Starting tomorrow I'll be running a series of posts devoted to a critique of the Marxian idea of a future stateless utopia. The focus of the series will be, not on attacking the idea of utopia as such (my view about which may be found here - though in an unauthorized version full of typos), but on seeking to lay to rest the notion that a complex society without a state, in the Marxist meaning, might be possible.
Some of you will not want to bother with this, whether because you feel you already know, as being patently obvious, that that is not possible, or because you can in any case think of many better uses for your time. Either way, the best of luck to you. Here at normblog I've developed an easy-come, easy-go, policy of allowing readers to choose which posts to read and which to omit - completely at will.
However, three reasons for those of you who might want to bother to indeed bother are these. (1) An interest in the history of ideas in general and/or of Marxist ideas in particular. (2) An interest in the simple logical exercise of testing the notion of a modern stateless utopia. (3) Something rather looser which I will only be able to explain at the end of the series of posts here being advertised and which is of more immediate political relevance: all I will say for now is that it has to do with the tendency there is with some on the left to discount or belittle the virtues of liberal democracy.
This series of posts is drawn from an academic paper of mine and is therefore more formal in presentation and argument than the generality of my posts.
It begins tomorrow: 'How Free?' - a normblog exclusive.