You must be logged in.
You must be logged in.
What is the best argument for having a state?
Here are the top arguments I know:
If one believes in “Might makes right,” then having a state must seem like a grand idea.
Jeffrey,
(1) Explicit social contract. There is, in fact, no explicit social contract. To the extent that anyone would sign such a contract (leaving aside the problems with such a thing), they would be doing so voluntarily, so this argument doesn’t justify a state.
(2) Hypothetical social contract. Supporters of the state have turned to this argument since there is no explicit social contract. This argument is false because you can’t say that someone would have agreed to something when you can actually get their consent. If someone is unconscious and you give them life-saving medical treatment, it’s reasonable to assume that they would have consented to such treatment. But if they are conscious and you can actually ask for their consent, what they actually say trumps what you think they would have said. Many people explicitly do not consent to the state.
(3) Implicit consent. This argument is false because it assumes what it’s trying to prove: it presupposes that the state legitimately owns the territory it claims while trying to prove that the state has legitimate authority. This is analogous to the mafia claiming authority over your neighborhood and saying that by living in your house, you are agreeing to pay protection money.
(4) Democratic authority. This argument is false because, under any other circumstances, things that are normally considered to be rights violations such as theft and murder are not converted into things that are ethically permissible just because a large number of people support them. If there’s 5 people in a room and 4 of them decide to rob the 5th, their actions don’t magically become legitimate. Plus, in democratic elections, specific issues aren’t voted on; politicians are voted on, and they may or may not keep their promises and may or may not do what voters want them to do.
(5) Consequentialism. The most this argument could prove is that only a minimal state, one confined to nothing more than preventing war of all against all, is necessary. That eliminates almost all of the modern state. But even this argument fails to justify the authority of the state over other agents. If using coercion is acceptable only in cases necessary to prevent war of all against all, other agents are equally justified in using coercion in such cases as the state is.
The first four arguments fall completely flat. The consequentialist argument, at best, shows that coercion may be justified under special circumstances, but fails to differentiate the state from other agents. And, if one subscribes to consequentialism, what argument supports the results of a monopoly being superior to that of competition? There is no good argument for the state.
It’s worth giving credit to Huemer for these arguments. This is a very good summary of the first half of his book.
Yes, I think I mentioned that’s where this is summarized from in another post and I ended up pasting this in a different thread.
Definitely check out Michael Huemer’s book, _The Problem of Political Authority_!
The quality of an argument for the state also depends strongly on how many beers have been consumed. The best minarchist arguments (usually consequentialist in nature) don’t start making sense until about 5 or 6 beers for a lightweight; 7 or 8 may be necessary for a seasoned drinker. Social contract-based arguments may require even more. All I know is that if you’re discussing these things at a party and someone says “Hold my beer!,” they might be thinking about starting a government and you should take their keys away before millions of people get murdered.
The best argument for having a state is that—if you crave power and wealth—a state provides a framework within which it is possible to achieve power and wealth way beyond what you could achieve without a state.
Like I said, that’s the best argument for having a state. The rest of the arguments are even worse.
You forgot about Muh Roads! WHO WILL BUILD MUH ROADS!?!?!?!
One of the better arguments for a limited classical liberal state is public choice theorist and Nobel Prize winning economist James M. Buchanan’s “The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan.” It’s somewhere between contractarianism and consequentialism in its argument style. While Buchanan argues for a limited state, the economic analysis is overall quite useful for understanding what both the benefits and pitfalls of governance can be, including non-state governance.
Tyler Cowen has a strong critique of anarcho-capitalism. Here is my interpretation:
In order for an anarcho-capitalist society to be successful the network of protection firms must be able to cooperated enough to exclude criminal protection firms from the network and even defeat them with force. However, if a network of protection agencies can organize sufficiently to exclude criminal protection firms from their network what stops them from excluding new entrants to the protection market? Before an arbitration network is fully established, each firm has incentive to joint and build the network to make their firm more successful in protecting and collecting restitution for their clients. Also they have an incentive to exclude criminal protection firms from the arbitration network because the criminal firm would cost them money when they refuse arbitration and refuse to pay restitution to the other firms in the network. Once most firms are part of the network and they can successively exclude criminal protection firms, don’t they have an incentive and the ability to exclude start-up protection firms from the arbitration network? If so then, the network members could more easily collude and this could eventually lead to government.
Caplan, and Stringham sumarize the argument and reply to it in this article Networks, Law, and the Paradox of Cooperation
Caplan, and Stringham point out that cartels are rare even in existing network industries. Also they claim Cowen’s fails to distinguish between self-enforcing and non-self-enforcing interaction. A cartel is a non-self-enforcing interaction while protection firms boycotting criminals is a self-enforcing iteration.
Caplan, and Stringham point out that Friedman reminds us that the protection network is not a single unit as Cowen & Sutter try to paint it. That each protection firm will have to make a decision on whether to arbitrate with a firm excluded by others in the network. So even if they agree to collude and exclude a startup, there is a cost of not arbitrating with that startup. So individual firms have an incentive to arbitrate with the startup to reduce their costs. While the cartel is a public good problem.
Caplan & Stringham point out in game theory terms collusion to form a cartel becomes a prisoners dilemma or public good problem, while excluding rogue firms is only a coordination problem. The coordination problem is easier to solve than a public good problem, so the network can more easily ostracize rogue firms that refuse to arbitrate fairly, than it can ostracize firms that are willing to arbitrate fairly.
There are no deontological justifications for government that don’t fall on some kind of tautology.
Social contract theories, argument ad populum (democracy), affirming the consequent (“Hey you’re using government goods so it must be necessary!”), etc.
It’s the consequentialist arguments that have *some* degree of merit but I am no longer convinced those are strong enough to outweigh the case against government.
