ABSTRACT
The emerging state will be a Friedmanian, workfare, national apparatus. Friedmanian, because it seeks accumulation through crisis; workfare because it devaluates labour: economically, politically and culturally; national because its ideology and economic policy are anchored in the national fold; and apparatus, because its lack of strategic ability reduces it to mere machinery. This is a structurally misaligned form; it is held together by force. The state's loss of strategic ability results from its lack of vision for a future. The state cannot lead society. Its only purpose is to maintain the social order intact, to impose social stasis. It is therefore despotic rather than merely authoritarian. The social order it seeks to protect is neoliberal: anti-social and crisis-prone. The order the state seeks to preserve is unstable. Its maintenance demands an extravagance of force, especially in order to seclude the state from society, to make it impervious to popular pressures. Unable to envision a better future for society, the state governs through fear. Its authority and legitimacy are premised on the protection it offers from a pandemonium of threats. Still, a state set to impose social stasis is fearful of society — of its inherent capacity to change — and treats it as a threat.
