State power depends materially on the bodies citizens lend it.

Evidence

What Hobbes did, La Boétie had tried to undo, and by the same means. After all, the master who oppresses you and “for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death … where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you?” Therein lay the fundamental material contradiction: if power is embodied solely by our bodies, we can always refuse to offer them. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 695 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Arendt explained that, owing to this fundamental corporeal dependence, the power of the state—even in the most authoritarian of regimes—must, despite everything, be power and not pure violence. There is no power without bodies. But, as she in a way acknowledged, the reciprocal statement is true: with no bodies mobilized, there is no longer any power. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 697 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: State dependence on soldiers’ bodies secured social bargaining power; Substituting capital for soldiers gives the state social autonomy; State power depends on borrowing the bodies of its subjects — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 695 (+14 more)

Related

• State power depends on borrowing the bodies of its subjects (similarity 0.92)
• State power requires mobilized bodies and collapses without them (similarity 0.91)
• State dependence on soldiers’ bodies secured social bargaining power (similarity 0.88)
• Without mobilized bodies there is no state power, only violence. (similarity 0.85)
• State coercion works only because most citizens comply voluntarily (similarity 0.84)
• Dronization trades the state’s social branch for its armed branch. (similarity 0.83)
• Substituting capital for soldiers gives the state social autonomy (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• State power depends on borrowing the bodies of its subjects #corroborates (0.90) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 695
• State power requires mobilized bodies and collapses without them #corroborates (0.85) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 697
• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #expands (0.75)
• A legal contract channels stored political power toward private purposes #expands (0.72)
• The state frames citizens’ lives as a debt it can call in for sacrifice. #expands (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 562
• Legitimate political authority rests on an exchange of protection for obedience. #complicates (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 558