Statism

Statism (French; étatisme) is a term typically used by libertarians usually describing a political philosophy, whether of the right or the left, that emphasizes the role of the state in politics or supports the use of the state to achieve economic, military or social goals. People who believe that the state is either good or necessary are called statists.

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The state, society and the individual

Some statist analyses use a dichotomy between state and society, viewing the state as a homogeneous institution capable of using political power to force policy on a passive or resisting society. Such an analysis depends on an elitist theory of power rather than a pluralist theory of power; that power is exercised by individuals and competing organisations within society.[1]

Right-wing authoritarianism, on the other hand, views a strong, authoritative state as required to legislate or enforce traditional morality and cultural practices. The ideology of statism espoused by fascism holds that sovereignty is not vested in the people but in the nation state, and that all individuals and associations exist only to enhance the power, prestige and well-being of the state. It repudiates individualism and exalts the nation as an organic body headed by the Supreme Leader and nurtured by unity, force, and discipline. Fascism and some forms of corporatism extol the moral position that the corporate group, usually the state, is greater than the sum of its parts and that individuals have a moral obligation to serve the state.

Economic statism

Economic statism promotes the view that the state has a major and legitimate role in directing the economy, either directly through state-owned enterprises and other types of machinery of government, or indirectly through economic planning.[2] The term statism is sometimes used to refer to state capitalism or highly-regulated market economies with large amounts of government intervention, regulation or public ownership over industry. It is also used to refer to state socialism or co-operative economic systems that rely upon state ownership as a means of running industry. Economic interventionism asserts that the state has a legitimate or necessary role within the framework of a capitalist economy by correcting market failures, promoting economic growth and/or low levels of unemployment. State socialism refers to any socialist political movement that advocates the use of the state apparatus as a strategy for building a socialist society (or for achieving a socialist revolution), either through nationalization or through a Vanguardist dictatorship of the proletariat.

Notes

  1. ^ Timothy Mitchell (March 1991). "The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics". The American Political Science Review 85 (1): 75–96. JSTOR 1962879. "The state has always been difficult to define. Its boundary with society appears elusive, porous, and mobile. I argue that this elusiveness should not be overcome by sharper definitions, but explored as a clue to the state's nature. Analysis of the literature shows that neither rejecting the state in favor of such concepts as the political system, nor « bringing it back in », has dealt with this boundary problem. The former approach founders on it, the latter avoids it by a narrow idealism that construes the state-society distinction as an external relation between subjective and objective entities. A third approach, presented here can account for both the salience of the state and its elusiveness. Reanalyzing evidence presented by recent theorists, state-society boundaries are shown to be distinctions erected internally, as an aspect of more complex power relations. Their appearance can be historically traced to technical innovations of the modern social order, whereby methods of organization and control internal to the social processes they govern create the effect of a state structure external to those processes" 
  2. ^ Jones, R. J. Barry. "STATISM." Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy. 1st. Volume 3. New York, New York: Taylor & Francis, 2001. Print.

See also