state of necessary evil

• The state

  Although necessary to prevent disorder, the state is also the most significant threat to freedom. The state constitutes the chief external constraint upon the individual: maximising freedom therefore means minimising state authority.
• requires that the other members of society are restrained from intruding on our freedom and, in turn, their liberty requires that they are safeguarded from us. This protection is provided by a sovereign state, capable of restraining all individuals and groups within society
• Thomas Hobbes said that a stateless state would be Hobbes’ words, human life would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’
• Lord Acton (1834-1902): 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'Liberals therefore argue for limited government, with checks and balances on the exercise of power
• Typical features of a liberal constitution include the separation of powers, which means that authority is shared between the three branches of government (the legislature, executive and judiciary)
• Liberals of the 18th and 19th centuries believed in laissez-faire capitalism — the idea that competition between individuals, seeking their own profit, is beneficial for all, and that government intervention in the economy should be limited