Minimal State

The policy of minimal government intervention in economic life is instrumental in nature and says nothing about the goals of such a policy. It can be used either to increase the welfare of the population or to strengthen various kinds of autocratic regimes. Back in the 17th century in France, where the idea of laissez-faire first emerged, physiocrats tried to implement this policy to strengthen the absolutist monarchy. In the 1920s, the Russian Bolsheviks introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP) to consolidate their power. Chinese communists and other autocrats are doing the same thing today. Do we need such a "minimal state"?

The question may seem rhetorical, but it is not so trivial for Ukrainian realities, and on the contrary, it is becoming more and more relevant every day. On the one hand, the vast majority of Ukrainians would not hesitate to answer that they would like to live in a democratic state. Still, on the other hand, if they were to describe exactly how they envision this state and what it should do, it would hardly be called a "haven of freedom”.

About what is being talked about? Five hundred years ago, Niccolò Machiavelli made a distinction which, with slight differences, remains relevant even today: “All states, all governments that have at any time governed peoples are divided into republics and principalities (in modern terminology – autocracies)”.

“State”, the idea of which dominates our consciousness, is the result of the historical development of continental Europe over the past 400 years, and unfortunately, it is not a "republic".

If we recall which work of Machiavelli's is most read by those interested in politics, it would be The Prince, where the famous Florentine advises an autocrat, and not Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, where the republic is a model of political organization of society. If we take a quick look at what we know about the European political history of modern times, the absolutist monarchies of the 17th and 18th centuries, the world empires of the 19th century, and the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century will come to mind first, and the key figures will be Louis XIV, Napoleon, Bismarck, Hitler, and Stalin. The foundations of our present-day ideas about the state began to take shape in the late Middle Ages and early modern times, when the concept of an eternal hierarchical order - the earthly hierarchy as a continuation of the heavenly hierarchy, headed by a monarch - became widespread in European political thought. The personality of the monarch may change, but the hierarchical order itself must remain unchanged.

In the seventeenth century, Louis XIV in France declared that "the State is me"; in the eighteenth century, Frederick II in Prussia proclaimed himself "the first servant of the State"; in the nineteenth century, the "State" was "moral spirit," "divine will," and "substantial unity" (Hegel). In conclusion, in the twentieth century, we got "the state as a proletariat organized into a ruling class». The external form acquired a new ideological color, but the essence remained unchanged.

When Louis XIV said that "the state is me," it was not a metaphor; it was a reflection of the understanding of state power. In the nineteenth century, the personalized power of the monarch was replaced by the abstract power of the state, but this does not change its nature - the nature of Leviathan's absolute power. When Frederick II said that he was "the first servant of the state," he was only partially lying. The state is really trying to make everyone a servant.

Unfortunately, the notion of the state formed on such principles continues to determine the way of thinking and functioning of public institutions in Ukraine in many cases.

The origin and development of European civilization, however, is associated with a different type of organization of power relations, which the ancient Greeks called politeia (πολιτεία), and the ancient Romans - res publica. The organization of such a community is based on the separation of private and public spheres. Citizens of such a community, as "free and equal men" (Aristotle), solve individual problems on their own by managing their private households. The governing bodies that are created in such communities do not interfere with the private life of citizens, but are engaged in public affairs - defining and achieving the "common good”.

Private interests should not infiltrate politics, and politics should not interfere with private life. Despite certain difficulties in the practical implementation of this principle, it is this principle that ensures the success of social development.

Based on this principle, the ancient Athenians reached not only the pinnacle of their prosperity but also laid the foundations of European civilization. The Roman Republic, built on this principle, lasted for more than half a millennium. Despite the popularity of stories about Roman emperors, the greatest achievements of Ancient Rome are associated with the period of republican governance. Behind the stories about the royal dynasties of Europe, the information that the Venetian Republic lasted for more than a thousand years (VII-XVIII centuries), the Florentine Republic (XII-XVI centuries) was the leader of economic development in its time and became the cradle of the Renaissance, and the Genoese Maritime Republic (XI-XVIII centuries) lasted for eight centuries remains in the shadows. In the seventeenth century, the Republican Netherlands managed not only to gain independence from the then-largest colonial empire, Spain, but also to create the richest private company in the world (the Dutch East India Company). Formally a monarchy, but governed by a republican principle, Great Britain conquered a quarter of the world, and the United States of America, having built its system on the model of republican Rome, became the greatest economic and military power of the twentieth century.

After all, the assertion of the principle of separation of private and public interests is an important component of Pylyp Orlyk's Constitution. By the way, the Cossacks never called their system of government a state. "State" in the Ukrainian language of that time, as in other European languages, was synonymous with "possession," and "statesmen," like Machiavelli, were autocratic rulers.

Marxists in the twentieth century were very well aware of the importance of distinguishing between the private and public spheres and their interdependence. Fighting against capitalism and destroying private property, they were equally fiercely opposed to the "bourgeois" republic that protected this property.

The requirement of a "minimal state" cannot be considered separately from the requirement to reform the state itself. Carrying out economic reforms without reforming government structures is the same as breeding fish in a pike tank. Expansion of markets and protection of private property are impossible without the development of the public sphere and the establishment of public governance. The government should not be involved in private affairs, and parties should not be associations of private interests.

The country should not be turned into someone's possession in an open or covert form, and the "stationary bandit" cannot be the ideal of political power. The amount of taxes and their purpose should be determined not by those who collect them, but by those who pay them.

The 'minimal state' in its purely economic sense can only have short-term positive effects, and only res publica can provide a long-term result.