Zavoi: I don’t believe your first reference to de Jasay applies. When writing of “preferences for political arrangement of society,” he is concerned with theories about how the state comes into being and why it persists. He is criticizing the view that the individuals of a society come together and successfully and rationally craft the state; and, in turn, the state ultimately does what the subjects (or the ruling class) want it to do. The whole section, after all, is investigating the arguments as to why a people would willingly adopt a state. The argument that Danny is making and attributing to la Boetie and Hume is quite distinct in that it says people consent to the authority of the state, not that they effectively control it. In both cases there is consent by the subjects, but the former is an active will on the part of some group while the latter is a passive acceptance. Whereas Hobbes might say, “We wanted a monarch” or “We live under a monarch because we have chosen it as the best course of action,” la Boetie would say, “A monarch attained power and we, for various reasons, allow him to keep that power.” de Jasay criticizes the former because the subject of a monarch has been conditioned to society under a monarch; he has no basis to compare that life to any other arrangement, in which his preferences may be different. The latter does not conflict with de Jasay’s argument, which makes sense given that de Jasay explicitly credits Hume with a better analysis of the government than the contractarian story of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau (see here). And it nicely complements Weber’s view, which de Jasay praises following your quote.
And I think you’re totally backwards on the second de Jasay quote (and, again, I think you’re using it out of context). The addictive nature of redistribution can change individual character and the family and group structure of society, but precisely because the end of those involved is material gain. De Jasay’s great metaphor - that the state’s interventions cause the muscles of voluntary capabilities of society to atrophy - supports Danny’s point that people are largely interested in increasing their material wealth. Without the state, this requires cooperation, possibly a strong family structure, etc. With a welfare state, (non-political) voluntary associations become less important, the family structure is less useful, etc., because people believe they can profit more through the redistributive arm of the state. Without the state, a mother is incentivized to marry a man for financial assistance; with the state providing assistance to single mothers, this incentive is diminished and the traditional family structure offers less utility. After all, the family does not become a less effective means for achieving some moral or spiritual end in the presence of wealth redistribution.
And regarding the contention that man, in general, is primarily concerned with his material well-being, I think we ought to return to Mises here. It’s not necessarily that people only or predominantly desire material wealth, but that society is only capable of providing for the material desires of its subjects. Spiritual enlightenment is not attained by a certain distribution of property rights. And insofar as people desire peace, well - harmony of interests and all that.