Can stateless-ness ever exist?

[reort]

(in other words) Can people exist without fighting and killing each other for power?

[Prinskaj]

(in other words) Can people exist without fighting and killing each other for power?
Well, communism has, at it's base, the goal of achieving a stateless society, so anyone posting on this board will accept that: Yes, a stateless society can exist.
It seems that your concern is about people trying to claim power over one another, this is only true for a society, when the means of attaining such a relationship towards other people are in place. If power were "dismantled", creating structures that equalizes power and goods, then power, as we know it today, would seize to exist as an attainable commodity.
And remember that society existed long before the state, so of course it is possible.

[Zav]

Well, communism has, at it's base, the goal of achieving a stateless society, so anyone posting on this board will accept that: Yes, a stateless society can exist.
It seems that your concern is about people trying to claim power over one another, this is only true for a society, when the means of attaining such a relationship towards other people are in place. If power were "dismantled", creating structures that equalizes power and goods, then power, as we know it today, would seize to exist as an attainable commodity.
And remember that society existed long before the state, so of course it is possible.
I was going to say something similar.

I will add that power, in the sense of authority, is an idea backed up by guns, and to dismantle it, we need to both abandon the idea that we need authority and have the guns needed to defend our anti-power from those who are addicted to having power (there is evidence to suggest that power is addictive).

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

It just needs planning beforehand.

[The Idler]

For about 95% of human history, statelessness has existed.

[Rafiq]

For about 95% of human history, statelessness has existed.

Source

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[Jimmie Higgins]

Source

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If we use the standard 10,000 BCE as the start of agriculture give or take, and we also use the standard 200,000 years of human life on earth, then if we agree that before agriculture humans lived in small bands without formal governance like we know it in class society, then 95% is about right.

[Rafiq]

I just needed elaboration.

There's no telling if it could exist and be more advanced than capitalism.

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[ckaihatsu]

If we mean a *class divide*-based state that wields society's surplus over the vast majority of us, then of course we can see instances where this class-based state has been challenged and could definitely be overthrown.

But in terms of an *institution* I don't think we can "put the genie back in the bottle" as far as requiring some kind of mass administration, any more than we could not-be-able-to produce a *surplus*, for the rest of humanity's existence.

Given the overthrow of capitalism we would see a re-assembling of productive activities on a non-commodity basis -- if, for the sake of argument, it "started small" and society tended to look to satisfying their immediate environs first (instead of converting existing large-scale capitalist practices to communist ones), they would quickly reach the point of *satisfying* common-denominator concerns there, and would have to "evolve" into *broader* circles of social concern and planning. Not all localities would be able to produce their own advanced circuitry and machinery, for example, so a mass-planning to *redistribute* the past society's leftover wealth of materials might very well be the first step on the agenda, *before* a reconstituted productivity.

Any redistribution of wealth necessarily *implies* a mass administration, or 'state', if you will, especially over the long term.

And, in a local-only situation, there would necessarily be an emergent politics (championed by myself, of course) that would *call* for a generalization of practices for the sake of economies of scale, to prevent duplication of effort, at a minimum.

[X5N]

It can, and has, IIRC. In order for stateless territories to survive though, there needs to be an effective way to keep said territories organized to defend against outside powers (like what the Soviets did to the Free Territory of Ukraine).

[Tim Cornelis]

For about 95% of human history, statelessness has existed.


If we use the standard 10,000 BCE as the start of agriculture give or take, and we also use the standard 200,000 years of human life on earth, then if we agree that before agriculture humans lived in small bands without formal governance like we know it in class society, then 95% is about right.

According to anthropologist Robert L. Carneiro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Carneiro), it's actually higher:


For 99.8 percent of human history people lived exclusively in autonomous bands and villages. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateless_society#cite_note-3)

[campesino]

hell to the yeah, what is a state even needed for when you have organization, communication and cooperation.

why will sane people kill each other, when everyone's needs and desires are met. where the material conditions that cause greed are eliminated. Where one who usurps power, will immediately be overthrown by a collective that knows it has all the power. true democracy.

[vagrantmoralist]

Won't you need a subset of workers to police those who do go crazy and decide to kill someone? Or at least detectives to investigate a crime? There are plenty of crimes that occur outside of economic coercion - crimes of passion, crimes of jealousy, crimes just for crime sake (nihilism), and so on. So if you have a subset of workers that at least investigate these crimes, if not try and prevent them, wouldn't they in effect, constitute the state, since they'd have (presumably) the power to detain and arrest with force?

[Rafiq]

According to anthropologist Robert L. Carneiro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Carneiro), it's actually higher:

How would he come to that conclusion, though?

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[ckaihatsu]

Won't you need a subset of workers to police those who do go crazy and decide to kill someone? Or at least detectives to investigate a crime? There are plenty of crimes that occur outside of economic coercion - crimes of passion, crimes of jealousy, crimes just for crime sake (nihilism), and so on. So if you have a subset of workers that at least investigate these crimes, if not try and prevent them, wouldn't they in effect, constitute the state, since they'd have (presumably) the power to detain and arrest with force?


The 'crime' argument in a post-capitalist society is something of a red herring, since, by definition, people would no longer be alienated and separated from each other according to the dictates of private property. The regime of exchange values would be overthrown to allow an organic collective self-determination to set humanity's path into the future -- it's the commune-ist ideal of co-participation on a moment-to-moment basis, for the entire world.

As things are now people are infantilized, their lives left to a social afterthought at best, in preference for the bulk of societal attention directed towards commodity values in the world of increasing valuations. It's no wonder that many would feel individually repressed, either consciously or subconsciously, and would at times assert their individuality in abrupt, awkward, and even dangerous ways.

I'll side with those who maintain that, with communism, people / workers would be appropriately empowered on a world-proportionate basis to finally have the full political sovereignty of self that they / we deserve. With full, appropriately-empowered self-respect and respect for all others around them all lashing-out and social ills would necessarily be a thing of the past. This would be in addition to the utter wiping out of *all* material-minded and material-influenced crimes, since private property would be abolished.

[hatzel]

why will sane people kill each other, when everyone's needs and desires are met.

I'm going to point out the glaring problem here: the implication is that anybody who kills in a communist society (in which everyone's needs and desires are met, supposedly, but I'm not exactly convinced) is automatically insane. Whatever 'insane' means. Seemingly just 'somebody who kills.' A splendid definition! But why? I mean, all their needs and desires are met, are they not? So declared and verified. So why do they need to kill, whence came that desire? Answer: 'insanity.' How very droll...how indeed...