Dear Dirty America

Instead, the state has become a Leviathan in whose shadow ordinary men and women live…. In the main, that purpose [of Leviathan] is to promote the economic culture of capitalism, the core ethos of which is the rational, calculating, unlimited accumulation of private wealth. The state has come to be the single most important agency for the preservation of that culture.

…the state exercises military power abroad, facilitates commerce at home, educates the young, encourages investment, safeguards profit, absorbs the social and environmental costs of capitalism, and regulates the chaos of the marketplace. Above all, the state has the responsibility, not alone but finally, whenever lesser agencies fail, of dominating nature. Only through such mastery can resources be made available in infinite quantities and can the process of private accumulation continue (282).