Thomas Hobbes is often regarded as one of the intellectual founders of the modern, secular nation-state in his 1651 book Leviathan. In Creveld’s The Rise and Decline of the State (p. 179; also cited in Hoppe), it is argued,
Hobbes deserves the credit for inventing the “state”. . . as an abstract entity separate both from the sovereign (who is said to “carry” it) and the ruled, who, by means of a contract among themselves, transferred their rights to him. . . . Hobbes’s sovereign was much more powerful than. . .any Western ruler since late antiquity.
While Hobbes arguably shares this infamy with Machiavelli, Bodin, and others, he was the first major Western thinker to systematically articulate and defend the concept of a single, sovereign governmental authority with absolute power over a defined territory. Hobbes uniquely argued that the state ought to have a monopoly of coercion and security provision over a specific geographic territory. Further, rather than appealing to divine right or tradition, Hobbes attempted to justify his state through appealing to reason and social contract. Hobbes shifted focus from the person of the ruler (the king) to the structure of the state—the “Leviathan” as a corporate body representing all citizens.
Like it or not, Hobbes’s nation-state concept has been the default paradigm and context for modern people whenever they think about government over the past centuries. Without having ever read Hobbes, people will unknowingly repeat his assumptions, presuppositions, concerns, and arguments for the state. Yet—with some simple logic and using Hobbes’s own presuppositions—we can see that Hobbes’s proposed solutions solve nothing.
Hobbes’s Main Argument for the State
The Hobbesian model assumes that the potential for aggression in human nature creates opportunity for regular interpersonal conflict or war and that the consequent insecurity thereby requires a monopoly of violence/coercion over a geographic territory to be provided by a centralized political state. In other words, put more simply, because of the potential for conflict between humans in the “state of nature,” and because this insecure condition limits progress, humans will grant all rights and powers to a state elite which holds the exclusive legal right to violence. Or, put another way, since individual humans hit (or might hit) each other and this makes them insecure, they give up all rights and powers to the state—who can legally hit everyone within its borders—which keeps people in line through its threat of violence. In his own words, Hobbes wrote,
And because the condition of Man,...is a condition of Warre of every one against every one; in which case every one is governed by his own Reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemyes; It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body. And therefore, as long as this naturall Right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, (how strong or wise soever he be,) of living out the time, which Nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. (emphasis added)
While readers of this page likely have no sympathy for Hobbes, we should note the validity of some of what he says. There is the reality of interpersonal conflict in the world relative to other people, not just economic scarcity. That conflict or potential conflict is costly and not only damages economic growth, but inhibits it from happening in the first place. Hobbes recognized that peace and mutual cooperation were foundations of prosperity, and that these depend on security. Further, people can argue for a philosophical and legal framework that follows Rothbardian natural law and property rights all they want, but that would require both an individual-cultural recognition of those values and the power to enforce those rights. Hobbes concludes,
The finall Cause, End, or Designe of men, (who naturally love Liberty, and Dominion over others,) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, (in which wee see them live in Common-wealths,) is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of Warre, which is necessarily consequent…to the naturall Passions of men, when there is no visible Power to keep them in awe, and tye them by feare of punishment to the performance of their Covenants, and observation of these Lawes of Nature… (emphasis added)
Here, again, Hobbes shows some insight. In his description of human nature, he says that men naturally love liberty and dominion over others—people want to control others without being controlled by others. That assertion can be debated, in fact, many libertarians would argue that this is not true, or not necessarily true as the default of human nature. However, even if it is true, it mitigates against Hobbes’s argument, not for it. Without embarrassment, it is possible for a libertarian to share this presupposition with Hobbes, although we would add that it is certainly not always the case and that humans obviously can also cooperate rather than conflict.
According to Hobbes, “Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man.” Therefore, following his reasoning, the state provides a common power to “keep them all in awe,” discouraging interpersonal crime and conflict through fear of punishment by the state.
Human Nature—Hobbes’s Achilles Heel
Summarizing Hobbes’s main argumentation for the state: 1) in the state of nature, everyone has a right to everything, even to others’ bodies (absolute freedom and autonomy); 2) because everyone may do whatever they think necessary to survive, no one is safe; therefore, 3) peace and security require individuals to relinquish that liberty to an absolute sovereign who enforces order.
People quibble about whether Hobbes was right about human nature as necessarily conflictual, however, we will grant Hobbes his premises. Even so, assuming Hobbes’s presuppositions about human nature, his conclusion does not logically or necessarily follow. The same human nature that makes men dangerous in the state of nature makes rulers dangerous in the state system, arguably even more so. The problem has not been solved, simply relocated and likely amplified.
People often quote one of the most famous statements of James Madison, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” The seemingly obvious conclusion is that government is necessary because of human nature. However, they often leave off or are unaware of what he said next,
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
If Madison is right about human nature, then government becomes problematic based on his premise. Madison recognized the problem—non-angelic human nature plus political power (“men over men”) does not solve the problem. Madison’s proposed solution was contained in his view that a government with a certain structure could both govern the people and itself. Readers can decide whether that succeeded. Thomas Jefferson also stated, “Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question” (emphasis added).
Similarly, Hobbes’s negative view of human nature should militate against adding political power to human nature. If human nature and no state is bad, what about that same human nature legally in charge of others and possessing a monopoly of coercion? In such circumstances, nothing the political elites in government—sharing our same human nature—do could be considered illegal. (Even if there is legal accountability for political elites in certain cases, it is still administered by fellow humans). Further, under social contract theory, especially in democracies, if “we” give the government power and we are the government, then whatever the government does to us, we actually do to ourselves. On this, Rothbard wrote,
The useful collective term “we” has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life. If “we are the government,” then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also “voluntary” on the part of the individual concerned. If the government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group for the benefit of another, this reality of burden is obscured by saying that “we owe it to ourselves”; if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is “doing it to himself” and, therefore, nothing untoward has occurred. Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered; instead, they must have “committed suicide,” since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and, therefore, anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part.
Hobbes’s state model simply gives certain humans—the political caste—inordinate and unaccountable power over others. Here, what he says is undoubtedly true in another sense: “...men,...naturally love Liberty, and Dominion over others…”
Additionally, since the criminal activity of the political caste is categorized as legal when the state does it, it is often not viewed as criminal activity. If we consider the “worst” serial killers in history, they monstrously murdered under 200 people. However, the murders perpetrated by governments against their own people, not to mention wars, number in the hundreds of millions. While Hobbes was right that human nature does contain the potential for conflict, crime, and destruction, his own presuppositions should have alerted him to the dangers of giving some political powers over others. In short, if Hobbes was right about human nature, then his solution in the form of the modern state solves nothing. If he was wrong about human nature, then his argument is irrelevant.
