4
Roles and Functions of the State and the Nature of State Power
Introduction
In this chapter, we propose to deal with the roles and functions of the State, and the nature of state power. This also involves examining the relationship of the State with the society on one hand and the individual on the other. We will also discuss the relationship between the core principles of right, liberty, freedom, justice and equality, with respect to the institution of the State. This will help us in understanding the philosophical and theoretical basis of state action, social and economic legislation, policy perspective of different type of states, nature of state's intervention in the sphere of society and market, and the nature of political obligation.
We propose to discuss the following perspectives and theories: (i) Liberal and neo-Liberal theories, (ii) Marxist and neo-Marxist theories, (iii) Welfare state perspective, (iv) Communitarian perspective and (v) Gandhian perspective. The Pluralist perspective which presents yet another view of distribution of power in the State and the nature of state-society relationship vis-á-vis, groups and associations, has been discussed later in this book.
Liberal and Neo-Liberal Theories
Let us treat liberalism as ‘an ideology based on a commitment to individualism, freedom, toleration and consent.1
The liberal theory of the role, its functions and the nature of state power would invariably focus on:
- Ensuring, protecting and enlarging individual freedom
- Limiting the role and functions of the State
- Allowing state interference only when it helps an individual gain more liberty and freedom
- Making individuals the source of State and governmental power
- Advocating a doctrine of a limited political obligation
Within this broad focus, however, along with the changing notion of individual liberty and freedom, the liberal tradition has journeyed through changing notions of the State and its role. Three distinct phases or streams of liberal tradition can be identified. These are: (i) Negative liberalism or theory of laissez-faire individualism which is also known as classical liberalism, (ii) Positive liberalism or welfare liberalism, and (iii) Neo-liberalism or libertarianism. At the outset, the distinguishing features of these three phases and their main advocates can be listed as shown in Table 4.1.
Table 4.1 Phases or Streams of Liberal Tradition
| Phases of Advocates | Liberalism | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Negative Liberalism |
|
|
| Positive Liberalism |
|
|
| Neo-Liberalism or Libertarianism |
|
|
Negative Liberalism and Theory of Laissez-Faire State
Philosophical and political roots of negative liberalism can be traced in the social contract theory of Hobbes and Locke. Subsequently, it was developed, revised and amplified by Bentham and J. S. Mill's utilitarianism, Spencer's ‘survival of the fittest’ doctrine, Paine's doctrine of State as a ‘necessary evil’ and others. On the economic front, the Physiocrats, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus and others provided the ground and arguments for economic liberty. The two—negative liberty and economic liberty—combined were destined to give birth to what we call classical liberalism or laissez-faire individualism. Its sole focus is individual and to ensure political liberty, it needs a limited government, liberal democracy and minimal state intervention; to ensure economic liberty, it argues for capitalist-market system; and personal freedom amounts to enjoying a combination of political rights and economic liberty. In the following discussions, we will look at the arguments and implications for organizing social, political and economic life of individuals from this perspective.
At the outset, we may note that the arguments of classical liberalism, both in the political and economic realm, draw on the understanding of human nature and human psychology. Hobbes's individual desires good and decries evil, Locke's individual seeks to replace pleasure for pain, Bentham's individual yearns for happiness, Smith's individual is self-interested and so is that of Ricardo and Malthus. If such is the nature and psychology of a human being (read man as they all referred to), the individual either by way of instinct or reason, will seek what is good in his/her interest. But then the pursuit is to ensure that there also remains a society or community out of these self-interested individuals. This is ensured by the very minimalist state, a state least interfering in the activities of people but nevertheless there as ‘a necessary evil’ (Paine) and by the ‘invisible hand’ (Smith), ‘whereby “the private interests and passions of men” are led in the direction “which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society”.’2
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke: Theorists of the Possessive Individual
The social contractualist doctrine of Hobbes and Locke can be treated as advocacy of early liberalism. Hobbes's man is competitive, egoist, self-interested and is rational insofar as his safety and well-being is concerned. Further, the basis of the State is consent of the individuals through their social contract. If liberalism is about individualism, freedom and consent, then Hobbes lays the foundation for such a doctrine. Further, it is liberal because Hobbes explains the existence of society and the State by reference to ‘free and equal’ individuals.3
Lockes formulations of inalienable natural rights of life, liberty and estate being the basis of society and State is a clear-cut statement of liberal doctrine. These rights provide individual exclusive and indefeasible realm, which the State cannot violate or negate. These rights include individual civil and political rights of life, liberty and estate. Right to life requires other rights and things, which are necessary to preserve it. Right to property is what individual acquires through labour by way of goods and possessions. Interestingly, Locke's concept of property as a natural right is connected with the mixing of labour. According to Locke, ‘the labour of his body and the work of his hands … are properly his’.4 Locke identifies property in those possessions or acquisitions that labour of an individual obtains. Property is possession of what an individual acquires by mixing his labour in whatever—grass, turf, land—is available in nature in common with others. Thus, right to property is a natural right in its own capacity—on the principle of labour mixed, as well as an extension of natural right of life—possessions required to preserve it. Up to this point, Locke's right to property is an equal right for all, as a person has right to acquire property by mixing his labour so long as there is enough left in common for others.
Soon, this principle of labour and sufficiency (mixing labour and leaving sufficient for others) is supplemented with another principle—principle of spoilage. This means that a person can appropriate as much as one can use without spoiling it. Locke used the example that if a person were to gather a hundred bushels of apples and half of them spoiled before they could be eaten, then the person took more than his share and robbed others.5 However, the spoilage principle may become redundant if it is assumed that what one has acquired could be exchanged and preserved without spoiling it. And also that once a person has this exchangeable commodity or capacity, not only labour in person but labour of others can also be acquired. Locke reaches this logical conclusion and introduces the factor of currency or exchangeable units. The principle of currency enables one to acquire even without leaving sufficient for others or spoiling what has been acquired but not used. This also becomes the basis for exchange of commodities and labour. Thus, Locke's theory of labour as basis of property leads him to propound the right of unlimited accumulation of property.
To maintain the inviolability of these rights, the society retains the supreme authority. The government becomes an agent of this supreme power and is limited by the trust it reposes. Thus, Locke envisages a limited government that is based on the consent of and representation from the individuals and also subject to resistance from the people if it fails to protect the natural rights of the individuals. These principles are integral to liberal political thought.
As both Hobbes and Locke envisaged a self-contained individual with proprietorial rights on their person and capacity, Macpherson has termed their theory as political theory of possessive individualism.6 In political and philosophical terms, Hobbes and Locke prepared the grounds for a liberal political doctrine in the seventeenth century by enunciating the principles of consent, individualism (Hobbes and Locke) and individual right to life, liberty and property and limited government (Locke). In fact, Locke's limited government as trust is left with only core police functions or to legislate, execute and arbitrate. He also accordingly seeks separation of these three powers in three distinct organs so as not to allow concentration of power in any one organ of the state. It was Locke who would like the State to be ‘a night watchman, whose services are called upon only when orderly existence is threatened’.7
Theorists of the Laissez-Faire State
Physiocrats
In the eighteenth century, physiocrats and economists, namely, Smith, Ricardo and Malthus advocated the principle of laissez-faire, non-interference of government in economic life of individuals. Physiocrats were a school of economic thought in France led by Francois Quesnay and Mirabeau. Quesnay, a physician in the court of Louis XV, devised a chart of the economy called tableau économique.8 The chart and the physiocrats were of the view ‘that wealth sprang from production and that it flowed through the nation, from hand to hand, replenishing the body social like the circulation of blood’.9 They envisaged wealth in terms of production, as opposed to the popularly held view held that it consisted of gold and silver. However, it was based on the idea that only an agricultural worker produced true wealth and a manufacturing and commercial worker merely altered its form. This could have been due to their view in the goodness of nature and that labour can produce only when performed on land and in the bosom of nature. Implicit in this was the advocacy that government should leave producers free without interference so long as they do not interfere in each other. The physiocrats advocated liberty of production and non-interference of State in the activity, a policy of laissez-faire.
Adam Smith
Adam Smith, though deeply influenced by the physiocrats, however, could not accept that labour can only produce on land and in nature. Labour being the source of ‘value’ could produce wherever it performed.10 Commerce, industry and agriculture, all became source of wealth for Smith. And how to maximize this wealth became the main objective of Smith's inquiry in Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). In 1759, before he discussed the wealth of nations, Smith had dwelt upon the Theory of Moral Sentiments. This book has discussed the dilemma of how man, a creature of self-interest, can form moral judgements by suspending self-interest. Smith contented that ‘the answer lay in our ability to put ourselves in the position of a third person, an impartial observer …’11 If we contend that liberalism is the philosophy of the individual and Smith is a philosopher within the liberal fold, we must start with his views of man to understand why he needs non-interference of the State to argue for the wealth of nations. If Smith's inquiry into man as a creature of self-interest is any indication, like all liberals, he was making his arguments for a self-regulated market through the ‘invisible hand’.
Smith views self-interest as the moving force in an individual for doing and acting in society. It is a driving power to guide men to whatever work society is willing to pay for. Smith asserted that everyone has a natural inclination to trade and do business. In his words:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities, but of their advantages.12
This basic instinct to do business to our best advantage needs a self-regulated mechanism, if it has to emerge in the form of a market leading to general prosperity. This regulator, Smith identifies as ‘competition’—the conflict of the self-interested actors in the marketplace. In short, Smith deducing from the nature of individual as self-interested and having a natural propensity to trade and do business, concludes that it will result in competition in a situation of similarly self-interested individuals. Thus, Smith's view of man is that of a rational calculator in competition with similar individuals.
But how does this help the society? Smith's answer is that this will result in provision of those goods, which society wants, in the quantity that society desires and at the price it is ready to pay; demand and supply, and competition. This is the law of the market, the ‘invisible hand, which is self-regulating. Thus Smith's market is both a pinnacle of economic freedom and strictest taskmaster. The following conclusions emerge from Smith's views:
- Individual is a self-interested, rational calculator and has the propensity to trade and do business. This view has been termed as a view of ’economic man’ by his critics. The concept of economic man assumes that everyone acts only in self-interest and in a capitalist system only selfish consideration prevails. How would then any welfare be possible? Smith would answer that self-regulating demand and supply would provide general stability and prosperity. In fact, Utilitarian philosophy based on hedonistic calculus is somewhat built upon Smith's understanding.
- An environment of self-interested individuals results in competition, which provides a self-regulating mechanism to the market. This can be termed as a situation of ’atomistic competition. But competition along with resultant demand and supply is the basis for Smith's ‘invisible hand’ regulated market. It is this assurance that leads Smith to argue for non-interference by the State or external agency in the affairs of the market—a condition of laissez-faire.
Smith was explaining as well arguing for freedom of an economic man and liberty for commerce and industry. In his Wealth of Nations, Smith has explained how commercial capitalism emerged and has referred to this, as ‘the system of perfect liberty’. This is also called the system of natural liberty.13 Commercial capitalism, representing a condition of natural liberty, is the basis for achieving general prosperity and the government should not interfere to achieve general prosperity away from this principle. In defining his system of natural liberty, Smith says:
Everyman, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest in his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man or order of men. The sovereign is completely discharged from … the duty of superintending the industry of the private people, and of directing it toward the employments most suitable to the interests of the society.14
Through his concept of natural liberty, Smith favours liberation of business and free market from the regulation and restriction of government. He would argue that governments are spendthrift, irresponsible, and unproductive. He is against government's interference with market mechanism and restraints on imports and bounties of exports, against government laws that shelter industry from competition, and against government spending for unproductive ends.’15 However, despite his reservations against the government promoting welfare activities, Smith did not oppose all government actions that could promote general welfare. He favours government action to mitigate the stultifying effect of mass production where a man whose whole life is spent in performing simple operations becomes ignorant.16 He also favours public education to raise citizenry besides defence, protection and public works.
Smith was an advocate of a self-interested economic man, commercial capitalism as condition of natural liberty, self-regulated market, minimal state and laissez-faire individualism. It can be said that what Locke sought to achieve through the doctrine of natural rights and a night-watchman government, Smith sought through the doctrine of natural liberty and the ‘invisible hand’ of market. It seems, argument for laissez-faire individualism was aimed at backing the industrial and commercial class. During Smith's time, there was hardly any function that would qualify as welfare function performed by the state. Further, the state at that time was still under the control of landlords and nobles and posed a hurdle to the rising commercial and industrial class. Smith's contribution, with respect to self-regulating economic activity through ‘invisible hand’, competition and demand-supply factor provides important theoretical ground for operation of capitalist economy along with limited government.
Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo
After Smith, Thomas Robert Malthus in An Essay on the Principles of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society (1798) and David Ricardo in Principles of Political Economy (1917) advocated non-interference of the State in the individual liberty. Malthus cited the reason of population and Ricardo, rent to further the cause of laissez-faire.
Malthus put forward a dreadful presentiment to the world. He said that the population of the earth is a problem. He argued that taking the population at any number, it would increase exponentially, i.e., 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 516, etc. and subsistence arithmetically i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.17 This irreconcilable mouth—food divergence appeared incorrigible to Malthus. It means, all the time somesection or other of the population would be in misery. Poverty and this misery should not be solved by charity. As charity to those who are in misery would, in any way, lead to further population, it would be cruelty in disguise. Then what was the solution? Malthus could think of premature death, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, plague and above all the ‘dreadful resource of nature’, famine as self-regulating agents of depopulation. Thus, the gloomy presentiments of overpopulation led Malthus to argue against interference by the State to correct natural imbalances. He was a theorist of laissez faire.
Ricardo, on the other hand, was seized with the problem of rent. He felt that production would have to be increased to cater to the increasing population. This means, more and more land would be put into use for production. And gradually, even less productive land would be brought into cultivation but only to raise the cost of production. This would happen when free trade is not allowed and the population has to be fed with the produce of the country only. If ‘rent’ could be only the price paid for use of the land to the landlord, it is like ‘interest’, as the price of the capital to the capitalist and the ‘wages’, as the price of labour to the worker. But Ricardo felt that rent to the landlord was a special kind of return, as not all land was equally productive. Thus, more productive land in a competitive situation would give more rent for a given amount of production. This will happen due to the gap between the cost in the less productive and more productive land. This amounts to rent seeking due to government protection on import of grain.
It was this conclusion that made Ricardo fight against the Corn Laws that protected British grain which were costly.18 We can see, which conclusion Ricardo is approaching—he showed the advantages of free trade and argued for bringing cheap grain in Britain so that state-encouraged protection is eliminated.
While the landlords fought for keeping cheap grain out of Britain, the industrialist class saw Ricardo's theory as their own. Ricardo argued against state interference and the protection it promised to the landlords. He advocated free trade and against state interference.
Jeremy Bentham
Bentham is a utilitarian thinker and is considered as one the leading theorists of liberalism. He is also known as a philosophic radical. The utilitarian doctrine has its beginning, like all doctrines falling within the framework of liberalism, the individual psychology. Bentham's utilitarian doctrine conceives two impulses, ‘two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure’, which are integral to human emotions and nature. These two opposite impulses of human psychology determine what is evil and what is good. What brings happiness is good and the opposite of this is evil. Pleasure is always desirable and pain is always avoided. In fact, in case of priority, any pleasure is better than any pain; a pleasure, which gives more happiness, is preferable over which gives less (the quantitative measure). Accordingly, test of an action of an individual or society or government is its utility to cause pleasure and avert pain. If so, then as Wayper says, ‘the doctrine of utility must therefore also be a doctrine that teaches how pleasure can be measured.’19 Utility is what brings happiness and is good. If happiness can be measured quantitatively, scale of utility or hedonistic calculus/felicific calculus can be devised.
To know which action has utility and its scale as compared to other actions, Bentham suggests the following criteria:20 (i) intensity—strength of feeling; (ii) duration—how long it lasts; (iii) certainty—how certain or uncertain it is; (iv) propinquity—proximity/accessibility or remoteness/in accessibility of pleasure; (v) fecundity—chances of being followed by sensation of pleasure; (vi) purity—no chance of pain; and (vii) extent—affect others or not, more relevant to judge public policy.
The upshot of Bentham's utilitarian principle is that happiness or search for pleasure being the individual psychology, the organizing principle of society and governmental action should also be the same. Government should, then pursue ‘greatest happiness for the greatest number’ as this is ‘the only scientifically defensible criterion … of the public good’;21 a policy of the government is good if it serves a larger section of society by bringing more happiness than to larger section by bringing less happiness. The principle of greatest happiness for the greatest number has four ‘subsidiary goals: to provide subsistence, to produce abundance, to favour equality, to maintain security’.22 To produce in abundance is self-motivated as each seeks to maximize own wealth without limit. The State becomes ‘a group of persons organized for the promotion and maintenance of utility—that is happiness or pleasure.’ The purpose of legislation by the State is promotion and maintenance of happiness. Punishment and rewarding has to subscribe to this principle of utility; Bentham argued not for retributive justice (e.g., eye for an eye) but for corrective justice—punishment to a person is for setting an example for others not to do the same than to provide ‘eye for an eye’ justice; punishment only for increasing ‘net balance of pleasure or decreasing net balance of pain.’
Bentham grounds state action and individual obligation not on the basis of any contract or natural rights as the social contractualist did. He rejected the doctrine of natural rights as ‘natural and imprescriptible rights rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts’.23 For Bentham, the State is the source of rights and right to property is necessary for security. He makes the individual interest as the basis for social and public policy. However, in this, he makes maximum happiness as the end of the State rather than maximum liberty. Bentham advocates Civil Liberty—liberty consistent with interest of the community. But the community interest is nothing more than ‘the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it,24 The utility principles also amount to ‘each to count as one, and no one for more than one’ in the political arena. Bentham's state is a negative state, as it has no relation with moral life of people, except ensuring their happiness by removing conditions of pain.
Now what implication this utilitarian argument has for the functions of the state, role of public policy and individualism, Bentham makes individual psychology as the basis of state action and public legislation. He treats the State as contrivance and trustee of the individual. But he gives the State chance of ‘social engineering’—to legislate for greatest happiness for the greatest number. By making maximum happiness as the end of the State rather than maximum liberty and giving chance of social engineering with illiberal implications, is it not that he appears as ambivalent liberal. Commentators like Wayper and Nelson are of the view that Bentham's views may not be clear-cut statement of laissez faire liberalism. However, notwithstanding ambivalence, his is a theory of a liberal democratic state, which is to ensure conditions for the individual to pursue his happiness by removing the risks. It remains a negative state and individual's utility remain the basis of state policy.
Herbert Spencer
While Smith, Malthus and Ricardo were the advocates of economic and laissez-faire individualism; Bentham of philosophical and political individualism; Herbert Spencer provided sociological ground for laissez-faire individualism. Will Durant in his The Story of Philosophy, writes, ‘his (Spencer's) interest is predominantly in the problems of economics and government; he begins and ends, like Plato, with discourses on moral and political justice’.25 And Durant adds, ‘no man not even Comte (founder of the science and maker of the word sociology) has done so much for sociology’.
In our discussion on the Organismic theory, we have seen Herbert Spencer applying methods of biology in understanding society in terms of an analogy between society and natural organism. He drew a parallel between the evolution and growth of a social structure and biological organism. These parallels were to be organs of nutrition, circulation, coordination and reproduction. The conclusion Spencer drew was that development of society carried out the formula of evolution that individual/biological being is subject to. This evolution was visible all round: political unit—family to state; economic unit—domestic industry to monopolies; and population unit—from village to city. However, there was an integration of all this. In identifying the stages of evolution of society, Spencer identifies three distinct categories corresponding to three value systems. These three stages of society are—priestly/spiritual, military and industrial regimes, corresponding to three value systems of religious-spiritual, regimental-authoritarian and rational-scientific ethics. Further, this evolution for Spencer also represented evolution from ‘status to contract, as Henry Maine would say, and also to the belief that State exists for the benefit of the individual and not vice-versa. The individual in an industrial society was a self-contracting free individual.
In assuming evolution, Spencer was led to believe that it was the principle of ‘survival of the fittest’ that should apply to individual existence as Charles Darwin in his The Origin of the Species said it applied to evolution of living organisms. On the other hand, he concluded, as Adam Smith would, that state interference in intricate industrial situation would be inimical. Economic relations must be left to the automatic self-adjustment of supply and demand. He also opposed the government attempting equality principle.
Armed with these assumptions and parallels, Spencer advocated laissez-faire individualism. The main points may be listed as follows:
- Evolution of society is towards liberty of the individual and survival of the fittest
- ‘Struggle for existence’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ require non-interference of the State in economic activities
- The State should not seek to bring forced or compulsory equality
- The State, at best, can be a ‘joint stock company for mutual assurance’ and should not undertake public health or provide relief to poor as that would amount to interference with the principle of evolution26
- Non-interference by the State is also justified on the grounds of survival of the fittest
In short, Spencer supported negative liberty, laissez-faire individualism and ultra-minimalist state. In the words of Durant, ‘He (Spencer) never tired of reiterating his arguments against state-interference; he objected to state-financed education, or to governmental protection of citizens against fraudulent finances; at one time he argued that even the management of war should be a private, not a state, concern.’27 Thus, his is a state of rich-educated, on the one hand and ignorant, on the other, fraud financiers on the one hand and helpless citizens, on the other, and above all a state of mercenaries. It seems, if analogy of biological organism is to fit with social organism, as Spencer would like, then industrial society should be integration of each organ and parts as a body. It is intriguing, then, why Spencer advocated liberal society based on individual heterogeneity instead of centralized state.
The Mills
James Mill and his son, John Stuart Mill supported the utilitarian doctrine. James Mill, carrying on the tradition of Bentham, argued that representative democracy is the only legitimate form of government, as it alone conforms to the principles of utility. He also supported ‘property as the chief source of pleasure. Linking the right to property with the doctrine of utility he says, ‘the greatest possible happiness of society is … attained by insuring to every man the greatest possible quantity of the produce of his labor.28 Here James Mill combines Locke's concern for property without invoking the theory of natural rights (utilitarianism opposed the theory of natural rights) with the utilitarian principle and argues for a form of government that ensures the greatest liberty for acquiring property. For James Mill, as for other liberal thinkers, liberal democratic government based on representation must ensure the conditions for individuals to pursue their goal of acquisition and happiness. He rejected the monarchical and aristocratic forms of government as unsuitable for achieving the happiness of individual. According to Macpherson, ‘the case for a democratic system’ argued by Bentham and James Mill, ‘is purely a protective case’. The democratic government based on ‘one person, one vote’ will be the mechanism to protect the citizens against the government.29 Macpherson classifies Bentham and James Mill's views of democratic government as ‘protective democracy’.
Though John Stuart Mill revised the doctrine of utilitarianism on the grounds of an individual's moral self-development and is generally considered a supporter of positive liberty and grounds of welfare, his ideas contributed to negative liberty also. Mill was a staunch defender of freedom of speech and expression. He supported the view that the individual so far as his ‘self-regarding’ activities are concerned should not be interfered with. In fact, J. S. Mill's primary objective in defending individual liberty in such a way is to find out the ‘nature and limits of the power a society can legitimately exercise over the individual’. As such, it is not only a clearest expression of defence of individual liberty against government's power but also against the tyranny of the society, which in a democratic set up is majority.
Tom Paine who celebrated the Rights of Man also contributed to the cause of limited government and individual liberty espoused classical liberalism. He denounced the State as a ‘necessary evil’ and supported the concept of the natural rights of man. However, Paine did not support the social contract theory and rejected it as a ‘clog in the wheel of progress’. His support to the natural rights is grounded on teleological basis, as is the case with Green. This means, rights are inherent in the very existence of man as its purpose or teleos is human life. Paine argued for a limited state with limited functions. He says, ‘while society in any state is blessing, government, even in the best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one’.30 What Paine means is that society in any state (even could be a state of nature) is good; institution of government by social contract to come out of the state of nature (not a wholly undesirable state for Paine) is to be tolerated as a necessary evil. Tom Paine would never accept an absolutist or maximalist state, as it would be worst.
Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe and America were the period of negative liberalism. Negative liberalism insists on non-interference or only minimal and necessary interference by the State in the political and economic realm of the individual. In the political field, the liberal democratic set-up with charter of rights, separation of power and check and balances have been favoured. Interference of the State in production, commerce, trade and industry and entrepreneurship is denied to ensure economic liberty of the individual. This philosophy of negative liberalism or classical liberalism was in expectation with and in support to the rising industrial and capitalist class in Europe and America. It served or sought to serve the cause of the rising capitalist class against what Ricardo would like to call, the rent-seeking landlords, also provided ground against the political, domination of the aristocratic class. Thus, liberal democracy and free economy were made the two wheels of the same cart—capitalism. However, this cart was imbalanced, as Carlyle ridiculed it as ‘anarchy plus a constable’31—capitalist economy as anarchy and limited state as a constable. Carlyle's ridicule was one example of humanistic reaction against the condition that capitalism unleashed.
