Jim Devine wrote: >In the terms I used, this positing of possessiveness
reflected >Hobbes' experience with the English Civil War and the rise of
capitalist >competition.
Yes and No. Hobbes was not *simply* writing under the influence of his
circumstances. He was also *normatively* endorsing capitalism and private
property regime. If one's ideas simply reflect one's circumstances, then
Marx could never have been "critical" of capitalim.
plus, Hobbes' notion of the "instict of rational self-preservation" is
completely "ahistorical". Hobbes abstracts the concept from its historical
content, and then projects capitalism onto human nature as if human
nature has never changed, or as if it has always remained capitalist.
He does not locate rationality in its historical context. He assimilates
the very definition of liberty to capitalist rationality (posssesive
individualism).
You say R's model was an abstraction. i don't terribly disagree with this.
however, i don't see any problem with abstractions per se. Marx also
abstracted capitalism in such a way to formulate it as a mode of
production based on an endless accumulation of surplus, using classical
political economy as a starting point. He did this albeit in a critical
manner. We always need abstractions to understand the reality.
Abstraction is a useful analytical tool to reason and to see who we are,
what we are and what our human needs are (See for this Geras's book on
_Marx and Human Nature_) The problem is to decide which abstractions are
better approximations of reality. Definetly, Hobbes's human nature is a
false abstraction as well as a "distorted" understanding of his own
circumstances. Moreover, it is an ideological distortion of the
anthropology of human nature: "I put for a general inclination of mankind
a perpetual and rentless desire for power after power, that ceaseth only
in death" (Leviathan chpt 11). My credit to R is that he saw that human
nature was historically conditioned as it took shape through the
development of modern civilization, the same human nature which Hobbes
fixated, essentialized and ahistoricized "as war of man against another
man".He also understood that natural right is an abstraction created by
convention to preserve the right of the strongest. R argued hunting and
gathering societies did not even have a conception of private property.
The desire to posses developed as people started to settle on the land and
claimed right to property. He says " The first person who, having eclosed
a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people
simple enough to beleive him, was the true founder of civil society"
>But following R, there's a distinction between "possession" (control) and
>"property" (state-endorsed rights).
I don't recall this. do you have a citation for this distinction from the
text. Under "capitalism", state is by definition a protector of private
property regime.
>Hobbes did not put property into the state of nature. He wanted property
>to exist,
The only way for him to LEGITIMIZE property was to see it as a
"natural right". Hobbes uses the concept "naturalness" in two ways.
Sometimes "natural" implies a concept with which man "spontaneously" gains
"security", "acquisitiveness" and "agression". Sometimes, it is something
that generates "perfect reason", which allows man to make himself as
"secure" as possible.
>though, which is an important reason he wanted the Leviathan to impose
>order.
true because Hobbes wanted capitalism. Leviathan, he thought, could impose
possesive market regime. Leviathan ("supreme soverign") was an abstraction
par excellence, just as R's Social Contract was, so I don't see the point
in your argument that R's model was an abstraction whereas H's model was
influenced by his own circumstanes. R was as much influenced by his
own context as Hobbes was.
>>i always find _Origins of Inequality_ a very important piece of work on
the "anthropology" of human development.that being said, it should not be
read from a romantic point of view as if R was talking about an abstract
state of nature.. it should be read from a materialist point of view.<
>I like that book too. It's a very abstract and hypothetical anthropology,
>akin to a lot of "sociobiology" in style of analysis (trying to figure
>out
>what people were like without society) but with more attractive
>conclusions
>to most leftists.
