State

Summary

Dominique Pagani starts from a contradiction within the notion of the state: it refers both to what oppresses my freedom and to what extends it, and moving from one meaning to the other without warning amounts to "fishing in troubled waters"12. His recurring example is the state forest, which belongs to everyone, to which he adds the hospital and the school: there the state is the general will in Rousseau's sense, the common interest and the Republic3. From 2015 on, he puts this as the distinction between the state and the state apparatus. In his view, the state apparatus has never been so powerful and serves the private sphere, which is the negation of the state, so that "we lack state"45. In Hegel, he sees the state as the very principle of the family, and as responsible for taming the economy. From this he draws a primacy of the nation-state, the only real political institution, without nationalism6. He also argues that capitalism, and later Nazism, are driven by hatred of the state.

1. 1Everything is allowed but nothing is possible: Michel Clouscard (2)29 Jan 2012 · 21:28
2. 2State and state apparatus: the conflict between public and private29 Aug 2025 · 9:09
3. 3War, neo-fascism: libertarian liberalism3 Mar 2023 · 40:45
4. 4#15 Return to the logics of the subject23 Jul 2020 · 1:07:30
5. 5Michel Clouscard and the betrayal of May 687 Feb 2025 · 36:44
6. 6Hegel and the yellow vests (part 1)13 Feb 2019 · 29:59

Summary produced automatically from 38 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.