The frontispiece of the book Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the previous essay I began a discussion about the question “to what extent do people owe their success (and failures) to others?” As might be imagined, the category of others is rather broad, so as a practical matter it is necessary to limit the scope of the discussion. In this essay I will focus on how much a person’s success (or failure) is owed to the state. Obviously, the exact debt will vary from person to person and this examination will be, of necessity, somewhat abstract.
One rather promising way to begin the discussion is to make use of the state of nature. This classic philosophical device was used by such thinkers as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau in their examination of such matters as rights and the justification of political power. I am, however, going to use the device to see what the state contributes to success (or failure).
While this oversimplifies things quite a bit, two of the classic approaches to the state of nature are the Hobbesian state and the Lockean state. In general terms, the state of nature is a state in which there is no governmental authority. It is often presented as a hypothetical predecessor to the rise of political states. In any case, the state of nature is marked by the lack of any artificial authority.
For Hobbes, the state of nature is a state of war “and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Because of the conditions of this state, none of the following are possible: “Industry, culture of the earth, navigation, use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, commodious building; instruments of moving and removing, such things as require much force, knowledge of the face of the earth, account of time, arts, letters, society.” As Hobbes sees it, the establishment of the sovereign (the state) is necessary for the establishment of order and this allows the possibility of industry and the other things that are required for “commodious living.” Given Hobbes assumptions about the state of nature being a state of war of all against all, the idea that these things would not be possible makes sense. One has but to look at what happens in cases where civil authority collapses to see the plausibility of Hobbes’ view.
On the Hobbesian model, an individual who succeeded in industry or other endeavors would owe a great deal to the state (that is, the collective of everyone forming the great leviathan that is the state). After all, without the order provided by the state, success in these areas would not be possible. Naturally, this does not include any other contributions made by the state, such as providing infrastructure or support for research. These contributions would, obviously enough, add to the debt owed by the individual to the collective society.
The Lockean model is rather nicer than the Hobbesian, most likely because Locke includes divinely based rights to life, liberty and property even in the state of nature. On Locke’s model, life in the state if nature is not a state of war (although war can occur) and there is clearly the possibility of success within this state. For example, the right to property allows for the accumulation of goods and this could be seen as success.
While the Lockean state of nature is more appealing than Hobbes’ state of war, Locke does argue that it is not preferable to the state of civil society. While there are, according to Locke, rights in the state of nature, these rights are enforced only by vigilante justice in which individuals act (or not) to prevent and take revenge for misdeeds. As such, wrongs are not reliably prevented or corrected. If, for example, someone stole the goods a person had accumulated, it would be up to her (and any allies) to recover her goods and punish the malefactors.
To solve this and other problems, civil society is created and vigilante justice is replaced with a legal system. Once the state is established, then the state has the responsibility of protecting the citizens and dealing with criminals. Assuming the state is doing its job, the state of civil society provides a stable system in which success is both more possible and more secure.
If Locke’s view is correct, a successful individual owes less to the state (that is, the collective agreements and actions of the people) than she would if Hobbes were right. After all, the difference between Locke’s state of nature and civil society is not as extreme as the difference in Hobbes. However, the successful individual would still owe much to the collective efforts of civil society, not the least of which would be a debt for the existence of laws enabling and protecting the fruits of her success. If additional contributions of civil society, such as infrastructure, public education and so on are included, then the successful individual would owe a great deal to the state.
Of course, not everyone sees the state in such a positive way. For example, the communists contend that while the state is necessary for capitalism and socialism, it will wither away as true communism is achieved. Before then it will be an instrument of oppression, either serving the capitalists or the socialists. Obviously, once communism is achieved, then people will not owe any of their success (or failure) to the state on the obvious basis that there will be no state. Or so the communists claim. However, a debt will be still owed to the states—without them, humanity would not have been able to achieve communism.
As another example, the anarchists have a uniformly negative view of the state—although the degree of their negativity varies. Some, like Thoreau, are willing to co-exist with benign states. Others, like Goldman, advocate the destruction of the state because of its role in oppression and how it prevents true human flourishing.
Thoreau presents a rather interesting view of the state and one that many current conservatives would heartily endorse, noting “that government is best which governs least” and even going so far as to say “that government is best which governs not at all.” As Thoreau sees it, government seems to interfere with success in two main ways. The first is that people use it to impose on each other for their advantage. While this aids the success of those who control the state, it impedes the success of those who are imposed upon. Second, he claims that the state gets in the way of success, noting that “trade and commerce continuously face obstacles placed by legislators.” As he sees it government has only one role in success, namely doing nothing. As he sees it, “government never furthered any enterprise except by getting out of its way.”
On Thoreau’s system of government non-involvement, it would seem that an individual’s success (and failures) would depend more on the individual than it does in the current system in the United States and similar countries. After all, the state is routinely used by some to their considerable advantage over others (subsidies, favorable laws and so on) and it also imposes restrictions on what people can do. As such, the state does make contributions to the success (and failure) via these guided impositions and restrictions.
Thoreau advocates an evolution rather than a destruction of the state, however there are those (such as Goldman) who do advocate the complete elimination of the state. This would, of course, take the discussion full circle by returning to the state of nature—a situation without political authority. Naturally, if there was no state, then there would be no state to contribute to or prevent an individual’s success. There is, however, the question of whether or not such a state would be desirable. There is also the question of whether or not success would even be possible without a state, unless success is merely a matter of staying alive.
Obviously, there are other alleged contributors to individual success than the state and some of these will be addressed in the essays that follow.
Off course taxes are paid to fund the state so it is not a charitable institution…in a sense business etc pay the state to provide infrastructure to facilitate business activity…so it is a circular argument to say business etc needs help from the state to function but the state needs business to function as well. Without any business, the state would cease to exist eventually unless it was entirely charitable and paid no wages.
