I love Steven Pinker but, on this one subject, I strongly disagree with him. This is just a regurgitation of what Hoppe terms the Hobbesian Myth (from The Myth of National Defense):
Among the most popular and consequential beliefs of our age is the belief in collective security. Nothing less significant than the legitimacy of the modern state rests on this belief.
I will demonstrate that the idea of collective security is a myth that provides no justification for the modern state, and that all security is and must be private. First, I will present a two-step reconstruction of the myth of collective security, and at each step I will raise a few theoretical concerns. The myth of collective security can also be called the Hobbesian myth. Thomas Hobbes, and countless political philosophers and economists after him, argued that in the state of nature, men would constantly be at each others’ throats. Homo homini lupus est. Put in modern jargon, in the state of nature, a permanent “underproduction” of security would prevail. Each individual, left to his own devices and provisions, would spend “too little” on his own defense, resulting in permanent interpersonal warfare. The solution to this presumably intolerable situation, according to Hobbes and his followers, is the establishment of a state. In order to institute peaceful cooperation among themselves, two individuals, A and B, require a third independent party, S, as ultimate judge and peacemaker. However, this third party, S, is not just another individual, and the good provided by S, that of security, is not just another “private” good. Rather, S is a sovereign and has as such two unique powers. On the one hand, S can insist that his subjects, A and B, not seek protection from anyone but him; that is, S is a compulsory territorial monopolist of protection. On the other hand, S can determine unilaterally how much A and B must spend on their own security; that is, S has the power to impose taxes in order to provide security “collectively.”
There is little use in quarreling over whether or not man is as bad and wolf-like as Hobbes supposes, except to note that Hobbes’s thesis obviously cannot mean that man is driven only and exclusively by aggressive instincts. If this were the case, mankind would have died out long ago. The fact that he did not demonstrates that man also possesses reason and is capable of constraining his natural impulses. The quarrel is only with the Hobbesian solution. Given man’s nature as a rational animal, is the proposed solution to the problem of insecurity an improvement? Can the institution of a state reduce aggressive behavior and promote peaceful cooperation, and thus provide for better private security and protection? The difficulties with Hobbes’s argument are obvious. For one, regardless of how bad men are, S— whether king, dictator, or elected president—is still one of them. Man’s nature is not transformed upon becoming S. Yet how can there be better protection for A and B, if S must tax them in order to provide it? Is there not a contradiction within the very construction of S as an expropriating property protector? In fact, is this not exactly what is also—and more appropriately— referred to as a protection racket? To be sure, S will make peace between A and B, but only so that he himself can rob both of them more profitably. Surely S is better protected, but the more he is protected, the less A and B are protected from attacks by S. Collective security, it would seem, is not better than private security. Rather, it is the private security of the state, S, achieved through the expropriation, i.e., the economic disarmament, of its subjects. Further, statists from Thomas Hobbes to James Buchanan have argued that a protective state, S, would come about as the result of some sort of “constitutional” contract. Yet who in his right mind would agree to a contract that allowed one’s protector to determine unilaterally—and irrevocably— the sum that the protected must pay for his protection? The fact is no one ever has!
The Hobbesian myth just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Why should people repeatedly, predictably fail to adequately provide for the defense of their property?
Pinker is also hinting at the possibility that an unending cycle of feuds would result in the absence of a single Leviathan with the power to overwhelm any party in society. Leaving aside the fact that it is not clear that a Leviathan State actually does prevent feuding (are there not gang wars?) and leaving aside the fact that States themselves feud (World War I, anyone?) it’s not clear to me how it is that the possibility of feuding is such a great evil that any other evil required to prevent it is justified. The famous feud between the Hatfields and McCoys was fairly local in its consequences. The modern superstate, on the other hand, is indisputably responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of individuals in the period of a century.
Also, a Pax Romana is not inconsistent with the idea that the State is a tyrannical evil. Sure, there might be “law and order” on the streets but how does that matter if we’re living in a virtual slave society? That the system is so entrenched that nobody dare challenge it (peace) is not the same thing as saying that the system “works” or is “good”.
Clayton -