What are the role and justification of the state

[autisticdragonkin]

A common and driving question throughout human history is what the role and justification for the state is. Here are some positions both historical and present in order to facilitate debate

Spoiler: divine right of kings

Justification: God has given authority for the state to rule, citizens must obey the state because of this
Philosophers: St. Peter, Thomas Aquinas,
States influenced: Holy Roman Empire, Saudi Arabia, ISIS, UAE, Swaziland
Articles: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.ca/2010/03/divine-right-monarchy-for-modern.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings, http://www.britannica.com/topic/divine-right-of-kings, https://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/367-04.htm

Spoiler: The Mandate of Heaven

Justification: God favours the state for ruling justly, distinct from the divine right of kings because it doesn't necessarily favour a monarchy and has a duty to overthrow unjust rulers
Philosophers: Confucius, Lao Tzu, Mo Tzu
States influenced: Brunei, Thailand, China (arguably)
Articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven, https://www.boundless.com/world-his...the-shang-and-the-mandate-of-heaven-98-13183/

Spoiler: the social contract

Justification: The state is an agreement between several people who would mutually benefit from certain things being done but nobody would pay for them on their own because there is no way to make people not benefit when they don't pay so as a result people will need to be forced to pay if they benefit, the agreement can exclude people
Philosophers: Thomas Hobbes, Shang Yang, John Locke, John Rawls, autisticdragonkin
States influenced: America, Israel, France, Singapore, Britain
Articles:http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/, http://www.academia.edu/3138759/Social_Contract_Theory_by_Hobbes_Locke_and_Rousseau

Spoiler: utilitarianism

Justification: The state exists and it is the ethical duty of those in the state to do what maximizes happiness for all people regardless of whether they are citizens or not, nobody can be excluded
Philosophers: John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Peter Singer
States influenced: the EU, Canada, Sweden
Articles: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Utilitarianism, http://www.iep.utm.edu/util-a-r/, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/

Spoiler: communism

Justification: The state is necessary temporarily in order to create an egalitarian society that no longer needs it (it is called the dictatorship of the proletariat but it isn't supposed to be a dictatorshiop in the contemporary sense)
Philosophers: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong
States influenced: The USSR, China (officially), North Korea, Cuba
Article: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/, http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=466, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Dictatorship_of_the_Proletariat.aspx

Spoiler: Anarchism

Justification: There isn't one
Philosophers: Max Stirner, Peter Kropotkin, Emile Armand, Noam Chomsky
Regions influenced: Somalia,
Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivist_anarchism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism, http://jim.com/anarchy/

Spoiler: off topic

This is my 5000th message and I hope it is a good one

 

[Haim Arlosoroff]

1. Mandate of Heaven
2. Divine Right of Kings
3. Social Contract
4. Anarchism
5. Communism
6. Utilitarianism

God has made us men, not beings of perfect order and reason but emotional passionate men. Romanticism is the only true ordering of the world, we must not think we live in a just society of proper structuring but we must feel it. If the emotional weight of the nation's founding does not move you then you will not act to defend it at the cost of your life. Those whose nation has given them such feelings of beauty and absolute necessity will march over you and sleep peacefully afterwards, that is the world of man.

 

[Farmer John]

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a Government, which we might expect in a country without Government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other law-giver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

It's an age old question, but it has a simple answer.
Anyone with a little common sense should be able to answer it for themselves.
And yet 250 years after we figured it out, we are still asking the question.
This has less to do with the validity of our answer, and more to do with us fucking it completely off the rails.