Positive Liberalism and Theory of the Welfare State
Nineteenth century, however, ruefully confessed the inherent shortcomings of free economy and the limited state. The conflict of interest between the landed or the aristocratic class and the rising capitalist class was already won in favour of the latter. Now, the growing problem of inequality and economic hardship in terms of working conditions, poor sanitation, health and habitation and other attendant problems were staring in eyes of the labour class. While negative liberalism dealt with the issue of liberty, it neither thought of nor required to deal with the issue of equality. The latter was to get its due when the ‘self-interested individual’ has come to face a class of its own creed having neither the same psychology nor capacity to use it. The condition and plight of the proletariat, the working class, was in no way an expression of their self-interest. They had neither economic freedom nor political liberty. How would Peter Happy, a worker working twelve hours a day and living in a congested slum-like housing without knowing what value he has created and how much he is entitled, be happy when he knows that the employer is getting richer out of his labour? It is not only restrictive of his economic activity, but is morally degenerating. Where is his liberty, his chance to express the god of self-interest, his chance to maximize his utility, and above all, to feel that this is his world as well? These were not simple day-to-day problems but causes for the degeneration of the same individual that liberalism sought to crown and Europe fought to retrieve from medieval decadence by bringing renaissance, reformation and enlightenment.
Thus came positive liberalism, remorseful, espousing the cause of equality, morality and self-development of the individual and ready to compensate for the wretchedness that its earlier avatar, negative individualism, has created. However, this was not without fear from the rising proletarian philosophy and socialistic thought in Europe. The utopian socialists and later, the Marxian thought had already given a new direction to the condition that prevailed due to the capitalist exploitation. The genre of positive liberals, while keeping the individual at the centre of thought, argued for equality, moral development of all, and an interventionist state.
Negative liberalism and positive liberalism differ from each other in that while the former advocates liberty as absence of interference or constraints or ‘freedom from’ outside authority, the latter advocates liberty as ‘freedom to’ moral and self-development, self-realization and self-mastery. While one excludes the States’ interference, the other seeks its assistance to serve the cause. It is in this latter sense that the role and functions of the State advocated by the positive liberals can be discussed below.
John Stuart Mill
John Gray in his introduction to Mill's On Liberty and Other Essays, says, ‘on the received and conventional view, John Stuart Mill is an eclectic and transitional thinker, who is never able either to endorse or to abandon the classical utilitarian philosophy he inherited from his father, James Mill …’32 But as we will see below, Mill's dilemma was not without reason. His concern was to moralize his father's and Bentham's utilitarianism. This he sought to do by introducing the qualitative element in the quantitative calculus, his father and also Bentham had preached and endorsed. A similar dilemma is visible in his formulation of liberty and freedom—'self-regarding’ and ‘other-regarding’.
Utilitarianism revised
Mill was not comfortable with the utilitarian principle that his father and Bentham had advocated. His revision of the utilitarian principle is based on the introduction of qualitative factor in the element of happiness. For Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, utility was ensuring greatest or maximum happiness for greatest number, a quantitative matter. Bentham's seven-point felicific calculus discussed above was inadequate to capture happiness in terms of moral and self-development of the individual, a qualitative matter.
We may summarize Mill's argument on moving away from narrow utilitarianism to a broad, qualitative utilitarianism as follows:
- The principle of utility, happiness and search for pleasure, as advocated by Bentham and James Mill, remains the central theme of Mill's argument. As Joad has pointed out, ‘Mill in common with other utilitarian thinkers … insists on regarding every political question in terms of the happiness or unhappiness of human beings …’33 Logically, then business of government becomes promotion of happiness of individual.
- But for Mill, happiness is not equal to calculation of pleasure in terms of Bentham's seven-point calculus alone. For Mill, some pleasures are of higher quality than others. This presents a departure from the principle of utility advocated by Bentham.
- By arguing this way, Mill admits that pleasure, which is higher in quality, e.g., freedom of speech and expression, opinion and belief, is worth pursuing and not the principle of utility, i.e., maximum happiness alone. Pleasure greater in quantity may be less in quality and vice-versa. The test of quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity are the preferences of those who have experienced both pain and pleasure based on self-consciousness and self-observation. They are also best judge to know which is the acutest of pain and most intense of pleasure.
- This revision is exemplified in Mill's argument that ‘it is better to be human beings dissatisfied than pigs satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied’.34 And if the fool or the pig is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides. Thus, qualitative happiness can be known only by those who have experienced both pain and pleasure and also two of these in different degrees.
- The upshot of Mill's argument and qualitative element is that the ‘individual must become what they can be’—Mill introduces the element of ‘self-realization’.
- Thus, ‘one pleasure is better than the other if it promotes the sense of dignity in man’. For Mill, self-realization, promotion of dignity and realizing moral ends become the goal. The State must then help the individual to pursue these moral ends. Thus, in addition to protecting the individual against the state, Mill also promotes self-development of man. Based on Mill's formulation of moral development, Macpherson characterizes Mill's view of democratic set-up as ‘developmental democracy’.35
At this stage, we can infer that by introducing the qualitative aspect in the Utilitarian principle, Mill has introduced positive liberty and positive functions of the state. The State now has to help the individual in self-realization and moral development, though it has to be protective and limited.
Liberty: Positive and negative
Mill insisted on liberty of thought and expression and liberty of conduct. He was an ardent supporter of freedom of speech and opinion. He felt that if truth is to prevail ultimately, all ideas must be left alone to compete, as free discussions can nourish fruitful ideas. His opinion that ‘all mankind minus one lacks the right to coerce the single dissident’ exemplifies his passion for freedom of speech and expression. In fact, this was not only to secure the freedom of the individual against the arbitrariness of the State but also against possible tyranny of public opinion or what we can say of the majority in a democracy. Thus, Mill can be termed as a votary of ‘survival of fittest’ in the field of ideas.
This passion for liberty and freedom can be linked to his views on self-development and self-realization. Can there be self-development and moral upliftment of individual and community without liberty? This was the question Mill must have asked and answered. His primary definition of liberty as ‘sovereignty of the individual over himself’ or ‘being left to oneself’ is directed towards this answer. Here he advocates a concept of liberty based on noninterference, and to that extent, espouses the cause of a negative liberal. However, this is to secure the condition for moral development. Liberty would help choose from conflicting ideas and also generate a sense of moral responsibility. Mill's concept of liberty to be meaningful to his concept of moral and self-development principle has to admit limitation. Though noninterference in an individual's liberty of action is justified, it has to be prevented from harming others.36
This admission brings Mill to his famous differentiation of actions or conduct: self-regarding actions and other-regarding actions. He does not admit any interference to self-regarding actions of individuals unless they produce demonstrable harmful effect on others. However, in terms of actions that affect others, he leaves the space open for interference, as this would be necessary for public interest and welfare. Mill's other definition of liberty, ‘liberty consists in doing what one desires, seems to be different from the first one, ‘being left to oneself’. While the latter is negative liberty, ‘freedom from’, the former it positive liberty, ‘freedom to’. If one is prevented from crossing a bridge, known to be unsafe, over a river and if liberty is what one desires, the prevention is desirable rather than crossing and falling into the river. While in a negative sense, liberty is being left to cross the river and fall, in a positive sense, it is freedom to live and for this it is open to interference.
However, many commentators have criticized Mill's differentiation between ‘self’- and ‘other-regarding’ actions. Barker, for example, maintains that it may not be possible to differentiate actions of individual into two compartments. He suggests, it is possible rather to separate between the sphere of society—cooperative and voluntary acts and that of the state—compulsory acts.37 Sabine feels that Mill's self-regarding actions would be convincing only when there was a body of natural rights belonging intrinsically to individuals of which they ought never to be deprived.38 We know that the concept of natural rights was not acceptable to the Utilitarians. It may be argued in favour of Mill that his differentiation was to plead for a liberal society based on respect for each other's opinion and freedom of speech. However, Mill's ‘other-regarding actions’ leave enough room for interference from both society and the state.
Positive state
If Mill's differentiation of actions is viewed in the context of classical liberalism and laissez-faire individualism, his admission of other regarding actions is a departure from what Smith, Ricardo, Spencer, or Malthus would argue. This departure provides room for the State to interfere when necessary in the interest of the society. In order to envisage the role of the state, it was important for Mill to realize whether pursuit of individual happiness would result in social happiness. Given the differences in the strength and historical conditions, each individual will gain unequal opportunity. Further, the qualitative aspect of the individual's life may also require the state's action. Flowing from his revision to the Utilitarian principle and differentiation of liberty, Mill's state appears to be a positive and welfare state. His position on the roles and functions of the state may be summarized as follows:
- Mill's entire thought supports a concept of the state that provides creative functions, atmosphere for freedom of speech and expression, inculcating virtue, and seeks peace and moral development. He also supports prohibitive functions of the state-state interference against social disorder, lawlessness etc39
- Realizing that land, industry and knowledge were restricted to a small minority, Mill supported use of the state to remove obstacles in the way of the individual's development and to make life tolerable for the masses
- Mill opposed the rights of inheritance and rent earned by landlords. He treated rent as ‘unearned income’ and advocated taxation on the incomes of the landlord. This was to be used for general welfare
- Mill supported compulsory education supported by the state, out of taxation. This was also necessary for moral and intellectual development of the masses
- He supported right of the State to intervene in the economic affairs. He supported legislation in case of children, limiting working hours, control on monopolies, governing wages and compensations
- Mill feels that only representative governments should undertake welfare activities; the state can liberate individual from certain contracts such as slavery; Mill felt that if the given implication of contract is not fully understood by many, there couldn't be free contract if not subject to state interference
- The State for him is a ‘mutual insurance company’40
Mill's concept of individual self-development is based on positive liberty; his individual is not selfish and profit-seeking, but is self-realizing. Mill's state is a developmental state. He supports a liberal government and a liberal society. On a whole, Mill provides a basis for a welfare state.
Thomas Hill Green
T. H. Green, an Oxford Hegelian idealist, was an ardent supporter of positive liberty and moral freedom. Unlike Mill, Green made a complete departure from the utilitarian ground. He argued for moral development of the individual without subscribing to the pain and pleasure view of human nature. Unlike the social contractualists, he rejected the doctrine of natural rights and argued for rights based on ideal or teleological grounds. As a Hegelian idealist, the State for Green is an embodiment of the divine idea. At the same time, it is remover of obstacles, a means to the moral development of the individual. The State may do everything to help in the moral development of an individual but should do nothing that hinders that development. From the idealist view, the State is an end in itself, but from the moral development view, it is a means. The State does have a role in an individual's life and his/her positive liberty.
Freedom as positive power
In his Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, Green argued that a human being is not determined by will of their strongest motive (like pain or pleasure, or self-interest); rather they determine their will. For Green, ‘the determination of will by reason … constitutes moral freedom or autonomy’.41 Rational capacity of human beings makes them obey what is to be obeyed. Green seems to revise the classical notion of human psychology based on will and motive and argues that freedom lies in ‘conformity of will to reason’. Thus, primacy of rational capacity of the human being to do what is to be done is the basic issue for Green in realizing moral freedom.
Freedom becomes a positive power to do what is to be done. Freedom, Green says, ‘is positive power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying and that, too, something we do or enjoy ‘in common with others.’42 What does Green mean by: (i) ‘positive power or capacity’, (ii) ‘something worth doing’, and (iii) ‘in common with others’? Positive power or capacity is based on human self-decided action or action based on rational capacity. Something worth doing is something that contributes to our own moral development along with that of others. In common with others is our power to do a common or social good. Defining freedom in such a way, Green makes a clear connection between liberty and moral purpose, which J. S. Mill also did. But it was Green who was the first to employ the term positive freedom to describe this connection.43 And by doing so, he also paid his due to the idealist position where freedom is identification of oneself with the divine spirit. The true good of individual and that of the others have to be realized ‘in common with others.
Positive freedom is then opposite of what negative freedom means. Negative freedom consists in the satisfaction of one's desire, acting as per one's own choice as one is left alone. Freedom is not being left alone to do what one likes, since all depends on what one likes to do. Freedom, as Barker would say, is not negative absence of restraint, as beauty is not the absence of ugliness. Thus, for Green, freedom is not absence of restraint but as a process of self-development. This is a different from the negative idea of liberty held by classical liberals like Hobbes and utilitarianism.
