The State by Anthony de Jasay by Anthony de Jasay Page B

32-3) is one to which it is logically possible (but only just) to attribute some imprecisely defined maximand ("butterflies"), lying outside the realm of goals which can be attained by making its subjects do things. For the
    essentially negative reason that it is best not to erect an apparatus for exerting power lest it should fall into the wrong hands, such a state would govern as little as possible. Since it would take an austere view of demands for public goods and of claims by third parties for amending, supplementing or otherwise overruling the outcomes of private contracts, there would be little common ground between it and the political hedonist who wants to get his good out of the state.
     
    1.7.8 If a subject is to be contented, in harmony with a capitalist state, it would help him to be imbued with a certain ideology whose basic tenets are: (1) that property "is," and is not a matter of "ought" (or that "finders are keepers"); (2) that the good of the contracting parties is not an admissible ground for interfering with their contracts and the good of third parties only exceptionally so; and
    (3) that requiring the state to do agreeable things for the subjectgreatly augments the probability that the state will require the subject to do disagreeable things.
     
    1.7.9 The first tenet is quintessentially capitalist in that it dispenses with a justification for property. Some say that Locke has provided an ideology for capitalism. This seems to me off the mark. Locke taught that the finder is keeper on condition that there is "enough and as good" left for others, a condition calling out for egalitarian and "need-regarding" principles of tenure as soon as we leave the frontier and enter the world of scarcity. He also taught that the first occupier's right to his property springs from his labour which he "mixed" with it, a principle on a par with the several others which make the ownership of capital contingent upon deserts: "he worked for it," "he saved it," "il en a bavé," "he provides work for many poor people." (If he did not do any of these meritorious things, what title has he got to his capital? Already the case of "his grandfather worked hard for it" becomes tenuous because it is twice removed from such deserts.) To the extent that the rise of capitalism was accompanied by no political theory which sought to separate the right to property from notions of moral worth or social utility, let alone succeeded in doing so, it is true that capitalism never had a viable ideology. This lack, in turn, goes some way towards explaining why, in the face of an essentially adversary state and its accompanying ideology, capitalism has shown so little intellectual vigour in its own defence, and why such defences as it has managed to muster have been poor advocacy, lame compromises and sometimes offers of honourable surrender.
     
The second basic tenet of a proper capitalist ideology should affirm the freedom of contract. It must affirm it in particular against the idea that the state is entitled to coerce people for their own good. On the other hand, it would leave it ragged at the edge where it could cut into the interests of people not party to the contract whose freedom is being considered. The raggedness is due to a recognition of the indefinite variety of possible conflicts of interest in a complex society. It would leave the contract unprotected against a certain indefiniteness of right, of either too much or too little regard for the interests of those outside, yet affected by, a given contract.
     
This danger, however, is to some extent taken care of by the constraint arising out of the third tenet. The demand of A to have the state protect his interest which is affected by a contract between B and C, should be tempered by his apprehension of the consequential risk of finding himself under increased subjection as and when the claims of others are being attended to, for that is liable to mean that his contracts will be