The Anatomy of the State

I raised some issues yesterday about the claims on the productivity of government activites.  These were raised as questions and not criticisms to stimulate thought among readers and in the hope of encouraging a dialogue on the role of the state in economic activity and our conception of the state in a free society.

In the interest of full disclosure and though I don't write from a natural rights perspective, the image I have of the state is to the left.  In my youth I was persuaded by rights-based arguments in the libertarian tradition, but I quickly moved to a more utilitarian based economic theory grounded argument --- what is often termed rule utilitarianism as found in Mises and Hayek.  But I cannot shake the image of the state that I have had since my initial conversion to libertarianism in my late teens.

Rothbard was the most influential thinker on me then and his words still inspire much of my political philosophy to this day.  My favorite work of Rothbard's is For a New Liberty, but I also think that "The Anatomy of the State" is perhaps his finest essay in political theory.  The painting from Goya was the cover of the Libertarian Alliance pamphlet and was meant to caputre the essence of the state.  As Schumpeter argued, we must have a pre-analytical cognitive moment of visiion from which we draw the raw material for our analysis.  For me that vision with regard to the state has been since my undergraduate days fundamentally Rothbardian.  I cannot help it, but other visions of the state always appear to me as overly romantic.  Politics without romance, to me, must begin with the recognition that the state is an instrument of coercive exploitation --- organized predation if you will --- and can be and will be used by some to exploit others.  Consensual politics, in others words, does not really make sense.  It is all about predation all the way down, even though I will admit that some states are more predatory than others.

Enough political confessions of basic vision, the real question is whether that vision gives us enough raw material to work with in political economy so that progress can be made in getting at the underlying mechanisms in operation in this world (or a possible world) that once we explicate them we will understand the world better (or the workability of the possible world better).

Comments

[Adam]

"Entrust it to one man, or to several men, or to all men, as you please; whichever it is, the results will be equally unfortunate for you. You will then wax hot against the actual holders of this power, and will, according to circumstances, accuse in turn monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, mixed governments and the representative system. You will be wrong; it is the measure of force that is the culprit, not its holders. Your indignation needs to be directed against the sword and not against the arm. There are weapons which are too heavy for the hand of man."
-Benjamin Constant

[Rafe Champion]

Often one can see the point of thiking about the State like a monster out of Goya but to do so is to abandon methodological individualism. Ordinary people get to do extraordinary things, like the fire-bombing of Dresden. That was probably planned by soft-voiced men standing around a map of Western Europe on a table, moving models and lines around while they did complicated sums in cost benefits and logistics. They would have loved their wives and children and pets, and maybe art and literature or gardening and soccer. The same applied to the aircrew and to the people standing around illuminated table and wall maps on the other side of the line.

Events get out of hand and the answer is not to think of the State as an evil person but to win the battle of ideas for the liberal order. Of course we all agree on that, I am just wondering about the Rothbardian vision. Maybe we all need to go with our own visions, mine is probably the ball game where there are winners and losers but nobody in the normal course of events gets killed or eaten. (Sometimes you wonder when you see the NZ All Blacks doing their war dance before a test match). At the same time the fight against Evil personified has tremendous emotional appeal that is tapped by The Lord of the Rings, for example.

[Kaem]

"I cannot help it, but other visions of the state always appear to me as overly romantic. Politics without romance, to me, must begin with the recognition that the state is an instrument of coercive exploitation --- organized predation if you will --- and can be and will be used by some to exploit others."

I cannot help it, but other visions of the market always appear to me as overly romantic. Trade without romance, to me, must begin with the recognition that the market is an instrument of coercive exploitation --- organized extorted value of the workers by the capitalists if you will --- and can be and will be used by some to exploit others.

Ok, I don't really believe more in my version than in yours. But they are both simplistic and ideological. Basic marxism and basic libertarianism are really two faces of the same coin. On the one side there is market worshipping, on the other it's the state.

[Jon]

I completely disagree Kaem. It is the freedom that man experiences within the market structure free of government coercion that we strive for and as such I believe that we should see intrusive government policy as lessening our choice set and making us either worse off, or less free.

In response to your parody:
"There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning board would possess..." - F.A. Hayek

[Peter Boettke]

Kaem,

What in my post communicating anything about worshoping the market?!

I admit my post was about hating the state, but romanticism of the market isn't in there.

[Rafe]

What did I tell you about those New Zealand rugby players - while the Australian team lost a desperately close game in South Africa the reserves were eaten by Maori in New Zealand.

http://au.sports.yahoo.com/070525/2/1902m.html

[Account Deleted]

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