The Origins of the StateOriginal language: English
Original publication: 26 February 2024
Written by: Gubrin (Goober)
Translated by: N/A
License of this version: CC0
Other language versions: N/A
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Introduction
As anarchists, self-proclaimed or not, it is very important that we focus on the roots of the state's existence and what specifically led to it's monopoly on violence. Without knowing the source of something it's impossibly to tackle it, I believe this to be common knowledge. In this short historical analysis I shall explain the origins of the state from early civilisations to today through an anarchist's point of view.
Early civilisations
The state is a direct byproduct of civilisations. A civilisation, in general sense, is a group of people with a shared landmass, shared language and a shared culture that didn't specifically have a united state.
Today this term is mostly out of use, relegated to history books. But it's wrong to ignore the knowledge of it's formation.
In short, civilisations were formed by bread. Before the agricultural revolution people all around the world lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Most of the time they constantly switched their area of living because, logically, you go where the food goes. However, this lifestyle caused problems, especially in regions with more harsh conditions. It is impossible for the human body, including the consciousness, to always be on the move.
However, as people found out they can settle and live a general area if they retain a sustainable crop farm, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle died out in areas with lots of water, mainly rivers: Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China.
This change to a settled lifestyle, however, formed a clear hierarchy. Those that either were capable of defending a larger portion of land or had a large family that could work more land than others, became a proto-elite. People that either didn't have good harvests or had little land, or none at all for that matter, would flock to these more successful families, doing basic services for a pay in crops. This in turn formed the first form of currency.
As this continued, large cities formed, most people had jobs in building or farming, and eventually basic bread trade began being replaced with certain objects that could be exchanged for food later - the first monetary systems. The families around which these cities formed became royals - they had enough influence over people to form stable governments, create the first judicial systems, and even expand into other cities. The first ever empires in Mesopotamia could even barely be called empires - it was cities or provinces paying tribute and swearing loyalty to a bigger, central city. Because of that since the dawn of Persia it's emperor's were called "kings of kings". They allowed local rulers and royals that had the most influence to rule as long as they swore royalty. Thus religious freedom appeared for the first time.
The first modern empires
However, this era of city state empires ended with Alexander the Great. He is noted for being one of the first men to form the first vast unitary state. He took many ideas from the predecessor empires and states he conquered, such as Egypt, Sumer, Persia, etc.
This in turn influenced the Roman Empire and it's unitarism.
While there were democratic entities in Greece, such as Athens, Rome was the first one with a more modern system. It even had a temporary position of "dictator", who was, in fact, just a leader elected for 1 year during crisis. Truly goes to show how much the term changed.
Following the rise of Christianity and the hardships Rome faced after that, rule in the empire began splitting more and more between the West and East, eventually officially splitting. Soon Western Rome fell, starting the Dark Ages. Statehood radically changed in that period.
The Dark Ages and the Early Medieval Period
Throughout most of the Dark Ages states were weak, disunited, and constantly screwed over by cultural shifts. Italy changed hands multiple times, the English States could barely form an army to defend against Viking invaders, and Germania was disunited.
The only stable state in that period was Byzantium, but even then it faced enemies in Persia, and by the 9th century was subject to Bulgarian and Ruś invasions.
That all changed with Charlemagne, Karolus Magnus, the father of modern Europe, the point of contention between France, Belgium, Germany and Czechia, whatever you want to call him.
He is notable because he managed to create a unified state from Catalonia to Hungary. He was the man that revived Rome in the West, held nomads off and was the first ruler to actually secure his realm and keep it such, Debatably ever since Caesar.
And then he died, one string of incompetent rulers and a treaty of Verdun later, and we got 3 Francias, the middle one falling due to its sheer diversity. With that the era of Feudalism began.
Feudalism
During this era states were less states than they were private property. There were kings, dukes, emperors, but sometimes they didn't even compete in power to landlords.
This in turn came with lots of opression of the peasantry. They were subject to inhumane conditions for almost no pay. These nobles and landlords could even topple whole kingdoms, which was apparent the most in Italy. The Holy Roman Emperor could do nothing about it because of the Alps, and the nobles in Italy were free to do whatever they wanted. Truly free market capitalism at its finest.
And it wasn't the Holy Roman Empire, similar disputes and opression existed in France, England, and even the Ruś. In the latter it was especially a problem because over the years it was less of a state and more of a group of states that sometimes united against a common enemy in between constant wars. And that same latter would be forever changed with a single invasion.
