What should the State
be allowed to do?

Because coercion binds people without their consent. Benefits, fairness, or desirable outcomes may matter, but restricting liberty still requires justification

Whoever seeks to impose it. Liberty is the baseline; the burden of proof belongs to power

No. The State claims compulsory authority over people who have not consented to it

Law and elections can regulate that power; they do not turn coercion into consent

No. Good consequences matter, but expected social gains do not by themselves create a right to compel others

Otherwise almost any intrusion could be defended by predicting enough benefit

No. Elections choose who exercises power and under what rules; they do not turn compulsory decisions into individual consent

Majority support establishes political authorization, not moral legitimacy

Yes, in a normative sense. Taxation, compulsory jurisdiction, and enforcement rely on powers that would be coercive if claimed by a private association without consent

Legal authorization does not settle their moral status

No function is exempt in advance. Defense, courts, education, health, and others must be assessed separately

The question is whether coercion is necessary for that function

No—not as an institution. A public agency may perform a particular task well

The State still faces structural limits of information, calculation, incentives, competition, exit, and error correction that management cannot eliminate

No. Importance or urgency does not prove compulsory provision necessary

The value of an end and the means used to pursue it are separate questions

No. Economic differences are not inherently unjust

They can result from work, choices, luck, inheritance—or from privilege, fraud, or aggression. Where rights are violated, the issue is the violation, not the unequal outcome

No. Poverty can create urgent reasons to help, but need alone does not create authority to compel others to provide or finance assistance

No. Non-excludability and non-rivalry describe a good, not its required provider

Samuelson formalized collective consumption; that classification alone does not establish a State role

No. Benefiting without paying does not show that voluntary provision will collapse

Free riding matters only when the same incentive problem persistently defeats materially different arrangements

When materially different arrangements repeatedly collapse because the same incentive structure prevents stable provision

One failed provider, temporary underprovision, or the lack of a current alternative is not enough

No. The absence of a voluntary option today does not prove coercive provision necessary

Monopoly, regulation, subsidies, or prior State provision may have prevented alternatives from emerging

No. Monopoly, imperfect information, concentration, coordination failures, or underprovision may reveal market shortcomings

They do not establish that government action is necessary or superior

Not automatically. Positive externalities do not create a right to compel payment

Negative externalities may involve harm; then the relevant questions are rights, liability, and compensation—not a general license for intervention

No. Contracts, firms, clubs, associations, insurance, charities, and norms can coordinate many collective tasks without compulsory authority

Failure in one arrangement or some underprovision does not establish coercive necessity

In The Limits of Government, Schmidtz argues that public goods and free riders do not automatically establish State authority and shows that voluntary arrangements can work

Minimal Tolerance adds a stricter condition: coercion can be considered only after persistent collapse across materially different voluntary arrangements

Not by itself. Keynesian economics gives reasons for fiscal or monetary stabilization during downturns

Even if those policies improve outcomes, effectiveness does not settle whether compulsory financing or control is justified

Yes, under certain conditions. Rawls's principles can support redistribution when institutions protect equal liberties, fair opportunity, and the least advantaged

Minimal Tolerance asks whether those aims also justify coercion

Allocation, distribution, and stabilization

Musgrave classifies major roles of public finance; the classification does not prove that any of them requires compulsory provision or financing

Yes, exceptionally. Minimal Tolerance rejects coercion as morally legitimate, but tolerates a function when necessity is established and no viable voluntary alternative remains

Hayek stresses dispersed knowledge, spontaneous order, general rules, and the rule of law

Minimal Tolerance asks an earlier question: which functions, if any, may be placed under coercive authority

Buchanan focuses on constitutional rules for collective choice and the role of agreement

Minimal Tolerance asks whether a function may be coercively assigned before its institutional design is chosen

Yes. Rothbard rejects compulsory State provision and treats coercion as illegitimate regardless of who exercises it

Minimal Tolerance shares that starting point but allows exceptional tolerance when necessity is established

Minarchism treats defense, police, and courts as the legitimate core of a minimal State

Minimal Tolerance grants them no automatic exemption; each must satisfy the same test

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Nozick argues that a minimal State can arise without violating rights and therefore be legitimate

Minimal Tolerance rejects that conclusion: smaller scope does not change the moral status of compulsory authority

There is no perfectly neutral arbiter. These decisions are made by institutions and people subject to error, incentives, and interests of their own

Any criterion designed to limit power must therefore also recognize the limits of those who interpret and apply it

No. The fact that an intervention could be justified at one point does not establish that it remains necessary indefinitely

If circumstances change or voluntary alternatives emerge that can perform the same function, its continuation must be justified again. The burden of proof remains with power