The State

The nature of the state can be roughly divided into 5 differing catergories. The most important remains the idea of a social contract.


Contract
Organic
Force IS NATURE NEEDED?


SOCIAL CONTRACT
Plato – Socratic Dialogues
Hobbes – Leviathan
Locke – 2 Treaties of Government
Rousseau – The Social Contract
Rawls – A Theory of Justice


A social contract is the decision to form a society; it is the justification for moving from a state of nature to the state of society. Differing conceptions place differing rules on how the society must act and government are ran in order to make this movement legitimate.




Plato
When Socrates was unjust condemned by the state, Plato asserts that by residence within the state there is an implicit contract between the state and the citizen
Does an aggregation of implicit promises constitute a real association of citizens?
SEE KEATING TO EXPLAIN THIS


Hobbes
The state of nature is barbaric, the people leave this state and pass power to an arbitrary despot. This body only has a requirement to give security to its citizens.
The alienation of peoples’ individual sovereignty to an arbitrary government
Is this contract a reciprocal contract? Although the government must provide security many would argue that this is insufficient grounds for the contact to be valid.


Locke
Double Contract
Social
Political – this is conditional on constitutional government protecting natural rights
Is this sufficiently reciprocal?
This contract lacks democracy, because it turns out only a limited group of people have the power to ‘withdraw consent’


Rousseau
Rousseau has a single social contract which reflects an optimistic view of human nature. The realisation to have a society implies a development in man’s moral development. The contract is made by rational men.
Rousseau says man is born free and everywhere he is in chains – the question is how they can be made legitimate – which is through the social contract.
Does Rousseau have a hopeful vision of human nature that the bringing into society will suddenly bring moral development? Is a political contract not required also?


Kant
Kant extended the idea of the social contract, saying it was a hypothetical ought, rather than an event in history. He followed similar lines to Rousseau.
“It is merely an idea of reason which has practical reality for it obliges legislation not incompatible with the general will”


Rawls
Under a veil of ignorance in an original position people would decide on two principles to government society
Equal Liberty
Difference Principle (opportunities and redistributive justice)
Can we really consider society legitimate on a hypothetical ideal?
Is this what rational men would really decide upon? Is human nature not greedy?
In terms of game theory, Rawls assumes we would seek to maximise out minimum – however, would we not look at the strata of society and the possibility of where we would most likely end up and decide upon those grounds. That may mean we prefer an American style society (some very very poor, but a lot very well off) compared to a Scandinavian style government
Does Rawls suppress out ‘conception of good’ which is relevant grounds as to how we think society should be formed.


Utilitarian attacks on social contracts
We should not be focusing on original position, but instead we should be focuses on achieving the best outcome.
In common with social contract theorists they focus on rationalism within politics
If we agree with the premise of the original position then we necessarily agree with the outcome – unless that outcome is distorted, and therefore it is not the original position anyway!


Organicism
Organic theories of the state are anti-rationalism. They focus on the evolutionary development that happens within society.
Organic theorists also reject the notion that man could ever exist in any pre-social state and thus the need for any contract seems voided
Burke – The great primeval contract of Eternal society
Bound together by traditions, through generations of those past/present and future
Oakeshott – Society is on intimations of experience, we don’t know where we have come from and we don’t know where we have come from. There is no original position or outcomes merely the mutual cooperation of citizens.
Hegel – man and the state are effectively fused together, there is an organic unity between the state and the citizen.


Essentially, organic theories of the state say that social contract is a merely abstraction of differing ideas, that cannot be realised in reality. The state is not formed on these different abstracts but through citizens continuing unity of the state in which we are binded with our past, present and future citizens in the evolutionary development of it.


What is this evolutionary development leads to the destruction of basic freedoms? Should this be tolerated?
Why can’t citizens exist in a pre-social state? We are born free individuals, there is no necessary need to have our autonomy restricted – a state of nature is a possible form.


Force
David Hume argued that the social contract never happened, nor could of happened
All states are created purely by force
However, is political theory not concerned with ought rather that is? Hume accepts the social contract is the one just foundation of government.
Do written constitutions not mean we do have a social contract?


Role of the State


The state is an institution which claims a monopoly of legitimate power for a particular territory


Minimal
Developmental
Totalitarian


Minimal State – Provides widest possible liberty
Laissez-Faire economics
Defence (internal and external)
Ultimate Safety Net (Night Watchman)
Voluntarism (collective action to promote common good)
People are more effectively helped by voluntary deeds – not really a practical reality in today’s world.


Neo-Liberalism – Provides widest possible liberty
Anarchy, State and Utopia
State as a form of theft
It was very influential on Thatcher’s economic policies
Possessive Individualism and atomistic view of individuals
There is no such thing as society
However, it was combined with social authoritarianism during the Thatcher era – surely this is intellectual incoherent? However, social and economic are two very distinct strands within society they don’t have to cohere.


Developmental State – Social Justice
There is a mistaken view that developmental state is one that promotes capital inflows with big business – this is merely what happens in modern more under developed neo-liberal states. Developmental refers not to economics but to the development of the individual.
Commonly associated with a social democratic version of the state.
Closely linked with positive liberty and freeing people from restraints of effective exercise of freedom. This is paid for via progressive taxation
State management and intervention within industry – perhaps some public ownership
Keynesian demand side macroeconomic management
MIXED ECONOMY


Totalitarian State
It is a mistake to associate totalitarian with the way it is used in the media to indicate people who are dictators and abuse human rights
Single Interest in politics – MONOISM
Politics is Omnicompotent and influences all aspects of life and breadth
Single interest within society (general will)
OR


Monopoly of coercive violence, extensive use of police/armed forces, brainwashing propaganda, antipathy to pluralism – one party state.


Characteristics of the State
Sovereignty
Other associations don’t claim sovereignty usually. Although the church (mainly Catholic Church) claims due to the pope that it has sovereignty.
Sovereignty internally is still present, although an overly dominant executive is making sovereignty lie in a smaller and smaller grasp
Does external sovereignty still exist? Specifically due to the fact that even after the 45minute claim was rubbished it was still justified because he was an evil man.
Territoriality
The world is divided by borders showing where this sovereignty operates in geographical terms
Disputed borders
Universal Jurisdiction
All humans resident within the territorial borders potentially come under the jurisdiction of the state
Diplomatic Immunity? – This could still be taken away.
Compulsory
People must do it
Coercion
The state must have the ability to ensure its laws are passed, and those who break them punished. Thus, the state has a monopoly of legitimate power.
Public
It is recognisable public. Its decisions are binding and legitimate because they work towards the common or public good.


Read more....