Thanks for taking interest and also the time to comment. I completely agree with your point that the state means less and less as transnational corporations have gained ever more power… And also that historically the state has been an avid supporter and enabler of oppressive global capitalist activity…

Today, we have wealthy countries full of people who are generally politically un-involved and capture of the state by certain powerful (i.e. corporate) interests. Any expectation that the state will do anything of its own accord strikes me as deeply flawed.

If we think of the state as a common property resource, then we admit that it will only function properly to the extent that its user-groups take responsibility for managing it. The state is just an institutional resource (and I believe it is malleable) and we have allowed it to become privatised – i.e. captured by narrow private interests. Unless there is concerted action by citizens/people to reclaim the state – this institutional resource – and to redefine it (and transform it into something else – possibly even dissolving it in the process) we will be stuck with it… So we definitely shouldn’t be just trusting the state to do anything in particular, let alone looking out for public interest. Not that it never will just that it often (usually?) won’t!

Finally, in saying all this I do not mean to say that the only way of transforming society is through the state. I think there is huge value to people creating alternative institutions, polities and economies separate from the state (insofar as possible) that defy the present hideous forms we have and help to undermine them.

By the way, your blog also looks very interesting and I’m presently going through it!

What I mean by that is we already see multinational corporations taking advantage of the fact that they are, well, “multinational” and thus not tied to a single landbase with a single government. A big company isn’t allowed to pollute in the US due to new restrictions on carbon emissions? No problem, we’ll just outsource it to another state whose laws are more lax.

Your statement that “Government, taken – if you will permit me – to its logical conclusion is, essentially, a common resource and it therefore demands the same kind of response as other forms of common resource.” is a beautiful ideal, but it no longer reflects the reality. To quote Ralph Nader, we are no longer living in a democracy of by and for the people, but in a plutocracy “Of the General Motors, By the Exxons, for the Duponts”. The government of the US and many other countries has ceased to function to defend the commons, and in fact is often actively changing the definition of “commons” to refer to “private land”.

The trouble is, the corporation and the state are like a demonic pair of Siamese twins: they’re deeply conjoined, which means that we can’t trust the state to actually look out for the public interest because it’s little more than violence organized on behalf of private interests.

Good!!!

Sumit

I can’t help wondering whether you are feeling that what you post ought to be “meaningful” in some way. I think that stories of what you are doing and what happens to you are very interesting to readers and are of value in themselves.

For example, your feelings about Seva Mandir’s actions are a post that your readers would be interested in hearing about. Why does this make you feel so lost and purposeless? You have given that subject one sentence in this post and yet it is worthy of much more.

So, thank you for posting about this and thanks also for your comments on my blog http://www.changingorganisations.com.

Good luck with finding the muse again! Stephen