The implication is that the state has to be a partner in this moral development and as such it would be called upon to remove obstacles coming in this process. Green maintains that obstacles like ignorance, lack of education and poverty are hindrances to the moral development of the human personality. It is the duty of the state to remove these hindrances and provide external conditions of self-perfection. After Mill, Green added further logic for the welfare state.
Theory of rights: Ideal and natural
Green did not accept the doctrine of natural rights advocated by the social contractualists. For Green, rights of man are a matter of inherent moral character of man and must arise from the very fact of man as a human being. They do not emanate from some natural condition and state of nature. Green's idea of the right of an individual as human being arises from his idea of moral or positive freedom. He believed that man as a human being has certain claims, which ought to be recognized as rights. Rights as such are necessary for a human being to realize self-perfection and fulfil moral nature. As such, rights arising out of moral requirements are also natural, but because of their requirement based on teleology or purpose and not because they are available in the nature of the state. Green's natural or inherent rights arise out of and are necessary for the fulfillment of man's moral capacity.44 As Wayper says, they are not based on claims of an earlier (state of nature) against a later (civil society) state of society, but are rather an appeal from a less developed to a more mature society.
In this sense, right becomes a claim, which all individuals have for moral self-development and moral dignity. Green argued that right has two elements; firstly, a claim to freedom of action, which is assertion of an individual to realize his own inner power and capabilities and secondly, a general social recognition that the claim is warranted, that the individual's freedom really does contribute to the general good.45 Thus, Green seeks to interlink right and obligation, as an individual's right to seek moral dignity requires similar right to all—’doing or enjoying in common with others’.
For Green, right being recognition in moral terms, is recognition by society and not by the state. It is the moral consciousness of a community that will provide general social recognition. But these rights so recognized by the community are ‘ideal rights’. At times, in his idealist position, Green also goes on to claim that the actual rights are those, which are recognized by the state. As Barker says, the rights Green speaks are relative to morality rather than law. Green may not be then talking about legal rights but ideal rights.
Green's defence, specifically of right to property, is important. He argues that ‘the freedom of individual postulates freedom to acquire and possess material goods according to one's potentiality to contribute to social good’.46 Differences in property are functional, as social good requires that different individuals should fill different positions in the social whole. But moral development will be affected if some people acquire property, which hinders the moral development of others. Property in capital and a capitalist system has this weakness and Green was not unaware of this. But he thought this to have originated in system of landed property and he criticized the feudal system. Green thought that capitalism was not the cause for the plight of the proletariat and he blamed feudalism. Nevertheless, he hinted at a welfare state to be necessary for realizing the moral rights by man.
Role of the state: Idealist and positive
Green's idea of moral freedom, ideal rights and rights as recognition of moral consciousness of the community, all imply and conceive an institution that presents conditions for their realization. In line with the idealist position, Green treats the state as the fullest embodiment of the divine spirit and revelations of divine idea, as Hegel did. However, notwithstanding this idealist position, Green did not treat the state as an end in itself. It is a means to an end—full moral development of individuals that compose it. He says that ‘the life of the nation has no real existence except as the life of the individuals composing it’.47 Unlike Hegel, Green does not assign the state a purpose and end of its own. While making the state as a source of rights, Green however, does allow the individual to refuse to give obedience to the state. He says, one will never have the right to resist but one may be right in resisting.48 And one will be right in resisting if existing circumstances make fuller moral development impossible. Thus, Green's idealist position, though Hegelian, is primarily his own. He does not ask the individual to submit to the state merely because it is divine spirit incarnated but because it helps in moral development. Hegelian Green thus becomes positive liberal. The individual–state anti-thesis in Green's theory is resolved by way of aligning the moral requirement of the former with moral purpose of the latter. And in the case of anti-thesis, Green's individual has a limited obligation to the state.
The requirement of moral development of individuals brings in the role of the state. In terms of moral freedom, he explains the role of state as ‘human consciousness postulates liberty, liberty involves rights and rights demand the State’. Going backward, it means the state must become the source of those rights which are essential. Rights become the guarantor of liberty, which, in turn, is required for fullest moral development. Green assigns a negative role to the state by allowing the state to help remove hindrances in the way of moral development of personality and not to make men moral. For him ‘morality consists in a disinterested performance of self-imposed duties’ by the individuals. The State cannot provide such a function and cannot impose morality from outside. It should focus on removing the obstacles that prevent men becoming moral. For Green, obstacles which have a degenerating effect or those which affect mental and intellectual upliftment should be removed by the state. Amongst these, he includes: (i) mental or physical malnutrition (ignorance and poverty), (ii) violation of the sanctity of contract and its misuse, (iii) lack of education,49 (iv) concentration of national wealth in the hands of a few depriving the workers of moral development.50 These functions, negative in form, are positive in content, as they all require the state to make provision for food, health, public education, redistribution of national wealth, etc. As such, Green becomes an advocate of a positive and welfare state on moral basis.
Leonard T. Hobhouse
In Britain, Hobhouse carried the tradition of positive liberalism forward. Like J. S. Mill and T. H. Green before him, freedom for Hobhouse means personal development, self-realization and ability of the individual to gain fulfilment. In this mission of individual moral and s elf-development, the state needs to perform certain functions. Hobhouse too envisaged a positive state, which would create social conditions for moral-development and self-realization of the individual.
His position is specifically significant given his non-idealist interpretation of the state. After Green, a debate ensued regarding the relationship between the individual and the State. Some argued that the State is higher than the individual and others felt that the State exists only to aid individuals in developing their capacity as human beings. As Nelson he developed in his book, The Metaphysical Theory of the State (1918).51 Hobhouse is identified with the latter view. Hobhouse also provided a critique of the view of Bosanquet, who following Hegel and the Hegelian stream in Green, sought to justify state supremacy. Hobhouse criticized the illiberal possibilities of such a position and argued that Green never advocated subordination of individual to the state.
Hobhouse puts forward the view that society or the state should not be treated above the interests of the members that compose it. He says, ‘[T]he happiness and misery of society is the happiness and misery of human beings heightened or deepened by its sense of common possession.’52 By doing so, Hobhouse is paying tribute to his liberal position—the members of the society or the state are the principle beneficiaries and there is no other objective superior than their happiness or for that matter, removal of their misery. But then, he goes on to bring the individual self-realization in harmony with collective realization. He says, ‘[T]he greatest happiness will not be realized by the greatest or any great number unless in a form in which all can share, in which indeed the sharing is for each an essential ingredient.’ This interpretation of mutual interdependence of individual claim and social recognition is an ethical conception in Hobhouse, as is also in Green. For Hobhouse, individual distinct and separate personalities, can develop in harmony and contribute to a collective achievement.
The theme of moral development of members in common with others runs from Mill to Green to Hobhouse. The State is an aid to this purpose and the foundation of the welfare state could be seen strengthening. Like Green, Hobhouse also envisages that the State must play a positive role in bringing those conditions that help in achieving the goal and removing social inequalities. In his book, Social Evolution and Political Theory, Hobhouse presented his views on a positive state. According to Bottomore, his theory points clearly towards a conception of the ‘modern welfare state’.53
In Mill, Green and Hobhouse, the individual–State relationship is understood and explained in terms of ethical and moral concepts. While maintaining the individual member of society as the central theme of concern (liberal concern), it seeks to align its purpose with that of the larger society and the State. The state becomes a positive agency to provide conditions or remove obstacles to moral development of the members.
We can argue that through this understanding, liberalism made a transition from negative freedom to positive freedom. However, so far a very clear exposition of the role of the State in the economic area has not emerged in the arguments of positive liberals. Hobhouse and Tawney took up this task. Hobhouse in his Liberalism (1911) and the Elements of Social Justice (1922) argued that property has a social origin and criticized use of property as instrument of power. According to Hobhouse, prosperity and economic benefit of the capitalist is premised on the social conditions of order, security, skilled labour, and overall social knowledge and collective effort of generations. Thus, for Hobhouse, it is the society which guarantees and maintains one's possession. If this is so, then property should not be held in disregard to social needs. Property should not be a means of power over other persons. As such, two qualifications may be put on property: (i) not to be used as an instrument of power over others, and (ii) to be exercised with due regard to social needs. This is possible and must be ensured by intervention of the State. Hobhouse while carrying the tradition of positive liberals of seeking the State's role in moral development of an individual has also argued for limits on the property held and enjoyed. Along with the moral element, the economic factor is also brought out as an argument for positive freedom and welfare state.
R. H. Tawney
R. H. Tawney carries this tradition further. Tawney, a positive liberal was also a Fabian socialist. In his two books, The Acquisitive Society and Equality, he explains his ideas on property and equality respectively and what role the State should play. He rejected the argument of the negative liberals and laissez-faire theorists, which stressed that pursuit of acquisition of private property, should not be interfered with for the sake of social goals. For Tawney, liberty and equality are compatible and in fact, liberty is equality in action. Equality provides meaningful liberty and only equal liberty can be the basis of a good society.
Tawney argued for socio-economic equality and subordination of property to social service. He makes a distinction between personal and private property. Personal property is property for consumption (physical wants, future security, etc.) and private property is property for power, domination or profit for the sake of profit. Tawney calls the first as active property, as it is need-based and second, as passive or functionless property. The latter is property for acquisition and not for consumption. In Acquisitive Society, he writes:
Functionless property appears natural to those who believe that society should be organized for the acquisition of private wealth … those, however, who hold that social unity and effective work are possible only if society is organized and wealth distributed on the basis of function, will ask of an institution not,’ ‘What dividends it pay?’ but ‘What service does it perform?’54
Thus, property is to be related to function and the use it has for society. An acquisitive society becomes a threat for liberty of all. He seeks liberty of one in association with other fellow beings and demands that passive property must be regulated. He associated laissez-faire with inequality and injustice, as an unregulated economy results in limiting the scope of freedom of those who are deprived of even active possessions for living a good life.
Harold Joseph Laski
In the twentieth century, Professor Laski can be considered as an important positive liberal, though he shifted his ideas from positive liberalism, to Fabian socialism, to pluralism, to Marxism, to democratic socialism, during the course of his prolific intellectual and political career. At times, he argued for individual liberty and at other end he made the State a ‘crowning-point of modern edifice’55 and yet at another he said, ‘the State … expresses the wants of those who dominate the economic system.56 From the pluralist point of view, he will say, individual is not merely a member of the State. In the society of which he is a part, there are innumerable interest-units to which he may belong.57 This eclecticism of Laski's views on individual liberty and role and position of the State in modern society is a proof of his dynamic understanding but at the same time a cause for incoherency in his thought.
Positive liberty
To explain his views on the individual's position and liberty vis-á-vis the state, we may analyse his views on liberty and the role the State plays in the socio-economic field. Laski's views on liberty and rights are somewhat linked. They seek to provide individuals the opportunities for securing their best selves. He defines rights as those conditions of social life without which no one can seek to be himself at his best. Similarly, liberty is eager maintenance of that atmosphere in which men have the opportunity to be their best selves. Liberty emerges from the provision of rights without which it is meaningless. Along with personal and political rights, he argues for socio-economic rights as well. As for a fuller development of the best selves, all conditions (rights) must be available. He also correlates rights with social welfare. He says one cannot have rights against social or public welfare as this would amount to having the right against welfare, which is also associated with my welfare. Thus, individual welfare and common welfare must be linked.
His idea of rights and liberty makes it clear that liberty is associated with the availability of conditions for the development of personality. Laski in his A Grammar of Politics, mentions that positive conditions are required for liberty and these conditions include: (i) absence of special privileges—quality for all; (ii) presence of rights—state should maintain equal rights; (iii) responsible government.58 In this way, Laski champions positive liberty, where liberty is not based on non-interference; rather it is associated with the development of personality, based on provision of rights by the State.
Social welfare state
Laski s views on the role of the State are very much influenced by his analysis of capitalist economy and its adverse effects on the poor and working class. He points out that, ‘…a dominant economic class uses the State to make ultimate those legal imperatives which best protect its interests.59 His rejection of the capitalist economy is based on his understating of undemocratic control of industry (no say of workers in running of the industry). He advocated industrial federalism and intervention of the state, as a central agency, in the economic field to control industrial power in the interests of the citizens. Laski is also concerned for securing equality in the socio-economic field, which is important for the development and realization of the all.
