Chapter 6

END OF THE STATE

To the question what is the end or purpose of the state there are per haps as
many answers as there are writers on politics. In considering this theme it is
usual to distinguish between the immediate or proximate end and the final or
ultimate end, and between general or fundamental ends and its particular ends.
While it is easy to determine the immediate and particular ends of the state, the
ultimate and fundamental ends are more a matter of faith than of knowledge.
Political philosophers and political scientists have offered divergent views about
the end of the state and various dimensions of this theme have been offered over
the centuries.

The Greek philosophers emphasized the ethical end of the State. To the Greeks
the purpose of the state was self-sufficiency. The State was to be all-inclusive
and should provide for its citizens all that was necessary for their highest
development and happiness. To Plato the state was a moralising agency, an
ethical institution in which each individual and each class had a particular
function to perform and a particular station to fill. The state, Aristotle tells us,
which originated for the sake of life, continues for the sake of best life. The state
is a partnership in a life of virtue and goodness. In his 'Politics' Aristotle writes:
"The State exists not for the sake of wealth or security or society, but for the sake
of a good life", thus the Greek philosophers spoke in terms of the fundamental
and ultimate end of the State.

The Roman view of the State was legalistic and juridical. They viewed the State
as a legal person. The State was a legal machinery to ensure the rights of
individuals. They had a narrow view about the end of the State. The medieval
period in European history was dominated by Christianity as interpreted by the
Church fathers and the scholastic thinkers. Most of them upheld the religious end
of the State. In his 'Civitas Dei', St. Augustine asserted that the end of the State
was to prepare individuals for entry into the city of God. However, writers like
Marsiglio of Padua challenged this view and stressed the secular purposes of the
State. In modern times, various schools of thought have taken divergent stands
on this theme. The individualist philosophers have held that the State exists
merely to maintain law and order which become the basis of security of life and
property. To Hobbes the purpose of the State was to maintain order and the right
of property. The ethical end of the State is subordinated to convenience in Locke.
"The great and Chief end of men uniting into commonwealths and gutting
themselves under government is the preservation of their property" -'- which is
Locke's general name for;'lives, liberties and estates". The political theories of
Hobbes and Locke provided a moral foundation for bourgeoisie appropriation at a
time when capitalism was emerging steadily. Adam Smith, the Classical
economist, opined that the sovereign had only three duties to attend to: the duty
of protecting society from the violence and invasion of other independent
societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of
society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it; and, thirdly,
the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public
institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small
number of individuals, to erect and maintain. According to Herbert Spencer, the
state is nothing but a natural institution for preventing one man from infringing
upon the rights of another; it is a joint-stock protection company for mutual
assurance. Individualist thinkers as a whole have narrowed down the purpose of
the state to securing certain material conveniences, for the individuals who
compose it. The State is conceived as a means to an end-the end being the well-
being of the individuals.

The utilitarians like Bentham, James Mill and J.S.Mill offered a refined version of
individualism by insisting on general happiness as the end of the State. Bentham
spoke of the purpose of the state as the "greatest happiness of the greatest
number" or as "the greatest possible happiness’ J .S. Mill's revision of
Benthamite position led him to emphasize the development of personality
through the enjoyment of liberty as the goal of the state. The utilitarian view
offered a pragmatic and readymade guide for initiating a great number of social
and political reforms in nineteenth century England. Referring to the
shortcomings of this view Gilchrist observes: it is "a commonsense expression of
the ends of legislation but as a complete expression of the end of the state it
breaks down on close examination". German idealists like Hegel have regarded
the state as an end in itself. The end of the state is to make men really free. True
freedom consists in conformity to law and law is the voice of universal reason
represented by the State. The same point of view is illustrated in fascism and
Nazism. This view calls upon the individuals to subordinate their ends to those of
society.

A number of modern writers, mainly German, have defined the end of the state
as the promotion of progress and civilization of the world. German writer
Holtzendorff stated that national power, maintenance of justice and law and the
promotion of the social progress and the civilization of mankind are the actual
ends of the state. The first mentioned is the prima(y end; the last, the ultimate
end. Bluntschli and Yon Mohl took more or less a similar stand. Burgess, the
American scholar classified the purposes of the state as primary, secondary, and
ultimate. The ultimate end is the perfection of humanity, the civilization of the
world and the establishment on earth of the reign of virtue and morality.

