Image credit.
There are two more important aspects concerning the inevitability of the state – and in as much as state structures are inevitable we have simply got to work with them to achieve freedom as best as possible – anyone who runs away from this inconvenient constraint, as do statists and anarchist, is not capable of serving freedom.
Aspect One: Human capabilities are often prismatic and ambiguous, capable of creating both good and evil, the useful and the useless etc from the same essential resource base. But this ambivalence is a vital tool in the business of adapting to a changing environment – it is part of the conditio humana. Take aggression: human beings would be incapable of surviving if they did not have the ability to become aggressive. It’s a matter of dosage and context whether aggression is good or bad. We cannot preclude that we will – often with the best of intentions use our human talents to drift from the realm of the good over into the realm of the bad. We may disagree on what is good and what is bad. We may differ in our assessments as to whether a certain type of action is going to elicit good or bad consequences. There is any number of occasions to move from good to bad, and to not concur as to the moral nature of the state achieved. All we can do is learn from experience, try to avoid the most egregious excesses, and - at least as a last resort - wait for cultural evolution to weed out those practices most detrimental to our species. In this sense, the state will develop within a corridor defined by the natural limits to its destructiveness and the limits to its functional strengths. Within this corridor the state develops as a highly complex evolutionary product, indeed a composite product, for which it is often difficult or impossible to determine whether or how problematic aspects are related to welcome aspects and vice versa.
This brings me to Aspect Two: I have developed 3 theorems to explain the persistence of the state, the reason why no civilisation (since the Neolithic, which saw the emergence of enough productivity to sustain specialists of violence, power-wielding, administration and other state functionaries) has ever existed that does not elicit state structures.
Theorem 1: Whenever there is a chance to influence people and outcomes by power and force, people will develop Structures of Maximal Power (SMP) – and be it for purely defensive reasons. This launches a persistent competition for SMP, the most powerful and sophisticated variant of which being the modern territorial central state.
Theorem 2: In order to overthrow a SMP you need another SMP that is even more powerful.
Theorem 3: The individual has two options in the face of SMP. (3a) Either he complies, in which case he supports the SMP. (3b) Or he resists and revolts, in which case Theorem 2 applies.
As for Theorem 3a: Never underestimate the motives for an individual to wish to comply with and support the state; the most powerful of all being the state’s ability to overcome anarchy, or if you like anomie (both of which words have the same meaning to me, as the absence of SMP means violent chaos, a gory rush to develop stable SMP where none exist).
Well captured in Mancur Olson’s theory of the transition from regimes of roving bandits and stationary bandits (the state), both rulers and the people benefit from state structures as compared with anarchy. As the success of the Taliban attests, people support those – even though disliked in many other respects by them – who can bring an end to anarchy. The difference between anarchy and non-anarchy is huge. Which is – regrettably - hard to understand by people thoroughly used to (state guaranteed) peace.
http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iss/Indra.de.Soysa/POL3503H05/olson.pdf
See also Classical Liberalism vs. Anarchism (1/3) and Classical Liberalism vs. Anarchism (3/3).
Comments