Thomas Hobbs, the famous English philosopher from the seventeenth century in his writing addressed the state as a Leviathan, a mythic beast that embodies chaos and encapsulates the material world, but nonetheless called it a necessary evil. His thought process was indeed influenced by the time in which he lived when feudalism across Europe was at its end and the English civil war had led to the creation of a strong central government to prevent further bloodshed. The concept of reliance on lords and nobles to provide resources for the functioning of kingdoms was being replaced with the creation of a strong central government with its own bureaucracy and judicial systems for managing the affairs of a state. Hobbs believed that the most optimal solution for society was to accept this new Leviathan, since in exchange for curtailment of freedoms it offered peace and security that society otherwise will always be deprived of. Indeed Hobbs was certainly right that to prevent complete anarchy in a society, a state and by extension a strong central government are still a necessity and this concept has been widely accepted for the past five centuries since. However in many countries, especially third world countries, people seem to forget that it is nonetheless a Leviathan in the end and like the mythic beast itself, still needs to be in chains to prevent it from completely encapsulating all that exists around it.
In the context of a state, tentacles of the Leviathan symbolize the laws, rules and regulations that are formulated by policy makers both elected and selected. The main focus of any state is to provide security, enforce and uphold contracts, manage foreign affairs and provide certain public goods such as infrastructure for which it raises funds through taxation. A state that delivers in these areas can be considered an effective one since it is fulfilling its roles without superseding its purpose. But it is impossible for any state to manage every single aspect of the lives of its citizens directly simply because there are too many of them to humanly manage in the first place. It requires policy makers to formulate laws, rules and regulations and enforce them through a bureaucratic set up. Thus the issue arises when the tentacles of the state begin to extend beyond what is necessarily needed to the point where it tries to regulate everything under the sun from what we can eat to what we can read, what activities we can engage in to what we can sell and so on and so forth. In extreme cases it can become like North Korea or Turkmenistan where the state even decides what type of haircuts you can get and when you can go to the toilet. This expansiveness of the state, like the tentacles of the Leviathan, destroys the wellbeing of society. It curtails peoples’ freedom and makes their lives miserable. It forces people, especially those with talent such as doctors, teachers and professionals who serve society, to flee to countries where the state provides them more freedom to make their own choices in life. It also decreases innovation since free thinking is penalized and thus leads to development of regressive societies where neither art nor scientific research flourishes. At the same time, constant interference by the state in the economy destroys productivity and reduces innovation. State planned economies have always historically lagged behind free market economies such as those of Europe both in terms of volume and variety of goods and services produced. Free market economies enjoy complete superiority in all economic fields from high end tech to manufacturing to the service sector and also have higher wages compared to state managed ones. In certain cases like the Soviet Union state inefficiency was so bad that people had to book a car for their children when they were born so they could receive them by the time they were legally allowed to drive due to long wait times.
In Pakistan too, the Leviathan tentacles of the state extend far and wide. Laws from the days of the Raj still govern lives of its people and things still move at a snails’ pace thanks to an inefficient and incompetent overarching bureaucracy in collusion with little or no oversight of the legislature. Government interferes in economic, social and other aspects of life either directly through several state owned enterprises or through increased regulation and layers of bureaucracy, stifling society’s growth and wellbeing. These mismanaged companies cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions of rupees annually in huge losses. From a steel mill and an airline to a horticulture corporation the Pakistani state does everything only a private enterprise should be doing and does it only much worse. It’s not that such enterprises are non-existent elsewhere as we have examples of British airways as state owned enterprises even in free market economies. But over there they are professionally managed, mostly on a public private partnership investment model that ensures that such enterprises are profitable with no unwarranted interference from the stakeholders. In our country, they are merely tools for handing out political largesse to cronies or supporters of the ruling elite. Furthermore the increased layers of bureaucracy also encourage corruption at all levels since it increases the number of approvals needed and hence the number of bribes to be paid as well as increasing the time and effort a private enterprise needs to start operations and run them smoothly thereafter. Such an environment discourages investment, innovation, productivity and growth. The systemic inefficiencies result in higher cost of living for the people. Otherwise there is no reason why urea in our country should cost five times more compared to India.
Leviathan was eventually killed by God and served as food to feed the hungry. Will our Leviathan ever be chained at least if not killed so that people shall feel secure yet free enough to prosper and be happy in their lives?
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