An agent of the state is a person who has been granted authority by the state to carry out the work of the state or a portion of the work and who obligated by contract to do so. In most cases, and agent of the state is not seen as a bad thing. A teacher, for example, can be considered an agent of the state in the US. He or she has been granted the authority to produce an educational plan for a group of students, to make assignments, provide other activities that provide educational opportunities for those students, and to assess and evaluate the student's' achievement relative to those opportunities. In exchange, he or she will be paid. In the US, agents of the state are a positive thing, but in other situations, they could been seen as a …show more content…
Agents of the state influence how the government performs its work, from the politics of policy development to primary work tasks. The success of many of public policies and programs in societies—in terms of core principles such as justice and equity in access, quality, efficiency, responsiveness and representation—may be determined primarily by agents of the state, sometimes with little oversight or weak mechanisms of accountability and control. A utopian society would not have the negative effects of an agent of the state or state policies. To create a state that is resistant to these specific forces, one would have to remove the restrictive qualities of a dystopian society. These qualities include, but are not limited to: coercive powers, power disparity, economic dependency, violence and fear, bureaucracy, and …show more content…
When the people of a state depends on their government for their income, it it difficult to oppose their policies. To start a society that would reject state policies and agents, one would have to ensure that there would be no economic dependency. Less economic dependency results in less state and government power and control. Not only should a society not rely on the government for income and the economy, but they shouldn’t rely on the government for survival. A society should be able to function properly without a state and government making every decision for them. It is unhealthy to be completely dependent on a higher force. To craft a society resistant to the state, one must remove the idea of dependency from society.
Overall, to resist state policies and agents of the state, a society must be built with a strong foundation of free will and independent idealism. With these factories resting state policies and agents should not be an impossible
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” (Text p.
For how often the term ‘government’ is used, it can be difficult to understand in its entirety. At times, the government can seem like nothing more than a bother in our lives and some may question its true practicality. To understand exactly who has power and under what circumstances, as well as why government is necessary in the first place, it can be fruitful to explore it through the lens of principal agent problems and collective action problems. I will explain the scope of these problems, how and why they arise among members of a society, and how government attempts to solve them.
Dystopian America What exactly is dystopia, and how is it relevant today? E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops uses a dystopian society to show how one lives effortlessly, lacking knowledge of other places, in order to show that the world will never be perfect, even if it may seem so. A society whose citizens are kept ignorant and lazy, unknowing that they are being controlled, unfit to act if they did, all hidden under the guise of a perfect utopian haven, just as the one seen in The Machine Stops, could become a very real possibility. There is a rational concern about this happening in today’s world that is shared by many, and with good reason.
According to the Louis Althusser's theory Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) is used by those, who are in power in order to establish norms and enforce society to follow that norms (1970). The main components of RSA are Government, Police, Court and Jail. Moreover, the main tool to make this theory work is mental and physical repression and violence (Althusser, 1970). Repressive State Apparatus institutions are also following established ideology and make society aware of that ideology (Althusser, 1970). On the other hand, Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) is used by those, who are in power in order to teach norms and rules to the society and make them to follow this norms voluntarily or using some level of violence. The main institutions of the ISA are Family, Education, Religion, Legal, Political, Cultural and Communications (Althusser, 1970).
A dystopia the darkest form of government, a utopia gone wrong, a craving for power, struggling for fewer rules. The dystopia is factual the worst possible form of a government. Its the struggle to be so perfect that it fails. There are typically two types of dystopias first a monarchy. A monarchy is a group of people controlled by a king or queen, and they make every last decision. What they want they get. A monarchy is typically born like this example from lord of the flies. “He became absorbed beyond mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them, urging them, ordering them"(Golding 58). This shows that a monarchy starts by one just taking over from the start rather than being a "team player." A communistic government is the opposite of a monarchy in life style but ironically is not in their governing body. They rule by having everyone as an equal, so no one is poor and few people are rich. They are seemingly alike in so many ways. Amongst the political spectrum there are two dystopian governments more alike than as difference, communism and monarchy.