The State is not any adverse agency but a means to realize social good. He advocates welfare functions to be performed by the State. Laski, in his State in Theory and Practice, observes that a state is already performing a variety of functions. He says, ‘[t]here is hardly a function of social welfare undertaken by governments today which is not an effort to provide the poor with some, at least of the amenities that the rich are able to provide for themselves.’60 He goes on to count them as health, education, housing, social insurance, the regulation of hours of work, and wages in industry, the control of factory conditions, the provision of meals for poor school children, etc. The social welfare functions that the State undertakes is required to support the people who are dependent or exploited. This view of Laski on the social welfare functions of the State is in the realm of positive role of the state. His position on the role and functions of the State is within liberal framework, as he does not advocate either a supreme state or its withering away.
However, his liberal position is based on pluralist arguments. Though he gives primacy to the State in many cases, he treats it as one of the associations. As a logical result, Laski argues that the State should also justify its authority. This justification must be related to service rendered and satisfaction of demands of individuals by the State. In his An Introduction to Politics, Laski says, ‘the authority of a state is a function of its ability to satisfy the effective demands that are made upon it.’61 It means, if the State is able to meet varied demands of the individuals effectively—security of persons and property, religious liberty, etc., its authority is more legitimate. As such, Laski based obligation of the individual to the State on the service and satisfaction that the State renders to the individual.
Laski feels that the State in essence is nothing but the government comprised of ‘fallible men’. The State cannot and should not claim primacy, as this would amount to supremacy of the fallible men. In his State in Theory and Practice, Laski says, ‘the claim of the State to obedience … rests upon its will and ability to secure to its citizens the maximum satisfaction of their wants.’62 For Laski, the State is capable of meeting demands and as such is provider and reconciler of demands. Two conclusions follow: one that Laski argues for a limited state/government, and the second that political obligation of the individual to the State is based on the state's capability to meet demands and provide services.
On the one hand, Laski championed individual liberty and limited government for an individual's self-development, on the other, he argued for a regulated and welfare state. He advocated a series of welfare functions that the State should take up. These include general functions of law and order; social and welfare functions such as education, health, insurance against unemployment; and economic functions such as control of industry and betterment of working conditions of the poor, equity oriented taxation system, etc. By advocating positive liberty, social welfarist state and intervention of the State in economic field, Laski supported the cause of positive liberalism in the twentieth century. We can say that Laski's state is a combination of cautious liberalism and moderated socialism.
R. M. MacIver
R. M. MacIver is a sociologist who looked at the State from the sociological point of view. He differentiates between society and the State as representing two different spheres of human activities. Society is given primacy both in terms of its priority and sphere of human interests that it contains—cultural, economic, emotional, political, religious, social, etc. Since all these interests require different sets of affiliations or associations/agencies in society, the political sphere is only one of them. On this basis, he advances the pluralist view where the State is one of the associations and as such is limited.
His books, The Modern State, The Web of Government and The Rampart of Democracy, deal with issues of role of the State and its relationship with society. MacIver treats the State primarily as an agency that deals with social order. His understanding of the State as an association that maintains the universal external condition of social order is a point in case.63 MacIver seeks to limit the functions of the State, as ‘the organization of the State is not all social organization.64 Authority of the State is limited to the service it provides. However, this limitation is not in favour of the individual, but it is in accord with the individual organized as groups, as corporate personalities—family, club, church, union, etc. MacIver maintains that the State is not within its right to interfere in the internal affairs of other associations and the purpose they pursue. It will be justified in interfering when interests of other associations are affected, i.e., only when there are differences and conflict between associations. It may resolve the conflicting claim of different associations but the state cannot and should not impose its own will in the name of ‘common interest’. His understanding is that certain functions the State should not do, as it is unsuitable for the task—’we do not sharpen pencil with an axe. The State should not control public opinion, morality and religion, fashion, customs and traditions.
MacIver's position on the role of the State has two implications. Firstly, the negative functions or non-interference of the State is based on social and groups’ perspective than the perspective of the ‘individual’ that the classical liberal approach advocated. Secondly, the State must justify its authority for demanding obligation by providing the corresponding service. In MacIver's words, ‘the State commands … because it serves, it owns only because it owes.’65 However, looking at the importance the State occupies, MacIver, concedes that ‘whatever else a man may be, he must be a member of, or at least a subject of the State’. But then the form of the State he looks for is democratic state, which alone is seen as performing a unifying function in society. He says, ‘the State can act. as a unifying agent, but only in so far as it has itself undergone evolution towards democracy.’ Up to this point, MacIver has come to propose a limited state. However, he also argues for an intervening state, at least in the filed of economy.
In his The Web of Government (1965) he ‘makes a distinction between two types of organiza-tions—those which serve the emotional and cultural interests of men and cannot be regulated by the State; and those which serve the economic interests of different groups, and have to be regulated to serve the common interests.’ MacIver feels that given the uniqueness and requirements of differences in cultural and religious expressions, the State should not coordinate, as this would destroy their characteristics qualities. However, he gives regulating space to the State with respect to associations formed to serve economic interests. He says, ‘economic activities cannot be left to the free arbitrament of individuals and groups without serious interference with public order.’66 He cites the requirements for ensuring minimum wages to employees, reasonable hours of labour, prudent use of one's property so that source of livelihood of others is not harmed, as some of the important considerations to regulate economic activities and associations in society.
In addition to maintenance of social order, MacIver gives ample chance to the State to interfere in the economic aspects. He suggests that the State should perform three categories of functions67—(i) order relating to rights and obligations; communication; frontiers of political authority and spheres of authority; statistics, measurement and computation; (ii) protection against monopoly and unfair competitions, minimum standards of decent living and protection of weaker sections of society with respect to wage rates, employment, upbringing of child, care and prevention of social wreckage, police functions, maintenance and enforcement of rights and obligations politically determined, protection of community against encroachment of specific associations, etc.; and (iii) conservation and development includes promotion and regulation of physical conditions like hygiene, housing, occupational and recreational conditions of health, conservation and utilization of natural resources, urban and rural planning and development, education, industrial, agricultural, commercial and financial development and inquiry into the social problems of general significance.
A glance at the functions assigned by MacIver to the State such as: (i) general provision by the State for social welfare, (ii) intervention of the State in economic affairs, and (iii) administrative and political functions point towards his support for a welfare state.
Other Positive Liberals: Theorists of the Thick State
Starting from Mill and Green in the nineteenth century, positive liberalism has its advocates in Hobhouse, Tawney, Laski and MacIver in the twentieth century. Some of the other equally significant contributors to positive liberal concept include J. M. Keynes, J. K. Galbraith, C. B. Macpherson, John Rawls, J. W. Chapman, Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen.
They have argued for enlarged conception of freedom of individual. This relates to the positive power and capacity of individuals to exercise their liberty and seek moral and self-development. This cannot be possible, they argue, without state intervention regulating the economic sphere for ensuring employment (Keynes) and equal social opportunities (Sen); mitigating the adverse impact of twentieth century capitalism (Galbraith); providing public goods (Stiglitz); ensuring distributive justice (Rawls and Chapman); maximizing developmental power of marginalized people (Macpherson), etc.
The issues relating to liberty and equality, economic freedom and moral and developmental freedom, distributive justice and state intervention have been the concerns of the positive liberals. These issues have largely informed the concept of a welfare state. Rejecting the traditional liberal position of laissez faire, minimalist or thin state, these theorists and commentators have argued for a more thick state, a state with orientation of welfare, economic regulation, social provisions and individual capacity development.
Arguably, when Adam Smith's ‘invisible hand’ came to face the Great Depression of 1929, the capitalist economy was not able to sustain its growth and production. This brought ‘unemployment hardest to bear’ along with loss of production and mass penury. There was neither demand nor supply. In this scenario, capitalist economy needed a hope to lift up again and self-regulate.
John Maynard Keynes, a British economist, sought to put forward that a depression may not cure itself at all and the economy could lie stagnant indefinitely.68 His book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), argued that there was no automatic safety mechanism to lift up the economy. Keynes identified the problems as threefold:
First, an economy in depression could stay there. There was nothing inherent in the economic mechanism to pull it out. One could have ‘equilibrium’ with unemployment, even mass unemployment. Second, prosperity depends on investment. If business spending for capital equipment fell, a spiral of contraction would begin. Only if business investment rose would a spiral of expansion follow. And third, investment was an undependable drive wheel for the economy. Uncertainty, not assurance, lay at the very core of capitalism. Through no fault of the businessman it was constantly threatened with satiety, and satiety spelled economic decline.69
Keynes's diagnosis is simple. Depression will not cure on it's own, investment is required and this, however, is not dependable. The solution then was that the government must take up the task of investment. This way, Keynes suggested that government must do public spending for creating employment. His proverbial suggestion to fill up old bottles with bank notes and bury them at suitable depth in disused coal mines and filled up with town rubbish and leave it to private enterprises on the well-tried principles of laissez faire to dig the notes again, is telling of his suggestion for government intervention for removing unemployment and lifting up production. The impact of the theory became apparent when the US President, Roosevelt started the ‘New Deal’ programme. The New Deal legislations were aimed at nationalization. Through government interference capitalist economy was sought to be revitalized. Thus, nationalization, planning, public investment and state support to capitalist economy came to be justified. Keynes's theory and diagnosis led to increased economic functions of the State and was a denial of the long-held laisse-faire policy of non-interference.
John Kenneth Galbraith, a Canadian-American economist and one-time US ambassador to India (1961-1963), who remarked that India was a ‘functioning anarchy’ and who coined the term ‘conventional wisdom’ which we all use so frequently, has analysed the role of the State in changed circumstances after the Second World War. His books, The New Industrial State (1967), Affluent Society (1958) and Mass Poverty are analysis and diagnosis of dynamics of economy in capitalist countries and the phenomenon of poverty across continents. He is an exponent of Keynesian economics and has dealt with the issues of demand and distribution, unemployment, mass poverty, security of workers, economic inequality, taxation, education, social and public services and planning. He has sought to justify the concept of planned economy in liberal states in the changed circumstances of the twentieth century. In his The New Industrial State, he supports planned economy and says, ‘A fully planned economy, so far from being unpopular, is warmly regarded by those who know it.’70 He champions mixed economy and economy based on coordination between the public sector and the private sector. Core of his concept is to bring certain public measures to inform the liberal state and the capitalist economy in order to have a directed distribution of wealth and resources.
The concept of an industrial state has been explained by some of the thinkers and commentators like Raymond Aron, J. K. Galbraith and others. The state in a situation of predominant industrial economy is an industrial state. The relationship between the State and the industrial system is one of interdependence. While industrial system requires the State for stability, the State itself has economic activity and mature corporations as its arm. The concept was also related to the convergence theory. It was argued that given the predominance of the State and industrial system in both the capitalist and socialist systems, it was possible that the type of state and political regulation in both the systems could converge. It was stated that in the spheres of economy, politics and ideology would converge.
Galbraith supported this view and believed that the American economy and State would be a ‘social democracy’ in future. Galbraith's logic was simple. Taking a cue from the concept of industrial state, it implies that production involves large-scale processes, which require planning and planning requires stability.71 This led him to conclude that the market cannot be left on its own, and state planning have to be inextricably linked to the industrial production process.
Galbraith's views are related to the concept of Big Government, which means an interventionist government involved in economic management and social regulation. His concept of planning, industrial state and big government, all points towards a welfarist or social democratic state. However, his vision of America becoming a social democracy has not come to fruition. On the contrary, writing in the Foreign Affairs, DeLong has called him Sisyphus, constantly pushing the boulder of social-democratic enlightenment up the hill. But the hill, it turns out, is too steep, and Galbraith not mighty enough.’ Notwithstanding the steepness of the hill, Galbraith's views on the social democratic and welfarist requirements of the State in a capitalist economy are expected to nudge the policy-makers and planners sitting at the top of the hill whenever the ‘invisible hand’ appears helpless.
C. B. Macpherson, a critical liberal and a critic of capitalist economy, has argued for developmental power and moral and creative freedom of individual. He supports the positive welfare functions of the state. In his book The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (1962), he termed the theory of individualism given by Hobbes and specifically by Locke as theory of ‘possessive individualism’. According to this view, an individual is treated as having proprietorial right over his/her body, labour and capacity. As such, liberty and freedom require that the individual is not to be interfered in the exercise of this proprietorial right.
