Why does the state exist?

What does a state do? 

For instance, in the Philippines, before they were to host the executive committee meeting of the Asian Development Bank, to keep the visiting foreigners from seeing the country’s poverty, erected a temporary wall to hide the slums on the road from the airport to the city. When asked what was happening, they would answer, “What do you mean? Every country makes this or that adjustment before it is hosting visitors. We are landscaping.”

What does a state do?

For instance, in the United States, they measure poverty with the criteria of supermarket shopping of 1963. As a matter of fact, they know the formula of the 1960s is absurd when today’s expensive life expenditures are taken into consideration. 

What does a state do? 

For instance, in New Zealand, they postponed the release of the statistics about child poverty again and again. While they made pledges to overcome poverty before elections, once elected, they did not change anything.

What does a state do?

For instance, in Argentina, they hide official poverty figures. When they get reactions, they would say, “There was a technical problem.” When real figures are released by nongovernmental organizations, they boast, “This is absurd. New policies have increased quality of life of Argentinians.”

What does a state do? 

For instance, in the United Kingdom, to hide the destructive effects of welfare policies, they restrict the flow of information. Instead of burying poverty, they bury poverty statistics. 

What does a state do? 

For instance, in Uzbekistan, they do not deal with processing laws to reduce poverty. While they watch the extravagant consumption of the rich, they witness that doctors and teachers bring home food to the workplace because they cannot afford to pay at the canteen. 

What does a state do? 

For instance, in Turkey, they act as if poverty has decreased. Then later, we learn that the only thing that has changed is the questions asked by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK). 

Even though there are differences from one country to the other, we live in a world where almost everywhere a portion of the population has much less resources such as income, education and land ownership when compared to the rest of the population.  

Despite the fact that administrators always promise to reduce unemployment, what is always on the increase is the income inequality.

The top 10 percent in Turkey is receiving 31.7 percent of the income while the bottom 10 percent is receiving 2.1 percent. 

When data is hidden, distorted and swept under the carpet, then does poverty disappear? 

No.

The state’s job is not to lie to the citizen.

Why does the state exist? It exists in order to provide peace and welfare for the people, for them to conduct a humanitarian life, to arrange a balanced relationship between labor and capital; to protect the weak against the powerful, to distribute income justly, to form a just legal system and to help the poor and needy people in the society so that they are provided a minimum living level suitable for human dignity. 

The state has to provide life and property security for the citizen. If it cannot do that, then it becomes incapable and this situation is certainly questioned.

Why does a state exist if it cannot protect three ballot boxes at Cizre, in the southeast of Turkey? 
Starting from preventing unemployment to providing a just legal order, the state here does not fulfill its commitments anyway.  

At least they should allow the people to choose freely who would rule them.