Dr. Tom G. Palmer
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Cato Institute
September School of Social Sciences and Political Philosophy
CADI
Konrad Adenauer Stiftung
Bucharest
12.September.2011
Is the State Necessary for
Freedom and Order?
 Some argue that it is a logical necessity, e.g.:
 There must be a system of defense of life and liberty
and of adjudication or disputes
 That system must have a final arbiter
 A final arbiter must have a monopoly
 Without a monopoly of coercive power, it is not possible
to induce people to behave properly
 Only a state can overcome the transactions costs
involved in creating public goods
Is the state is necessary to achieve
personal identity?
 Passports
 Birth Certificates
Some Believe the
State Is Responsible
for….Everything
“Government is 'implicated'
in everything people own. . .
. If rich people have a great
deal of money, it is because
the government furnishes a
system in which they are
entitled to have and keep that
money.”
Professor Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein
The presumption is that
all “Surplus” is
Attributable to the State
But without a surplus, no state could be
formed in the first place….
“What is a State?”
“a state is that human
community which
(successfully) lays claim to
the monopoly of legitimate
physical violence within a
certain territory, this
‘territory’ being another of
the defining characteristics
of the state.”
Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation” [1919]
Max Weber (1864-1920)
How is Wealth Acquired?
“There exist in the world
only two great parties; that
of those who prefer to live
from the produce of their
labor or of their property,
and that of those who
prefer to live on the labor
or the property of
others…”
--Charles Comte
Le Censeur Européen
An Organization of the
Political Means
The “economic means” and the
“political means”:
“There are two fundamentally opposed
means whereby man, requiring sustenance,
is impelled to obtain the necessary means
for satisfying his desires. These are work
and robbery, one's own labor and the
forcible appropriation of the labor of
others.”
“The state is an organization of the
political means.”
--Franz Oppenheimer, The State
Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943)
What Economic Means Must
Precede the Political Means?
A Memory of
the Conflict in
an Old Story
“And Abel was a
keeper of sheep, but
Cain was a tiller of
the ground.”
Genesis 4, 1-16
Empires of Nomads over
Cultivators
The Role of the Middle
East….
From Roving Bandits to
Stationary Bandits
“If the leader of a roving
bandit gang who finds only
slim pickings is strong
enough to take hold of a
given territory and to keep
other bandits out, he can
monopolize crime in that
area – he can become a
stationary bandit.”
--Mancur Olson, Power and
Prosperity
Mancur Olson 1(932-1998)
Maximizing Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) or Capturing the “State Accessible
Product” (SAP)
“The ruler…maximizes the stateaccessible product, if necessary, at
the expense of the overall wealth
of the realm and its subjects.”
“the state-accessible product had
to be easy to identify, monitor,
and enumerate (in short,
assessable), as well as being close
enough geographically….”
--James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being
Governed (2009)
A Case Study:
The Norman State, 911
Hrólfr, aka Duke Rollo of Normandy
The Norman Conquest of
England: 1066
A look at the
problem of
sovereignty
“Majesty or sovereignty is the
most high, absolute, and
perpetual power over the
citizens and subjects in a
Commonwealth…”
“Custom acquires its force little
by little and by the common
consent of all, or most, over
many years, while law appears
suddenly, gets its strength from
one person who has the power
of commanding all.”
Jean Bodin, Les Six livres de la République, 1576
As such, the sovereign
is defined to be the
source of law and
therefore above the law
1.
2.
1.
2.
De Jasay’s
“Ethics
Turnpike”
Rectitude
Altruism
Kantian Interest
Tribalism
Supergame
Straddle
Social Contract
Existence is a
Proof of
Possibility
If voluntary provision of public
goods is impossible, why is it so
common?
 Even the American
legal system is more
competitive, less
monopolistic, and
more voluntary than
most people think
 Bail Bondsmen and
Bounty Hunters
 “Private Security
Firms”
 Locks and SelfDefense
 Etc., etc., etc.
What are some
preconditions to
voluntary provision of
a liberal legal order?
Distinction between the services of
1. Providing rules and decisions
2. Providing enforcement of rules
and decisions
Relying on restitution rather than
retribution
A social order relying on crosscutting loyalties
“All of us, without exception,
carry this inherited poison within
us, in the most varied and
unexpected places and in the
most diverse forms, often defying
perception. All of us, collectively
and individually, are accessories
to this great sin of all time, this
real original sin, a hereditary fault
that can be excised and erased
only with great difficulty and
slowly, by an insight into
pathology, by a will to recover, by
the active remorse of all.”
--Alexander Rüstow, Freedom and Domination
Alexander Rüstow (1885-1963)