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Concepts and institutions of liberty have emerged from efforts to oppose political practices and power structures that produce arbitrariness and tyranny. Politics and the state, therefore, are from the outset fundamental parameters in the development of freedom and her theories.
Presently, I am writing up, in fact, largely collating, the last section of the first part of my chapter on “Politics”. Before going on to analyse later in the chapter what I like to call the (potential) toxicity of the state, I find it necessary to define and explain the state phenomenon, how and why it came about, and why it has elicited an uninterrupted persistence since its ascent. It seems fair to suggest that the entire development of human civilisation, since the neolithic revolution that gave rise to sedentary agriculture roughly 10 000 years ago, has been accompanied by what one can make out to be state structures. To summarise the remarkable observation in the words of Douglas Cecil North:
… the creation of the state in the millenia following the first economic revolution [the neolithic revolution, I.U.] was the necessary condition for all subsequent economic development.
Structure an Change in Economic History, 1981, p. 24
Why is the state such a faithful companion to humankind? I am not going to report my answers to these questions in the present post. I am mentioning these issues merely to provide the backdrop against which I shall write about the collating choices I am facing today.
In the chapter on “Politics,” I offer (i) an account of the origin of the state and (ii) three theorems which encapsulate the reasons why the emerging state was going to prove robustly persistent to this day, and most probably far into the future.
Moving on from these considerations, the passages in question today are meant to serve as a historic tapestry that illustrates a number of crucial points about the state, to wit:
- (a) there are forces stronger than the state,
- (b) holders of power are dependent on forces that they cannot control or manipulate to their liking,
- (c) the shaping of the state is a highly complex process in which societal factions interact with power holders and functionaries of the state,
- (d) as a result of (a), (b), and (c) the state is subject to an ongoing process of evolution, the outcome of which is neither predictable nor can it be (i) minutely planned and – on that basis – (ii) faithfully implemented.
Ultimately, the state is a spontaneous, a self-generating order created “by human action, but not by human design,” to borrow Adam Fergusson’s famous words.
To illustrate these general aspects, I have to bring three fragments into a meaningful order:
(i) Olson’s account of the origins of the state discernible in the transition of a regime of itinerant power claimants to a regime of stationary power holders, (ii) David Waldner’s and Michael Mann’s work on the characteristics of mediate and immediate states, as well as (iii) Spruyt’s research into the emergence of modern sovereign territorial or nation states, especially as instanced by the rise of the French kingship in the era of the Carpet dynasty.
I draw from Douglas C. North the overarching theme that helps me to unify the four above aspects. North shows that — on the most general level — the state has to balance two objectives: it is rationally induced to maximise both (i) the material means underlying its power, as well as (ii) the political support of its power.
This duplex objective function leaves considerable room for mismanagement (say in terms of economic advancement or human rights), but it also defines a corridor from which the state cannot deviate. There are limits to the destructiveness and inadequacy of the state, as well as incentives for it to promote progress.
In principle, it is rational for the state to support conditions of freedom and economic vitality, as long as
- (i) the costs of fostering freedom and wealth do not surpass the benefits – see (II) and (III) – accruing to the ruler,
- (ii) requirements of political support do not outweigh and countervail economically conducive measures and institutions, and
- (iii) modes of rent seeking applied by power holders do not substantially undermine the prerequisites of freedom and wealth.
Olson demonstrates the fundamental tenet that – in principle and subject to the above provisos – it is rational for a ruler to create conditions conducive to improved economic conditions, as can be seen from the advantages that roving bandits stand to gain by becoming stationary bandits with a stake – an encompassing interest – in their realm.
Waldner and Mann show that acquiring and maintaining power is always predicated on compromise, delegation, complicated negotiations and tactical games determining the distribution of power and its spoils amongst a community of contenders. The ruler of the mediate state depends very strongly on other power holders (local notables), because he cannot (i) ensure sufficient concentration of military power for conquest – the core base of his dominance – AND (ii) adequate dispersion of his forces to provide desirable outcomes in local administration and other processes of peaceful ruling.
The tension is not resolved when the mediate state gives way to the immediate state, where the power centre controls bureaucracies that allow him to interfere immediately in the affairs of his subjects. Pars pro toto: the tax farmer- a local notable with his own power base – is replaced by the state revenue office – bureaucrats without an independent power base of their own.
Spruyt describes how coalitions of political elites need to be formed to generate structures of sustainable power. He gives us an account of how during the High Middle Age the emerging urban population and the French king forge a coalition against the Emperor, the clergy and the feudal lords of their time.
People will always contend for power – mostly relative power – to protect and further their interests – for instance, a company’s effort to change the law so as to remove a discriminatory clause. The state is a pattern that is moulded by the intersection of these multifarious endeavours for (mostly relative) standing, validation or dominance.
The historic “tapestry,” as I call it above, is the prelude to the final section where I offer a general theory of the state, in which I model the state as a fluid network of negotiated relative shares of power.
The crux of the conclusion to which the above arguments lead up is: property rights and other rights that are fundamental to a free society are being originated by dint of the described state-forming process.
The lesson for liberty seems to be that freedom can only hope to gain prominence through this very process of political sculpting. The state is the sculpture. Hence, it is of the essence to be aware of the need to promote liberty politically, to study the process of political sculpting that determines cycles of prominence and obscurity for ideologies and their policies, and to participate in the political process to alter the character of the state in the direction of liberty.
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