A-Infos (en) France, Groupe Libertaire René Lochu: Does the state owe us anything? (Subject for the 2024 philosophy baccalaureate) (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Does the state owe us anything? First of all, let's define what the 
State is and what it represents for us. ---- "From an institutional 
point of view, the State is the sovereign authority which exercises its 
power over the population inhabiting a specific territory and which, for 
this purpose, is endowed with a permanent organization.» (Renaud Denoix 
de Saint Marc, "L'Etat", Que sais-je?) ---- If we stick to this single 
definition, we could already answer that the State owes us nothing since 
he is sovereign and exercises his power over the people without having 
to answer, himself, to a higher authority. Ultimately, there is nothing 
above the State. Louis XIV would have said, in his time, that he was the 
State and as above the king, there was only God...

What must be clarified is that the State is an institutionalized power, 
that is to say that the power of the State is detached from those who 
concretely exercise power. The State exists and will exist, even if the 
king or president changes. The king is dead, long live the king![

Max Weber gives us another very interesting definition of the State. He 
tells us that "the State is that human community which, within a 
specific territory (...), claims for itself and manages to impose the 
monopoly of legitimate physical violence.»

This quote could have been diverted, in particular by Gérald Darmanin, 
Minister of the Interior, who wanted Weber to say that the State was 
legitimate to use violence when in fact it is an observation and a 'a 
definition of state powers not a justification of violence against the 
people. But Gérald is not a scientist, he is only a politician, he only 
hears what suits him.

With this addition, we can now go further in our response and say that 
if the State thinks it owes us nothing, it is because it finds itself in 
a situation of domination (one could say of all power) and that At no 
time does he intend to let the population decide freely, alone and 
without constraints.

The State therefore owes us nothing since it would be above everything 
in order to be able to guarantee us our fundamental rights which we can, 
roughly speaking, find on the fronts of our town halls: Liberty - 
Equality - Fraternity. The State is an arbiter who is not there to give 
us something but to guarantee that the laws are respected by everyone in 
order to ensure the proper functioning of society. In theory, this is 
true. In practice, it never was!

In fact, as Mikhail Bakunin said, the state is always controlled by the 
dominant class of society who use it to serve their interests and 
exploit the lower classes. The referee is himself one of the players 
who, in addition, dictates the rules of the game. The other players 
serve as guarantor and are tolerated as long as the State comes out on 
top in each game.

The State owes us nothing because it does not want to give us anything. 
But should we deplore it or rejoice in it? Some think, on the contrary, 
that the State owes us everything and that the population must seize 
power to redirect it towards their needs. The idea is, once again, 
attractive in theory. State communism (as opposed to libertarian 
communism) put it into practice with the results that we know. The 
dictatorship of the proletariat, which was to be a transition, with pure 
communism, will ultimately have led to an autocracy, by definition 
authoritarian.

In a "democratic" political system, we would be entitled to expect the 
State to come to the aid of the weakest (we would then call it the 
Welfare State). It is with this in mind that the National Council of the 
Resistance had developed its program which was entitled "Happy Days.» It 
is always with this idea that the Scandinavian countries have pursued 
fairly developed social policies. Another good idea except that this 
State still remains in the hands of the dominants and that it only 
leaves its population with crumbs while they could have much more if the 
sharing was equitable. However, the State proclaims itself the guarantor 
of this equity but it does not do so. And it is not a problem of 
incompetence but rather an asserted desire to keep different social 
classes in place. And if the poor took the reins of the State, things 
would be reversed but the problem would remain. Louise Michel told us 
that power was cursed. Lord Acton confirmed this to us with this 
sentence: "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely".

It is therefore rather to be asked whether the question should not 
ultimately be this: "Should we expect something from the State?» And the 
answer tends to be negative. The State does not allow change, it is 
intrinsically immutable. It only perpetuates the order in which ancient, 
feudal or, today, capitalist society was organized. An order where 
everyone would have their place to serve the interests of another, in a 
higher class, up to the top of the pyramid. An order that would be 
dominated by a few in the name of all. An order which, despite its name, 
most of the time brings chaos, war or famine rather than peace, freedom, 
fairness or solidarity.

Henry David Thoreau said that "the only obligation I have the right to 
adopt is to act at all times as seems right to me.» He thus gave the 
primacy of moral conscience over state law and advocated civil 
disobedience. In fact, we should not expect anything from the State 
which keeps us in a state of voluntary servitude which Étienne de la 
Boétie, an early anarchist, had very well analyzed: "So be resolved to 
no longer serve and you will be free. .» By expecting nothing from the 
State, we free ourselves from its chains and this allows us to consider 
new ways of living together while feeling secure and in harmony within 
society. During many periods in History, both in France and abroad, 
self-management experiments have proven that it is possible to live 
without a State. It was also during the Spanish social revolution of 
1936 that the experience was most successful. It worked so well that it 
made the "guarantors of order", defenders of the State, shudder, who 
then sought to eliminate all traces of its success. Fortunately, they 
did not succeed in silencing the protagonists of this story who gave us 
their testimonies, tears (of joy) in their eyes at the evocation of 
these wonderful memories (see the film "Living Utopia ").

We have also seen in recent history that we do not always need the State 
to organize us, even in the face of terrible scourges like deadly 
viruses. Indeed, when the coronavirus arrived in France, the cogs of the 
State found themselves seized up. For several days, even several weeks, 
decisions struggled to arrive, when they were not downright bad. 
However, in certain places in the country, collective initiatives have 
made it possible to set up a self-managed solidarity system by 
distributing food and medicine. A self-managed workers' cooperative, 
SCOP-TI, even put in place a strategy to fight Covid-19 well before the 
government made decisions. Reduction of working hours, staggered hours, 
early implementation of health measures. These are some of the 
arrangements that were made to continue the production of teas and 
infusions at the Gémenos factory during this period and no one waited 
for the green light from the State to organize themselves. It's concrete 
and it shows that it's possible!

John Fitzgerald Kennedy said during his inauguration speech: "Ask not 
what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.» 
He was entirely wrong but it is quite logical since he defended a 
capitalist model loving competition between countries, between States, 
between nations which cower behind their borders. What we must ask 
ourselves is neither what the country can do for us, nor what we can do 
for the country, but rather what we can all do, together, to form a 
self-managing, united society. , without borders and respectful of each 
and everyone.

BY ANARS56

http://anars56.over-blog.org/2024/07/sujet-du-bac-philo-2024.html
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