Hobbes was the first to understand that the state was an abstraction existing apart from kings, city-states, chiefdoms, and empires. There is a need for such an entity to protect its citizens from criminals and outside enemies. The state took a bad turn with the Enlightenment and the loss of fear of God. Revolutionary France was the first state to start mass conscriptions and encourage nationalism. This lead to the horrible wars of the 19th and 20th century, and the mass murders perpetrated by the Nazis and communists.
Mike;
I like these series of articles and I value your introduction to philosophers I have not been able to read.
But from my perspective, their views seem a little bit dissociated from reality. Independent of any philosopher’s opinion, we are a social animal, we construct civilizations; we are gregarious. Any community will requiere some sort of goverment, some rules to live by, enforcement of those rules, etc. If goverment dissolves, then there is no community, because there is no common things, rules, properties, etc.
Based on this principle, any goverment of a particular community, will have an incredible influence on the members of such group. This influence could be terrible or great. It is there, and we can only discuss its quality and quantity, but not its existence. Its existence is derived from our gregarious nature.
An alternative question would be: what is a good goverment? How do we foster its development? or What is a bad goverment? How do we prevent it?
I see no value in discussing this sort of hypothetical state of nature, as in “…the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”, since such a way of life has never existed. Humans are genetically social, and form communities/tribes by default. However Juan above is also wrong, the formation of states is a very recent development in the scope of human history, probably tied to agricultural surpluses and the need for mass mobilization. The state’s overall value to humanity is extremely debatable, and given the current apocalyptic circumstances we all now live in, probably can be considered an unmitigated disaster.
The best analysis of States – why they exist, and most interestingly why they cease to exist, to my mind is to be found in Joseph Tainter’s ‘the collapse of complex societies’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter
Here the collective purpose of civilization is seen to be to help streamline and organize the extraction or generation of wealth, and its distribution, initially by interacting to solve conflicts, but finally as an overarching bureaucracy dominating every aspect of life.
At a given point the ‘stability surface’ of complexity versus collective reward shows a negative coefficient. More state and more bureaucracy means less wealth not more, and at this point of inflection the civilization will collapse naturally back to a simpler form. It being assumed that bureaucrats never relinquish powers they have wrought.
In the context of the European union, it makes for chilling reading.
It is interesting because it is a more complex than the usual ‘four legs good, two legs bad’ simple minded Marxist analysis. It indicates that there is a broad range of state activity that is broadly optimal for any given relationship between populations and resources.
Rather than the simple Left=(State control is the best) and Right = (No state at all is best) type analytics.
Juan,
True, it is reasonable to be skeptical of the idea that the state of nature existed. After all, even social animals form societies so the idea of humans running around in a Hobbes style state of nature seems implausible. However, Locke’s view has some merit. After all, it seems easy to picture humans in a society that lacks a formal state system.
Those are good questions.
Tyson,
Hobbes was most likely envisioning what things would be like with a complete lack of order based on his experience with the (English) civil war. Seeing the chaos of a civil war (which involves a violent clash between political entities within a nation) could easily lead a person to ask “but what would happen if we had no authorities at all?” It does not seem absurd to think that it would be a disaster.
Even if there was no state of nature, there is still value in the model. After all, this device was used to address such matters as political authority and rights. For example, supposing that there was no state, what would serve as the justification for creating a state and then obeying it? Or supposing that we stripped away the state hypothetically, what rights (if any) would we have left?
In the case of my essay, the state of nature seems useful because it allows us to imagine what would be missing if we did not have a state. This then helps us sort out what the state might contribute to your success. This does not, of course, require that I (or you) believe that there was such a state. If you prefer, you can just ignore the state of nature talk and repackage it as a matter of what would be the case if the state were, hypothetically, absent.
Leo,
While I am no Marxist, Marx rather liked the capitalist state. It was, in his theory, essential to creating the wealth/infrastructure that would then be needed under socialism. Then, of course, the state is supposed to wither away.
I would hope that there is more of a purpose to civilization than as a vehicle of wealth extraction/generation. That is, interestingly, similar to how Marx looked at the capitalist system. It was supposed to generate the wealth, fail and then ultimately we would have a very simple state system-namely, no state at all.
“After all, it seems easy to picture humans in a society that lacks a formal state system.”
Mike;
Help me to understand the former thought. Perhaps, it depends in how we define as formal state system.
Who is going to define the rules/laws? Who is going to administer justice? How is conflict going to be solved? How are the rights of minorities going to be enforced? etc. I have so many questions.
The fact that the state appears to be recent in human history, i.e when agriculture appears does not make it appearance wrong or right. My point is simple: the state is and its existence serves a purpose in human life and subsistence.
I tend to agree with several of Leo’s points.
In addition I believe that the appearence of a governing structure in societies is inevitable. Similarly to living organisms, societes present organizations, with different functions, and hierachies, etc.
I believe we can debate the quantity and quality of goverment, but not its existence and necessity in human society. I am willing to consider alternatives, but there must be a good reason for societies to have developped a governing structure
Juan,
One easy way to picture a society that lacks a formal state system is to think of a tribe. While a tribe would have a social order, customs, rules and leaders it would seem to lack what would be regarded as a formal state. As you note, people do set up social orders for a purpose and to help survive.
I would be inclined to think that a society would, by its very nature, always have a governing system of some sort. But, I suppose it would depend on how “society” is defined. Whether or not humans create states by necessity is a matter of some dispute. Hobbes actually directly addresses this. He claims that the Greeks thought that humans were social by nature and that this was because they did not understand human nature. As Hobbes saw it, the creation of society is a contingent thing-people have to chose to end the state of nature and presumably they might elect not to (and would probably die off).