A state does not have the capacity to be trustworthy, to have human relationships, to do good for humans. When we accomplish those things, we do it despite the state.
During COVID, at around the same time that USians were packing into grocery stores to panic-buy toilet paper, the government of Vietnam arranged for groceries to be delivered right to the doorsteps of people in affected areas, completely free of charge, to prevent them from having to leave the house and potentially catch or spread the disease. Later on, Vietnam would actually wind up sending medical aid and supplies to the US to help with the crisis.
Go back 50 years and not a person alive would believe you if you told them that would happen. What has happened in those decades is that Vietnam has recovered from the devastation we inflicted on them and built a functional society, while in the US everything’s been gutted for profit, with emergency supplies being sold off just before the pandemic arrived being only one example.
This assumption that the government will always make people suffer as a condition for helping is not an inherent quality of governments, but of capitalism and the mentalities and philosophies associated with it. It is possible to build a government that actually just helps people and does good things, and I see Vietnam as one example that demonstrates that.
A state is just a tool, and when that tool is in the hands of capitalists it will of course be used in shitty ways. But if the capitalist class can be dealt with and reliably kept out of power, then it’s a question of whether the tool of the state is actually useful to our own ends, and I would argue that it is, that there are many advantages of having a central organ that can collect taxes and fund public works and so on.
During COVID, at around the same time that USians were packing into grocery stores to panic-buy toilet paper, the government of Vietnam arranged for groceries to be delivered right to the doorsteps of people in affected areas, completely free of charge, to prevent them from having to leave the house and potentially catch or spread the disease. Later on, Vietnam would actually wind up sending medical aid and supplies to the US to help with the crisis.
Go back 50 years and not a person alive would believe you if you told them that would happen. What has happened in those decades is that Vietnam has recovered from the devastation we inflicted on them and built a functional society, while in the US everything’s been gutted for profit, with emergency supplies being sold off just before the pandemic arrived being only one example.
This assumption that the government will always make people suffer as a condition for helping is not an inherent quality of governments, but of capitalism and the mentalities and philosophies associated with it. It is possible to build a government that actually just helps people and does good things, and I see Vietnam as one example that demonstrates that.
A state is just a tool, and when that tool is in the hands of capitalists it will of course be used in shitty ways. But if the capitalist class can be dealt with and reliably kept out of power, then it’s a question of whether the tool of the state is actually useful to our own ends, and I would argue that it is, that there are many advantages of having a central organ that can collect taxes and fund public works and so on.