The separation of civilization and state
 

traditionally, we have three basic forms of social power-- "sovereignty, administration, and heroic politics" --and recently, administration and sovereignty have been "fused" to form the basis of modern government
 
however, Graeber and Wengrow also note (431) that "there are now planetary bureaucracies (public and private, ranging from the IMF and WTO to J. P. Morgan Chase and various credit-rating agencies) without anything that recembles a corresponding field of global sovereignty or global field of competitive [heroic] politics," ultimately "undermining the sovereignty of states"
 
"Where we once assumed 'civilization' and 'state' to be conjoined entities that came down to us as a historical package (take it or leave it, forever), what history now demonstrates is that these terms actually refer to complex amalgams of elements which have entirely different origins and which are currently in the process of drifting apart"

> from David Graeber and David Wengrow's Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021)

> tagged with #politics, #zeitgeist, #bureaucracy, #power, #government

> created March 4, 2026 at 10:50:31 AM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

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