With regards to the interesting but somewhat unclear discussion of the
relationship of State to "economy" and the idea of social anarchy ...

It is interesting to note that the idea that capitalist production is or
should be "anarchic", i.e. that the market will and ought to regulate
itself, is not really present in the foundational theories of capitalist
economics ... it emerges later as a reaction to socialism and Marxism on
the part of capitalist apologists.  Adam Smith, for instance, believed
that governments ought not to interfere too heavily in the workings of the
market not because the market was its own end, but because  by doing so
they could  make the market serve the ends of government.  Politics was
always the real game, and there was no notion that markets could  somehow
exist in a vacuum to serve the greater interests of humanity.  Markets had
their own functional logic,  to be sure, and heavy-handed and arbitrary
intervention could only impede that, but when the functioning of the
market interfered with the  ends of politics, it was only reasonable,
according to Smith, for politics to  take precedence.

        Thus the framers of the American constitution, for instance, gave
Congress the power to regulate commerce ... even at the expense of
individual economic liberty.  The discussion of banks in your earlier
post  is interesting in light of the fact  that "democratic" banking
practices were the first to go  under the new constitutional regime ...
under the John Marshall court, the federal government (orchestrated by
Alexander Hamilton) established the right of Congress to protect the  Bank
of the United States at the expense of local and state banks  ... the
interest to be preserved here was not ann "anarchic" or otherwise "free"
marketplace, but a  deliberately integrated interstate economy which would
serve the interests of the national government.

        The simple fact of the matter is  that no  matter how  powerful
international capital becomes in the world, the financial organization of
property ALWAYS  depends on the protection of political power for its
existence.  The  idea that somehow markets are beyond or above politics is
simply an ideological product of the bourgeois reaction to communism,
nationalism, democractic socialism, and any other attempt to use the
organs of politics to protect any set of interests other than those of the
class which owns property.  One need not be a Marxist or even a liberal
sympathizer to  understand that the functioning of economy is always
dependent upon political power and thus never "anarchist" in the sense
that I understand that word.

        That being said, it is true that we live in a world where the
international economy has become so complex that it is  very difficult for
national governments (many of which are in serious financial debt to
international finance) to act in any independent and effective way.
Increasing "economic growth" has become such  a powerful motivating force
that it is almost the only aim of government ...  and since this growth
seems to require working within,  rather than against, the international
financial system, we  see a general trend  towards "market-based" politics
around the world, even in ostensibly state-centered economies like China
... I think much of this impression, however, is just the result of
post-cold-war misunderstandings of the international  system ... the fall
of "Communism" has convinced many that free market capitalism is an
inherently,  objectively "superior" system even though the most successful
states in  the present system ... the fast-growing east asian economies
... are using essentially mercantilist policies, with heavy state
intervention and careful, close cooperation between the trade policies of
governments and the particular interests of key industries and
oligopolistic corporations.  Anybody who  calls  this market "free" is
smoking too much crack (bought on the black market, shipped in by the CIA,
produced  and marketed by latin american guerrilla/gangsters, protected
by arms originally provided by the international communist conspiracy, etc
....)


peace,
 m@2

"You're not really in love with yourself - you're just in love with the
idea of being in love with yourself"

        - said to me by one of the two little fellas who hang out on
either of my shoulders ... I can't remember which ...