Statism
Statism (French; étatisme) is a term used by political scientists to describe the belief that, for whatever reason, a government should control either economic or social policy or both to some degree.[1][2][3][4] Statism is effectively the opposite of anarchism.[4][1][2][3] Statism can take many forms. Minarchists prefer a minimal or night watchman state to protect people from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud with military, police, and courts.[5][6][7][8] Some may also include fire departments, prisons, and other functions.[5][6][7][8] Totalitarians prefer a maximum or all encompassing state.[9][10][11][12][13]Limited government, welfare state, and other options make up the middle territory of the scale of statism.[14][15] Some anarchists use the term statist in a derogatory sense.[16][17][18]
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[edit] State, society and individuals
Some statist analyses use a dichotomy between state and society, viewing the state as a homogeneous institution capable of using political power to force policy on a passive or resisting society. Such an analysis depends on an elitist theory of power rather than a pluralist theory of power; that power is exercised by individuals and competing organisations within society.[19]
Right-wing authoritarianism, on the other hand, views a strong, authoritative state as required to legislate or enforce traditional morality and cultural practices. The ideology of statism espoused by fascism holds that sovereignty is not vested in the people but in the nation state, and that all individuals and associations exist only to enhance the power, prestige and well-being of the state. It repudiates individualism and exalts the nation as an organic body headed by the Supreme Leader and nurtured by unity, force, and discipline.[citation needed] Fascism and some forms of corporatism extol the moral position that the corporate group, usually the state, is greater than the sum of its parts and that individuals have a moral obligation to serve the state.[citation needed]
[edit] Economic statism
Economic statism promotes the view that the state has a major and legitimate role in directing the economy, either directly through state-owned enterprises and other types of machinery of government, or indirectly through economic planning.[20] The term statism is sometimes used to refer to state capitalism or highly-regulated market economies with large amounts of government intervention, regulation or public ownership over industry. It is also used to refer to state socialism or co-operative economic systems that rely upon state ownership as a means of running industry.[citation needed] Economic interventionism asserts that the state has a legitimate or necessary role within the framework of a capitalist economy by correcting market failures, promoting economic growth and/or low levels of unemployment.[citation needed] State socialism refers to any socialist political movement that advocates the use of the state apparatus as a strategy for building a socialist society (or for achieving a socialist revolution), either through nationalization or through a workers' state based on workers' councils.[citation needed]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Levy, Jonah D (2006). The State After Statism: New State Activities in the Age of Liberalization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 469. ISBN 9780674022768.
- ^ a b Obadare, Ebenezer (2010). Statism, Youth, and Civic Imagination: A Critical Study of the National Youth Service Corps Programme in Nigeria. Dakar Senegal: Codesria. ISBN 9782869783034.
- ^ a b {{Cite book Kvistad, Gregg (1999). The Rise and Demise of German Statism: Loyalty and Political Membership. Providence [u.a.]: Berghahn Books. ISBN 9781571811615.
- ^ a b Bakunin, Mikhail (1990). Statism and Anarchy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521361828.
- ^ a b Machan, T (2002). "Anarchism and Minarchism: A Rapprochement". Journal Des Economistes et Des Etudes Humaines 12: 569–569–588. ISSN 1145-6396.
- ^ a b Block, W (2007). "Anarchism and Minarchism No Rapprochment Possible: Reply to Tibor Machan". The Journal of Libertarian Studies 21 (1): 61–61–90. ISSN 0363-2873.
- ^ a b Long, Roderick (2008). Anarchism Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754660668.
- ^ a b Parker, Martin (2010). The Dictionary of Alternatives Utopianism and Organisation. London, England: Zed. ISBN 9781849727341.
- ^ Arendt, Hannah (1966). The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace & World.
- ^ Cernak, Linda (2011). Totalitarianism. Edina, MN: ABDO. ISBN 9781617147951.
- ^ Friedrich, Carl (1964). Totalitarianism. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
- ^ Gleason, Abbott (1995). Totalitarianism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195050172.
- ^ Schapiro, Leonard (1972). Totalitarianism. New York: Praeger.
- ^ Friedrich, Carl (1974). Limited Government: A Comparison. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 9780135371671.
- ^ Marx, Herbert (1950). The Welfare State. New York: Wilson.
- ^ Rand, Ayn (1962). "War and Peace". The Objectivist Newsletter 1 (1): pp. 224. http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AR01N. Retrieved January 06, 2012.
- ^ Hornberger,Jacob G (May 18, 2011). "Libertarianism versus Statism". Freedom Daily (Fairfax, Virginia). http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd1101a.asp. Retrieved January 06, 2012.
- ^ Varwig, Jules (August 25, 2001). "Statist Libertarians". Anti-State.com. http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=52. Retrieved January 06, 2012.
- ^ Timothy Mitchell (March 1991). "The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics". The American Political Science Review 85 (1): 75–96. JSTOR 1962879. "The state has always been difficult to define. Its boundary with society appears elusive, porous, and mobile. I argue that this elusiveness should not be overcome by sharper definitions, but explored as a clue to the state's nature. Analysis of the literature shows that neither rejecting the state in favor of such concepts as the political system, nor « bringing it back in », has dealt with this boundary problem. The former approach founders on it, the latter avoids it by a narrow idealism that construes the state-society distinction as an external relation between subjective and objective entities. A third approach, presented here can account for both the salience of the state and its elusiveness. Reanalyzing evidence presented by recent theorists, state-society boundaries are shown to be distinctions erected internally, as an aspect of more complex power relations. Their appearance can be historically traced to technical innovations of the modern social order, whereby methods of organization and control internal to the social processes they govern create the effect of a state structure external to those processes"
- ^ Jones, R. J. Barry. "STATISM." Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy. 1st. Volume 3. New York, New York: Taylor & Francis, 2001. Print.
