Multi-polar power

So a couple of things:

I was listening to an interview about Marxist Leo Panitch's work, in particular his thoughts on the status of the United States and his belief that it is not at all a state or empire in decline.

Also read a chunk of "Climate Leviathan" today, in a way on a similar theme in terms at least of state power. Wainwright and Mann posit (as I read them anyway) that the ultimate error or original sin of Liberalism is that it sees the State and "the Market" as the only "actors" who can shape societies and their material reality. That is, we live in a bipolar world where either the state "makes space" for "the free market" or it steps in and "crowds out" the market. Their point is that there are other potential poles or actors. This is related to the "dual power" theory of libertarian socialists, but for some reason I understand it differently the way Wainwright and Mann frame it. Which is to say it seems less utopian and more just common sense.

This might be partially due to seeing the Australian formal political responses to COVID-19 and energy policy. In both cases the states have effectively sidelined the federal level of government by simply acting as if they are irrelevant rather than waiting for them to act or decide policy. Obviously that's still state power, but it's still instructive. The state doesn't need to "whither away" completely and we can hold an effective antagonistic relationship with capitalists and markets without necessarily engaging with the state, at least directly. The thing that seems tricky (see below) is how to live in a "failed state" situation without it turning into Mad Max or Somalia.

The last thing to note today is Wainwright and Mann's assertion that state military power is ultimately about "forcing other states to recognise [a state]". That is, what states are defending themselves against is not an attack or invasion per se, but rather their delegitimisation. They defend not so much their territory as their legitimacy. This seems important for reasons I need to think about more - I've seen what happened to Rojova when the United States no longer had a use for them, and that seems problematic for other "anarchist states". But I wonder if there are "domestic" ramifications here. Kind of like those places where "the Police are too scared to go". They could be hellscapes of violent machismo and gang warfare. But they could, possibly, be something else entirely.