"The state is an unnecessary evil": do you agree?

Introduction

The liberal tradition calls the state a necessary evil, and Thomas Paine is among those who called it that; on the individualist view the state is an artificial but necessary construct, so the government that rules least is best. The statement drops necessary. The question asks whether I agree, and with reasons. My position is that the state is an evil only in part and is necessary in a limited sense; it is better understood as a dangerous but indispensable institution that has to be limited.

Arguments that the state is an unnecessary evil

1. Coercion. The state rests on force: Weber defines it by the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in a given territory. Gandhi, influenced by Tolstoy and Thoreau, saw the modern state as repressive and coercive and held that the individual's conscience comes before its commands. (2) Class and privilege. For Marxists the state is an instrument of the dominant class to suppress the dependent class, and it exists only because there are classes; in a classless society it would be redundant and would wither away. (3) Growth of power. The modern state has extended its scale and grip, with a more complex bureaucracy and larger armed forces, and in socialist states it became all-powerful instead of withering. (4) Manipulation. It can mould people's consciousness so that they accept the existing order without seeing alternatives, which turns consent into manipulated consent. (5) Discipline and surveillance. Foucault describes how institutions such as schools, prisons and hospitals discipline and normalise people's activities. (6) Self-government. Marx expected a society of free and equal producers acting on a common, rational plan once the state has withered away, and Gandhi preferred a decentralised, village-based swaraj built upward from the lowest level.

Arguments that the state is necessary

1. Order and consent. Hobbes and Locke explained political authority as created by a contract that people made on leaving the state of nature, so that it rests on their consent; Locke saw the state as the protector of life, liberty and property through law. (2) Collective decisions and public goods. Societies must decide how to share resources and plan for the future, and these decisions need an authority that binds. (3) Protection of rights. Rights place obligations on the state to act, as when it provides education; most rights claims are directed at the state. (4) Welfare and equality. Modern liberals argue that hindrances such as poverty, disease, discrimination and ignorance can be overcome only with the positive help of government; the welfare state is the result. (5) Global challenges. Terrorism, climate change and drug trafficking cannot be tackled by one country alone and call for cooperation among states. (6) Legitimacy. The state does not rest on force alone: power accepted as legitimate is obeyed freely, and a system is most stable when people obey because they accept it. Even the Marxian hope of a stateless society has not been met, since the state grew stronger instead of fading.

Conclusion

I agree with the statement only as a warning and not as a conclusion. The state is dangerous and has often been used for oppression, which is why its powers must be limited by law, rights, accountability and participation. But it has not been shown that society can do without it. The reasonable position is that the state is a necessary but permanently suspect instrument: neither a good in itself nor an evil that can be abolished.