What like the amy?

Well the state isnt a person..

>>14911206
I didnt agree to be born under the state.
When did I give up my right to rule?

>>14911461
So where does it get its power?

>>14911462
every second you cooperate you dim witted retard

>>14911458
Not exactly. Think about how laws are enforced.
Say you are caught speeding. You a police car pulls up behind you to get you to pull over. Here, they are merely asking you to pull over, you could refuse, but there would be further consequences. Say you pull over, they give you a ticket and tell you to pay it. This again is a demand you could theoretically ignore, with there being further consequences. Say instead of paying your fine you sit around at home and ignore it. Eventually you'll get letters, and you ignore those. Then you might get police knocking on your door, you could ignore them, pretend you aren't home. But eventually, if the state decides it's still worth their time and effort, the state will break your door down and arrest you by force, take you to trial and force you to submit to punishment.
What this means is all of the states political power is built upon the foundation that the state can and will exert physical violence if it needs to.
The state is the only organization that is allowed to do this. No other organization is allowed to use physical violence to get it's way. That's why it has the monopoly, and a key part about what makes it a state.

>>14908007
>no u

>>14907870
Do you have military power to topple over the state and enforce your will?
You're free to do so

>>14907870
It isn't murder if it's lawful, which is how the state gets around that. They just make their killing lawful.

>>14910403
That’s not where it gets its authority according to Hobbes. The state’s authority comes from the consent of the people, also known as the social contract. The people give it t consent to dominate in order to protect themselves from what they would be in the state of nature.

>>14911592
But then he'd be the state. That's not the point.

>>14907870
Because the state has more guns than you. That's it. That's always been it. That's how European nobility started - they were warlords. Voltaire had a saying that was something like "every king was once a soldier." There is no "social contract" -- I didn't ask to be born in this country, I didn't agree to these rules. What contract? When did I sign it?

Most people are fine with civilization because the benefits (rule of law, property rights, etc.) outweigh the costs (taxes, loss of absolute freedom). Because it's a win-win for everyone, the system keeps going. That doesn't mean that its foundation is some magical "social contract". All morality is based on violence. Ultimately, life is about survival. And pacifist groups will eventually be replaced by non-pacifist groups.