The justification of the state, reconsidered.

March 2, 2019

This paper was written for my introduction to social science class during freshman year. I talked about the ideal form of social arrangements and whether the state use of coercion is justified or not. Although the writing is very amateur, it was my first time reconsidering the society form I live in.

Born in a state, and having grown up in a governed society, many of us in today’s world tend to take the borned environment for granted without asking whether this is what we really want. But are we supposed to live with a state and accept all the rules and social dogmas imposed on us without question? Is this arrangement self-justified? It is time to think out of the box and reconsider what is the ideal form of social arrangements. Here, the overall answer in this paper is that state use of coercion on its people is essentially unjustified, unless the rules are based on mutual agreement and represent the followers’ own will.

Firstly, one cannot say state is justified just by claiming it enables to optimize common goods. Proponents for states hold the belief that only by external forces can self-interested human beings overcome the tragedy of the commons and fulfill public interests.[1] However, this theory seems to over-generalize the complex human nature and neglect other traits of humanity. In their works, Ostrom and Smith both suggest a counter argument in that people share a nature propensity towards cooperating and exchanging with each other in order to achieve better overall outcomes.[2] Bearing the necessity to cooperate in mind, people are also likely to expand production possibilities and make everyone better off by self-restriction or specializing in production without imposed rules. Therefore, external forces are not justified by their material use because it can’t be proved as the best or necessary solution that we have to take in order to fulfill public interests.

Furthermore, the external rules made by states sometimes may lead the public goods to an undesired consequence. As Ostrom points out, government interventions could crowd out endogenous cooperative behavior[3]. This ill effect may result from the potential flaws and unfairness existed within external laws that are established by a small group of privileged people. Another theorist, Bakunin, supports this by arguing that laws made by man are imperfect.[4] Government decisions in the past have caused tremendous unfortunate cases through poor judgement. For example, the 10-year cultural revolution launched by Mao in China during late 20^th century persecuted millions of people and posed setbacks on the whole nation’s development.[5] Beyond the imperfectness of external laws, another problem is the possible corruption of the government. In domestic politics, the state is considered as the tool for rulers to rule people, as Yan Xuetong in his description of Xunzi shows.[6] In that sense, rulers and people are no longer in an equal stage. Rulers and bureau administrators, if they want, can easily gain benefits from public resources and use it to serve their own interest Eventually, government collapsed into one run by people, not laws.[7] Therefore, coercions released by state government might even cause more injustice in the society when the incorrect rules are being made or the government is corrupted.

After addressing the common misinterpretation of the justification of state, let’s now move on to find out what does it mean to be mutually agreed and why government coercions not being agreed by people is unjustified.

A mutually agreed law, by its nature, is not a coercion. Instead, it is a contract between individual and others. According to Hobbes, in the State of Nature, a precursor to the State, everyone embraces total liberty without any restrictions.[8] In principle, people can do whatever they want as long as they are capable and willing to do so. While as humans, we are in constant contact with each other, and this State of Nature is an undersired state of chaos[9]. To live a better and ordered life, individuals rationally be willing to surrender part of their liberty to the state. They are obliged to take the punishment if they continue to use the forgone rights, as an exchange of the same restriction on others. Certainly, people don’t divest their rights for no reason. One of the driving forces is human conscience on what people generally know what is wrong to do, such as killing, abusing and cheating. So, some contracts are designed to restrict people’s immoral behavior and some others are used to push individuals to make contributions to the group as a whole, such as compulsory draft. In this case, government is the institution to establish laws based on moral concerns and public will, then oversee the implement of these laws and release punishments on those who violate the laws. The government is not a dominant force but a mediator. It is the people who designed the law. People follow the law because they believe it is the right thing to do, not be externally compelled, as Bakunin points out.[10] Thus, laws that are not derived from people’s own willingness are considered unjustified because of the violation of the original design of state.

There is a worrying trend in contemporary world that state governments are increasingly claiming dominance over people, instilling their population with values of submission. We are surrounded by the state-centered narrative and we could hardly understand the people from the South-East Asian ‘Zomia’, a territory of rich ethnic diversity and anarchic social structures where people deliberately chose to live away from states.[11] Just as Khaldun argues, the government laws gradually erode our fortitude and power of resistance then creates “souls of the oppressed”.[12] People no longer are the masters of their own minds but are compelled to learn how to listen and follow external coercions. Many governments are asking excessive impingements liberty of individuals, ones larger than we originally agreed to give out. What is most worrisome is that we obey the law without asking whether this is what we wanted to fulfill our needs or it is something for the government’s own convenience.

In Thucydides’ “Melian Dialogue”, the invading Athenians told Melian that they are not in an equal context and Melian should not resist the power stronger than them. [13] However, the relation between the state and people shall not be the same as Athenians and Melian, and certainly not the same as a high-way robber with their victim. Because the domestic power a state has is not because its own strength, but from the recognition of people living in the state. The purpose of this paper is to encourage both governed people and government administrators ponder the essence of state, power and coercion. Only by this realization, can we start our journey on inventing a better government system or viable alternative to knit the millions of people that inhabit this earth together.

[1] Ostrom, Elinor. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms." in The Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 3 (2000): 137

[2] Smith, Adam. “ An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.” Edited by Edwin Cannan. London: Maryville university, (1904). 15

Ostrom, "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms," 138

[3] Ostrom, 138;154

[4] Bakunin, Mikhail, “Authority and science,” in God and the state, 227

[5] History.com Editors, "Cultural Revolution," A&E television networks, last modified August 21, 2018, https://www.history.com/topics/china/cultural-revolution.

[6] Yan Xuetong, “Xunzi’s interstate political philosophy and its message for today,” Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, ( 2013), 77

[7] Hardin, Gratt “The Tragedy of the Commons.” in Science (Washington, DC: Science, 1968), 1246

[8] Hobbes, Thomas “Of the first and second natural laws, and of contracts,” in Leviathan, 86

[9] Hobbes, Thomas “Of the natural condition of mankind as concerning their felicity, and misery,” in Leviathan, 83

[10] Bakunin, 227

[11] Scott. James, “The art of not being governed”, (New haven& London: Yale University Press), 8.

[12] Ibn-Khaldun, “6. The reliance of sedentary people upon laws destroy their fortitude and power of resistance” in Muqaddimah.

[13] Thucydides. “Melian Dialogue.” History of the Peloponnesian War. 304