More on Government

Government emerged within specific institutional settings, and has only been appropriated, to a limited degree, by the state.

Just as sovereignty derived from the relations of production and other social relations/structures, government also derives from these same relationships.  Government, as a means of fulfilling the need to more effectively regulate life and productivity, arose in various social institutions that were employed in the pursuit of these aims.

If any social institution could lay claim to being the primary birthplace of government, it would have to be science. Science is vital to the management of populations and productive activity, and is, perhaps, the most important source of the technologies and strategies that constitute government.  Engineering and other physical sciences are applied to the enhancement of the productivity of labor, while human sciences are used to predict and manage behavior:  psychology, in particular, is a fundamental modus operandi of government, and statistics is one of its most important tools.  All sciences, as they are institutionalized academically, as well as politically (in government agencies) and economically (Research & Development, marketing, etc.), are a vital component of the very fabric of government.

Government has also concurrently developed within other social institutions.  Public health, for example, has become central to the cultivation of life and productivity.  The institutionalization of medical care coincided with its employment as a governmental tool.  Consequently, there has been a visibly shifting focus toward prevention and the management of lifestyle choices (regulation of salt content, giant labels on cigarettes, the proposed "fast food tax," etc.).  Likewise, education has been penetrated by a governmental logic geared toward producing efficient, skilled laborers.  Witness in the U.S. concerns about how American children compete with those from other countries, which subjects are most valuable in the training of a future workforce, etc.

Techniques of government have dispersed and been appropriated by other social organizations:  families and smaller social units; corporations (in their pursuit of team-building, employee satisfaction, marketing, etc.); and, of course, the state and other large-scale social organizations (most notably transnational organizations and NGOs).