Scholarly synthesis that morphs into Thatcherite screed
Review of Rise and Decline of the State by Martin Van Creveld
The first 3/4 of this book – on the rise of the state – is a fascinating, if occasionally dry, historical look at the organization of power to form the administrative, territorial state. This is essential reading for anyone interested in history, current affairs, and political science. It is written at the high undergraduate level. Unfortunately, while containing valuable insights about the "decline" of the state, the last 1/4 of the book reveals (in his assumptions, his repeated misstatements of fact, and judgments that he doesn't prove, such as his blithe dismissals of Keynes' ideas) that the author is a simple conservative who would be at home with Reagan or Thatcher. This was extremely disappointing after such a promising start.
The book begins a long look at political organization before the state. From leaderless hunter-gatherer groups to kingdoms that confused ownership with the right to rule, until the 14th century CE, the reach of the powerful remained strictly limited. With slow and uncertain communications, even supreme autocrats like the Roman emperors could essentially rule in only a single city, delegating authority to lesser versions of themselves to exercise their power elsewhere as plenipotentiaries. Unless, of course, they themselves marched an army to a disputed location.
During the feudal age, power was even more dispersed: there was a pan-national ideology in the Roman Catholic church that competed with temporal rulers for legitimacy and innumerable other localized configurations, such as "free cities", aristocratic holdings with their own peasants, and relatively small kingdoms. When the power holder died, it led with depressing frequency to civil war as the next generation attempted to impose its authority, which was essentially personal ownership. Even powerful princes had diffuse territorial holdings through feudal obligations and rights they gained by marriage or simple declarations of loyalty, forever obliging them to travel within and outside their realms to maintain the proper balances of power. It was the only way to ensure peace and continued loyalty. Lesser princes and aristocrats found themselves with similar responsibilities on a smaller scale, which inhibited them from developing other capabilities like economic activities for any period of time.
This feudal order began to be overtaken by kings consolidating control and mobilizing resources within better defined territories. The kings had to 1) bring the church under their direct control, sometimes by outright confiscation of resources, at other times by adopting the Protestant Faith, always by forcing pledges of loyalty and creating dependence; 2) co-opt the autonomy of the aristocrats within their borders into service obligations; 3) subordinate the cities under various regimes and systems of rights to their rule and regime; 4) liberate themselves from the Holy Roman Empire and other feudal powers. Unfortunately, it is unclear from the book as to why this occurred at the time that it did. However, the reason was clear: the kings wanted to wage war more efficiently, particularly with the advent of gun powder in new weapons, leading to the capability of waging "total war" rather than limited territorial skirmishes bound by traditional limits of feudal honor and the like.
The result was the formation of what can be called the modern state. It had a number of innovative characteristics that appeared for the first time. Kings created far more extensive bureaucracies than had ever existed, with up to ten times the personnel that the Romans, Ottomans, or Chinese Emperors had had. Their bureaucrats were specialized, increasingly gaining their positions by competence rather than privilege; this ensured a far more solid base for the passage of power from one ruler to another, though it created an entity unto itself that had its own interests and requirements. With their bureaucrats, the kings created an infrastructure that they could essentially direct, in order to collect taxes in a far more efficient manner that was also potentially less corrupt than the traditional "tax farmers" had been. The infrastructure also served to maintain better transportation and communications networks.
On a parallel track, the kings established a monopoly on the use of violence, with both military and police forces that were professionals rather than solely through aristocrats, who had their own interests. This period ended with the naive optimism of the Enlightenment, when bureaucrats were touted as objective and seeking the good of the people. Beginning with Napoleon's People's Army, the next era was one of nationalism, which found their ultimate expression in a new 30 year's war between 1915 and 1945.
The progression of the state's role and use, in the author's view, evolved from military, to the development of more general and intrusive national capabilities (infrastructure, but also education), and ending in the welfare state. He sees this as a natural progression in which the tendrils of the state demanded more and more resources and ever tighter control on individuals, to the point that it became oppressive, not only in Communist or Fascist regimes but also in liberal capitalist democracies, which he sees as a continuum rather than a difference in kind. A principal tenet of his argument is that the state, with its bureaucracy, has become autonomous from the rulers themselves, a Frankenstein-like apparatus operating by its own rules and in its own interests.
After 1945, he believes, we begin to see the decline of the state. On the one hand, supranational networks begin to enable citizens to transcend the control of their leaders and bureaucrats. The control of money, information, and career options was lost. On the other hand, the great powers seemingly lost the ability to wage and win wars – either because of mutual assured destruction with nuclear weapons or the "asymmetrical warfare" that enables terrorists and guerrillas to beat superpowers, e.g. Vietnam and Afghanistan.
It is here, in my opinion, that the book begins to go off the rails. Earlier on, the author had made many judgmental statements, e.g. that bureaucrats were useless "paper pushers" rather than providers of service as well, but here his statements take on a political tinge that violates his discipline as a historian who must maintain scholarly distance.
While I agree that the state has lost much of its omnipotence when organizing the citizens (whether free or oppressed) under its charge, I believe that the author fails to back up his assertions that the actions of the welfare state create as many problems as they solve. This is a baldly ideological position. Yet Creveld actually states this as if it is an indisputably proven fact, glossing over extremely complex differences between countries without the attention to nuance that he displayed in the "rise" section.
For example, the differences between health care systems in Europe and the US would seem to refute Creveld’s self-assured arguments regarding the incompetence of all state-run programs: in Europe, better health care is delivered by the state to everyone at just over 1/3 of the cost in the US, where in contrast most of the system is "private" and fails to insure 25% of the citizens at astronomical cost. Further, he asserts that, with rising costs and deteriorating service delivery due to the natural inability of bureaucracies in implementation, the welfare state will inevitably fall and cannot improve itself. He writes as if everyone shares this view as simple fact, yet offers little evidence beyond the occasional anecdote.
Finally, the section on the post-state era that is coming is abstruse and a mere 7 pages, falling into generalities like "resourceful people will cope". He sees us falling into some kind of anarchy, with autonomous war lords duking it out much like they did after the fall of Rome. This is certainly possible, but Creveld does not prove it is inevitable.
He completely lost me in the last 1/4 of the book. I felt growing disgust at the superficial treatment he gives to how complex modern society has become, with instantaneous communications, the intricacy of the new global trade system, and the proliferation of international organizations that must administer such problems as global warming, refugees, or the management of water resources. Sure, this would require another entire book, but he nonetheless acts as if he can prove the validity of his prejudice against the state in a mere 130 pages. It’s simple bias. I have other criticisms of the book. Though copyrighted in 1999, most footnotes pre-date the 1980s. The internet is mentioned twice. This makes it feel out of date.
I recommend this book for the 3/4 on the rise of the state. But the 1/4 on its decline must be read far more critically for the reactionary conservative ideology that underpins it. This book will get the reader to think and see certain developments with greater refinement, but there is a glibness to so many of its assertions that it often reads like the work of a political hack. If you accept the assumptions of Thatcherite ideology, this will not bother you. But if you want such ideologies placed in context and questioned along with those of Keynes, you will not find that here. As such, there is nothing new in this book, just a very good synthesis of things that serious students should know.