Originally Posted by
MallsRGood
Spending relative GDP has increased by nearly an order of magnitude, to give one metric.
Irrelevant metric. technology has increased production and GDP is a meaningless number for anything other than teh most general sense. The point is that the nature of the state hasn't changed.
It doesn't matter in itself; it does matter insofar as it affects state behavior (and it most definitely does affect state behavior).
All states are "power based on violence," sure, but there are crucial differences of degree.
Not really. The form of the state effects the hoops those in power must jump through, nothing more. The ultimate end goals are still the same.
I disagree, for reasons explained.
Non-democratic states had no incentive to do most of the things which democratic states do.
Of course not. Non-democratic states can dispense with the illusion of rulership for the most part.
Show me an example of a non-democratic ruler attempting (and failing due to technological constraints) to implement universal health care.
Or universal old age pensions.
etc, etc, etc
Every fascist, ever. Every Communist, ever. Don't confuse popularity with democracy.
That's wildly inaccurate.
Absolute monarchs (or monarchs feigning absolute power) did indeed claim ownership of all property within their domains, but this should not be taken literally in the way you're taking it. They were claiming ultimate political control (i.e. rejecting the right of any individual, noble, parliament, church, etc to resist their [rather modest] demands). They were most certainly not trying to actually control all property within their domains; to actually seize, posses, and operate it in a socialistic fashion.
They absolutely were. To claim ultimate political control is to claim absolute control. You're trying to split hairs that don't exist.
By way of analogy, no private person in the US holds their land in fee allodium (true ownership); all land is held in fee simple (feudal tenure). This reflects the practical ability of the state to force landowners to pay whatever taxes it demands (as would a feudal overlord). In a sense, the state owns all land in the US, and we individuals just rent it from them. But this is only a formality expressing the sovereignty of the state; it does not mean that all land is actually possessed and operated by the state in a socialistic fashion.
Except it really does. It means your title of ownership is a meaningless piece of garbage. Luckily there is still some rivalry between the different apparatuses of the State here that you might get out from any State claims. But it is unlikely. Just becaus eyou get to enjoy the illusion that sopmething is yours doesn't mean that it is so.
The difference lies in the means by which each would go about that.
For an elected politician, the best method of enriching himself is to dole out privileges to special interests, whatever the cost to society.
For the monarch, the best method of enriching himself is to enrich society as a whole, as that increases his own revenues.
No, it isn't. The way kings maintain power is to literally dole out privileges to special interests who then serve him. What do you think the nobility and knights are other than special interests that the king placates with money and goods seized from the public in order to maintain power? The king doesn't give a single crap about the enrichment of society. The whole argument falls to pass the basic test of history.
Feudalism was essentially dead by the time of the 1789 revolution, destroyed by the kings themselves, in opposition to the nobility.
Yes, kings doing exactly what you claim they weren't doing.
...a story repeated over and over all across early modern Europe.
The French economy c. 1788 was vastly more liberal than is the French economy of 2017.
...in terms of spending, regulation, number and extent of state owned enterprises, etc.
Again, only because modern technology has given the State teh ability to actually do what it could only theoretically do in the past.
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