In many real and fictionalized totalitarian societies, children live apart from their families. There can be many reasons for them doing so. It could be because they want to brainwash them and don’t want their thoughts to be skewed from the belief of their families. And it could also because they don t want them to have any special connections to any other people to replicate a feeling of equality amongst all people. It also causes them to have no sense of individuality. Also, by separating the child at birth it prevents the parent from growing any feelings such as love towards the child. By separating the children from their families at birth it sets them up in a position to be taught without questioning the way the society wants them to believe.
Dystopian novels are written to reflect the fears a population has about its government and they are successful because they capture that fright and display what can happen if it is ignored. George Orwell wrote 1984 with this fear of government in mind and used it to portray his opinion of the current government discretely. Along with fear, dystopian novels have many other elements that make them characteristic of their genre. The dystopian society in Orwell’s novel became an achievement because he utilized a large devastated city, a shattered family system, life in fear, a theme of oppression, and a lone hero.
The book I am reading is called The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. In the first half of the book the main character, Offred, is just getting used to her new life as a handmaid. Handmaid’s are the women who are still young and healthy enough to have babies. For the women who are unable to have babies due to their age and health, they are called Martha’s. The Martha’s cook food for the Handmaids and take care of the house. Offred is not enjoying her new life. Now she is forced to wear a red cloak everyday with a hat that has white wings on the sides of her face limiting what she can see and what can see her. She is not able to make love to her husband anymore, for she had no idea where he is– or if he is still alive. She describes that as being the worst part to this new life she is living.
In modern history, there have been some governments, which have successfully, and others unsuccessfully carried out a totalitarian state. A totalitarian state is one in which a single ideology is existent and addresses all aspects of life and outlines means to attain the final goal, government is ran by a single mass party through which the people are mobilized to muster energy and support. In a totalitarian state, the party leadership maintains monopoly control over the governmental system, which includes the police, military,
The focus of this paper will be on criticizing the argument. He effectively explains what justifies the authority of the state by giving reasons that anarchy is better for autonomous nature of man. One might agree that the state can command an individual to obey the rule even if it is against the person’s moral beliefs. His argument, however, seems to undermine the
For the last turn of statecraft, the country of Dystopia decided to make some big power moves. First, we came to the conclusion to break the Stronger Together treaty that agreed for all countries to work together and vowed that if one of us is attacked then the other will come to the aid. By breaking the treaty, we attacked the country of Adrenelle with our strong military force. Our justification for this move is continuing focusing on the state’s self-interest rather than the relationships with other countries. We want to be the strongest country known for military force as we are a militaristic dictatorship. As the Ardenelle President was unhappy with our decisions about moving troops near the countries border, we felt it was necessary
Looking at society currently, one can tell that it has many flaws. The society as it is today is filled with poverty and war which is something that destroys peace in our world; it could be more of a Dystopian society since it is not perfect in other words. I believe that what makes a perfect society is one that does not have wars, poverty or discrimination.
In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury criticizes the totalitarian government and its dysfunctional system which ultimately causes the failure of the society. He reveals the total control through the destruction and burning of literature, the deafening environment which prevents one from concentrating, and the elimination of the ability to think by media brainwashing. The action of the government affirms that it attempts to gain ascendancy by restricting the freedom of speech.
Tom Paine described the state as a “necessary evil”. It is necessary in that it establishes order and security and ensures that contracts are carried out. Yet, it is “evil” since it enforces collective will upon society, thus constraining individual freedom. Negative freedom also supports economic freedom.
The types of governments and the theories on the origin of government described in this paper have hopefully given a basic understanding of what government is. People often feel that they need to hate government without even knowing what it is or the theories of its origin. Hopefully, people will begin to understand more about politics and government and realize that it is not something to hate. The more someone learns about government and political processes, the more likely someone is to take action and become involved. That is why even a basic understanding of politics and government is so important for people of this country.