Some reflections of Henry David Thoreau’s book on Civil Disobedience - K.I.
Henry David Thoreau puts forward the discussion of the state as well as his conception about the discussion or debate over individual right and majority right. Thoreau is a proponent of less government function of civil society in that he say “The government is best which governs least” [p.5] He further says “government is best which governs not at all.”. He sees the state as separate entity that of the people, thus does not see the state as a product of class struggle and contradiction being an apparatus dominated and controlled by those classes who owns the means in production. His thinking is closer to Mikhail Bakunin who thinks that “Marxists maintain that only a dictatorship — their dictatorship, of course — can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.” Both presupposes run counter to the primacy of material condition that determines cognitive function or that concept of tabula rasa which points to the fact that people being are born out of the environment they are in. The inner argument by Thoreau is hinged more on the supposition posed by Kant and had given new face when he expounded on the point of individual right. He then poses a question is the individual right correct amid majority rights? His reference is conscience. However my question is where do conscience comes from? Would conscience pop up out of no where from mere abstraction or cognition? Or conscience is a reflection of ones interest and to be specific, class interest which is a mere reflection on one’s relation in the means of production. Definitely the conscience of a capitalist (the one that has the capital is to buy more labor and squeeze people’s labor over time to gain more profit.) is different from those who sell their labor. The point is this, conscience do not pop out of nowhere. It has a material basis and that even individual consciousness and conscience is reflective to ones relation to the means (work). Now, I see the preposition of Thoreau problematic when now seen how he approaches on handling the issues of state. Is state separate from the people? Or the state is also a mere reflection of class domination. This fine line had been a debate from the time on after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and in the Second International. Lenin argued that thestate cannot operate in a vacuum. The state is as I have said before in class discussion is a representation of one class. In particular in an epoch of capitalism it is dominated and controlled by a few monopoly capitalist who exercises power over the majority, the workers and middle classes. So being, I argue that the state as a non-neutral ground can be changed by the dictatorship of the majority. Pundits of laizzes-faire and capitalist argue that present dictatorship of monopoly capitalist is the rule of the majority (democracy) whi is only ruled by a few in actuality and that socialism, the dictatorship of the majority is never democratic! They have carried further of painting socialism as a political concept when it fact it is by nature an economic concept! Since we are in the discourse of non-violence I would like to pose is the question is state a non-violent entity in its nature and character based on the historical circumstance it emerged? Or it is a machinery to regulate class contradiction in a given epoch? In general I agree with the supposition to have disobey the state through concerted action like not paying taxes or denying dominant classes in power to exploit labor of lower classes by getting their money, I think the strategic issue would still be, what is the alternative? I think this is apt for now.
