POLS 2100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: American Civil War, Jared Diamond
24 Aug 2016
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Democracy is the worst of all the systems except for all the others . Since the dawn of humanity people have relied on some form of political organization. States are the dominant expression of that relation. So states now represent an endpoint in human intellectual and organizational evolution. As we evolve, so do our political organizations. Most of the world is split into states, they are what allow us to live together. States allow us to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them . Jared diamond, author of guns, germs and steel. In somalia, the state doesn"t do this, so instead they settle disputes through blood compensation, no appeal to the state exists. In canada, the government helps settle things but we don"t get compensation. Tax its citizens so it can perform the above functions. Have to have the coercive capacity to make you pay because many do not want to.
