The rights of a state

What gives the right to a nation to tell its citizens how to behave? Is it to promote peace and prosperity? Is it to maintain its control over the masses? States were formed to protect against outside invasion. When outside invasion is less likely, why does the state persist in its rights over the masses? These rights can be individual-oriented. For example, individuals are punished if they attempt to end their life or in some countries, take away the right to abort. In theocratic countries, individuals have to follow a particular religion and the state takes away the right to convert to another. What gives a national government the right to acknowledge birth, marriage and death thereby giving them legitimacy? Possible rationalist explanations –

INERTIA

Inertia resulting from history of protection. This is a behavioural explanation because it implies that individuals are used to respecting the state because it has been in existence for a long time and individuals can be brainwashed into nationalism either by the school curriculum or by their brainwashed parents.

SPILLOVERS

Externalities arising on other population members – come up with an institution that is on average concerned with the average person and will exercise control in order to promote the well-being of the average person. Why will an individual not expect a back-lash and thereby not conform to the right behaviour on his/her own? Why do we need gun laws for instance? 

IDEOLOGY

Bundling of the state with religion. Religion is propagated by the state in order to enforce its legitimacy of rights over the individual. It is easier to question the state but not easy to question religion. Can state and religion together prevent individuals from taking their own decisions? 

 IGNORANCE

If individuals are ignorant of the right actions to take such that they may harm others unintentionally, then the state may have a rationale for having a monopoly over individual rights. This is a very strong assumption as it means that government is somehow made of special people who are less ignorant compared to the masses. Even if individuals are ignorant, why not allow their relatives and friends to make them enlightened. 

STATISTICS

Legitimacy of government’s monopoly over individual rights may be a bi-product of the necessity of a government to collect national statistics so that it can exercise dominance in other areas – for instance, collection of taxes.

INCENTIVES

It may incentivize the masses to try to achieve power and may drive them towards gaining authority. If the government did not have control of our rights, there would be no incentive to join the government except the low fixed wages.

CO-ORDINATION

It may act as a co-ordination device for everyone to believe that there is a unitary right and there cannot be heterogeneity of rights.

One of the most enthusiastic students in Econ 111, Andrew Edelman, adds the following to this category:"Multicultural co-unity: These rules allow for a mix of cultures to exist together when they would otherwise conflict.  If you look at countries that were formed through European colonialism, there have both weak governments and, in many cases, tribal conflicts.  In countries such as the United States, England, and even Russia, people with many different nationalities live together under a set of rules separate from their own cultural identities which minimizes conflict."

A related point is that a multiplicity of identities (national, regional, religious) dilutes original identities increasing the possibility of inter-ethnic complementarities.

SIGNAL

Government acknowledgements may be a way to signal high-types from low-types. This is dependent on a common belief in the system that the government can exercise credible and effective control over our rights.

EFFECT ON OTHER PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

If a lack of control over one’s behaviour can affect other state institutions, for example, the quality of state education or health-care, then there may be an argument for the government to monopolize rights.

David Beron, another excellent student of mine states that this could be related to Michel Foucault’s ideas on Humans in terms of numbers: there is a maximum population at which society can efficiently function (considering diminishing marginal product). If the ideology of people fails to control such matters (religion might be an incentive to procreate), the government needs to intervene. Because no invisible hand exists to match people’s non-capital desires with their nation’s “carrying capacity”, the government has to set limits to the "number of slices" in order for "the cake" to grow as a whole. China can be used as an example: people's behavior is restricted by the one child policy and, perhaps a coincidence, the country is currently going through an economic boom.
 

The above explanations are not mutually exclusive. These reasons are likely to exist in some combination and it would be difficult to differentiate the relative importance of each mechanism.