Being the receptacle of supreme power, the state is naturally ambiguous - equally capable of constructive as well as destructive results.
The negative potential of maximum power notwithstanding, human progress does depend on the state, even though advancement in government's benign usefulness may not be linear, slow, and subject to reversal, or it may appear slim and doubtful by the standards of a different age. Still, almost everything we value about our national life in which millions of strangers cooperate peacefully and productively does dependent on the services of the state. Sure enough, to get to the point where the state is the servant of freedom man has had to live through a long history of the taming of the state.
In solving another of freedom's paradoxes - the taming of the untameable (state) -, we need to appreciate that being the ultimate power is not an unconditional capability. Power must be built, organised, and maintained. Far from being a totally self-sufficient institution, the state always needs compliant partners, and to survive - and that means to be as strong as possible-, it has to contribute to the common weal in some measure, rather than focussing exclusively on its own narrow ambitions. There is a compelling logic to the state's tendency to actually be at the service of the public. And it is this logic that we turn to now.
§ 29 - From Roaming Bandits to Stationary Bandits - The State's Advantage over Anarchy
Nothing is worse than anarchy. The state is guaranteed a floor of attraction in that it is capable of saving people from anarchy. In Mancur Olson's theory of the state, anarchy is characterised by a world in which roaming bandits appear more or less regularly to raid and rob productive settlers. Under these conditions, the size and growth of distributable wealth is severely limited. There is little incentive to invest and produce goods, especially of a kind that is easily stolen. In fact, the roaming bandits and their victims are trapped in a sub-optimal equilibrium. Their forays are far less profitable than other forms of confiscating a society's wealth. The relationship between robbers and robbed could be improved to the advantage of both. How?
If the roaming bandits become stationary bandits, if they settle among the victims of their raids they will inevitably develop a certain interest in improving the very conditions of production which is the spring of their wealth. Exploitation becomes more ample for the exploiter and less disadvantageous for the exploited. There is more left for both. As Olson puts it, the bandits develop "an encompassing interest" in the community from which they steal. Actually, the line between pilferage and exchange begins to blur, when the bandits take into consideration and even cater to some of the needs of the community. Being resident owners of a territorially delimited precinct of exploitation, it is in their self-interest to ensure peace and orderly conditions and provide a range of other public goods liable to make the task of ruling more tractable, efficient, and profitable. High levels of exploitation notwithstanding, compared to anarchy, under the regime of stationary bandits life is still better, allowing for greater efficiency, security, productive innovation and progress, however slim and slow. From the Neolithic revolution to the French revolution, the development of our civilisation takes place mostly in the presence of regimes of stationary bandits.
The powers-that-be have good grounds to care for the common weal, in however limited and imperfect manner, while the governed populace also has reason to welcome a rule that limits the incidence of violence, robbery and utter arbitrariness. The improving qualitative leap from anarchy to stationary banditry is very large - which is the easier forgotten the more normal is becomes to live in a world pacified and rendered orderly by the state. Also, the population will tend to rank certain fundamental conveniences provided by the state, especially peace and security, higher than others that are lacking or being only deficiently provided for. On balance, even a rather imperfect state will enjoy support or acquiescence by the population, especially if there are avenues for gradual improvement and the voicing of grievances. Political theories that seek to perfectly justify the state simply overlook the effect of minimal conditions for popular compliance on social cohesion and political stability.
§ 30 - Conditions and Limits of State Power
Whether experienced as an end in itself or a means to achieving other purposes, power has its preconditions. There are always factors at work that are more basic and more powerful than the might of a ruler. Wielding power requires submission to conditions that are not at the discretion of the holders or aspirants of power. Any ruler is forced to consider alien interests, to allow for other-directed requirements, lower their sights, restrict their own discretion or have it restricted. Power must be organised. Power demands a physical and economic basis. Moreover, it depends on social acceptance, even if only by a small and privileged group of coalition partners that need to be pandered to, bought off, controlled or suppressed, as necessity arises.
It is important to understand that there are conditions that limit power, as these demonstrate that the state cannot achieve any arbitrary goal one may wish to task it with, nor is it impervious to persuasion and other forms of guiding and restricting influences.
§ 31 - Mediate State and Immediate State - Power, Always a Coalition of Interests
Genghis Khan is credited with the aphorism: an empire cannot be ruled from the back of a horse. Khan's saying captures a truth that holds both for the mediate and the immediate form of a state.
