Roller Coaster Caught Flashing

The implosion of the State Date: 01-10-2007Sección: ActualidadAutor: Miguel Angel Perez Pirela

The implosion of the State
Miguel Ángel Pérez PirelaInvestigador the Institute for Advanced Studies-IDEA
No offense to anyone it is necessary to highlight that our current Constitution lies in some of the articles claims that could be branded by many - the best - and jokes - at worst - as mere irony. We refer in particular to Article 141 of the present Constitution. In the same state is defined as an entity that "is based on the principles of honesty, participation, speed, effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, accountability and responsibility in the exercise of public office." Facing a this conclusion is not but wonder: is not this the state which coexists with the people every day?, or end, is this the image that citizens have the state?
There is no doubt about the negative response of most Venezuelans to these questions. But there are no doubts about the fact that the proposed amendment to the Constitution lays down precisely this problem: we are called imperative to change the state we have. Of course, we can not make such an undertaking without first asking what the state we want to change, what we state, and finally, yes indeed we are ever State.
To respond to all this we must put ourselves in the seventeenth century and bring it up to Thomas Hobbes and his definition of the modern state. The author imagined a state of nature in which each man is absolutely sovereign and free. According to this fiction, in this initial situation everyone could do whatever he wanted. Clearly this would result in a war of all against all who would no more to anarchy (homo hominis lupus). It is precisely this situation that comes against the State: each transferred their freedom and individual sovereignty to a third party (State), provided that the latter would ensure a peaceful coexistence with other individuals.
The problem is that the state sponsored by individuals - to create rules in favor of live and manage the collective - has increasingly become a monster separate from the people that transferred the authority to exercise power. It is precisely the source of much-criticized bureau-cratic state and technocrats. Ie a state that gives the power (Greek crater), on the one hand to the bureaucracy, the bureau (French, desktop), and secondly, those who have the knowledge or technology. In other words, we are facing a state that monopolizes power in a set of political and technical grouped into a professional body.
What can we do to change that Modern state theorized almost half a millennium ago?
To end the state described above one of the most plausible is that of implosion. We have to topple the state from her womb, and what better way than changing its rules: here is essentially the logic that is part of the proposed amendment to the Constitution. It is at this point that makes sense in the idea of \u200b\u200ba People's Power "not born of suffrage or any election but is born of the condition of organized human groups" (art. 136 proposed). Under the proposal no longer then the people who will transfer their power to state, but the people themselves will manage part of the power through "forms of self-government. Here is the epicenter of the issue.
But constitutionally enact useless power in the hands of the people if at the same time, this power is not exercised daily, organized people on "communities, communes and self-government of cities through the communal councils, workers, peasants, students ...". (Art. 136 proposed).
In light of what has been said, the proposed constitutional amendment would then be an open door or a minimum condition to make it easier the way the people in their struggle for the reappropriation of power. But beware! By no means the People's decree may be considered the end point the colossal and historic marathon popular sovereignty. Do not forget that many times the power enacted in the hands of all became the power in the hands of none, ie some.