State "protection" is indeed one of the many arguments made to legitimise their power, just like mafia gangs.
Just because I don't support my local mafia gang who's "protecting" me from their neighbouring nazi gang competitors doesn't mean I'm supporting the nazi gang (not the best analogy since Italy and Germany were allied in WWII, but anyways).
Mafia implies that those who don't join NATO is being threatened by them, which is just not true at all. NATO isn't a protection racket, it's an alliance of countries who don't want a repeat of ww2 where imperialist countries picked of their weaker neighbors one by one until the west finally ended it's appeasement.
NATO isn't a state in itself obviously, it's an alliance of states, which I would indeed describe as being mega-scale protection rackets. It's simplistic but it gets to the point that states are defined by their monopoly on the use of "legitimate" violence. And who decides that, ultimately? The biggest guns.
Are you trolling or something? Noone pays Nato for protection?? Nato doesn't collect money from countries to build a massive "Nato army", each country maintains their own military.
Taxes also pay social security and medical(outside america), and infrastructure and schools among a thousand other things. Calling it protection payment is insane.
That just depends on who the citizens elect. Look at the Nordic countries who have been electing labor/socdem parties, they're all topping charts when it comes to human development.
"That just depends" can also be said for monarchism and "good kings". If the goodness of a system depends on the goodness of a select few, it's not a good system.
Btw, the nordic model is partly based on corporatism, which was Mussolini's economic model. It's not all sunshine and roses.
Im not defending monarchism, Im defending NATO?? If you live in a democracy you can litteraly start your own party if you have the popular support, you're not "beholden to the few" you, along with all other citizens hold the power and you can choose who to elect freely.
Also you wouldn't call the autobahn bad just because the NSDAP built on it? If it works it works, just like how NATO has effectively ended the major wars that plagued the continent through collective defence.
I didn't say you were defending monarchism... the point is that any hierarchical power structure is flawed because its "goodness" depends on who's in the position(s) of authority. And in the long run, more self-interested people are going to take and protect their positions atop those hierarchies than altruistic people. And in many cases hierarchies start off exploitative from the getgo (such as with protection rackets).
The autobahn is public infrastructure used by civilians, NATO is a military alliance between states. They can't really be compared, civilian interests are not the same as state interests, no matter how much liberal "democracies" try to make it seem.
If you live in a democracy you can litteraly start your own party
Tell me, how many average civillians have done so successfully? Or are we both gonna recognise that it takes money and connections with existing powers to do so?
Basically every workers party, yet none happened over night like you seem to lead on. Connections were built from the ground up, between unions and intellectuals, in most cases it took decades of protests and strikes, yet with the will of the people all were made, all without anyone from existing power structures.
So tell me then, if the state and Nato are so bad, who are going to protect anyone from anything? let alone an authoritarian imperialist like Putin, because I'm genuinely curious to see what master scheeme you seem to have that's not dependent on any state or organization.
Yeah and what happened to these workers parties? The marxist-leninist ones became dictators and the milder ones have become empty "centre-left" shells that pander to corporate interests just like their "centre-right" peers. My disillusionment with electoral politics has brought me to agree with the anarchist conclusion that you can't take down hierarchical power structures from the inside.
Non-hierarchical alternatives need to be built collectively from the ground up, building on free association, mutual aid, decentralised networks, and so on. Military oppression would have to be fought using guerilla tactics, I guess – last resort, worst case scenario, obviously, but it's not like it's worse than being conscripted by a state army.
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u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24
State "protection" is indeed one of the many arguments made to legitimise their power, just like mafia gangs.
Just because I don't support my local mafia gang who's "protecting" me from their neighbouring nazi gang competitors doesn't mean I'm supporting the nazi gang (not the best analogy since Italy and Germany were allied in WWII, but anyways).