POPULAR SOVEREIGNITY? (OR STATE?)

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY? (OR STATE?)

A writeup regarding the state, society, and the people

By Lualhati Madlangawa-Guerrero

The state, in a theoretical sense, represents the people, and sovereignty rests upon to them. This idea states that the state must be or rather be supposed to be controlled by the entire people, different from the fact that was and is controlled by the few who interests into it, especially in a year where anything is in the state of crisis-that all of the developing countries are totally in a need of a total recover.

However,
Despite the need for a total recovery, the ruling class who controlled the state simply disregard it, they may be affected, but the worst is that they kept on doing anything to protect the rotten social order-of forcing people to wage slavery or the worst? Modern day serfdom, especially in a society where anything is "agricultural."

In this writeup, I think of saying that there is in need of unearthing facts about state and sovereignty as well as its supposed control. Somehow I think if sovereignty is vested directly to the people, and so is the state a well as its power; likely to conclude that the state must be dissolved into the society, given the fact that the people within the society totally hath carried its power.

According to Adam Muller, he said that the state is "not a mere factory, a farm, an insurance office or a commercial company." for it is "The inner union of all physical and moral needs, of all physical and spiritual wealth, of the whole inner and outer life of a nation, in a great, energetic, eternally active and living whole."
However,
In order to fulfill it, there lies the idea of having the people, particularly the united working class of proletariat and of the peasantry to grab state power and to dissolve it eventually into the society. And since sovereignty is intended to the people, and so is the state-similar to the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution trough the Soviets, the attempt for a German Socialist Republic through a Council-type of government, or even the era when the great slave emancipator Spartacus hath led thousands of slaves in a war for freedom.

Muller thinks that one must turn to nature and the origins of Communal life, but communal life was and is meant to be total equality, despite being a group of families, both cooperative and collective power is a requirement in order to survive. And not of dictating tasks without any questions asked; I even think that communal life is even an absolute, direct collective one since the elders, who spoke decrees and answering questions from the people tend to ask from the majority of the people whether to enforce it or not. Muller's perspective was more of an unequal one, being a conservative n analyzing the entire society during his time. But his words regarding the state is meant to be given by the majority and not of the few; since "They are the ones who have the power to create and therefore in order to achieve the 'inner union' of what Muller said, the people must grab state power and have the state dissolve into the society-same as economic, and cultural power.

Another idea what Muller spoke is that of the political community.
The political community is to be composed of that of family. Somehow the idea what he've said may consider right, but not of having the "nobility" corresponds as the wife and the "commoners" as the husband. In my Idea, I may say that in a society where there no "masters" and "slaves", family ties may remain, but in a new meaning; aside from being the "smallest unit of the communal society," families tend to have a degree of freedom and of equality, or in other words democratizing the family, especially in the relation of sexes. And in lieu of the "nobility" and of "commoners" as what Muller said, a real productive family is meant to be this: The proletariat corresponds as the husband whilst the peasantry as the wife, composing the new family, that is from the working class. Just like the statue in Moscow, the marriage of the worker and the Kolkhoz woman corresponds to the marriage of the two working class-of worker and of the peasant.

Back to the topic,
The idea of a "popular sovereignty" and of an "ideal people's community-state" lies in having the masses grab state power and dissolving it eventually into the society after the dictatorship of the proletariat. Somehow the concepts in the Philippines (as an example) like the "Barangay", "Bayanihan", "Pakikisama", "Pagkabayani", and "Pakikipagkapwa-tao" also lies into it-especially hat the traits of the working class corresponds to these, and having a Barangay a possible Commune wherein these traits are to be given and enacted. Bayanihan, a Filipino concept, is also an example of a communal-like cooperation, same as Pakikisama, and Pagkakaisa in order to attain Pagkabayani, or in other words, as heroes. Same as the ideas of Ujamaa (Familyhood), Juche (Self-reliance) and the models of community like those of Dazhai in China and of the Kolkhozes and Kibbutzes in then Soviet Union and in Palestine (Israel).

Thus,
If people has its sovereignty to a nation, then so must be the state-community, and through acquiring it and integrating it into the society lies the union of anything of physical, moral, spiritual needs and strength, all for the good of the people both as an individual and as a part of a greater society.