come on! which socio-biology?. I strongly disencourage you to assimilate R
to biologically reductionist socio-biology arguments that reduce man to
"genes". Unlike sociobiologists, R REJECTS to see inequality, domination,
war, endless desire for power in human nature. The book itself is a very
analysis of the development of HUMAN SOCIETY, not an analysis of people
"without society"."Men are not naturally enemies, for the simple reason
that men living in the original state of INDEPEDENCE do not have
sufficiently constant relationships among themselves to bring about either
a state of peace or state of war. it is the relationship betwen things not
between men that brings about war. and this state of war can not come into
existence from simple personal relations, but only from REAL property
relations, a private war between one men and another can not exist in the
state of nature, where there is no constant property"
The whole purpose of R is to attack Hobbes formulation of liberty as
"absence of external impediment". According to R, such a misformulation
forces us to choose between either authoritarian government or complete
anarchy, and between either an omnipotent soverign or no society. Hobbes
advocated such an individualistic conception of freedom to justify the
political basis of Leviathan. L's authority is indivisible for either his
authority is recognized or there is complete anarchy.
R criticism of slavery is also very important. He relates it to societal
factors rather than seeing it a natural phenomenon as Aristotle did. "If
there are slaves by nature, there are slaves against nature.Force has
produced the first slaves; their cowardice has perpetuated them"
_On the Origins of Inequality is an anthropolgical research (*not* an
abstract story) trying to obtain accurate notions about human nature in
its social stages. Ironically, R is AWARE of his abstraction, and he says
that an attempt to historicize state of nature is necessary to judge
properly man's own present state:
"For it is no light undertaking to seperate what is original from what is
artificial in the present nature of men, and to have a proper
understanding of a state of nature which no longer exists, which perhaps
never existed, which will properly never exist, adn yet about which is
necessary to have accurate notions in order to judge our own present
state"
>Even though as a materialist I get something out of it, I wouldn't call
>it a materialist book. (Materialism involves studying the empirical
>world, >among other things.)
I said we need to give a materialist "reading" of it instead of an
idealist reading (ie., "human nature prior to society" rhetoric). I did
NOT say that the book was materialist in Marxist sense.
btw, there are many empirical works out there materialist but not
necessarily marxist in nature. materialism does not guarantee marxism as
we see in renegade K's vulgar materialist works.
> >R was *not* Marx, but if I were to choose among Locke, Hobbes and R, I
would definetly put R near Marx, *not* near Hobbes..<
>Luckily we don't have to make that choice. R might be thought of as the
>father of modern collectivism ,
I did *not* make that choice. I just follow the Marxist tradition that
puts R near Marx for the reasons I mentioned above. I also don't read R on
the basis of text book definitions or philosophy dictionaries(mostly
carrying a liberal bias). Who can argue that Hobbes endorsed a democratic
theory of the state? His Leviathan was a prototype of facshism to begin
with. L does not _even_ represent a collective will legitimately formed.
It requires submission of all wills to the will of one person whose will
is to be obeyed by all of its members. Once the contract is formed, it can
not be resisted by any means. R _at least_ does not exclude the
possibility of a contract binding upon the ruler (legislator who is not a
"person" btw) and explains the duties of the legislator, if the contract
should remain democratic.
Moreover,it is exteremely libertarian to assume, as you do, society
without legislation since we need some form of political organization to
instititutionalize our relationships. Socialism is not an exception to the
rule. This organization should be socialist *working class legislation*,
not a bourgeois parliementarianism of property owners, as Marx outlined in
the Manifesto and Paris Commune, and which was historically TRIED
in the Soviet Union as the most realist "approximation" to the model,
since under socialism we still need to manage our daily political and
economic affairs. No society is perfect. The question is to decide how
democratic this legislation should be as to create a society based on
"each according to his needs, and each according to his necessity".
Unfortunately, you idealize socialism turning it into an unreachable
utopia.This is not Marxism; it is bourgeois idealism.
The bottom line is that R definetly represents an advancement over Hobbes
in democratic theory. We should read R to see what we can develop out of
his ideas for socialist politics. In my view, what Darwin means to Marx, R
means the same. We should constructively read his work rather than
preaching liberal interpretations of R.
Mine Doyran
Phd student
Political Sciecne
SUNY/Albany