In his, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (1977), he discusses four models of democracy namely, protective democracy (corresponding with the quantitative utilitarian views of Bentham), developmental democracy (corresponding with the qualitative utilitarian views of J. S. Mill), equilibrium democracy (corresponding with the views of Schumpeter, Dahl, Berelson, and others) and participative democracy. Here he traces the idea of moral and developmental freedom in J. S. Mill's as an idea of positive liberty. The same theme he touches in his Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (1973). Taking a clue from Bentham's protective democracy and J. S. Mill's developmental democracy, Macpherson argues that the two principles can be identified in Western democratic theory: (i) maximization of utilities, and (ii) maximization of powers. In the first principle, the individual is treated as consumer of utilities requiring satisfaction of appetites—a pleasure-seeking person. In the second, s/he is treated as an actor, agent or creator requiring development of human capacities—seeking moral freedom. In essence, it becomes a moral and ethical principle where freedom is about realizing creative and developmental capacities of the self. At the core of Macpherson's distinction is developmental and extractive power. While extractive power (such as under contractual obligations, power of employer over employees, right to property, economic freedom, etc.) relates to use of other's potentialities for serving one's own ends, developmental power (such as freedom of expression, choice, skill, knowledge, etc.) requires development of one's own capacities and its application to one's self-appointed goals. This is a view that treats the individual as an agent and a creative being.
Having explained his position, Macpherson argues that developmental power or creative freedom of the marginalized section in a capitalist economy is negligible. Moreover, their extractive power is also absent. As such, a capitalist economy is nothing but an exploitative system in the absence of these powers. This leads him to argue and conclude justifying welfare state. He says, ‘it is only in the welfare-state variety of capitalism … that there is a certain amount of checking of economic power by the political power.’72 He argues for a positive welfare state for bring equilibrium in capitalist economy and allowing marginalized people to acquire developmental power.
John Rawls and J. W. Chapman are considered equalitarian liberals and have argued from the perspective of distributive justice. They have reinterpreted the liberal principles from the perspective of fairness, distributive justice and moral freedom to give it a welfarist orientation.
Rawls's theory justifies the welfare state on individualist assumptions. According to him, a liberal democratic society must satisfy certain principles of justice based on principle of difference as well as equality. In his book, A Theory of Justice (1971) Rawls gives two principles: (i) difference principle, and (ii) equality principle. Both the principles are related to distribution of resources within society and provide ground for ‘liberal defence of welfare state.73
The equality principles means: ‘social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both reasonably expected to be to every one's advantage attached to positions and offices open to all.’
The difference principle has two elements: The first argues that each person to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with the similar liberty for others like citizen's equal rights to basic liberties such as right to vote, freedom of conscience, etc. The second principle relates to justice or redistribution of resources. It says: The higher expectations of those better situated are just if and only if they work as part of a scheme, which improves the expectations of the least advantaged members of society. Thus, inequalities are allowed when this will lead to greater benefit and long-term prospect of the least advantaged. The capitalist class or the entrepreneur can be allowed to enjoy as per their skill, talent and resources if they increase the prospect of the working class.
Rawls criticizes the negative or natural view of liberty. In the negative view of liberty, every individual is free to use their skills and talents when they are not interfered with by the state. Deriving benefits from the free market as per skills and talents assumes that these talents and skills are independent of socially or naturally acquired advantages. In Rawls's view, it is not appropriate to reward people as per their contingently acquired talents and skills only. We should not treat people with unequal skills and talents equally for the purpose of market competition. For example, can we equate a person having high education and skilled qualification with one who is an uneducated peasant for the purpose of market competition? If we do, it will be arbitrary. When these two people are left in the market, inequality will be produced by the operation of the market.
Rawls argues that state should interfere and correct for the inequalities produced by the market. He allows only those inequalities, which are likely to lead to everyone being better off. Rawls appears to be a redistributionist, as Samuel Gorovitz puts it. While he justifies the case for welfare, his is also a justification of inequality. On the other hand, a negative liberal point of view may blame him for sacrificing liberty for the sake of equality. Nevertheless, Rawls provides a liberal interpretation of distributive justice and justification for a liberal democratic state based on welfare principles. Rawls's theory is an effective liberal critic of the arguments based on meritocracy and a survival of the fittest in a market situation.
J. W. Chapman, as American theorist, has tried to combine the idea of distributive justice with moral freedom of an individual. Chapman's principles of justice involve distribution in such a manner that benefits are maximized according to the principle of consumer's sovereignty. This is to take into account the economic rationality of an individual. Further, he says, a system is unjust if the material well-being of the few is gained at the expense of the many. Though not as strong as Rawls, Chapman supports the welfare and positive state.
Joseph E. Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, both Nobel laureates and outstanding welfare economists, have argued for state intervention in the economic affairs. They argue that the State and government should provide public goods, social opportunities for not only compensating market failures but for capacity enhancement and human development.
Stiglitz in his book, Economics of the Public Sector, has listed ‘six basic market failures’ and says ‘they provide rationale for government activity.’74 These are:
- Failure of competition—a perfect market requires perfect competition and assumes Pareto efficiency. Pareto efficiency, named after Vilfredo Pareto, Italian economist and sociologist, stands for ‘resource allocation that has the property that no one can be made better off without someone being made worse off’. Thus, a perfect market will ensure Pareto efficiency and intervention in this will disturb the efficiency leading to some getting worse off. According to Stiglitz, the prevailing market due to monopoly, oligopoly, natural monopoly or monopolistic competition may not conform to the Pareto efficient theorem. And in such a situation, a government-run monopoly is preferable to a private monopoly.
- Public goods—public goods are those goods which either cannot be supplied by the market or if supplied will be in insufficient quantity. These include defence, policing, environmental protection, etc. Public goods have two critical properties: (i) zero marginal cost for additional member to benefit, i.e., it costs no additional amount to defend a country of 100 million or 100+1 million, (ii) difficult or impossible to exclude individuals from enjoying pure public goods. It is difficult to exclude a person from breathing clean air or enjoying police security. Market limitation or failure to provide public goods is the basis of many government activities.
- Externalities—externalities refer to the effect or impact actions of one individual or activity have on others. It can be of two types: negative externality, when the effect or impact is bad; and positive externality, when it is good or beneficial. Many of the government's policy are influenced by the concept of externalities. For example, CNG conversion of buses or ban on smoking in public places has positive externality on health. Similarly, emission of wastes or contaminated material by private activities negatively affects the general environment and individual right to clean air. Since, individuals do not bear the full cost of negative externality they generate, they may indulge excessively in it. Conversely, since they do not enjoy full benefits of positive externality they generate, they will engage too little in it. Governmental intervention in such a scenario is called for to ensure less negative externality and more positive externality.
- Incomplete markets—Besides pure public goods, private markets also fail to provide many services adequately. Markets may not provide insurance for many disabilities and risks including crop, fire, unemployment insurance, etc. Further, coordination functions between farmers and industry using inputs also require planning and governmental intervention.
- Information failures—imperfect information or information asymmetry also induces a lot of government activities. For example, quality certification of market produced goods can be an example. A soap is not a unique baby soap or a beverage has no contamination will not be provided by the market.
- Unemployment, inflation and disequilibrium—periodic high unemployment and inflation points to the market failure. This at least was proved beyond doubt during the Great Depression.
Stiglitz holds that under these six conditions market is not efficient and this failure has to be compensated by government and state intervention. It is argued that the market can be efficient only under certain circumstances and conditions and there are certain conditions and circumstances in which it is not. This theorem provides a sound basis for a welfarist state policy.
Amartya Sen argues that ‘participatory economic growth’ and ‘expansion of basic human capabilities’ are important for overall development. He has focused on how ‘variations in social opportunities not only lead to diverse achievements in the quality of life but also influence economic performance …’75 This means that human beings, if not provided with basic opportunities like education, health, minimum livelihood, housing, gender equality etc. will neither be able to enjoy ‘capability’ nor contribute effectively in the economic development. Capability means ‘the range of options a person has in deciding what kind of life to lead.76 Let us assume person ‘A’ who is educated, skilled and is employable or is employed and another person ‘B’ who is uneducated, unskilled and poor. It does not require Socrates's wisdom to see that A has more choices than B in choosing how to live. And if, B is a woman, the choice gets further limited in a gender-biased society. Capability in the sense of choice to decide how one wants to live gets restricted due to poverty, illiteracy, gender, social and economic inequalities. Sen would call this ‘capability deprivation’.
In a situation of capability deprivation, people will not be able to participate effectively in the economic process. For example, skilled people and people having a basic educational capacity will be useful for various types of economic processes, while people having no skill or basic educational capacity cannot even contribute in economic development. Sen cites the example of China and South Korea where expansion of capabilities in terms of education and skill, health and longevity has helped in industry, production and economic growth.
Sen argues for expansion of human capabilities through education, health, housing, gender equality, social and economic equality, political participation. Development then cannot be separately followed bereft of expansion of human capabilities. Development has to go along with expansion of real freedoms, capability expansion being one of them. Sen's arguments are not only for state-based welfare but also participative economic growth. It can be said that his basic arguments relating to capability expansion, participatory economic growth and development provide an important basis for welfare and positive state.
A survey of the different perspectives on the functions and role of the state within the liberal framework reveals that the concept of liberty and freedom, role of the state in spheres of economic and social areas and relationship of the individual with the state have undergone change. This has happened not only because of the changing concept of individual freedom and requirement of the capitalist economy but also due to more a interactive relationship between the requirement of principles of liberty and equality on the one hand and the two with justice on the other hand. The concept of individual liberty and freedom has travelled from being possessive to moral and developmental; role of the State from a night watchman and laisse-faire state to a welfare and positive state; equality as a matter of an invisible hand to distributive justice; and above all the State as a necessary evil to a rightful coordinator.
Neo-Liberals or Libertarians: Theorists of the Thin State
As a reaction to the growing thickness of the state as a welfare flag- bearer and interventionist mechanism in the economic sphere, a new stream of critique emerged. This is led by the neo-liberals or the Libertarians, chiefly amongst them are Friedrich A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Isaiah Berlin and Robert Nozick. Their main opposition to the growing intervention of the state emerges from their concern for liberty and freedom. All of them support the negative view of liberty and argue for non-interference in the economic liberty of the individual. In short, they take the debate back to a possessive individual and laissez-faire state.
F. A. Hayek, an Austrian economist and political philosopher, is a prominent neo-liberal and advocate of negative liberty and thin state. In all his books, The Road to Serfdom (1948), The Constitution of Liberty (1960) and Law, Legislation and Liberty (1979), he has supported a free liberal order based on capitalist economy, which he considers as the only guarantee of individual liberty. During the Second World War, he wrote The Road to Serfdom, in which he opposed planned economy, as the title says a road to serfdom. In fact, Keynes theory of public investment and regulated economy has created a favourable climate, which has manifested in the New Deal legislations. Hayek presented his indictment of ‘over planned economy’; the same can be summarized as follows:
- Hayek distinguishes individual freedom from political and other forms of freedom. He defines individual freedom as ‘freedom from subjection of coercion of arbitrary will of others’. This is a negative concept of freedom and liberty where it consists in the absence of coercion.
- He rejects the positive or developmental view of liberty and freedom, which advocates freedom or liberty of conditions that helps in self-development, as inimical to ‘individual liberty’, due to the former leading to collectivist justification of state interference.
- He opposed planned economy and called centrally directed mobilization and utilization of economy as serfdom. This is because he feels that enactment of rules, which specify how people should use the means at their disposal, interferes with people's own capacity to determine their objective. This is coercive and is incompatible with individual liberty.
- For him, any regulation, planning and direction of economy and resources lead to totalitarianism and serfdom. He opposes distributive justice on this ground. Distributive justice is unacceptable because it imposes some other's conception of merit and requires allocation of resources through central intervention. Further, there is equality of opportunity but since individuals differ in their talent and skill, it results in inequality which should not be tempered with. For Hayek equality and liberty are incompatible.
- Hayek is also opposed to mixed economy because it is based on co-existence of private as well as public sector. According to Hayek, such a system is without a market or plan and fails to allocate rationally.
- State intervention is seen as an obstacle or dead hand, which reduces competition, efficiency and production.
Thus, for Hayek, only free market economy can be the basis of liberal order and individual liberty. Here, collective choices are determined on individual basis. His is a minimalist and thin state with negative liberty as the basis of individualistic society.
Milton Friedman, a US economist, is a critic of Keynesian economics and ‘tax and spend’ government policies and an exponent of monetarism and free-market economics. Monetarism means ‘inflation is always and every where a monetary phenomenon’,77 i.e., a reflection of demand and supply. As per Friedman's logic, focus on inflation reduction becomes important, and as a result, government bothers more for reduction of inflation than reduction of unemployment. He signalled a shift from Keynesian economics to monetarism. He has presented his views in Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (1980). Briefly his views can be summarized as under:
- Core of Friedmans argument is that economic freedom is not only a component of freedom but also an essential prerequisite for political freedom.