The secondary is the perfection of the principle of nationality in the state and the
development of the national genius. The primary end is the establishment of a
system of government and liberty. Socialists claim that. the state exists to
promote "certain social services...which have to do primarily with the social
interests of the community". With the growth of socialist ideas the concept of
welfare state received further impetus. The welfare state is looked upon, as an
agency of service rather than of power and most modern states undertake the
care of public health and public morals and the furthering of the economic
interests of the community as a whole. From the socialist point of view the end of
the state has been the creation of a just and equitable socio-economic order in
which the basic needs of life are fulfilled for the average citizen. Marxists view the
end of the state in terms of class domination. Lenin writes: "The state is the
product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms". The
basic struggles are between economic classes to secure control of the sovereign
power. The state is used by the economically dominant class to hold down and
exploit the oppressed class.

Of course, Marxists admit that the state arose for the purpose of moderating the
class conflicts and keeping it within the bounds of 'order'. But it has failed in this
mission. The modern representative state is an instrument of exploitation of
wage-labour by capital. Historically the purpose of the state has been to
safeguard the exploitation of one class by another. In the socialist society of the
future, such a state will have no justification to exist as the exploitation of one
class by another will be abolished. One of the best statements in modern times
regarding the end of the state is made by Laski in his" A Grammar of Politics”:
"The state is an organization to enable the mass of men to realize social good on
the largest possible scale. It exists to enable men, at least potentially, to realize
the best that is in themselves, by providing them rights. In stressing realization of
personality as the end of the state, this view makes the individual the end, and
the state the means. "Our view", concludes Laski," is rather, first, that individual
good cannot, over a long period, be usefully abstracted from the good of other
men; and second, that the value of reason is to be found in the degree to which it
makes possible the future, no less than the immediate, harmony of impulses".
This view is broader than the individualistic view and clearer and safer than the
idealist view and has the great merit of being simple, realistic and intelligible.

According to Garner the original, primary and immediate end of the state is the
maintenance of peace, order, security, and justice among the people who
compose it. The second end is the promotion of the collective interests of
individuals in their associated capacity. The ultimate and
Highest end of the state is the promotion of the civilization of mankind.

Is the State an End or a Means?

One of the intricate questions which has engaged the attention of students of
political science is this: "Is the state an end in itself or is only a means?" Political
thinkers have taken opposing stands on this question.

The ancient Greeks regarded the state as the highest fulfilment of human life and
as an end in itself. They found an identity between individual interests and the
collective interests of society. The State is prior to the individual and more real
than them.

The Greek view was developed to its logical conclusion by a number of German
writers, Chiefly Hegel, in the nineteenth century. Hegel, the German idealist
invested the state with a real personality and a real will. The state represents the
highest phase of the historical "world process" and is the manifestation of a
perfect rationality. It has ends of its own divorced from, and superior to, those of
the individual human being subjected to its authority. True freedom for the
individuals consists in conformity to laws of the state."The State, being an end in
itself, is provided with the maximum of rights over against the individual citizens,
whose highest duty is to be members of the state". The Oxford idealists T .H.
Green, Bradley and Bosanquet modified this view to suit to the pragmatic and
liberal orientations of English men. But the view that the state is an end in itself
was put to actual use in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Their motto
was:"Everything for the state, nothing against the state; nothing outside the
state".

Those who claim that the state is an end in itself have assumed an identity
between the goals of the state and those of the individuals who compose it. They
also take their stand on the idea that the individual is fleeting and the state is
everlasting. State has its own purposes of preservation, expansion and
perfection, and these are distinct from, and superior to, those of the individuals
who at any moment compose it. In the carrying out of its proper ends, state must
make use of individuals. They must subordinate their own ends to those of the
state. The theory glorifies the state and those who manage its affairs at the cost
of the individual. It is but one way of justifying absolutism. Its assumptions are
contrary to human experience. Many modern schools of thought like
individualists, utilitarians, liberals, democrats and pluralists look upon the state as
a means to an end the end being the promotion of the welfare of the members of
the community. Individualists regard the state as "a necessary evil" and advocate
maximum possible individual freedom. Pluralists decry the monopoly of
sovereign power by the state in the interest of the autonomy of myriad groups
which serve individual's interests in numerous ways. These thinkers subscribe to
the tradition of "will and artifice" in political philosophy and regard the state as an
artificial contrivance of man, an instrument to serve the interests and purposes of
individuals. The state is not the end of individual but most certainly the individual
is the end of the state. This theory offers an 'instrumental: view of the state. The
main objection to such a view is that the state does not concern itself entirely with
the welfare of anyone generation.

Both the views contain elements of truth. Therefore, the general consensus of
opinion is that the State is both an end and a means. The state represents the
highest form of social organisation. It has a purpose higher than the fulfilment of
the material needs of individuals. All the same its sole justification rests on its
accomplishment in realizing the best self of individual men and women who
compose it. If a choice is to be made, surely both life and logic will justify a
preference for the view that the state is primarily a means to an end.