COVID-19 and the Failed State Era

Buried deep within the Biblical books of Samuel, we find a particular gem, at the beginning of 2 Samuel 11. This chapter details David’s whirlwind assignation with Bathsheba, wife of David’s commanding general Uriah the Hittite. The story begins, in verse 1, with: “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war…” (New International Version)

Encountering this passage years ago, I halted abruptly. War, in this figuration, is something kings do, for no other reason than that they do it. Farmers plant, blacksmiths forge, and kings fight, because (pardon my mixed metaphor) it’s their dharma. It’s easy to forget, in an era when Queen Elizabeth II’s most important responsibilities apparently involve opening shopping centres, that “King” was originally a military rank.

Kings prosecute wars, not to enforce visions of justice or to bring peace to distant realms, but because they must. King David was probably a hill-country chieftain, not a medieval potentate as often depicted in art, but still, his responsibility was to expand Israelite territory, fight other kingdoms, and collect booty, because… somebody had to. States aren’t domains of law and structure, they’re essentially vessels to contain the military.

This plagued me for years. Post-Enlightenment philosophy assumes something called a “social contract,” that individuals and communities in some prehistoric time banded together and created nations to defend against brigands and enforce justice. But here, the Bible itself apparently says otherwise. States, according to Samuel, exist to fight other states, to separate the polity into winners and losers. Justice, described in Joshua or Amos, is purely private.

Though I found this puzzle unsolvable, it probably would’ve remained personal and minor, until the COVID-19 crisis. Watching the American government, one of history’s most powerful and thorough-going instruments of enforcement, fail to prevent this massive spread (at this writing, my small town has two confirmed cases), has eminently demonstrated that states can’t really confront challenges they cannot physically kill.

President Trump has invoked the war metaphor, which Presidents always use whenever their authority gets challenged. He’s hardly the first to use war language during peacetime. President Bush declared his Global War on Terror, which President Obama tacitly continued. President Nixon declared, and President Reagan most seriously prosecuted, the War on Drugs. President Carter declared “the moral equivalent of war” on waste and energy inefficiency.

Artistic representation of King David

However, the war metaphor collapses when you consider the outcome. Terrorism, drugs, and energy waste remain real problems, sometimes nearly half a century later. Despite having possibly the most sophisticated technology and most advanced regulatory network in history, America, like most states, has proven consistently bad at confronting enemies without borders, capitals, or armed forces we can shoot. The wars inevitably drag on.

What, then, are states for, besides war? We could argue states exist to protect their citizens and promote justice. But protect them from what? Promote justice toward whom? Marginalized groups like Uighurs in China, Dalits in India, and immigrants in America would assert that their respective states have done remarkably poorly in promoting justice. Anecdotally, the larger the state gets, the worse it becomes at protecting marginalized groups.

The Trump Administration has demanded increased enforcement powers, some contravening the Constitution, for the COVID-19 crisis. But if history is indicative of future outcomes, giving the Executive Branch more power will end with crackdowns on designated “outsider” groups, both within and beyond our borders. This administration already cages children whose parents flee chaos and civil war; does anyone doubt similar consequences await citizens at home?

Concisely put, states exist to identify enemies, expand territory, and bring glory upon kings—or, in modern technocracies, upon Presidents and Prime Ministers. To achieve this, they enforce laws upon citizens, laws which, as anyone who’s followed Omnibus Farm Bills and health insurance “reform” knows, actively ignore local knowledge. And they create in-groups and demographic divisions that streamline the process of conscripting citizens.

Dedicated status quo defenders could probably find examples of the government doing good. But how many government solutions only matter because they resolve something awful governments did? The Clean Air Act reduced pollution, yes, but the government did and does subsidize cheap hydrocarbons, creating the pollution. Much social, environmental, and political degradation only exists because massive governments prop up massive corporations.

Governments cannot solve problems governments create. Governments cannot redress injustices when they require in-groups to fortify their institutions. They cannot solve violence when they exist mainly to make war. And, as Uriah the Hittite discovered, they’ll screw your wife while you’re off fighting their battles.