Reflections on the Minimal State

John Hasnas
Additional contact information
John Hasnas: George Mason University School of Law, USA jhasnas@gmu.edu

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2003, vol. 2, issue 1, 115-128

Abstract: This article challenges the traditional argument for the state that holds that because the market is unable to supply the rule-making, adjudicative, and enforcement services that are essential to life in society, the state must, and hence is morally justified. The author argues that the market's inability to supply these basic services proves only that the state must ensure that they are supplied, not that it must supply them itself. This implies that the traditional concept of the minimal state as one that supplies only these basic services is flawed. The `remedial state' (one that regulates the private provision of these services) is actually the minimal state.

Keywords: anarchy; libertarianism; minimal state; political obligation; protective agency; public goods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X03002001426 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:pophec:v:2:y:2003:i:1:p:115-128

DOI: 10.1177/1470594X03002001426

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Politics, Philosophy & Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().