The Mongol Empire
The Mongols, despite murdering millions of people, we're extremely lenient once they got to rule. Their rule was mainly focused on cities paying tribute to the main city - Karakorum, they employed the use of local leaders to do their bidding, and they didn't care about what you were as long as you paid tribute and didn't break the laws, of which there were few. Sound familiar? The first stage Mongolia formed was just like the ancient civilisation empires. And just like these empires it's regions and vassals began delving into centralism and absolutism. This detail will be crucial to our conclusion.
At the same time the Mongols did bring a lot of unifying factors: they created one of the first post systems ever and their empire was safe enough that a woman with no clothes and a plate of gold could cross from one end of the empire to the other with nothing to be worried over.
Soon specific regions like the Golden Horde and Chagatai began turning to authoritarian measures, and that eventually led to the Empire's collapse.
However these ideas of absolute rule and centralisation did pass on to the Empire's vassals, and one of such vassals would go on to form the largest state ever.
The Rise of Russia
While most of Europe stayed the same during this period, Russia revolutionised the knowledge of what a state is in the East. With it's unitary policies the Boyar Class eventually became a state-aligned aristocracy instead of independent landlords like they were before, and eventually fell out of prominence.
Russia, formed by the Grand Principality of Moscow, had ambitions to unite the Ruś and beyond, and for a long time seemed to be on a steady course to success. However, times of troubles changed that for a bit, and now Russia was the one behind Europe. While Russia didn't have a Tsar Europe began it's rampant modernisation and unification (except for Germany and Italy of course). Russia only got back up because of Peter the Great.
After Peter's reforms Russia began it's course towards being a modern state again, but yet again got set back in the 19th century because of the suppression of the Decembrist Revolt and the subsequent reaction aimed at killing the remains of the French Revolution that ended up hurting most people instead.
This reaction was sometimes halted by acts like the abolition of Serfdom, but it was then substituted with borderline bans on minority cultures.
This combined with a streak of incompetent or quickly dead leaders led to the revolution and the USSR.
Under the USSR Russia had it's highs, it's lows, but still remained quick to modernise and stay a major power.
Modern Russia under "Moscow's rat" took elements out of all these periods for pragmatism's sake, but ended up oppressing it's own people and escalating wars in the process. While I am not the type of person to discredit Russia's Slavic culture as "Mongolic", I believe it would be plain old ignorance to say that Modern Russia's political system and sympathies to Eurasianism weren't influenced directly or indirectly by the Mongol Empire.
The French Revolution
I mentioned this event in the previous chapter, so I will briefly talk about it. During the revolution France didn't fall into Anarchy in a political sense, it fell into Anarchy in a moral and physical one. Thousands of people died for a cause that, I admit, was good.
One great thing for the state that came out of it was Napoleon.
Napoleon's Empire
Napoleon Bonaparte was the master of Europe. In just less than a decade he dismantled multiple old systems like the HRE, brought civil liberties to all, notably except women, and sped up the effects of the Enlightenment, which by then were growing and were a natural cause for Nationalism and revoluionary ideals.
At the same time he was an autocratic leader with a bit of overconfidence on his shoulder. One failed invasion of Russia later he was overthrown, he tried to come back but failed in a hundred days, and after his death certainly influencing everything from culture to politics, but becoming just a page of history.
The USA and it's evolution
In the first few decades of it's existence the USA was an anarchist's utopia: Little to no government, personal liberties, fairly open economy and such.
However as the 19th century progressed it briefly went through a phase of borderline dictatorship under Lincoln, whom, I must admit, was a benevolent leader that did a lot of good, and then went back to a slightly more centralised democracy.
As WW1 ended the horrors of Wilsonianism were unleashed onto the world: Interventions, unnecessary utopic globalism and shitty borders galore. The imperialist foundation of Wilsonianism influences the modern foreign policy of the USA to this day.
Throughout the late 20th century and the current one the USA has faced a lot of hardships, and, despite political polarisation and instability, remains a powerful state, but it's position as such is rapidly declining, note this fact down too.
Conclusion
As we see from these events, no matter the historical era or culture, the state generally follows this cycle:
- A state is created, it's decentralised and lenient
- It devolves into autocracy and opression
- This autocracy is either followed by collapse or by radical decentralisation and rule by the rich
- This is either replaced by a democracy or by another dictatorship
- The state inevitably collapses and turns either into a new one or ceases to exist entirely (this stage can be achieved right after the 4th stage)
It's very clear that the state in general is built upon suppression, violence and autocracy.
So, how can we use this in modern foreign policy? Well, it's clear that the USA and Russia in their current states won't survive this century, but China might. I didn't dedicate a chapter to it because it alone would make up half of the analysis, but it's important to mention that it went through this cycle every century up until now, so, if it collapses, it will just rise again.
Hopefully as the cycle ends for the great powers a new era of liberty and anarchism will arise.