| sc94597 said:
Prisons are pretty modern inventions and it isn't clear that they are all that great at preventing murder and theft. There is also a question about whom prevents the state from murdering and stealing? So there is obviously a greater dynamic necessary to prevent murder than to institute a monopoly on the legitimization of violence. Why is a monopoly necessary? My criticism of the state isn't merely that it is violent, violence is necessary. My criticism is that it declares itself as the ultimate authority of what violence is and which violence is legitimate. Foucault's Dicipline and Punishment is an eye-opening book about the modern penal system and how punishment changed during the enlightenment. "Historically, the process by which the bourgeoisie became in the course of the eighteenth century the politically dominant class was masked by the establishment of an explicit, coded and formally egalitarian juridical framework, made possible by the organization of a parliamentary, representative regime. But the development and generalization of disciplinary mechanisms constituted the other, dark side of these processes. The general juridical form that guaranteed a system of rights that were egalitarian in principle was supported by these tiny, everyday, physical mechanisms, by all those systems of micro-power that are essentially non-egalitarian and asymmetrical that we call the disciplines. (222)" ----- "Saying that violence is the reason why there hasn't been a more fair system of land ownership is like saying that violence is ultimately the reason why healthcare is a massive problem in the US. Sure, maybe if the state didn't have a monopoly on violence, the current form of government could have been overthrown and a more equitable system of healthcare put in place, but that's less an explanation of why this problem exists in the first place and more why the problem hasn't been solved yet." I am not saying that violence (in general) is the reason why there hasn't been a more fair system of land ownership, I am saying that the authority whom determines the land ownership norms in our current society (the state) is the reason why there hasn't been a more fair system of land ownership. It is through the state's violence that the inequality arises. In a system where violence is not centralized into the hands of one entity, the social forces cancel out of an interest in cost-reduction. Violence is only a good solution to conflict, when the risk of it being costly are low, and by monopolizing the legitimization of violence the state is able to unilaterally set the conditions of society. So ideally, the capacity to induce violence would be as evenly distributed as possible, so that there be large individual costs to inducing violence on others, and so that said costs be internalized by the one inducing the violence themselves, rather than put onto others. It's much easier to permit violence when another is doing it on your behalf.
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Largely unrelated to the argument as a whole, but past literature certainly suggests that prison sentences do deter crime, albeit only up to a point.
My criticism of the state isn't merely that it is violent, violence is necessary. My criticism is that it declares itself as the ultimate authority of what violence is and which violence is legitimate.
Now that is interesting. If you don't mind, I'm going to take this off in another direction altogether. I'm not going to debate whether or not the state should be the sole arbitrator of what violence is or is not acceptable; although it's an interesting argument, it tends to spiral out of hand very quickly and come to an impasse when perceptions differ over how fairly humans can restructure themselves. For me, the interesting question (and one I haven't gotten to debate before) here is "is it reasonable to blame the state's monopoly on legitimized violence for unequal land distribution?" I'm still going to argue no, despite the assertion that the rule and its enforcement mechanism are inextricably intertwined. Which leads me to this;
In a system where violence is not centralized into the hands of one entity, the social forces cancel out of an interest in cost-reduction. Violence is only a good solution to conflict, when the risk of it being costly are low, and by monopolizing the legitimization of violence the state is able to unilaterally set the conditions of society.
So ideally, the capacity to induce violence would be as evenly distributed as possible, so that there be large individual costs to inducing violence on others, and so that said costs be internalized by the one inducing the violence themselves, rather than put onto others.
I would make the case that this, in generous terms, a very idealistic concept, for a few reasons.
First, there needs to be a standard for legitimization. If the state is no longer solely in charge of determining rules of what is and what is not legitimate, those standards must be replaced. What would this be accomplished by? Who would be in charge of creating and enforcing these standards? How do we ensure that these standards do not fall under the same problems that are commonly critiqued by advocates, i.e. designed to disadvantage a minority of the population and bring us back to the same issues we have currently?
Second, as you mention, there needs to be a mechanism for ensuring that inducing violence on others comes at a cost. What is that mechanism, and who is in charge of enforcing it? Do we just implement a system where if society feels it was uncalled for, they can retaliate? Or does there have to be more than that? How do we decide what an appropriate cost is for illegitimate forms of violence?
Finally, how do we ensure that the most powerful and capable of enacting violence do not begin to cooperate with each other and simply use their advantage in strength to enforce their will?
I bring all these questions up because, at least to me upon considering it initially, the issue of an unfair placement of so called "legitimized violence" is non-unique. Human beings are corrupt to the point where there is no structure that will prevent the subsumption of more power and authority than intended. Even if you design a system around the failings that have led to the issues within current governmental structures around the world (and it actually initially works), you will soon find that system itself being exploited for the advantage and profit of whoever can. In other words, regardless of what system you attempt to implement, the threat of violence will wind up being used to oppress people for the benefit of others.