- Political freedom is inseparable from economic freedom and economic freedom from capitalist competitive economy. Only a free market system can lead to a liberal order with capacity for genuine realization of liberty.
- State intervention is seen as an obstacle or dead hand, which reduces competition, efficiency and production. Any interference is incompatible with economic liberty and as such socialism is an enemy of freedom.
- Capitalist competitive economy promotes free liberal society in two ways: (i) freedom of private enterprise and private initiative is a component of broader freedom, hence economic freedom is an end in itself, and (ii) economic freedom promotes political freedom because it separates economic power and political power and thus enables one to offset the other.
- Friedman insists that the history of growth of political freedom is the history of development of capitalist institutions.
Isaiah Berlin, a Latvian-born English philosopher who developed a form of liberal pluralism, advocated that conflicts of values are intrinsic to human life. His writings constitute a defence of liberalism against ‘totalitarianism. In his Four Essays on Liberty (1958), he actively defends negative liberty and criticizes positive liberty.78 His basic thesis is that liberty is neither related to equality nor to justice. He, in fact, takes a cue from John Locke, J. S. Mill, Benjamin Constant and Alex de Tocqueville in defending negative liberty. Briefly, his views on liberty and its non-interfering requirement are as follows:
- Liberty in a negative sense is the area within which the individual, or a group of individuals, can act unobstructed by others. According to Berlin, liberty is ‘freedom to do what one wants or to attain a goal for which one is capable if not interfered’. For him political liberty belongs to the sphere of negative liberty.
- Berlin maintains that tradition of liberalism has always advocated protecting an ‘area’ of individual liberty un-interfered by others. Though the ‘area’ has been determined by applying different criteria like natural law, natural rights (Locke), utilities (Bentham) or self-regarding action (J. S. Mill).
- Mere lack of capability or condition to attain a goal is not lack of political freedom. This is because freedom is not related with capacity or condition but with area in which one can act unobstructed. As such, wider the area unobstructed, wider would be the freedom.
- For Berlin, liberty per se is different from conditions for realizing liberty. Inability to enjoy freedom does not mean its absence. He criticizes those who insist on socio-economic conditions in which they claim real freedom is realized tend to forget freedom itself. This concern of Berlin is premised on the fear that insistence on provision of socioeconomic conditions of freedom leads to paternalism, state directed welfare. He expresses his fears thus, ‘paternalism can provide condition of freedom, yet withholds freedom itself’. He advocates a non-interfering state and individual liberty.
- He argues that there is no logical relationship between liberty and equality or justice and also form of government, democracy or otherwise. Berlin advocates negative liberty and non-interference by the State.
Some of the political theorists like Charles Taylor, C. B. Macpherson and Bhikhu Parekh have criticized Berlin for ignoring external conditions, which are important for realizing freedom and instead insisting only on freedom per se. In fact, absence of conditions themselves constitute interference in the area, hence it is a restraint. Taylor has further added that there can be internal restrictions also in the form of incapacity which itself constitutes a restriction. To be uncharitable though, can we say that an idiot and Berlin have the same freedom (internal intellectual capacity) to pronounce on liberty or liberal pluralism?
Robert Nozick, an American political philosopher, is considered as a leading libertarian. In his book, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974) he has applied the Lockean theory of property based on labour as an inalienable natural right and reinterprets Locke's contract to formulate his theory of entitlement. Nozick is a supporter of a minimalist non-interventionist state—night watchman state. Nozick's libertarian theory of justice based on entitlement was developed in response to liberal equalitarian theory of justice advocated by Rawls. We may summarize Nozick's views as follows:
- Nozick follows Lockes tradition of prior and inalienable natural rights of an individual, possessed independently of society, particularly, inviolable property rights.79
- Based on inviolable right to property he says, right to property should be strictly upheld provided wealth has been justly acquired or transferred from one person to another. He propounds entitlement theory of justice which means that ‘from each according to what he chooses to do, to each according to what he makes for himself…’ This is entitlement-based justice for a liberal order that Nozick advocates.
- Thus, one has the right to do or work as per choice and is entitled to the fruits of his work, creation or skill. He says, ‘whether or not people's natural assets are arbitrary from a moral point of view, they are entitled to them, and to what flows from them.’80 For Nozick, skills are not common assets. A doctor's skill is relevant in relation to patients and their needs. Hence, a doctor's skill can be utilized, as per Rawlsian justice, in meeting those needs irrespective of purchasing power. But Nozick says, doctor's skills are not common assets, they are entitled to them. Thus, individuals having skills are entitled to use them as per their advantage.
- Nozick criticizes Rawls's theory of justice because the role of the State expresses a patterned conception of justice. This conception imposes a pattern of distribution on society, which is not natural. Nozick opposes any type of redistribution of resources in society other than the operation of the entitlement-based justice.
From this conception of entitlement-based justice, Nozick formulates a concept of minimalist state. He says:
Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited to narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right. Two noteworthy implications are that the state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection.
Thus, a minimal state, which does not seek taxation or welfare or redistribution, is envisaged.
It seems that the liberal theory has taken a circular transition, advocating a night watchman state than allowing it to police and regulate widely as a thick state and again stripping it to be the night watchman. These changes are responses to changing requirements of the capital and sense of individual liberty. It seems, some time the liberal individual is morally sick requiring development and some other, economically filthy, just to be left alone. Nevertheless, in its focus, the liberal theory of the State—both positive and negative, has ‘liberalindividual’ as its concern. It is now on the Marxian theory to take the focus away from the individual to a separate terrain occupied by classes. The individual becomes part of a class and negotiates its fate with not only the state but also ‘the other’ class. The issue now will not be whether the state should be a police or a night watchman or a paternalistic dispenser, rather in whatever capacity it is, whose state is it any way?
Marxian (Class) Theory of Nature and Functions of the State
In our discussion on the Marxian (Class) theory of origin of the State, we have seen that the Marxian conception of state is rooted in the understanding that the State is an instrument in the hands of the propertied class of society. The State originated at a particular time in historical evolution and is linked with the emergence of private property. The State is treated as serving the dominant interest of society. By implication, when there are no classes and no dominant interest, the State is not required. It will, what Engels and Lenin call, ‘wither away’81 when class society is abolished.
Though Marx himself did not dwell specifically on the theory of the State, a general understanding of his position on the role and functions of the State in a capitalist society along with views of Engels and Lenin may help us outline class perspective on the State. This, we may call the orthodox Marxian perspective on the State. On the other hand, Marxian perspective, especially in the twentieth century, given by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Ralph Miliband and Nicos Poulantzas present the neo-Marxian perspective of the state in a capitalist society.
Orthodox Marxian Perspective
It is generally said that Marx did not develop a coherent or systematic theory of the State82 per se and it is difficult to acquire any clear unitary theory of the State.83 While this is true, it is not that Marx did not touch upon the relationship between class and the State. The following references and writings are important so far as Marx's writings are concerned:
- In his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843), Marx critically analysed Hegel's theory of the modern state and its institutions.84 He rejected the claim that the State was eternal—for him, the State was not ‘march of God on earth’. He also rejected the Hegelian separation of civil society and the State. For Marx, the state and its bureaucracy neither represent universal interest, as Hegel holds, nor ethical evolution. In a class society, the State and its bureaucracy cannot be a universal institution, as they serve class interest.
- In his Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), he treats the State as a class institution and says, ‘[T]he executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.’ He precedes this conclusion by the statement that ‘the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of modern industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway’.85 This makes it apparent that the state is a product of the class society and serves the interests of the economically dominant class. Taking this as a basis, Lenin in his, The State and Revolution (1918), described the state as ‘an instrument for the exploitation of the oppressed class.’86
- In his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), Marx and Engels denounced Bonapartism, rule of Louis Bonaparte, as the bureaucratic, powerful state. Marx described Bonaparte's regime as ‘this executive power, with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its ingenious state machinery, embracing wide strata, with a host of officials numbering half a million, besides an army of another half million, this appalling parasitic body …’87 Their analysis was that bureaucratic state under one powerful individual has attained dictatorial power. This was in the context of the civil war in 1848–51 and they suggested that the proletariat destroy it. Here, the class as whole was not able to hold sway and it resulted in one person representing the dictatorial power. Since the state under Bonaparte did not articulate interests of the capitalist class, it was relative autonomous. Later, in his Civil War in France, (1871), Marx described Bonapartism as a ‘form of government possible at a time when the bourgeoisie had already lost, and the working class had not yet acquired, the faculty of ruling the nation’.88 Taking a cue from this view of Marx on the state as relative autonomous from the dominant interest of the society, some later Marxists such as Poulantzas and others have proposed the relative autonomy view of the State where the State is not always serving the dominant class directly.
Two Accounts of the Class-State Relationship
State as executive committee of the dominant class
From the writings of Marx, two streams or accounts of class-state relationship emerge: (i) Communist manifesto's executive committee view and (ii) Eighteenth Brumaire's relative autonomy view. The first conceives the state as dependent on society/class relations and the second with a degree of autonomy from classes in society. The first view has been further developed and explained in the writings of Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and Lenin's The State and Revolution. Poulantzas and Althusser, to account for the role and functions of the State in a contemporary capitalist economy, have used the second view. In fact, it is said that given the relative autonomy view of the State, it can be thought of as a possible arena of struggle, which can help bring change. If the state is relatively autonomous there can be convergence of forces to take it over. Eduard Bernstein has used this conception before Poulantzas and Althusser to argue for a social democratic tradition.
Base-Superstructure relationship
As Andrew Vincent remarks, Marxian theory tends towards political economy and treats the economic activity as the primary concern. The rest of the human activity is taken as part of epiphenomenona or result of certain antecedent conditions.89 Accordingly, central to the Marxian understanding of society is the differentiation between infrastructure or base and superstructure. Marxian theory gives primacy to the economic structure of society, which consists of forces and relations of production. Forces of production imply the capacity of the society to produce and may include organization of human labour, scientific and technical knowledge, technological equipments and forces, etc. Relations of production arising out of the productive processes, imply relations in ownership of means of production. For Marx, it is the ‘infrastructure’ or the ‘base’, consisting of forces of production and relations of production, that determines all other aspects of society. These, all other aspects of society, constitute the ‘superstructure’ and include political and legal, social and cultural, religious and philosophical and ideological aspects and are determined by what happens to the infrastructure.
It is generally agreed that the State belongs to the superstructure. The State acts as an instrument to serve the interests of the dominant class and its ideology. This is the core of the Marxian understanding of relationship between the economic structure of society and other aspects of life. This perspective subscribes to the executive committee view of the State and treats the State as a complete reflection of the dominant interests of bourgeois class. Engels and Lenin followed this line.
However, the relative autonomy view argues that the State is relative autonomous from the base and could even be utilized for achieving the revolutionary goal. Poulantzas, Gramsci and Althusser give their reinterpretation of the role of the State based on the this latter formulation. Gramsci's conception of hegemony and Althusser's overdetermination, seek relevance of Marxian theory in the arena of superstructure.
State as an Instrument for the Exploitation of the Oppressed Class
We have discussed Engels's view on the origin and nature of the state earlier. Engels in his The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State treats the State as a product of irreconcilable class differences arising out of emergence of private property at a particular stage in historical evolution. The State as a public power is there to keep the conflict arising out of this irreconcilability under control and maintain order in the interest of the propertied classes. This irreconcilability is, in essence, due to the exploitative nature of economic/social relationship. The bourgeoisie and the proletariat are engaged in class struggle, as their respective interests are antagonist. This antagonist nature of interest arises out of the pattern of ownership of the means of production where the capitalist economy thrives on the labour and exploitation of the workers. The State being part of the superstructure acts as an instrument to support the relationship that prevails at the base. As such, the State becomes an instrument in exploitation and oppression of the proletariat.
