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Notes -
As first post here, i was reflecting especially on the role of the State in a progressive/socialist society.
We can start from some axiom that, I think, cannot be disputed:
In a state, in order to pursue policy, you need state capacity, the capacity of the state of "doing things"
State capacity varies for a lot of reasons, but generally good states with a lot of capacity are the ones with an high trust society, small internal friction, a not polarized political system, and all these things, together with a smooth system that permit the state to actually control things and move them.
Now, the theoretical goals of progressivism, as said by the ideological granparents of them (the French group, the german one, David and the antiracism american group, you know what I am talking about) are still about the destruction or the surpassing of Capitalism as an economic system.
But the point is; in order to do it you need the state, as Lenin correctly theorized! You cannot destroy the capitalistic system in a country if you do not have the men, the tanks, the followers and in general the power to impose things with will and force, and also this is state capacity.
This is outside the capacity of the single individual or the group or whatever, you need the State.
The problem is, I see progressivism as a continuous tentative of - degrading - state capacity (less thrust and less homogenity, polarized systems, destruction of meritocracy)
How in the hell are they supposed to destroy capitalism if the states that are supposedly created by liberal progressivism are weaker every day? In the West we begin to have difficulties in enforcing Basic law or fixing bridges!
My answer, at the end, bring always to the same point, and is that we need to understand if progressivism is bolschevism under the cloat of liberal capitalism or viceversa.
Because if they are the first category, they are terrible at doing their political project.
I don't think it's accurate to model progressives as a unified cohesive group working together to advance a single cause. Even though in some cases they emergently work together, and those are the cases where they tend to have the most influence, fundamentally I think the entire movement is founded on and obtains so much success because it's based on defecting in prisoner dilemmas that were previously in mutual cooperative outcomes, which means they are perfectly willing to defect against each other as well. (For instance, the only reason pretending to be a victim or oppressed makes you stronger instead of weaker is because it exploits the kindness of other people who take it on good faith and want to protect victims, and this exploitation in turn consumes the goodwill of people who do that)
So it's probably more accurate to model progressives as a collection of minor factions vying for power within the overall system, not as the entire system itself. Which means any particular faction benefits when they take actions which reduce the prosperity, or state capacity, of the state as a whole but increase their own share of the state. Suppose faction A is powerful and influential enough to control 1% of the entire U.S. government (which we will call 0.01 units of power), and by banning certain types of construction techniques they simultaneously cripple the ability to build bridges, reducing state capacity by 1%, and simultaneously cripples and/or takes over faction B which previously built bridges and controlled 1% of the entire U.S. government. By doing this, faction A now controls 2% of a government with 99% of the previous state capacity, and thus has 0.0198 units of power. Because the loss in state capacity was distributed to everyone, and faction A doesn't pay the entire cost. Repeat x100 factions and now you have a classic public goods dilemma.
This doesn't mean state capacity will always decrease, if a faction can increase their power by increasing the power of the part of the state that they control directly, say by stealing it from the private sector and/or private citizens, then they'll do so. But because no single faction controls the entire government, (the actual elected politicians in a political party are only one faction among many, and even they can be divided into smaller subfactions), factions don't benefit just by increasing state capacity in general, it's only if it's the part that they control directly. (Note, this is why "defund the police" didn't really go anywhere, not because it was a terrible idea (it was), but because the people in charge of the decision are also the people who have more power from having police. Similarly, we see corporate welfare from both political parties despite it being unpopular, because the politicians in control increase their own power by doing it.
Although it's hard to make specific predictions from this model, because I have not been specific at all about what does or does not count as a "faction". But the general idea is that viewing progressives, or any large organization, as a single monolithic entity with a single agenda is oversimplified. It works on issues where every faction with power has the same agenda (for instance, spreading progressivism by dismantling and conquering non-progressive factions), but fails when they come into conflict with each other, or one has the opportunity to advance itself at the expense of the others.
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