Current Events > Do leftists want to consolidate more power to the state?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Is that what being a leftist essentially is? Giving more control of economic and social mechanisms to the state because they believe the government can more effectively manage to create better outcomes for the overall population?

And if thats the case, is there a bit of blind trust involved here? The state is a human institution, susceptible to manipulation and exploit as we have seen countless times in history. And unlike other institutions, its much more difficult to resist the state because of its monopoly on violence. Im not sure how I feel about it
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I think they want the government to take care of them, but not tell them what to do
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Not all leftists are statists. Leftists are opposed to the consolidation of private power in the hands of the wealthy, and while many view the state as the natural counterbalance, there are alternate theories on how best to keep wealth from concentrating in the hands of the few. Syndicalists and anarchists, for example, posit non-state means of public control.
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Kazi1212 posted...

is there a bit of blind trust involved here

100%. Because many believe they are on "the right side of history", they cannot even FATHOM the possibility of a right wing government taking control once they've consolidated power into the government. "Who cares if you give up free speech, OUR words will never be banned." "We can deplatform whoever we want, because WE'RE the good guys" etc etc
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Antifar posted...

Not all leftists are statists. Leftists are opposed to the consolidation of private power in the hands of the wealthy, and while many view the state as the natural counterbalance, there are alternate theories on how best to keep wealth from concentrating in the hands of the few. Syndicalists and anarchists, for example, posit non-state means of public control.

True, Im probably more classified as a leftist anarchist if you had to put a gun to my head. But it seems all the leftists here are more statist
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@Antifar would you classify yourself as a statist?
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The state has more counters to it than the corporation does. If the state tries to seize too much power, there can be a range of responses from voting them out to full blown revolution.

Corporations can consolidate power through bribery/corruption, giving them some level of protection by the state and none of the vulnerability of being an elected official.

Who do you "overthrow" if the people in power aren't in a position to be overthrown?

That being said, a balance would be where the state seeks to protect consumer and environment while being under heavy scrutiny by the people for signs of corruption.
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Kazi1212 posted...

Is that what being a leftist essentially is?

No.

ZMythos posted...

The state has more counters to it than the corporation does. If the state tries to seize too much power, there can be a range of responses from voting them out to full blown revolution.

Theres a range of responses to any institutional force, but I would say the state has the ultimate trump card by its monopoly on violence. That is what makes it most formidable to resist. States have committed unjust violence over and over in history whether attacking foreign populations or their own. While private institutions are certainly culpable in this, it seems reasonable to conclude the state is the bigger driving factor.

Who do you "overthrow" if the people in power aren't in a position to be overthrown?

I think when inevitably one day a new system of human collectivization outside of the nation-state model is in place, it will come to be not because something was overthrown or resisted, but because it happened organically. But Im rambling
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