In a mediate state, the ruler depends for the exercise of his power on the collaboration of decentralised elites with their own parochial power base. Owing to their local sphere of dominance, the these notables are in a position to put into effect modern functions of governance, like tax collection, coinage, recruitment of soldiers, judicial services etc.
In an immediate state, by contrast, these governance functions are assumed by institutions with no comparable basis of independent power. They are immediately answerable to the ruler, who, through their office, has an immediate handle on the economy and other parts of society: the noble tax farmer being replaced by the civil servants of the tax office.
What both forms of the state have in common is the need to accommodate multifarious special interests - notables or democratic forces, as the case may be - that relativise and condition the exercise of power by the ruler aspiring to dominate from the apex (mediate state) or the incumbent central ruler (immediate state). However, the immediate state represents a more advanced technology for directing and orchestrating public matters. More universally serviceable, the immediate state is in a position to offer services that local intermediaries of power are less well placed or unable to provide.
The interests, or as the economist would call it, the utility function of the state is not independent of the utility function of other members of society, but often significantly affected by these influential interests. The state is always formed in a melting pot of societal interdependencies.
§ 32 - The State in Closed Access Societies and Open Access Societies
I am not arguing that the interplay of state interests and non-governmental interests is bound to form a channel of irreversible progress terminating in the establishment of a free society. However, historically, we do witness a tendency in certain parts of the world, notably Europe, for an alliance of the self-interests of power-holders and their clients among certain social classes to expedite the state's ability to foster more efficient property rights, more personal freedom, broad popular political influence, and higher levels of wealth (open access societies).
The argument here is that such conditions cannot be achieved without the support of a strong state.
However, I do not propose that less efficient and downright dreadful uses of state power are to be expected to disappear altogether in the course of history. In fact, for most of human history and even today, in most countries of the world, broad mutually enriching alliances between power-holders and the population at large have been or still are only in gestation at best, compared to the most advanced modern stage of open access societies.
Whether the state is free to enforce institutional conditions that expedite greater wealth depends on relationships of relative strength among the forces, often representing the select few, that influence, constrain, and define the reach of governmental power.
In closed access societies, which are characteristic of much of the state's presence in human history, small coalitions of power-holders tend to dominate the population, while constantly balancing a fragile equilibrium of power amongst themselves. At that stage in history, the hard-won privilege of an elite to exercise arbitrary power, i.e. power wielded in any manner needed to ensure survival by dominance, can even be part of a relative "optimum," in that such tactical discretion may be the precondition of peaceful coexistence among the coalition partners. For a good measure of arbitrary, incalculable power is needed to qualify for a position in a mutually beneficial coalition of rulers, and a good measure of arbitrary, incalculable power is needed to be able to oust factions that endanger the stability of the coalition. Keeping the coalition of power-wielders in reasonable balance is the best technique by which to establish peaceful, non-anarchic conditions benefiting the quality of life and the productivity of the population at large. Developing slowly, better "state technologies" are few and far between.
The powers-that-be have good grounds to care for the common weal, in however limited and imperfect manner, while the governed populace also has reason to welcome a rule that limits the incidence of violence, robbery and utter arbitrariness. The improving qualitative leap from anarchy to stationary banditry is very large - which is the easier forgotten the more normal is becomes to live in a world pacified and rendered orderly by the state. Also, the population will tend to rank certain fundamental conveniences provided by the state, especially peace and security, higher than others that are lacking or being only deficiently provided for. On balance, even a rather imperfect state will enjoy support or acquiescence by the population, especially if there are avenues for gradual improvement and the voicing of grievances. Political theories that seek to perfectly justify the state simply overlook the effect of minimal conditions for popular compliance on social cohesion and political stability.
§ 30 - Conditions and Limits of State Power
Whether experienced as an end in itself or a means to achieving other purposes, power has its preconditions. There are always factors at work that are more basic and more powerful than the might of a ruler. Wielding power requires submission to conditions that are not at the discretion of the holders or aspirants of power. Any ruler is forced to consider alien interests, to allow for other-directed requirements, lower their sights, restrict their own discretion or have it restricted. Power must be organised. Power demands a physical and economic basis. Moreover, it depends on social acceptance, even if only by a small and privileged group of coalition partners that need to be pandered to, bought off, controlled or suppressed, as necessity arises.