Lenin in his The State and Revolution endorses this view of Engels and develops it further, taking into account the Marxian perspective of the State as ‘executive committee’. Lenin terms the State as an instrument for the exploitation of the oppressed class. For him, the State is a machine for oppression of one class by another, a special repressive force. Summarizing Marx's view, Lenin says, ‘the State is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is creation of order, which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between the classes.’90
Thus, the State as part of the superstructure represents political and ideological power. Political and ideological power is used for exploiting the proletariat and ‘reproducing the condition of productions’, i.e., maintaining a general opinion suitable for maintenance of capitalist system. In Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote, ‘political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another’. Lenin was equally vocal in his opposition and rejection of the bureaucratic set-up consisting of bureaucracy and army, amongst others. He feels that it represents ‘crystallization of class power within the organs of the state administration’. This is also based on the executive committee view of the State and its bureaucracy. For Lenin, existence of the State and bureaucracy cannot allow freedom. He says, ‘so long as the State exists, there is no freedom. When freedom exists, there will be no state.’91
In short, the Marxian theory put forward in the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin hold that the State is an oppressive machine, a class rule and repository of injustice. There is no way to mitigate its oppressive nature and use it for the benefit of the proletariat, as social democrats like Bernstein would like. The state cannot be an agency of reconciling different interests, as its very existence is to serve the interests of the dominant class.
If this is the case, then what is the fate of the State as per the Marxian theory? The answer is simple: destroy the State if liberation and freedom from oppression of all is to be achieved. Engels and Lenin say the state, in fact, must ‘wither away’.
’Withering Away’ of the State
The State does not lead to its abolition right away. The revolution of the proletariat instead of abolishing the State, as an anarchist suggests, results in it being taken over. Lenin, citing Engels, says, ‘the proletariat seizes state power and turns the means of production into state property to begin with.’92 The state now is in the hands of the proletariat who turns the private means of production into socially owned means of production. The State, in essence, however, remains there as a public power. This is required to abolish any vestiges of the classes, remove the bureaucratic machinery and replace the government of people by administration of things. The State as an organ of the dominant class has seized to exist; it has become a power publicly owned. The State before it withers away, is ‘a free people's state’, as Lenin calls and is used for the benefit of the whole society.
From this stage, the State, as a transformed instrument of consolidation of the proletarian and socially owned power, abolishes itself, as the proletariat abolishes all class distinction. The State emerged due to class distinction and it goes with the abolition of class distinction. This gradual redundancy of the State is what Engels and Lenin, call ‘withering away’. The State thus on its own withers away and the means of production are socially owned and managed. No private property, no social classes, no oppression, no state.
Critical Evaluation of the Orthodox Marxian Theory
This in brief is the orthodox Marxian position on the role and nature of the State both in its oppressive form and after it being taken over by the proletariat. However, a variety of developments have brought this thesis into doubt. It is said that the State is neither exploitative in the capitalist economy nor did it wither away even when the proletarian revolution ushered. We may examine this doubt in brief as follows:
- The development of the positive and welfare view of the State within the liberal tradition has already accepted some of the critical inputs which Marxian theory highlights. Issues of equality, social provisions and employment have been, in fact, the basis of state policy in all capitalist economies. This has led to revision in the very operation of the state in the capitalist economies and the welfare state has emerged.
- In many countries, including developing countries like India, the State itself is the largest employer and also has a role in economic activities. In fact, in many capitalist countries, nationalization of means of production has taken place. This, in some way or the other, has mitigated the distinction between base and the superstructure; the State itself is producer.
- It is also said the basic Marxian thesis of class antagonism is misplaced. In capitalist economies, there are more than two classes and the operation of the economy instead of leading to sharpening of the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, as Marx predicted, has resulted in broadening of the middle layer. Capitalist ownership has got diluted due to public ownership (pubic equity holding of companies), as Raymond Aron says, or shifting of power to a new managerial class (the entire affairs are managed by non-owner managers/board), as James Burnham says. Further, the proletariat has risen to the level of middle class due to economic prosperity. This, added with the welfare revisionism of the state in capitalist economy, has changed the nature and role of the State.
- It is also argued that even the State in the socialist countries existed and represented the same bureaucratic interest that Marx, Engels and Lenin decried so much. Milovan Djilas's The New Class (1957) and R. A. Medvedev's On Socialist Democracy (1975) amply demonstrated the bureaucratic nature of socialist states in Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries in the second half of the twentieth century. Djilas showed the emergence of the privileged class within the socialist countries and Medvedev argued the impossibility of the State withering away in Soviet Union due to emergence of an alienated statist class. Djilas, Medvedev and Stojanvic argued that the State in the socialist countries could not wither away, because of its degeneration into a bureaucratic socialist state.
Orthodox Marxian perspective on the State came in doubt not because of its misplaced analysis and understanding of the nature and role of the State but because of the protean character the State is taking in the liberal capitalist society. A new group of theorists sought to analyse this protean character by focusing more on the relative autonomy perspective hinted by Marx.
Neo-Marxian Perspective
Marx has hinted at the possibility of the State becoming relative autonomous of the social relations and the base or the infrastructure. If so, then the State also becomes an arena where revolutionary potential or possibilities could be found. Instead of the base only catapulting revolutionary change, the superstructure can also become a means to bring revolutionary change. In this view, it is felt that the class struggle should not be fought in the arena of base alone but also at the level of superstructure. We may briefly analyse the views of Gramsci, Miliband, Poulantzas and Althusser in the following discussion.
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian born neo-Marxian theorist who has given the theory of ‘hegemony’. His Prison Notebooks (1971) contains his ideas. He is, in fact, identified by some as a ‘theoretician of the superstructure’93 due to his overwhelming focus on the role of the realm of superstructure and its revolutionary potential. It has been felt that the orthodox Marxian position has failed to fully capture the role of the State and other forces that determine revolutionary potential. Gramsci focused more on the role of the human will and cultural and intellectual ideas. He sought to give prominence to ideas and human consciousness and how these shape the revolutionary potential. Marx has maintained that material condition of life shapes human thought. Gramsci somewhat inverted this and stressed that ideas and human consciousness have their effect on the economic base of society.94 Thus, Gramsci changed the relationship between the base and the infrastructure. From this inversion, Gramsci's two main contributions emerge.
Gramsci, as a theoretician of the superstructure, distinguishes two levels of the superstructure: (i) society or the civil society and (ii) state or the political society. Though at many a time, Gramsci holds that the civil society and the state are the same and that State = political society + civil society, the difference between the two is important to understand his perspective on the state. In brief, the State or the political society represents state power and uses force for exercising domination—structures of coercion. On the other hand, society or civil society uses a more subtle way of domination. This is achieved by the use of various means including educational, religious, intellectual and moral agencies—structures of legitimation. Thus, according to Gramsci, the superstructure consists of two levels—civil society corresponding to which is structure of legitimation and political society corresponding to which is structures of coercion. For Gramsci, civil society is different from what Marx understood. It does not refer to economic relationship as in Marx, but to superstructure and generally includes the organizations and means by which hegemony is diffused in all domains of culture and thought. These means and organizations include educational, intellectual, moral, religious and political and not merely economic. Thus, coercion and consent are two elements of domination, which prevail in the superstructure and determine the base. As such, for Gramsci the state is not an instrument being determined by the base. The State is relative autonomous and is a key area of struggle.
While the state uses coercion (police, army, court, intelligence), it cannot maintain domination only on the basis of force. Civil society provides the means of legitimation and what Gramsci calls hegemony. Civil society represented in organizations and institutions such as family, schools, church etc., provides the basic rules of behaviour, respect and moral deference to authority. By the help of educative, religious, familial, cultural means, hegemony is achieved. Hegemony95 stands for ‘intellectual, moral and political leadership and not merely economic domination’.96 Hegemony, thus is not only economic domination or coercive domination, but is based on consent generated in a subtle manner. Gramsci uses hegemony to define ‘the ability of a dominant class to exercise power by winning the consent of those it subjugates as an alternative to the use of coercion’.97 The State, in collaboration with civil society, interweaves consent and coercion as a hegemonic political strategy and takes leadership.
Through his concept of hegemony, Gramsci showed the role ideas and ideology play in helping the economic domination of the dominant class. A hegemonic power controls economic power + coercion + consent. Accordingly to Gramsci, hegemonic power leads to emergence of what he called ‘common sense. Common sense is explained as the philosophy of the masses who accept the morality, customs and institutionalized behaviour of the society in which they live.98 In short, people accept the social and economic order as legitimate. It is this legitimation that creates over all condition of hegemony and domination.
The solution then is to fight it out in the arena of civil society and ideas. Gramsci valued the intellectual and the ideological as much as Marx did the economic. His analysis of the organic and inorganic intellectuals in his Prison Notebooks is an example of his focus. Organic intellectuals are those who emerge from the situation and inorganic those who look at something from outside. Commentator like R. Simon (Gramscis Political Thought) have maintained that ‘Gramsci's theory of civil society and its complex relations with the state provide a perspective for the transition from capitalism to socialism.’99
Ralph Miliband has recognized the central position of the State in the Western societies. He sought to evaluate class–State relationship and liberal democratic view of State–society relationships. In his The State in Capitalist Society (1969) and Marxism and Politics (1977), Miliband has analysed the role and nature of the State in capitalist and other societies. According to Miliband, the view that the state in the Western societies is a neutral arbiter amongst social interests is misplaced. He concludes that the State is not able to separate itself from the ruling class factions. Thus, the State is not relative autonomous. This conclusion is based on the following factors100—(i) in contemporary Western societies there is a dominant or ruling class which owns and controls the means of production, (ii) the dominant class has close links to powerful institutions, political parties, the military, universities, the media, etc. (iii) the dominant class has disproportionate representation at all levels of the State apparatus especially in dominant positions. This leads Miliband to infer that the State, though can achieve independence in certain times like war or national crisis, by and large, is not relative autonomous.
Miliband's approach has been termed as a subjectivist approach, as it seeks to explore the relationship between the classes, bureaucracy and their social background and powerful institutions in an interpersonal way. Poulantzas has criticized Miliband for this approach. Since Miliband accepts closeness between class power and state power and their unity, his approach is also known as the instrumentalist theory of the state—the State as an instrument or agent of the ruling classes.
Nicos Poulantzas in his Political Power and Social Classes (1973) and in an article ‘The Problem of the Capitalist State’, presented his views on the role and nature of the State in capitalist societies. Poulantzas challenged Miliband's subjectivist view and maintained that class affiliations, as suggested by Miliband, were not crucial to the functioning of the State in a capitalist society. He takes a structural view in the Marxian sense where the role of the State is ultimately determined by economic infrastructure. His structural theory of the state suggests that the State can only perpetuate the social system in which it operates. This means that the State in the capitalist system will serve the long-term interests of the capitalist system, irrespective of class affiliations. Further, the State, structurally, is in the service of the capitalist interests, even if class affiliation is absent. Poulantzas says, ‘capitalist state serves the interests of the capitalist class only when members of this class do not participate directly in the state apparatus.’101 Opposed to what Miliband had concluded, this means that the ruling class may not be the politically governing class.
This is the basis of Poulantzas concept of the state as relative autonomous. Relative autonomous state is required because the capitalist class as a whole is not free from internal divisions (manufacturing capital, financial capital, etc.) and one or the other will always present differing interests. They may also oppose various acts of the State like democratic rights and welfare reforms. But to protect the long-term interests of the capitalist class as a whole, the State must stay relative autonomous and maintain the cohesiveness of the system. For Poulantzas then the State must ensure: (i) political organization of the dominant class to represent their common interests, and conversely, (b) political disorganization of the working class by diffusing their radical potential by giving concessions and (iii) long-term interests of the capitalist class by keeping itself relative autonomous and presenting the state as representing public interests. In fact, J. Westergaard and H. Resler in their empirical study, Class in a Capitalist Society (1976) have concluded that though, in Britain as well as other advanced capitalist countries, the State has implemented a wide range of reforms to improve health, social security, safety in work places, age old pensions, free education etc., these reforms have left the basic structure of inequality unchanged.102 Thus, Poulantzas treats relative autonomy as an important characteristic of the capitalist state, which is a unifying agency.
Louis Althusser, like Poulantzas, takes a structuralist position, i.e., state perpetuating the social system in which it operates. He also supports the perspective of relative autonomy of the state. For him, the State by being autonomous from explicit capitalist interest or its direction, serves it in general. Secondly, Althusser holds that it is not only the base that affects the superstructure but the former also gets affected by the latter and only in the final analysis it is determined. Althusser maintains that availability of labour power requires reproduction of skills. But it also requires reproduction of its submission to the ruling ideology. Thus, to achieve willing consent of the labour power for the benefit of the capitalist class, a number of ‘Ideological State Apparatuses’ such as mass media (press), law (courts), religion (church), education (schools), etc., are required. These help in transmitting the ruling class ideology. Althusser supports the relative autonomy conception and also Gramsci's concept of hegemony.
Thus, two streams or accounts of theory of the State have been generally debated and contested within the Marxian fold. But the fact that the state remains the state of the capitalist class, directly or indirectly, is the conclusion that they reach at.