In defense of a minimal state

By a 'minimal state' I mean a state that undertakes to do no more than protect the rights of its citizenry. That is, a state that does not seek to ensure its citizenry live the longest, or happiest, or healthiest, or wisest, or most virtuous lives, but rather that seeks just to make sure that its citizenry live lives that do not violate the rights of others.

Let me say what I mean by a 'right'. On my usage, to say that you have a 'right' to something, is to say that force can justifiably be used to give it to you, or to prevent someone else from taking it from you.

I take it that though we may disagree to some extent over exactly what we do and do not have rights to, reasonable people would agree that it is relatively rare that we can use force against each other and thus that any state that restricts itself to protecting the rights (understood in the above Lockean way) of its citizenry will, by virtue of that, be 'minimal'.

I have two defenses of such a state, one prudential and one moral. The prudential first.

Perhaps democracy is the best form of government. I don't know. But if it is, it nevertheless has flaws, one of the most significant being that in a democracy, those in power really want it. For they dedicated a lot of time and energy to acquiring it. Thus, typically anyway, in a democracy people who positively relish bossing other people around get their hands on the levers of power. Plato thought wanting power was sufficient to disqualify you from receiving it - those who want it, shouldn't have it. And he's surely right that it is a character flaw: good people don't enjoy telling others what to do. So, a significant flaw with democracies is that they put people whose major malfunction is that they like bossing others around in positions where they can get to indulge that vice like never before! Thus, it would be stupid in the extreme not to put any limits in advance on what they get to indulge their vicious passion over. If you don't, then it's really only a matter of time before they start meddling in areas they have no business meddling in - remember, they're not like you and I. They're not the most reasonable among us: they're people who love power and who are not content to exercise it over just themselves. Having a constitution that limits in advance, and limits severely, those areas in which the power hungry may feast is in virtually all of our best interests. Indeed, the only people whose interests it would not serve would be those lucky power-hungry few who find themselves in the positions we've limited the power of and the arbitrary others they would have abused their power to benefit. Limiting those in power to protecting the rights - understood in the above way - of the citizenry is the only plausible limit one can implement. For any less than this and we risk having our rights violated (for states are generally better at protecting our rights than we would be in the state's absence). And though there's quite a lot of wiggle room over exactly what we have rights to - and thus room for the power hungry to abuse us - limiting the discussion to what we have rights to, rather than to what it would be good to achieve, would still operate as a serious constraint (and note too, that it is probably in our interests that such wiggle room exist, as it is in our interests that debates about what we have rights to be allowed to rage and not be settled by constitutional fiat).

My second defense is moral. The difference between a person who is in charge and a person who is not is a difference in power, not a difference in moral standing (elections don't alter that). Those in charge have no more rights than we who are not. And thus we can judge what it would be right for a leader to do by simply asking what we would be entitled to do to another person if we had the power to do it. And by definition, we are only entitled to use force and the threat of force against another person, when that person is violating someone else's rights. If you're attempting to kill me, or an innocent other, or attempting to take something that is mine, or something that is someone else's, then I - and anyone else - is entitled to use force to stop you. They don't even have to ask the other person - if someone's attempting to kill you, I am morally entitled to use force to stop them even without your explicit consent. And so that is, at most, all that those in power are entitled to use force to do, as well. That is, those in power are only entitled to use the powers they have available to them to make sure others are not violating each other's rights.

Thus, for both prudential and moral reasons, any sensible democracy should have a constitution that limits the powers of those in charge to protecting the citizenry's rights and no more than that. So, no utopianism - no using power to try and create a heaven on earth. And no saint production: there's a lot of immoral behaviour and immoral attitudes that we have no business using force to prevent people engaging in or adopting. For the most part it is your job to make sure you behave morally, and it is not a job one can delegate. Force can only be used against an immoral person when that person's behaviour is violating another's rights, not otherwise. So, if you're very hungry through no fault of your own, then I probably ought to help you. But you're not entitled to mug me if I don't. And nor is someone else. Thus the state is not entitled to mug its wealthier citizens and give the proceeds to the poorer, even though the citizenry itself are under obligations voluntarily to redistribute their wealth. And so on.

For the most part, education, health and wealth are not things you have a right to. That is, if I have some knowledge, and I have some medical know-how, and I have some money, then the mere fact you don't, doesn't by itself entitle you to use force against me to transfer some of what I have to you. Exceptions abound of course - if I am personally respnsible for your lack of education, or your poor health, or your lack of wealth, then matters are different. But if I am not, then you're not entitled to force me to give you what I have, or make me do things against my will. And thus nor is the state.