Pluralism and the personality of the state Book

Question Why should I obey the state? Answer 1 Because if I don't they will cut my head off.* 2 Because it is God's will.* 3 Because the State and I have done a deal.* 4 Because the State is the actuality of the ethical Idea.* *Strike out whichever is inapplicable The history of political thought is the history of man's attempts over the centuries to answer the question, 'Why should I obey the State?'. But even to ask it poses many more questions. What is the State and what should it be? How can it be constructed, organised, overcome? Would we be better off without it? This book of essays, published to accompany a series of programmes on BBC Radio 4, explores the answers to these and other questions put forward by a dozen of the great thinkers of the past, plus half a dozen in our century. In the process, they point the way to the greatest thoughts of the greatest minds.