It is important to understand that there are conditions that limit power, as these demonstrate that the state cannot achieve any arbitrary goal one may wish to task it with, nor is it impervious to persuasion and other forms of guiding and restricting influences.
§ 31 - Mediate State and Immediate State - Power, Always a Coalition of Interests
Genghis Khan is credited with the aphorism: an empire cannot be ruled from the back of a horse. Khan's saying captures a truth that holds both for the mediate and the immediate form of a state.
In a mediate state, the ruler depends for the exercise of his power on the collaboration of decentralised elites with their own parochial power base. Owing to their local sphere of dominance, the these notables are in a position to put into effect modern functions of governance, like tax collection, coinage, recruitment of soldiers, judicial services etc.
In an immediate state, by contrast, these governance functions are assumed by institutions with no comparable basis of independent power. They are immediately answerable to the ruler, who, through their office, has an immediate handle on the economy and other parts of society: the noble tax farmer being replaced by the civil servants of the tax office.
What both forms of the state have in common is the need to accommodate multifarious special interests - notables or democratic forces, as the case may be - that relativise and condition the exercise of power by the ruler aspiring to dominate from the apex (mediate state) or the incumbent central ruler (immediate state). However, the immediate state represents a more advanced technology for directing and orchestrating public matters. More universally serviceable, the immediate state is in a position to offer services that local intermediaries of power are less well placed or unable to provide.
The immediate state's uniquely effective capabilities comprise supra-regional provision of large scale
- (i) coercive infrastructure projects for the purposes of resource pooling, social redistribution, policing, and defence,
- (ii) institutional infrastructure projects facilitating a national ambit and identity by enforcing appropriate standards (language, weights, education, legal and administrative structures etc), legal security in the form of justiciable property rights, improved conditions of commerce like safe trade routes,
- (iii) material infrastructure projects (ports, roads, bridges etc)
The interests, or as the economist would call it, the utility function of the state is not independent of the utility function of other members of society, but often significantly affected by these influential interests. The state is always formed in a melting pot of societal interdependencies.
§ 32 - The State in Closed Access Societies and Open Access Societies
I am not arguing that the interplay of state interests and non-governmental interests is bound to form a channel of irreversible progress terminating in the establishment of a free society. However, historically, we do witness a tendency in certain parts of the world, notably Europe, for an alliance of the self-interests of power-holders and their clients among certain social classes to expedite the state's ability to foster more efficient property rights, more personal freedom, broad popular political influence, and higher levels of wealth (open access societies).
The argument here is that such conditions cannot be achieved without the support of a strong state.
However, I do not propose that less efficient and downright dreadful uses of state power are to be expected to disappear altogether in the course of history. In fact, for most of human history and even today, in most countries of the world, broad mutually enriching alliances between power-holders and the population at large have been or still are only in gestation at best, compared to the most advanced modern stage of open access societies.
Whether the state is free to enforce institutional conditions that expedite greater wealth depends on relationships of relative strength among the forces, often representing the select few, that influence, constrain, and define the reach of governmental power.
In closed access societies, which are characteristic of much of the state's presence in human history, small coalitions of power-holders tend to dominate the population, while constantly balancing a fragile equilibrium of power amongst themselves. At that stage in history, the hard-won privilege of an elite to exercise arbitrary power, i.e. power wielded in any manner needed to ensure survival by dominance, can even be part of a relative "optimum," in that such tactical discretion may be the precondition of peaceful coexistence among the coalition partners. For a good measure of arbitrary, incalculable power is needed to qualify for a position in a mutually beneficial coalition of rulers, and a good measure of arbitrary, incalculable power is needed to be able to oust factions that endanger the stability of the coalition. Keeping the coalition of power-wielders in reasonable balance is the best technique by which to establish peaceful, non-anarchic conditions benefiting the quality of life and the productivity of the population at large. Developing slowly, better "state technologies" are few and far between.
Under certain conditions, however, it is rational for the state to engage in a relatively balanced, mutually advantageous exchange, trading state-produced public goods like internal peace and shelter from external enemies for power-sustaining tributes in kind, funds, and submission. Open access societies provide the framework where this exchange is carried out most efficiently.
Open access societies are what we would call free societies, where it is possible for the people at large
Open access societies are what we would call free societies, where it is possible for the people at large
- to make their voices heard,
- systematically and orderly exert pressure on the state,
- co-author its agenda, and
- remind it of its fiduciary duties to the citizenry.
No comments:
Post a Comment