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What is role of state?

The relation of the modern nation-state to its population has ancient roots; pieces of its DNA were formed in ancient Athens and Mesopotamia, in medieval Europe and in revolutionary France. Arguments that begin with snipping out a strand or two and declaring this, once and for all time, is the true role of the state are likely to end where the began, in a shouting match. Until the treads have been disentangled, we shall not likely resolve the issue of national health care, not to mention immigration, trade, security, education or a dozen other contentious issues.

Scholarship, commonly held to be nonproductive, may here have practical consequences. Given any statement of a state right or responsibility, we might ask: From whence does it arise? What does it connote? Can it be endorsed today? Do we want to endorse it today? Answers to such questions may help to define our idea of the nation-state, an idea informed by the past and a bequest to the future.

Gregory Chipps

Spokane

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