ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapters, we have established a motive (not to be confused with ‘a need’) for authoritative interference (not to be confused with ‘the exercise of power’) in human society: wherever individuals can gain from cooperation, there is room for governance. Undoubtedly, there are more motives than rational self-interest; we will come to those in a moment. Rational self-interest makes authoritative interference necessary – but only under particular circumstances – specifically, where inequality can sensibly be begrudged or where cheaper solutions than compensation of those disadvantaged by cooperation exist: circumstances that may be particular but not necessarily rare. There are, however, also circumstances under which governance is expedient. It is for that reason that I just referred to a motive for interference rather than a need. There are situations in which full and complete cooperation is rational,
and defection by rational individuals is not to be expected. Under those circumstances, authoritative interference by governing bodies of whatever kind would, in principle, be purely administrative and facilitating (though, as critics of state interference would say, in practice often rather the opposite). Administrative interference may help to facilitate processes of compensation, reduce the costs of cooperation or help to make up for any procedural deficiencies where conditions of perfect rationality are not met. Abstract as this last condition may sound, it is probably also one of the most vital tasks of administrative institutions in modern societies. It may be perfectly rational for each and every individual to buy into a collective health insurance, for instance, or a pension scheme, an insurance against unemployment, disability, and so on – but as long as it is voluntary, real-existing persons may fail to do the rational thing, simply because they do not have the time, information or physical or intellectual capabilities to do the rational thing. Imagine a society where all these insurances and schemes are available to registered participants, but where each individual has to actively search for all relevant information on each individual insurance scheme offered by countless insurance companies, sift through all this information, assess the
relative probabilities of his or her possible futures (not to mention the viability of the insurance company) and calculate the consequences of each particular scheme, and then finally make up his or her mind. It is rare to find an individual with enough time and capacities for all of this – and in all likelihood, he or she least needs such securities.1
