What do you think?
Rate this book
The State
The state is neither an inevitable, nor natural, phenomenon, but the creation of despots. Its history is a history of power, wealth and tyranny. The immortality of the state is the greatest myth of our society. Anthropologist Harold Barclay explains how a powerful elite has hijacked control of society. Through control of agriculture, warfare, trade, labor and other resources the state has seized complete power. Do we really need the state or should we organize society ourselves?
110 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
3 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Harold Barclay
15 books6 followersHarold Barclay is a professor in anthropology at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. His research has focussed on rural society in modern Egypt and the northern Arab Sudan as well as political anthropology and anthropology of religion. He is also commonly acknowledged as a notable writer in anarchist theory.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 21, 2010
This was a really wonderful concise introduction to what the state is, how it evolved, and what its essential function is.
(The argument that I read in here was later confirmed in of all things a comparative government class where we learned that unlike Western political theory teaches us (from Locke and on) in reality the state did not evolve from a common compact but from war and the threat of war.)
(The argument that I read in here was later confirmed in of all things a comparative government class where we learned that unlike Western political theory teaches us (from Locke and on) in reality the state did not evolve from a common compact but from war and the threat of war.)
July 10, 2023
A model of clear thinking and writing, which explains simply what the state is and how it:
'arose out of a rank type society through the interaction of eleven significant elements (population, sedentary settlement, horticulture/agriculture, redistribution, military organisation, the secondary significance of kinship, trading, specialised division of labour, individual property and control of resources, hierarchic social order, and an ideology of superiority/inferiority).'
It also contains many useful criticisms of alternate popular theories of state formation, such as the Marxist one. I would have given it 5 stars were it not for its sharp turn into anarchist la-la land in the last chapter ('Could one of the motives for the space programs be the search for another 'evil empire'....?') in which it doubles down hard on some of the essay's animating ideas that 'the peoples of the world have been hoodwinked into embracing the state' and how evil the state is because it is essentially despotic and designed for war.
I find the anarchist critique of the state preemenintly useful but its own solution, that we turn our backs on the state forthwith, strangely adolescent. First, there is no suggestion that its citizens, rather than being mindless slaves or cowed prisoners, have intelligently bought into the state's ideology in order to further their own needs and interests. Second, before outright dismissal, there is no serious investigation of how or even whether the state could be repurposed for good, or at least, greater good.
After 100 pages of excellent, arresting pedagogy, the last chapter has an unsatisfying tacked-on, lukewarm feel, as if it were written to satisfy the Anarchist publisher. Like many dreary leftists, though Barclay himself is certainly not dreary, he succeeds in showing that the state is evil, but he doesn't prove that it is the most evil of the practical options available to an overpopulated world.
'arose out of a rank type society through the interaction of eleven significant elements (population, sedentary settlement, horticulture/agriculture, redistribution, military organisation, the secondary significance of kinship, trading, specialised division of labour, individual property and control of resources, hierarchic social order, and an ideology of superiority/inferiority).'
It also contains many useful criticisms of alternate popular theories of state formation, such as the Marxist one. I would have given it 5 stars were it not for its sharp turn into anarchist la-la land in the last chapter ('Could one of the motives for the space programs be the search for another 'evil empire'....?') in which it doubles down hard on some of the essay's animating ideas that 'the peoples of the world have been hoodwinked into embracing the state' and how evil the state is because it is essentially despotic and designed for war.
I find the anarchist critique of the state preemenintly useful but its own solution, that we turn our backs on the state forthwith, strangely adolescent. First, there is no suggestion that its citizens, rather than being mindless slaves or cowed prisoners, have intelligently bought into the state's ideology in order to further their own needs and interests. Second, before outright dismissal, there is no serious investigation of how or even whether the state could be repurposed for good, or at least, greater good.
After 100 pages of excellent, arresting pedagogy, the last chapter has an unsatisfying tacked-on, lukewarm feel, as if it were written to satisfy the Anarchist publisher. Like many dreary leftists, though Barclay himself is certainly not dreary, he succeeds in showing that the state is evil, but he doesn't prove that it is the most evil of the practical options available to an overpopulated world.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews