HAWASSA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW &

GOVERNANCE
SCHOOL OF GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT
STUDIES

SHORT READING MATERIAL ON POLITICAL THOUGHT II

COMPILLED BY KEDIR DARO ARERRO (MA IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, BA IN
POLITICAL SCIENCE & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS)

Introduction

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Political Thought II is a course designed to acquaint students with the major political thoughts
that have influenced human history in the modern and contemporary periods. Students are
expected to understand and make interpretations of the philosophical ideas that have shaped
human lives and political systems in this period. Comprehending the various political ideas and
how they have shaped and reshaped human relations and humans’ relation with society and the
state is vital. This short reading material is prepared to serve as a quick reference for 4 th year
students of Governance and Development Studies who are going to take EXIT EXAM by 2015
EC. It begins with Machiavelli and goes through Social Contract Theorists to that of
Utilitarianism, Immanuel Kant and his Idealism, Marxism, Anarchism and Fascism in their
different variants. It also deals with contemporary political thought and John Rawls’ Theory of
Justice, and the liberation philosophies of civil disobedience and feminism.

Unit 1: Machiavelli’s Political Realism

Unit Contents

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Section One: The Prince and the Art of 2.1. The Analogy of the Fox and Lion
Politics
2.2. The Issue of Keeping Faith with the
1.1. The Prince People

1.2. The Art of Politics 2.3. To be Loved or Feared?

1.3. Morality, Religion, Virtue and 2.4. The Issue of Becoming Cruel or
Political Power Merciful

Section Two: Unique Qualities of a Prince

1.1. The Prince

Q: Who was Niccolo Machiavelli? Why Machiavelli was nicknamed “Old Nick” (Devil)?

• Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian renaissance philosopher, born in the Republic of Florence

on 3 May 1469, became prominent in political philosophy.

• He practiced the art of politics as a diplomat in which he served the Florentine republic as
a representative in Germany, France and the Holy Sea

• Known as the father of the ideology of ‘political realism’ and secular politics

• His unequivocal/explicit support for worldly political power regardless of all other values
earned him a nickname “Old Nick” (Devil).

• When the republic of Florence became an absolutist state under a dictator (Lorenezo di
Medici) in 1512, as a former official of the old regime, the new regime imprisoned and
tortured him.

• Machiavelli lost his job in the new regime and turned his attention to writing on politics.
Then, he went to the countryside and wrote his most popular treatise on government
entitled The Prince.

Q: What is Prince? What is political realism?

• The Prince is a short handbook of ruthless dictatorship and political cunning that lays out
methods to acquire, preserve and expand political power

• The book concerns itself with how to acquire, preserve and expand political power
promoting a doctrine of political realism i.e. the maximization of power by any means.

• The book is a very practical one because it draws historical experiences from previous
political rulers.

• The Prince is the most-widely read books throughout the world.

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Q: What makes his book the most revolutionary one?

• The most revolutionary aspect of the book is not what it consists but what it ignores.

• From Plato through the Middle Ages to the present age, the main theme of political
philosophy was the end purpose of the state.

• Contrary to traditional belief, he argued that political power was not a means but
an end in itself. By doing so, he focused on the means to acquire, preserve and
expand political power.

1.2. The Art of Politics

Q: What is “Art of politics” mean? What is politics for Machiavelli?

• The art of politics refers to the skills in getting and managing political power and take
public authoritative decisions.

• As politics is a science, it is also an art which requires natural talents to make conscious
and rational decisions in a pragmatic way.

• These talents are important to deal with complex behaviors of human beings, who are the
main actors in politics.

• Machiavelli’s view of politics is negative. He argues that politics is full of intrigues and
deceptions.

• In fact, like most philosophers, his philosophy emanates from his pessimistic view of
human nature.

Q: How does Machiavelli characterize human nature? Does politics determine human nature?

• His pessimistic view emphasizes that people are naturally greedy, selfish, petty,
dissatisfied and disloyal.

• He insists that people have no hope of redemption and are naturally jealous, vain, proud,
fickle and stupid.

• Human beings, he believed, have unlimited wants and have no means of satisfying them.

• As a result, he argued, people become continually frustrated and resentful.

• Naturally, their resentment and dissatisfaction targets political rulers whom they expect to
make them happy.

• They never stop blaming prominent people and those on political power when they do not
get what they seek.

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1.3. Morality, Religion, Virtue and Political Power

Q: How does Machiavelli perceive morality, virtue and religion? What is their role in the
political realism?

• He regards the state as an autonomous system of value independent of other

sources.

• Thus, he maintained the view that a ruler can violate other value system such as
moral, ethical and religious considerations for the sake of political power.

• His approach to the exercise of political power is amoral.

• This does not mean that Machiavelli denies the existence of other value systems
such as religion and morality.

• Neither does he argue that people should avoid these value systems in their
private lives.

• He accepts that the moralist will give primacy to his moral code and a religious
person will do the same to his religious code.

Q: Why Machiavelli maintained such view?

• According to Machiavelli, the means and ends of each of them are different because what
is bad in religion and morality may be good in politics in as far as it assists the prince in
achieving his end: acquiring, preserving and expanding political power.

• What he argues is simply that there are no moral bases whatsoever to judge any
difference between legitimate and illegitimate actions.

• Fore instance, Machiavelli justifies the use of poison by a prince to eliminate his/her
political opponents. Yet, he does not believe that the use of poison is generally good; it is
good only when it advances the political interest of a prince in fulfilling his end.

• Machiavelli justifies this political realism with the statement that other peoples’ evil
requires us to treat them badly.

• According to Machiavelli, neither morality nor religion serves as a basis for political
decisions.

• Only the reason of the state serves as a basis.

• Hence, he argues,

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 • Where the safety of the state depends on the resolution to be taken, no consideration of
justice or injustice; humanity or cruelty; glory or shame are allowed to prevail. But
putting all other considerations aside, the only question should be: what course will save
the life and liberty of the country?

• The reason of state is a determining code for a prince.

• By doing so, Machiavelli changed the position of good and bad from absolute to that of
relative position.

• When it comes to political power all other virtues and values are subordinate to
acquiring, preserving and expanding power.

• So, in a nut shell, his arguments in favor of the acquisition, preservation and expansion of
political power rests on one major theme: the end justifies the means.

Q: What is the most important virtue for a prince?

• He argued virtue is all about military valor/courage that a prince should practice during
warfare and political crisis situations.

• He is of the view that a prince should have good understanding of reality and ability to
adapt his actions to reality. Moreover, a prince should shift positions in a pragmatic way
as fortune and circumstances dictate.

• So, in Machiavellian interpretation, the most important virtue of a prince is that of

prudence.

• In politics, Machiavelli believes, the term goodness simply refers to efficiency, i.e.
efficient means of acquiring, preserving and expanding political power.

• He thus replaces the idea of virtue and vice in morality and religion with that of
efficiency and inefficiency in politics.

Q: Why did Machiavelli criticized religion?

• Machiavelli did not have any sense of religion. He criticized Christianity because it
glorifies humility and lowliness.

• Moreover, he insisted that Christianity has contempt/dislike for worldly objects and
favors humble men rather than men of action.

• He also attacked the Catholic Church because of its failure to unite and rule Italy, which
was at the time highly disunited.

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 • He had expectation that the Pope would unite Italy because the Catholic Church had
jurisdiction over most of the country.

• Machiavelli was very much angry about the disunity of his country.

Q: Does religion have any role for a Machiavellian prince? If so, what?

• Yet he advises princes to seem to be religious if it serves as a tool of political influence.

But, he insists that princes should not be too religious.

• If a prince becomes religious, Machiavelli argues, he cannot take actions that are contrary
to religion.

• But, seeming to be religious gives the ruler the opportunity to be pragmatic in taking
political actions.

• Yet Machiavelli does not deny the political importance of religion for rulers. He
maintains that religion keeps people well-disciplined and united.

• Machiavelli notes that the unity and discipline of the people gives the ruler an
opportunity to rule his subjects without much difficulty.

• For political purposes, the prince should spread false religious dogmas and beliefs.

Section Two: Unique Qualities of a Prince

Q: What do you know about the peculiar characteristics of a fox and a lion? And what do you
think is their relevance for a Machiavellian prince?

• Machiavelli maintains that a prince must apply two methods of fighting and rule; namely,
by law and by force.

• Rule by law belongs to the rule of man while rule by force to that of beasts.

• Ruling by law, he states, is insufficient because of the peculiarities of human nature.

• A ruler must use rule by force, too. When a ruler rules as a beast, Machiavelli brings the
behavior and talent of two animals, namely, fox and lion, as an example.

• As you can understand, lion is the strongest animal on earth.

• A lion can defend itself from other animals and can strike severe attack against its
enemies.

• Machiavelli insists that when a prince imitates a lion, he will be in a position to strike
terror and fear into his political opponents.

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 • But, a lion cannot recognize traps and tricks and it falls into them easily and become a
victim.

• Hence, a prince must also imitate a fox, a weak and small animal, which easily
recognizes and avoids traps and tricks. Imitating a fox, therefore, helps a ruler to
recognize and avoid political tricks that his enemies prepare against him.

The Issue of Keeping Faith with the People

Q: What is the advice of Machiavelli for Princes about keeping faith with people?

• Machiavelli argues that keeping faith and promises to people may be an admirable thing
to do.

• However, he insists that it is usually irreconcilable with the political interest of rulers.

• He maintains, “A prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when it is against his interests and
when the reasons that bind him no longer exist’’.

• ‘’Men are bad and would not observe their faith with you. So you should not be bound to
keep faith with them.”

• You can understand that this advice is based on his view of human nature explained to
you earlier.

• In fact, a prince, when he finds it necessary, should seem to have qualities such as faith
and mercy rather than naturally possessing and observing them.

• When a ruler seems to have these and other qualities, Machiavelli argues, he can adopt
opposite qualities when it deems necessary.

Q: Should the Prince be loved or feared? Why?

 Machiavelli recognizes that a prince should be feared and loved.

 However, he denies the possibility of being loved and feared simultaneously by the
people.

 So when a ruler makes a choice, Machiavelli insists, he should choose to be feared rather
than loved by the people.

 He advices a prince not to trust the people.

 If he does so, Machiavelli warns, he has ruined his political power.

 Machiavelli’s reason is simple, i.e. the love of the people for their ruler is a matter of
their free will, which they can abandon at any time.

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  The issue of loving or not loving a prince is in the hands of the people. It is a bond of
obligation which man, the miserable creature, breaks when it fits him to do so.

• But a prince can maintain fear on his people by his own methods.

Q: What are these methods?

• A ruler can create fear by force and dread of punishment.

• Creating fear is completely in under his control. He is of the view that people obey only
because they fear the consequences of disobeying.

• In fact, he does not deny that it would be nice to govern gently from the love of one’s
subjects.

• But because people are easily offended and unreliable, the successful Prince must instill
a degree of fear in the people to gain respect and obedience.

• Machiavelli draws distinction between not to be loved and to be hated by the people.

• Even if the people do not love the prince, Machiavelli advises, he must still try to avoid
hatred by the people because fear and absence of hatred can go together.

• If the people have hated their prince, then, Machiavelli insists, the prince must realize
that his political power is in danger

Q: How can a prince avoid fear by his people?

• Yet a prince can avoid fear only when he

*Abstains from interfering in private property of his subjects

*Abstains from interfering in the wives of his subjects.

• According to Machiavelli, a ruler should not confiscate the private property of his
subjects because, he argues, men value their property very much.

• This position of Machiavelli implies that he is a defender of the right to private property,
which the state should respect.

• Interestingly, he also argues that people sacrifice their lives for the sake of defending
their women.

The Issue of Becoming Cruel or Merciful

Q: As advised by Machiavelli, need the prince be cruel or merciful? Why?

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 • Machiavelli advises political rulers to become cruel when he deems it necessary.

• He states, “It is better to be cruel and maintain the state instead of becoming merciful and
allow disorder to exist.

• The first ruler injures individuals but the latter injures the community as a whole.”

• But, he argues temperance is necessary for a prince because a prince should not be cruel
simply for its own sake.

• He advises a prince that there is no need to be unnecessarily arrogant because, “to incur
hatred without an advantage is the greatest imprudence.”

• In other words, a ruler should be merciful when it is necessary.

• He also states that ruling with threats and insults especially against foreign enemies is
dangerous because it will make enemies cautious of the future intentions of the prince.

• But it is better, he insists, to imprison or kill enemies or opponents who conspire against a
prince’s political power.

Q: Why Machiavelli insisted the prince to kill or imprison those who conspire against him?

• Firstly, the conspirators (opponents) will not have any opportunity to attempt a similar
conspiracy in the future.

• Secondly, the action will deter any future attempt by other opponents against the prince.

• Thirdly, if there is any ongoing conspiracy, which is hidden from the ruler, conspirators
will stop it prematurely because of the fear that the prince will take similar punishment
against them if he knows their conspiracy.

Q: What are advices of Machiavelli to a Prince?

 building a strong army with good arms and making friends (often, if one has good arms,
he can have good friends, too)

 he should fear anyone in the country (the most dangerous enemy is internal one)

 Avoid hatred

 address all grievances and dissatisfactions of his people

• Rigging elections;

• Appealing to a country’s origins and past traditions;

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 • Employing religion to gain reverence/respect for the state

• Using other officials to carry out unpopular policies and then destroying them.

Q: Why do you think a number of western literatures characterize Emperor Haile Selassie I of
Ethiopia as a “black Machiavelli”?

Unit Two: Social Contract Theory

Unit Contents 1.4. Powers of the Sovereign

Section One: Thomas Hobbes’ Political 1.5. Forms of Government

Thought
1.6. Is the Hobbesian State a Totalitarian?
1.1. The Socio-Political Background to
Hobbes’ Political Philosophy Section 2: John Lock’s Social Contract and
Natural Right Theory
1.2. Human Nature and State of Nature
2.1. Lock’s State of Nature Theory
1.3. Social Contract

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2.2. Natural Rights and Ownership of Section 3: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the
Private Property Idea of the General Will

2.3. Lock’s Theory of Consent and Political 3.1. Social Contract

Power
3.2. Rousseau’s General Will
2.4. The Nature of Government
3.3. Rousseau’s Legitimate Government
2.5. Disobedience and Revolution

Section One: Thomas Hobbes’ Political Thought

1.1. The Socio-Political Background to Hobbes’ Political Philosophy

Q: Who was Thomas Hobbes? Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), a graduate of Oxford University,
is an English philosopher and a founder of British liberalism.

• The modern liberal concepts of rights, individualism, liberty, consent and social contract
began with Hobbes’ philosophy.

• His philosophy finds its root in the socio-economic and political background of England
in 1640s.

Q: Why he developed the theory of absolute government?

– He lived in a politically tumultuous epoch.

– In a few decades, the English monarch’s mastery over its own realm had been
shaken due to two major civil wars caused by socio-economic and political issues.

– Thus, it was natural for Hobbes to develop his theory of absolute government.

– What his country needed at the time was a strong government that would
maintain law and order.

– Hobbes’s experience of the disorder of the English civil wars led him to fear
freedom and anarchy.

Q: What is the ‘Leviathan’ about?

- Hobbes wrote a book entitled, Leviathan, in 1651, which contains his political
philosophy.

- In Leviathan, Hobbes sets out his doctrine of the foundation of societies and
legitimate governments.

- It became one of the first scholarly works on social contract theory.

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 - The book’s ominous tone reflected the horrors of the civil war that had just ended.

- Civil war is humanity’s natural condition, Hobbes warns us.

- In trying to imagine what society must have been like in a so-called “state of
nature,” before there were any governments, Hobbes conjured up the image of
permanent warfare.

- In writing this book, Hobbes’ main premise was that all major philosophers
before him had failed to lead people towards peace and security.

- Hence, he claimed that he had a civilizing mission for the whole human race.

- The main intention of the book was, therefore, to contribute to the establishment
of peace and ensure amity and enable men to fulfill civic duty.

Human Nature and State of Nature

Q: How does Hobbes define human nature?

• Hobbes holds the view that man is essentially selfish.

• Man’s appetites, desires and passions, not intellect or reason, dictate his actions.

• As a materialist, Hobbes looks at human nature and society from a scientific and
biological perspective.

• For Hobbes, people are just like everything else in the universe. He applies scientific
methods to humans through their physical sense, which is their only source of knowledge.

• According to him, all human thoughts are derived from sensory data.

• Rationality, for Hobbes, is a calculating faculty that humans use to add and subtract
pleasures and pain.

• Hobbes maintains sensory stimulation (pleasure and pain) govern human beings and that
the movements prompted by those sensations explain human activity.

• Hobbes differ from Aristotle’s view that humans are governed by reason and the
religious view of medieval philosophers in that people are at least potentially governed
by faith and morals.

Q: Explain how Hobbes related power with human nature?

• This materialistic view of Hobbes leads him to define human relationships in terms of
power. He divides power into two:

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 • Natural power, i.e. the power of one’s physical strength, intelligence, eloquence, beauty
etc

• Instrumental power, i.e. the power of one’s money, fame, prestige, honor etc

• Hobbes maintained that more power allows an individual to acquire more pleasure and
avoid more pain.

• He, therefore, insisted that all humans want more power.

• Such a view of humanity logically leads to the original situation of man (state of nature)
that is highly competitive and combative.

• All individuals seek their own pleasure, power, and prestige, and soon they are in conflict
with each other.

Q: What is the ‘state of nature’ mean for Hobbes? What are the most important passions that
derives man at the back?

• According to Hobbes, state of nature refers to the condition of man before the formation
of civil society or government.

• He argued that the state of nature is a “pre-political and pre-social condition in which
men live without civil government or without a common power over them to keep them in
fear.”

• Hobbes argued that the goal and character of moral and political life is determined by
human nature.

• Yet in order to understand human behavior, one has to understand the passions that
derive man at the back.

• According to Hobbes, the most important passions that drive man at the back are:

 Fear of death. It is man’s self-defense against death, which is the strongest passion and
common to all people. Self-defense against violent death is Hobbes’s highest human
necessity, and rights are born out of necessity.

 Desire to lead a commodious way of life or the desire for comfort.

 The hope of obtaining the things necessary for a happy living through their industry.

 It is from these passions that the theory of state of nature is derived.

 He denies that man is social and political in nature. Rather, he believes nature
dissociates man.

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  The antisocial forces are as natural as the forces that promote civil life. Thus, instead of
serving as a direct guide to human goodness, he argued, nature indicates what man has
to run away from.

Q: Explain how the existence of natural equality among men is the main source of trouble in the
state of nature, according to Hobbes. What are factors, as Hobbes believes, that make the state
of nature a state of war.

 According to Hobbes, the main source of trouble in the state of nature is the existence of
natural equality among men in body and mind.

 He argued that men have equal ability to kill each other.

 He claims that this equality of ability, he claims, leads to equality of hopes and desires,
which lead them to brutal competition when they desire same things.

 In the natural condition of mankind, some men may be stronger or more intelligent than
others.

 Yet, no one is too strong and smart to be beyond a fear of violent death. Hobbes also
argues that when man is threatened with death, in his natural states man cannot help but
defend himself in any way possible.

 Therefore, the most important concern of men is self-preservation because fear of violent
death is the strongest passion.

 In such a situation, each man desires to deprive of what belongs to others.

 He says, “If two men desire something, which they cannot both get, they become enemies
and seek to destroy each other.

 Each man seeks to subjugate all the rest until no power is left that threatens his
security.”

 This implies that in the state of nature men are in a condition of war.

 Even if there may not be actual war in an organized sense, he argues, the attitude
towards war is always there.

 In this situation, fear, force and fraud flourish. Hobbes maintains that they are created by
psychological causes of fear by:

 Competition: Men use violence to take away what others have. Due to the scarcity of
things in the world, there is a constant and rights-based war of all against all.

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  Diffidence: Men go for safety for what they have and for themselves.

 Glory: Men go for reputation by using violence in an attempt to avoid being despised
and undervalued by others. It is usually intended for the pleasure of the mind.

 He notes that these factors, he believes, make the state of nature a state of war.

 Since man’s life is full of “continual fear and danger of violent death, his life is solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish and short. No place for industry, agriculture, arts, trade….”

 In the state of nature, everyone has a right to everything.

Q: What are possibilities for man to come out of the state of nature, as told by Hobbes?
What is “the Law of Nature” and “Rights of Nature” for him?

• However, Hobbes is not totally pessimistic about man’s life in the state of nature. He
argues that there is a possibility for man to come out of it.

• Firstly, the fear of death, desire for comfort and the hope of obtaining it through their
industry create in the minds of individuals the inclination toward peace.

• Secondly, even in the primitive natural state, human reason comes to man’s rescue.

• Reason dictates man to accept the principle of not doing something which one doesn’t
want to be done upon him.

• In other words, man becomes convinced that it is better to give up some liberty in
exchange for security.

• Hobbes calls this rule of reason “the Law of Nature”.

• The task of reason is to devise the means of redirecting and intensifying fear of death and
the desire for comfort so as to subdue and avoid the destructive effects of the desire for
glory.

• All Laws of Nature and all social and political duties or obligations, Hobbes believes, are
derived from and subordinate to Rights of Nature, i.e. individual’s right to self
preservation.

• To the extent that modern liberalism teaches us that all social and political obligations are
derived from and are in the service of individual rights of man.

• In other words, according to the rights of nature, man has a natural right to whatever
means he saw fit for his self-preservation.

• Under these circumstances, everybody is a judge and implementer of his own case.

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Q: Why Hobbes stressed on the necessity of strong power? What do you understand by the
phrase ‘covenant without the sword is nothing but words’? Hobbes says that everyone is biased
whenever there is a case that concerns him.

• He maintains that every one attempts to cause more harm on the attacker rather than
taking a proportional action.

• This, according to Hobbes, implies that individuals cannot be good judges on their own
cases, and, hence, they require a neutral arbitrator, i.e. a government.

• Hobbes argues that man’s inclination toward peace and his capacity to be prudent and
moderate is not sufficient to create peace and security.

• The love of glory or pride in our nature complicates civil life.

• He claims that all pleasures of the mind, i.e. pleasures that are not bodily or sensual, are
products of glorying.

• Every man seeks to have others value him as he values himself.

• Consequently, upon signs of contempt and undervaluing, he becomes ready to destroy

those who despise him.

• Thus, glory tempts him to break his pledge unless there is a restraining power to prevent
him from doing so.

• In other words, as Hobbes says, “covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no
strength to secure a man at all.”

• According to Hobbes, the word covenant refers to the agreement of people to form a
common authority or government that imposes peace and security on individuals for their
common advantage and help people to graduate from the state of nature.

• So, he argues that the words of the people are meaningless without a strong power that
enforces them.

Q: Is “state of nature’’ true?

• According to studies on human history, such a state of nature never existed all over the
world.

• Empirical evidence, based on modern sciences such as anthropology and archeology,

suggests that the life of primitive societies was a regulated and well-ordered one like that
of modern human life.

• Therefore, his theory of state of nature is more of philosophical than historical.

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 • Modern science tells us that all societies have rudimentary forms of government with
family as the lowest unit and custom as a means of enforcement.

1.2. Social Contract

Q: What is “Social contract theory” about? Who are the most famous theorists of this?
How they differ from each others?

• The most important questions in political theory include the origin of the state, how men
lived under some form of political organization and if there was no such organization
originally, why did men choose to form a coercive authority.

• Based on the differences in the answers to these questions, a number of theories have
developed; namely, Social Contract Theory, Divine Right Theory, the Force Theory and
Evolutionary Theory.

• Social contract is a major concept in modern political thought that says that the
government of a state is the result of a social contract or an agreement of all the members
to establish it.

• This means that the state’s power and legitimate authority come from the people
generally rather than from God as, for instance, the divine right theory argues.

• The concept emerges from the concept of individualism of Protestant Reformation, which
believed in individual’s direct and personal relationship with God.

• However, they all agree that the state is a human creation and is a result of a contract.

Q: What is “social contract” for Hobbes? What are Hobbes’ laws of nature, & his ideal form
of gov’t?

• Men must seek peace and defend themselves against those from whom peace cannot be
obtained. Thus,

• The first law of nature is that each man ought to be willing to abandon his right to all
things when other individuals are also willing to do so.

• It is this mutual abandoning of individual rights that Hobbes calls a social contract or
covenant.

• As the first Social Contract theorist, Hobbes defines it as a “voluntary agreement of man
with another man to surrender sovereign power to one man or assembly of men (council)
in exchange for promises to protect them from theft, murder, kidnapping etc.”

• In Leviathan, Hobbes’ ignored the concept to divine right and instead placed the source
of governmental legitimacy directly in humanity’s hands.

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 • The people, in his view, have a natural right to choose their own form of government.

• However, Hobbes proposed that the ideal form of government is not a democracy but a
state so powerful that its subjects will have little control over it once they have installed
it.

Q: Can you define civil society, the Sovereign and common wealth?

• Hobbes calls the authority created by the agreement a civil society, which is formed when
“each man obliges himself with the rest by contract not to resist the commands of the
man or the assembly that they have recognized as their sovereign.

• Each man contracts only with a view to security and preservation of his life. It cannot be
assumed that any man has contracted away those rights whose loss would affect the
purpose of all contracts.” The multitude of men together united in one person is referred
to as commonwealth and the individual representative of this commonwealth a sovereign.

• The second law of nature is that men should respect their covenants.

• Hobbes insists that respecting the covenant is the basis of justice or injustice. He
maintains that justice prevails if men respect the original terms of the contract and
injustice prevails if they act on the contrary.

• However, Hobbes insists that this is not the end of everything. Still men do not have trust
as to whether the other side will respect the covenant.

• That is why he proposes the creation of a coercive power as a panacea/remedy to enforce

the covenant among non-trustworthy individuals.

Q: According to Hobbes, How is the Sovereign come to power? Can the rules of the contract
bind to the sovereign? What are the powers of sovereign?

• According to Hobbes, the Sovereign comes into power either:

• Naturally, i.e. when he is a conqueror in war and subjugates other people and territories.

• Institution, i.e. due to the existence of mutual fear of death and violence among
individuals.

• For Hobbes, the Sovereign that come to power through both the mechanisms are
legitimate. The motivation is still fear; hence, for Hobbes, the way they come to power
does not matter much.

 The rules of the contract do not bind the Sovereign because he is not a party to the
contract.

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  So, it is unthinkable for the Sovereign to be unjust because he embodies in himself the
wills of all; his actions are virtually their own actions on the principle that ‘whosoever
acts through his agent, acts through himself.’ In other words, he cannot be unjust because
in the first place he is the one who determines what is just and unjust.

 As injustice implies non-performance of the contract, the Sovereign cannot be unjust

because he cannot violate an agreement of which he was not originally a maker.

 So, by creating the Sovereign, subjects become direct authors of the actions of the
Sovereign.

• Hobbes assigns the Sovereign almost all significant powers.

• The sovereign has an executive power of making war and peace, choosing counselors,
rewarding, honoring and punishing.

• Hobbes allows the state to regulate property, censor speech and press, dictate jobs and
residence and in general every aspect of society.

• He insists that men do not obey those people whom they do not fear.

Q: Do subjects have any natural right except their self-preservation right?

• Hobbes maintains that individuals’ right to self-preservation is an inalienable right that

individuals cannot transfer to the sovereign.

• In other words, if the Sovereign himself violates individuals’ right to self-preservation,

then the latter have a full right to resist because in the first place it was to protect this
right that individuals entered into a covenant.

• The Sovereign has a legislative power, too. He is a law maker and he himself is the law.

• The Sovereign has also a judicial power. He cannot be subject to civil laws as they are his
commands. He is a judge of what is necessary for the peace and defense of his subjects.

• For Hobbes, sovereignty was inalienable; there should not be any power in the state
which is strong enough to oppose the sovereign.

• He is absolutely against the division of governmental power among legislative, executive

and judicial branches. He rejects it on two counts:

• Firstly, whenever the three branches agree they may deliberately restrict individual rights

• Secondly, when they disagree, civil war and dissolution of government may follow.

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 • According to Hobbes, subjects do not have any natural right except their self-
preservation. Apart from the right to self-preservation, subjects have few rights.

• So, the rights of subjects include those rights permitted by the Sovereign, and the liberty
of the subject depends on what the Sovereign has not prohibited.

• Hobbes has the view that if the Sovereign violates these rights, it means he has
committed sin. For this, he maintains, he will be answerable to God.

• But if you attempt to change the Sovereign, then you are doing injustice because
naturally you cannot take away the rights of the Sovereign without doing injustice to him.

• Unlike modern thinking, Hobbes is an ardent opponent of a change of government by

revolution. His assumption is a change of government will automatically cause the
dissolution of society, which in turn means returning back to the state of nature.

Q: What is Hobbes’ criterion of classifying governments? What are his classifications?

What is his best form of government? Why that?

• Unlike Aristotle’s legitimacy criterion, the main criterion of the best form of state, for
Hobbes, is that of convenience, i.e. effectiveness in the production of peace and security.

• Hobbes maintains Aristotle’s classification of government depends on moral likes and

dislikes of men.

• For him, the term tyranny, oligarchy, and anarchy show simply the likes and dislikes of
individuals towards these forms of government.

• That is why, he argues, people call a disliked monarchy, a tyranny and a disliked
democracy, an anarchy.

For Hobbes, governments differ numerically:

• Government by one (monarchy) - a government entrusted to one man

• Government by a few (aristocracy) – a government entrusted to an assembly

• Government by the people (democracy) – a government entrusted all people

• In fact, from practical point of view, Hobbes’ best form of government is monarchy. He
favors monarchy because of the following rationales:

 It is less vulnerable to power competition than aristocracy and democracy

 The monarch can act resolutely/definitely and consistently without much interruption.

Q: Why Hobbes advocates absolutist state?

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 • The state, for Hobbes, must have absolute power to accomplish its objectives.

• He advocates a strong and terrifying state to keep people in order.

• He insisted that rational individuals recognize the advantage of social peace and, hence
they give obedience to the government.

• His form of government is a government right for all people at all times and places.

• To put it in a nut shell, Hobbes’ Leviathan, is a giant of a state to which everyone should
voluntarily submit for his own good.

• In his view, the purpose of the all-powerful state was to reduce fear and violence, not
perpetrate it.

• Nevertheless, in his pessimistic view of human nature, Hobbes provides a powerful

philosophical support for all those who believe that liberty breeds chaos and civil
tranquility.

Q: What is Totalitarianism? Is Hobbes’ state Totalitarian or Authoritarian? If so/not,

How?

• Totalitarianism is a governmental and social system in which the central state completely
and absolutely controls every aspect of life in the economic, family, religious,
educational, cultural spheres.

• Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and communist USSR are examples of totalitarian states. In
each of these 20th century regimes, the state controls the individual through total political
regulation of the household, schooling, jobs, residence, and ideology.

• The state imposes a single value system on every citizen and abolishes any independent
groups, businesses, clubs or associations.

• In such a state, loyalty to the state is enforced through spies, secret police, torture, prison
and executions.

• So in light of this, it is important to see whether Hobbes’ absolutist state is similar to the
ideology of a totalitarian state on a number of counts.

• Hobbes’ government is a government of covenant.

• The contractual foundation of government is anathema to modern totalitarians who

attack contractual theory because contract implies consent.

• So the Hobbesian state is authoritarian, not totalitarian.

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 • Hobbes assigns his absolutist state the task of the maintenance of peace and security of
citizens.

• But a totalitarian state is anti-hedonistic and anti-individualistic; rather, it stands for a

collective purpose.

• Hobbes pleads equality before the law among all individuals. Yet totalitarianism lacks
this element because it promotes inequality.

• In the Hobbesian state, the Sovereign permits his subjects the liberty “to buy, sell, to
contract with one another, to choose their own diet, way of life…” This shows that
Hobbes was a proponent of a laissez faire economic system, to which totalitarians are
absolutely against.

• ETC

Q: Identify and discuss the flaws and contributions of Hobbes’ philosophy.

His flaws/drawbacks are:

• Firstly, his theory of politics that rests on a major hypothesis, i.e. man has a solitary,
competitive and combative character is half-true. It is very difficult to think how man in a
savagery life can become a cooperative and reasonable creature able to make a social
contract

• Secondly, Hobbes argued that society is a product of contract. But critics say it is only
individuals in a society who can enter into contract.

The major contribution of his philosophy:

• Firstly, his argument that independent sovereign states live in a state of nature has
validity, and

• Secondly, his observation of fear of death as a motive to create social order is profound.
The existence of relative peace between the USSR and USA during the Cold War was
mainly due to fear of mutual destruction if they go to war.

Section 2: John Lock’s Social Contract and Natural Right Theory

Q: Who was John Lock? What are his philosophies & books? How does Lock explain the
state of nature?

• John Locke, a British philosopher, studied medicine and taught philosophy at the Oxford
University for fourteen years.

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 • Soon after leaving Oxford, he became involved in political conspiracy aiming at
enhancing parliamentary power at the expense of the Crown.

• Participated in Britain’s “Glorious Revolution.”

• As the most prominent theorist of British liberalism, Lock’s ideas of natural rights,
government by consent, social contract, limited government, private property and
revolution greatly influenced all modern political thought especially in the United States
of America.

• Lock wrote many books of which the most prominent one is the Two Treatises of
Government especially the Second Treatise written in 1690 which discusses political
freedom.

• Like Hobbes, his political theory is based on materialist and scientific premises.

• According to Lock, humankind lived in a state of nature, i.e. before the establishment of
governments, insecurity and uncertainty prevailed.

• He maintains that society without government was “full of fears and continual dangers,”
exacerbated by the “corruption and viciousness of degenerate men” along with a host of
other “inconvenience”.

• But Locke did not go as far as Hobbes in predicating a state of continual warfare. Yet he
still regarded life without government as “very unsafe.”

• He defines the state of nature as, “men living together according to reason, without a
common superior on earth with authority to judge between them….”

• He argues that it can exist at any time in the history of mankind including the present.

• For instance, wherever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no
decisive power to appeal to, it can be said that they are still in the state of nature. In the
state of nature every man has two natural powers:

• to do whatsoever he thinks fit for his self-preservation and for others within the
permission of the law of nature and

• the power to punish the crimes committed against that law. These are the basis of the
executive and legislative power of civil society.

Q: Explain Lock’s “State of war’’? Is it the same with Hobbes’? What is Civil society for Lock?

• Unlike Hobbes, Lock claims that the state of nature and the state of war are not identical.

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 • According to Lock, a state of war can exist “both where there is, and where there is not a
common judge,” i.e. in civil society and state of nature.

• The state of war consists in the element of the use of force without right, justice and
authority.

• It is the unjust use of force that puts a man into the state of war with one another.

• In other words, the existence of the state of war does not depend on the presence or
absence of a common judge.

• A state of war can exist in civil society when the force of the common judge becomes
ineffectual.

• In other words, the difference between state of war and state of nature lies in

*The state of nature is characterized by the absence of a common judge and by the absence of
any law except the law of nature

*Whereas civil society, which is the opposite of state of nature, is characterized by the presence
of a common judge with authority to enforce civil law.

• Then, either within the state of nature or within civil society

- The state of war exists if force is used without right

- Or the state of peace, its opposites, prevails if there is no use of force without right.

• Lock defines civil society, the opposite of state of nature, as

“Those who are united into one body and have a common established law and judicature to
appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them and punish offenders, are in civil
society one with another…”

Q: What is “Laws of nature” for him? Why this law may be violated by humans in the state
of nature? What necessitated government, according to Lock?

• Lock believes that each individual knows the law of nature (whose source, content and
end are self-preservation) that governs the state of nature by human reason.

• The law of nature tells people that they cannot exercise their freedom to harm anyone
else’s rights and every man has the obligation to preserve all mankind on the assumption
that a threat to one man is ultimately a threat to all mankind.

• Although most people are reasonable and respect others’ rights, he argues, some people
may violate them violently in the state of nature.

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 • Thus, when the victims enforce the law of nature by themselves against the transgressors
of their rights, problems arises because everyone becomes a maker, protector and
enforcer of his rights because

1. The state of nature lacks an established legal system (absence of written law and fixed
penalties)

2. There is an absence of authority to execute laws of nature

3. There is absence of impartial judge to endorse just decisions. He insists that people cannot be
trusted to judge impartially and hence require a government to judge.

• This is a human sin because the selfish sin will naturally tend to punish transgressors of
rights too harshly.

• As a result, man unleashes retaliation and, hence, there would be escalation of violence.

• According to Lock, this dilemma gives rise to the formation of government whose purpose
is to protect the freedom and well-being of all members of society.

Q:How did Lock’s state of nature differs from Hobbes’?

A major difference of Lock’s state of nature from Hobbes’ is that his state of nature is not as
violent as Hobbes’.

• According to Lock, the main threat to self-preservation in the state of nature lies not in
the tendency of men to hurt each other but poverty and hardship of their natural
condition.

2.2. Natural Rights and Ownership of Private Property

Q: For Lock, Which rights are natural rights of individuals? How did property and private
property originate in Locke’s view?

– Locke holds that from the original state of physical freedom, equality and
autonomy, human beings posses the natural rights to life, liberty and estate
(tangible goods).

– He calls all the three collectively “property”.

– According to Lock, it is this right to property that justifies the existence of

government.

– Originally, he contends that God gave the earth and its fruits to men as a resource;
the vast wilderness of the earth was created by God for humans to subdue and
turn into provisions to support human life.

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 – During this time no one owned anything in private. However, man owned his own
person, i.e. the labor of his body, which is the original natural property.

– However, it is legitimate for individuals to create private property from what is common
to all.

– He also argues that it is labor which justifies and gives value to private property.

– By mixing our labor with the land and using the fruits of our labor, it becomes our
property.

– In other words, the fact that a man labors to collect fruits from the universal common, the
mix of his labor (private) with the wild fruits (universal common) makes these fruits his
private property.

– There is no need to wait for the consent of others. There is after all abundance, he states.

– He believed that this stipulation on private ownership would assure that there was enough
land for everyone.

Q: What are the limitations to private property as Lock believes?

• According to Locke, there is a limit to private property.

a. This is a spoilage criteria which asserts that a person should not take more than what he
can consume or use, be it fruits or land. In the latter case, it means, a person should own
as much land as he is able to work on. This implies that if the person cannot utilize the
land, it is no longer his private property. In his view, any land that was left uncultivated
was spoilage.

b. The other criteria of limiting property is the sufficiency criteria, i.e. ‘enough and as good’
must be left to others’ appropriation.

c. The third limitation is that of the subsistence criteria, i.e. all men have a natural right to
subsistence, i.e. if some people have appropriated much property than necessary for their
survival, those who have no property have the right to others’ surplus.

Q: What does his theory of consent and political power imply? Do all people enjoy these
natural rights?

• Lock maintains that government is created by the consent of the governed when they
realize “the inconveniences” of keeping private justice in the natural state.

• The rise of disputes in the state of nature is inevitable especially with the growth of
inequalities in property distribution.

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 • So, as being conscious of these inconveniences, Lock states, individuals agree to unite
into a community to defend one another’s rights that requires a social contract.

• Therefore, people organize a political society to give remedy for these defects.

• For Locke, a “commonwealth” is a form of government that is created precisely to

preserve natural rights and possessions.

• “The great chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting
themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.”

• “The fundamental source of the commonwealth’s legitimacy is the common consent

people voluntarily establishing a government of this sort by mutual agreement.’’

• They further agree to maintain such a government only so long as it manages to “secure
everyone’s property” and preserve the basic freedoms to be found in the state of nature.

• Locke implicitly argued that any government that pursues these basic purposes is
legitimate because it springs from natural laws.

• Conversely, he would regard as illegitimate all forms of government such as monarchies

or tyrannies- that violate these laws by abridging humanity’s natural rights to life, liberty,
and estates.

• In Locke’s view, the powers of the state must be strictly limited and always subordinate
to popular control.

• In his understanding, any number of men can enter into a political society to make one
people, one body politic with a supreme government; but those who prefer to remain
outside remain in the state of nature.

• However, Locke made it clear that these natural rights and freedoms did not apply to
slaves.

Q: How did Lock conceives the state; and what is principal purpose of a government?

• Locke’s conception of state opposes the organic Aristotelian conception that perceives
the state as the natural product of social growth.

• He rejects the non-consensual characteristic of Aristotelian state.

• The organic conception of the state collects the citizenry into a single body, and thereby
permits wielding the masses into the directions the rulers needs.

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 • Locke’s conception of state moves away from that of the ‘ship and captain’ analogy to
that of conceiving the state as an instrument whose sole purpose is to provide a secure
framework for the life property and liberty of the people.

• Locke’s notion that the fundamental purpose of government was to preserve “property”
(i.e., life, liberty and estate) had a tremendous impact on many of the founding fathers of
the United States a century later.

• The American revolutionaries’ slogan, “No taxation without representation,” was a

restatement of Locke’s notion that government should not impose taxes without popular
consent.

• Hence, Locke may be considered the intellectual founding father of the doctrine of
limited government. The notion that the principal purpose of a government is the
preservation of political and economic liberty is the core idea of the modern ideology of
liberalism.

The Nature of Government

Q: For Lock, how is the government formed? What are the natures of Lock’s government?

• Lock argues that government is formed by fiduciary- a kind of trust between trustees and
the trustor.

• In his view, the people are trustors and the beneficiaries of the trust, while the
government is the trustee, which is the servant of the people.

• The people have the right to change the trustee when it violates the original trust.

• For Locke, government is no more than a tool that continuously depends on the consent
of the people (tacit or silent consent not actual or explicit consent).

• It possesses no mystical nature of either a divine or a supernatural order.

• It is a mere prudential institution that can efficiently and effectively provide a better
security than individuals working along in the natural state of freedom.

• Among the institutions of government, Lock gives much value to the legislature to which
the executive is subordinate.

• In other words, he wanted to see governmental power in different hands.

• Yet the people, the highest and supreme, body is above it.

• He is of the opinion that the activities of the government must be bound by fixed and
known rules of law.

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As a proponent of limited government, therefore, Locke placed some limitations on the
legislature:

• The law must apply to all people equally

• Law must not be arbitrary

• Legislature should not raise tax without consent

• Legislature must not transfer lawmaking power to anybody, for instance, the executive.

• Locke rejected absolute monarchy and is a proponent of limited monarchy, i.e.

constitutional monarchy.

Q: When do citizens need to disobey and cause revolution against the government, as advocated
by Lock?

• Locke advocated the right to revolution if governments fail to protect those fundamental
rights of individuals, i.e. the right to life, liberty and property.

• The citizens have the right to disobey or even abolish the government if the government
threatens their right to life, confiscate their property and imprisoning them unjustly.

• It is not in the nature of government to supersede the natural law and cannot infringe or
ignore natural rights.

• As a trustee- trustor relationship, we entrust the defense of our rights to it, but we do not
relinquish those rights to it.

• So, a government that breaches these rights violates the trust and, hence, Locke supposes,
subjects are entitled to resist it, with violence if necessary.

• Locke often uses the term rebellion in his book, but he adds if there is a gross violation of
those rights, subjects have a right to revolution, i.e. they have a right to take back the
authority originally conferred on the government.

• Yet he contends that this right of resistance should be exercised by the majority of
people, not few people.

• Besides, people should resist only unjust and unlawful force.

• Then, you may ask as to whether Locke’s doctrine of rebellion can be a factor for
instability. Locke’s answer is two-fold:

a. People do not resort to rebellion or revolutions on silly matters

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 b. The right to rebellion and the creation of government by consent are the best fences
against rebellion itself.

Q: When does government get dissolved, according to Lock? How about society?

• For Locke, unlike Hobbes, state and society are separate.

• He argued that the dissolution of government does not lead to the dissolution of society.

• According to Locke, civil society can only dissolve when there is external conquest, and
when this happens, government dissolves, too.

• According to Lock, governments are more likely to dissolve because of alteration in the
legislature. This can happen in the following ways:

1. When the executive sets up his own will in place of the will of the legislature;

2. When the prince (ruler) hinders the legislative from assembling in its due time, or from
acting freely;

3. When the executive power alters the electoral regulations without consent contrary to the
public good; and

4. When the people are made subject to a foreign power;

5. Furthermore, a government is dissolved when the executive power neglects or abandons

its duty to put the laws into operation.

6. Finally, dissolution of government is deemed to have taken place when either the
legislative or the executive power acts contrary to its trust.

NB: Lock was an advocate of Secularism

Section 3: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Idea of the General Will

Q: Who was J.J. Rousseau? How does Rousseau define human nature and state of
nature?

• He spent his youth as an ill-disciplined boy due to his mother’s death early in his infancy.

• He grew up in the hands of care takers. But, Rousseau recalls his child hood as one of
“idyllic innocence, free of societal restraints.”

• This recollection had a profound impact on the development of his moral philosophy.

• He lived most of his life in Paris. Some of his major works include A Discourse on the
Origins of Inequality (1755), The Social Contract (1762), Confessions and Emile

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 Education.

• Rousseau insisted that

- human beings are by nature essentially gentle and timid beings living harmoniously in a
tranquil/calm, but primitive, state of nature.

- He believed that humans in this condition were neither inherently good nor evil but were
guided by such benign/kind “natural” tendencies as nonviolence and pity for one’s fellow
man.

- the primitive human was thus a noble savage, peaceful and uncorrupted, free, healthy,
honest and happy. In the state of nature, men were innocent, peaceable and romantic.

- there were few needs and even they were easily satisfied by nature. Because of the
abundance of nature and the small size of the population, competition was non-extent,
and individuals rarely interact with one another;

- Even if any interaction exists, they do so for momentary satisfaction or sexual desires.
Hence, there was much less reason for conflict or fear.

- In this natural situation, he supposes, life was pleasant and man lived in the state of
“idyllic felicity”.

- He contended that man also enjoyed perfect liberty and equality. Human beings lived free
life without being bound by any artificial laws. Human beings knew neither right nor
wrong, and had no any notion of virtue and vice.

- As long as there was no organized social life, however, humanity could not improve its
material welfare or educate itself about the universe in which it dwelt. The noble savage
was a child, barely above the level of animals.

- Just like Locke, Rousseau argued that the state of nature is not a state of war. The reason
is that in the state of nature, the desires of human beings at this time were not
complicated. Human desire was simple, i.e. only food, sex and sleep.

- Moreover, in the state of nature, there was no accumulation of wealth and humans were
free from the corrupting influences of commerce and industry.

- In the state of nature, egoism was absent but compassion was present.

- Rousseau saw compassion for the undeserving in particular and for mankind in general
to be the virtue.

- He regarded contempt of another, which could lead to hurt feelings, as a vice and as
always bad.

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• He maintains that in the state of nature, human beings are guided by two instincts or
motivating forces:

- Self-love, i.e. self-preservation of oneself

- Pity, i.e. sympathy or compassion, which inclines man to help others when they are in
distress.

NB: He had the view that these two instincts do not contradict each other.

• Rousseau, however, believed that man possesses reason which is not yet developed in the
state of nature.

• He believed that man was morally incomplete in the state of nature.

• Hence, he could only achieve happiness, which accompanies his moral fulfillment, in the
state.

• He asserts that it is reason that makes possible the long transition from the state of
nature to the state of civilized society.

• Rousseau recognizes that the primitive conditions of “idyllic happiness” in the state of
nature could not last long.

• As time passed, humanity faced certain changes,… finally resulting in public values,
leading to the emergence of shame, envy, pride and contempt.

• He argued that society and the state developed largely as a result of cooperation between
men which is itself a consequence of the development of agriculture and industry.

Q: How does the emergence of private property affect human behavior negatively in
Rousseau’s view?

• For Rousseau, the invention of private property created human characters such as
greediness, competition, vanity, inequality and vice among the human community.

• Then human beings began to think in terms of ‘mine’/‘ours’ and ‘his/her/theirs’.

• Reason began to be employed in the furtherance of private benefits.

• New fetters (restrictions) were placed upon the poor and new powers conceded to the
rich.

• Eventually, he argues, those who have property noticed that it would be in their interest
to create a government that would protect their private property and privileges from the
poor.

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 • The poor and the weak are tricked into agreeing to the establishment of these institutions.

• Then, he says a state of war occurs between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have not’s’.

• This implies that state of war occurs in civil society.

• However, Rousseau believes that society and state are not only inevitable but positively
desirable provided that they conform to certain democratic conditions

Q: Explain, according to Rousseau, how human civilization and societal culture negatively
affected the character of the natural man?

• Society and civilization enslaved and corrupted man and made him unnatural, Rousseau
supposed.

• The development of wider social interactions and an explicit division of labor led to all
the evils of advanced social life.

• It is society that corrupts human beings and encourages evil tendencies.

• In the state of nature, he stated, all men were equal.

• Then, it logically follows that the distinction and differentiation among men are the
products of culture of society.

• He insisted that man’s environment and social conditions changed his character.

• In order to discover the true nature of man, therefore, Rousseau, examines man in a
‘state of nature’ living without any of the elements of civilization.

• As stated above, Rousseau thought private property to be the source of social ills.

• He considered that private ownership of property corrupted men and destroyed their
character.

• He regarded men without property (i.e. the Noble Savages) to be the freest.

• Although he did not actually support the abolition of private property, he believed that
private property should be minimal and should be distributed equally among all members
of the society.

• Rousseau thus anticipated the role of the state to minimize private property.

• He wanted the property of the state to be as great and powerful as possible, and that of
citizens to be as small and weak as possible.

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• With private property being so limited, the state would need to apply very little force in
order to lead the people, he argued.

• To put it in a nut shell, Rousseau believed that civil society emerged from the
degeneration of a basically good state of nature, which changed due to its internal
instability.

Social Contract

Q: What is implied in the Social contract of Rousseau?

• The main question now is how mankind should govern itself.

• Rousseau’s main answer, as provided in his book, The Social Contract, is that
government must be based on popular consent.

• He believed that in order for a government to be truly legitimate, the people in each
generation should have the option of accepting or rejecting it.

• Hence, he stressed that legitimacy is based on a tacit social contract among free people
who collectively constitute what he calls the “sovereign”.

• It is the collective sovereign that is the ultimate source of law. The people are capable of
conferring legitimacy on whatever form of government they approve, he claims.

• According to Rousseau’s theory of social contract, people left the state of nature by
voluntarily transferring their personal rights to the community in return for security of
life and property.

• He makes it clear that it is impossible for humans to return to the freedom of the state of
nature.

• He argues that people should form a society to which they would completely surrender
themselves.

• By giving up their rights, they actually create a new entity in the form of public person
that would be directed by the will of the community.

• Rousseau considers that freedom and equality can be preserved only if each man gives up
all his natural rights to the community as a whole, which becomes a ‘moral and
collective body’.

• He argues that the social contract implies a situation where men form an association
“which may defend and protect, with the whole force of the community, the person and
property of every association (or member), and by means of which uniting with all, may
nevertheless obey only himself and remain as free as before.”

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• In other words, each man pursues his self-interest in the state of nature until he discovers
that his power to preserve himself against threats of others is no longer strong enough.

• The purpose of the contract is, therefore, to combine security which comes from
collective association with that of liberty, which the individual had before the making of
the contract.

• In society, man loses his natural liberty but gains civil liberty and property rights.

• In a famous slogan, he declares, “man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”,

which implies that unless human beings have the freedom to make moral choices, they
can not live a full human life. Rather, they become slaves.

• Unlike Hobbes, Rousseau does not transfer all powers to a separate body.

• For him, the sovereign is the people constituted as a political community through the
social contract.

• As a member of political community, each individual retains an equal and inalienable

portion of the sovereignty of the whole and remains as free as before.

• In Rousseau’s view, the new society consists of equal individuals, none of them having
authority over others and all participating in the General Will, which is the sole
foundation of legitimate authority.

• Rousseau argues that under this new social entity, there would be freedom and
equality because each person is a subject (as an obedient to the law) and a
participating citizen (as a law maker).

• That is how the true moral liberty, the freedom of the individual in relation to
himself, can be guaranteed.

• Thus, it is a social contract in which a community of freemen lives in a small state

in which the people can practice direct democracy.

Rousseau’s General Will

Q: What does the General Will mean, according to Rousseau? What is its role? What are
its basic features? What is expected from individuals in a general will?

– The idea of the General Will is in the center of Rousseau’s political thought.

– It may be referred as the common interest. According to Rousseau, adhering to

the General Will allows individual diversity and freedom.

– At the same time, the General Will also encourages the well-being of the whole.

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 – Therefore, it can conflict with the particular interest of individuals because it
does not consider private interests.

– From Rousseau’s point of view, the General Will is not the will of the majority.

– Rather it is the will of the political organism that he sees as an entity with a life of its
own.

– The General Will is an additional will, somehow distinct from individual will or group of
individual wills.

– The General Will is, by some means, endowed with goodness and wisdom surpassing the
beneficence and wisdom of any person or collection of persons.

– He believes that society is coordinated and unified by the General Will.

– It actually exists and it demands the unqualified obedience of every individual.

– In fact, Rousseau does not deny the existence of General Will of other associations and
particular societies, but their General Will is particular in relation to the state.

• He held that there is only one General Will and a supreme good and a single overriding
goal toward which a community must aim.

• It emerges through discussion and the process of cancelling out particular wills. It has
two basic features:

- It aims at the general good and

- It must come from all and apply to all

• The General Will is always a force for good and just, Rousseau supposes, adding that it
is independent, totally sovereign, infallible and inviolable.

• According to Rousseau, freedom, equality and sovereignty are the important attributes of
the General Will.

• The individual’s moral expression lies in his obedience to the General Will.

• If he refuses, he may be compelled to do so. That means he will be forced to be free.

• Rousseau does not permit any disobedience against the General Will once its decisions
have been made.

• Every man must abide by the General Will even though he thinks that he disagrees with
it.

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• The reason is that each person wants to be good.

• As a result, individuals would obey the General Will.

• Rousseau noted that the person who “disagrees” with the General Will must be mistaken.

• By definition, the General Will is always right.

• The essence of the General Will implies that the liberty of each depends on the liberty of
all.

• It is the overriding good to which each person is willing to sacrifice all other goods
including all particular private wills.

Rousseau’s Legitimate Government

Q: According to Rousseau, which government is truly legitimate? What is his best form
of government?

– According to Rousseau, only republican governments that are based on consent

are truly legitimate.

– He contended that a republic does not have to be necessarily a kind of democracy.

– A state ruled by aristocratic elite can also be considered a legitimate one as long
as the people periodically meet in a free assembly to confirm or withdraw their
approval of the government.

– In fact, Rousseau believed that an “elective aristocracy” was the best of all forms
of government.

– He declared that the wisest should govern the multitude, if they governed for the
common good rather than their own personal advantage.

– This goal could be accomplished in popular assemblies that might meet only a few days
each year.

– The day-to-day business of government was best left in the hands of enlightened elite,
aristocrats who would probably have a better understanding of the common good than the
masses themselves.

– This was a kind of direct ‘democracy’. Rousseau opposed representative democracy, in

which the people elect their representatives to govern them.

– Where the population is large, the remedy is that representatives should be elected at
local level.

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– He maintained that the sovereign authority of the people resided in the community as a
whole.

– It was indivisible and could not be delegated to elected representatives.

– The people could exercise their sovereignty only in free assemblies open to all qualified
citizens, where every man could represent himself.

– (Dear learner! In Rousseau’s time, citizens usually meant males who owned a specified
amount of property.)

Q: Which type of democracy does Rousseau advocating? Why?

• He argues that legislative functions cannot be transferred.

• But he holds the view that executive power can be delegated.

• All power is transferred to central authority or sovereign that is the total community.

• Major decisions are made by a vote by all in what Rousseau calls plebiscite that is
something like a town meeting.

• On very important matters, Rousseau indicated that community opinion should approach
unanimity.

• On less important issues, a simple majority would suffice.

• However, Rousseau admitted that a majority can vote to violate the common good of the
entire community.

• In that case, the General Will is shattered and there is no longer any liberty.

• Rousseau asks, “If a nation likes to injure itself, who has a right to prevent it from doing
so?”

Reading Assignment Questions

Did Rousseau clearly advocated Separation of Power?

Do you agree with a view that a civil religion that is used by the state for its own ends
should exist?

 What are the key elements of this religion, according to Rousseau?

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Unit 3: Utilitarianism

Contents 2.1. Bentham’s Pleasure and Pain Calculus

Section 1: Definition of Utilitarianism and 2.2. Natural Rights and the Best Political
Its Variants Order

1.1. Early Utilitarian Thought Section 3: J.S. Mill’s Utilitarian Thought

and the Idea of Liberty
1.2. Modern Theory of Utilitarianism: Act
and Rule Utilitarianism 3.1. Mill’s Definition of Pleasure and Pain

Section 2: Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarian 3.2. Mill’s Best Political Order

Thought
3.3. Mill’s Idea of Liberty

Section 1: Definition of Utilitarianism and Its Variants

• Defining Utilitarianism

Q What is Utilitarianism?

- Developed in the 19th century by British philosophers; namely, Jeremy Bentham, James
Mill and John Stuart Mill.

- Derived from the fact that it defines goodness by social utility, or usefulness

- A social policy, decision or action is good if it produces the “greatest happiness for the
greatest number” of people.

- an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce pain.

- Utilitarianism attempts to answer a practical question, i.e. what a man ought to do? Its
answer is that he/she ought to act so as to produce the best consequences possible for the
greatest number of people.

Beliefs of Utilitarianism

• Utilitarianism is similar to social hedonism (the greatest net happiness for all)

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 • Actions are not intrinsically right or wrong (the end justifies the means- teleological
view)

• believe that people are naturally sympathetic and concerned about happiness of others

• the benevolence principle- widely/equally

• Test your particular interest in reference to the general interest

• Ethical egoism is incorrect

Modern Theory of Utilitarianism: Act and Rule Utilitarianism

Rule Utilitarianism Act Utilitarianism

*Focus on the morality of particular classes of action (… *Morality of each action should be judged on the
stealinf/keeping promis,…) bases of its utility regardless of moral or legal
*Follow the rule whether it brings greatest happiness or constraints
pain *Stealing /killing may increase happiness

Which position do you hold, Act or rule?

Section2: Bentham’s Utilitarian Thoughts

Bentham’s Pleasure and Pain Calculus

- Wrote as nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters: Pain and Pleasure.” Theses decide what men ought to do.

- defines “good” in terms of economic goods rather than cultural, intellectual or

spiritual values.

- He argues that all pleasures are equal and there cannot be any distinction
whatsoever among types of pleasures

- He insisted promoting happiness of both individuals and communities

- Bentham introduced a method of calculating Pleasure and pain called Hedonistic

Calculus

- seven factors to be considered when measuring the total amount of pleasure and pain
caused by any action:

Q Read and explain each of the factors

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_ Intensity (Strength of the pain or pleasure)

_ Duration (he length of time that the pleasure or pain lasts)

_ Certainty (the probability that the pleasure or pain will occur)

_ Propinquity (nearness in time/will happen immediately)

_ Fecundity (the pleasure is productive of more pleasure)

_ Purity (pleasure that does not cause pain at the same time)

_ Extent (the number of sentient beings affected by an action)

According to Bentham, pleasure is quantitative and objective.

Q: Read and criticize or praise this view with evidence.

• Bentham was a first proponent of welfare state.

Q What is Welfare state?

- a welfare state is a form of political economy in which the state assumes responsibility
for the general welfare of its population, especially its most vulnerable elements, through
spending on such items as education, housing, health care, pensions, unemployment
compensation, food subsidies, family allowances and other programs.

- Though this idea of welfare state faced severe criticisms, there are still welfare states in
Western Europe in the form of social democracy and the idea is still popular

Q Do you support a free market economic system of or a welfare system in which the government
intervenes in certain areas of the economy? Why?

Natural Rights and the Best Political Order

- Why Bentham Rejected the inalienability and inviolability of Natural rights advocacy?

- Bentham rejected the theory of natural rights advocated by philosophers such as J. Lock
and J.J. Rousseau

• He regarded natural rights that are endowed by nature such as the right to life, liberty
and property as “simple non-sense”. The reason was that he believed in the existence of
a democratic government as a precondition in order to secure them.

• He stressed that rights can only exist under an established legal system. In his interesting
analogy, he says that if one talks about the existence of natural rights, it is just like
talking about a child without a father.

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 • So, in essence, Bentham holds a firm view that only a democratic government guarantees
and protects rights. All rights, Bentham thought, emanate from laws of society and,
hence, they cannot be inalienable and inviolable.

• As they have societal rather than individual origin, he asserted, every right can be
abolished if doing so promotes the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people.

• What are some major views of Bentham on governance?

• Bentham advocated ‘bottom-up’ approach

• He was skeptical of the church and institutional Christianity

• He disgusted British gov’t and believed that democracy was the best political system;
annually elected parliament which should be supreme; idea of universal suffrage and
secret ballot; opposed the concept of retributive justice(an eye for an eye); instead,
proposed a prison system based on reform and rehabilitation; Impacted modern days
Prison systems significantly.

Section 3: J.S. Mill’s Utilitarian Thought and the Idea of Liberty

Mill’s Definition of Pleasure and Pain

How Mill differs from Bentham?

• all pleasures are not equal(there is a qualitative difference between types of pleasure
based on their moral qualities)

• some pleasures are more desirable than others

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool satisfied,”

• advocated a hierarchy of pleasures and cares for superior pleasures(educated)

• gives much emphasis to the importance of education

• Argued as gov’t is responsible to educate citizens and encourage active participation

Mill’s Best Political Order

What type of government was a legitimate government for Mill?

• For Mill the best form of government is representative government whose existence
depends on advanced civilization and literate society

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 • proposed the election system of proportional representation by which he meant that
better-educated citizens would have more than one vote

• He holds the view that a simple majority rule would not lead to a better and wiser
government or public policy; the mass of people remains ignorant, selfish and foolish

• He was an advocate to free trade, parliamentary reform, secret voting, equality of women
and universal suffrage, annual elections, trade unions and reform of land tenure

Mill’s Idea of Liberty

How did Mill conceive liberty?

- noted, the tyranny of the majority is especially dangerous to individual liberty

because the minority are forced to change its views or learn to conform to
socially accepted norms.

- He proposed that the proper balance between individual liberty and governmental
authority can be stated as a simple principle as: “The only purpose for which
power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community
against his will is to prevent harm to others.”

According to Mill, the government is never justified in trying to control, limit or restrain:

• Private thoughts along with their expression publicly

• Freedom of speech

• Freedom of publication or press

• individual tastes and pursuits as efforts to live happily

• Freedom of association of like-minded individuals.

Individuals can achieve their happiness only when they are free to pursue their interests.

Do you accept the idea that a person should be allowed to harm himself, for instance, by
committing suicide?

- according to Mill’s view, a legislation that attempts to promote good conduct or to

prevent people from harming themselves is always wrong.

- society should not endeavor to limit the amount or prevent individuals from drinking
alcohol and taking drugs. In a similar fashion, society should not interfere in a person’s

44
 right to commit suicide. But society can rightly prosecute a person for harming others
while drunk.

- His “no harm principle” prohibits individuals or the government from interfering with the
actions of individuals except to prevent actions that will have harmful consequences on
others

- Like Bentham, he attacked the notion of natural rights arguing that rights do not exist
without social context

- He advocated an economic system that would combine free enterprise/ Laissez- faire and
a measure of government involvement in the economy.

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Unit 4: Emmanuel Kant and the Birth of Idealism

Contents - The State and Perpetual Peace

- Defining Idealism

Q. What is idealism?

- emerged in the 19th and 20th century Europe. Politically, idealism refers to a belief of a
movement or a person that a people or society is capable of improving and achieving
positive ends such as equality, dignity, progress, democracy and freedom through
positive social reforms.

- It was challenged by conservatives in 2 ways. What are they?

• There is an inherent limit to human capacity for goodness (through sin, historical culture,
ignorance) that makes idealism an inaccurate, immature view of humanity; and

• Those human limitations show themselves in idealists through pride, self-righteousness

and intolerance.

Q. The most known idealist movements are????????

*the animal rights movement, socialism and environmentalism

Q. Do you think that animals should have rights equal to human beings? What is
animal rights movt’t about?

• Animal rights movement: It is a political movement that emerged primarily in the 20 th

century that argues for rights of non-human animals (dogs, cats, foxes, chickens etc)
against domination or use by human beings. This ranges from opposition to
experimentation on animals (for medical or cosmetic research) to the prevention of cruel
or neglectful treatment of farm or domestic animals, to vegetarianism, or the non-eating
of meat.

• The philosophic foundation of this movement lies in the assumption that all living species
are equal and equally worthy of dignity and freedom.

• Socialism: It is an idealist movement which believes in society’s capacity to eliminate

greed and poverty at the last stage of human history, i.e. communism.

• Environmentalism: It is an idealist movement that cares for the protection of the natural
ecology.

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Q: Imply the essence of the 2nd meaning of Idealism

• The second meaning of idealism implies that it is a formal philosophical school that
locates reality in ideas and perceptions of the mind. This version of idealism
originated in Germany.

• For philosophers, German idealism usually means the philosophy of Kant and his
immediate followers.

• The term “German Idealism” refers to a phase of intellectual life that had its origin in the
Enlightenment period as modified by German conditions.

• English and French representatives of the Enlightenment, giving precedence to sensation,

had become empiricists and skeptics.

• They viewed the world as a great machine, adopted hedonism as their ethics, and
interpreted history from a subjective-critical point of view.

• Idealism asserts that mind, consciousness and ideas determine the nature of social being
and shape its material conditions.

• Idealism rejects the existence of a divinely ordered natural law. Hence, it sees human
ideas as constructed reality (social and governmental institutions) that become the truth.

Section Two: The State and Perpetual Peace

Q: What is the role of the state in Kant’s view?

• Kant regards the state as a union of a multitude of men under law.

• He argues that the end purpose of the state is for the advancement of mutual freedom of
citizens through their common obedience to law.

• Besides, he assigns to the state the responsibility of guaranteeing civil liberty in which
nobody will be obliged to obey anything else other than those decreed by law.

• In a just civil government, the rights of humanity are secured, establishing a reciprocal
obligation on the part of each citizen to respect the rights of others

• Thus, some limitations on freedom exist through the rule of law and the state’s right to
punish

• For Kant, then, the value of legitimate government is that it guarantees our natural rights
to freedom and equality and provides us a foundation from which to acquire other rights.

Q: What are the two forms of gov’t for Kant? What chrzes each?

47
 Republicanism Despotism

-a constitutional government in which there All the rest forms of government fall in the
is an elected legislative assembly under the category of despotism.
principle of separation of power. Kant
thought that it is only a republican
government which can avoid war and crimes.
Q: How can International Peace be maintained? According to this view,

- the real relation between nations is analogous to the hypothetical relations among
individuals in the state of nature.

- Just as public justice must be established in the single, domestic state to secure each
individual’s right to freedom within that state, public justice must be established on a
global scale too so as to secure the rights of all humanity.

- For mankind to reach its ultimate destiny, Kant proposed a voluntary federation of
states, or a “league of nations”, whose common law would preserve equality and mutual
respect among nations.

- However, this federative body cannot have sovereign power over the sovereignty of
member states. Ultimately, Kant suggested in his Perpetual Peace (1795) that only such
a world federation would bring an end to war and lead to the realization of justice and the
guarantee of civil liberty.

Q: How do you evaluate the effectiveness of this federation in the absence of a sovereign
power to impose binding decisions on member states?

- - In Kant’s analysis, it is in accord with nature’s plan that evil things such as war, crime
and tyranny will ultimately lead to their opposites.

- He thought that through long years of human progress, these evils teach humanity
lessons.

- Finally, he thought that permanent peace would prevail.

- - He opposes the formation of a world government or a universal state. The reason is that
a universal state will lead to universal despotism and if a government gets more power,
then law will lose its force.

Q: Discuss steps to sustain world peace, according to this view;

steps that are necessary for world peace. Some of them are:

48
• The suspension of hostility among warring states to stop war does not guarantee peace.
For him, peace means an end to all hostility, which can be possible only under a
federation of states,

• Standing armies should be abolished because they are threats to others. He argued the
presence of national armies would disrupt peace. Besides, he maintained the idea that the
use of soldiers to kill and allow them to be killed is immoral. In fact, in line with this,
Kant has also developed a deontological theory of ethics that rejected the utilitarian
consequentialist theory of ethics.

• A state’s interference in the affairs of another state should be prohibited.

Reading Assignment

• What kind of government is a world federation of states and on what grounds does it
differ from the current United Nations?

• Which do you think will bring about worldly peace- a federation of states or a universal
state? Why?

Chapter 5: Socialism, Marxism-Communism

49
 Contents
• Hegelian Dialectical Idealism
• Hegel’s Dialectics
• Definition Origin and Evolution of Socialism and Communism
• Karl Marx and Dialectical Materialism
• The Genesis of Marxist Philosophy
• Marx’s Material Forces
• Economics as a Motor Force of History
• Class Antagonism
• Marx’s Theory of Alienation
• Social Revolution and the Role of the Proletariat
• Soviet-Style Communism
• Imperialism and the Need for a Vanguard Communist Party
• Features of a Marxist-Leninist State
5.1. Hegelian Dialectical Idealism

Q: Who was Hegel and what he did? Explain his dialectical idealism

• George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was the most prominent German philosophers.
Hegel was a philosopher in Berlin University.

• It is Hegel who laid the philosophical foundation for Marxian thought. He was the
founder of modern idealism and dialectical idealism.

• Within Hegelianism, dialectic acquires a specialised meaning of a contradiction of ideas

that serves as the determining factor in their interaction; comprising three stages of
development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction; an antithesis, which contradicts or
negates the thesis; and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a
synthesis.

Q: What does he said about history and reason?

• He wrote about the philosophy of history and reason. According to Hegel, history and
reason are not separable.

• In his view, history is in essence a march of Spirit toward a determined and identified
goal or endpoint.

• Hence, Hegel does not want to construct an ideal state but to rehabilitate the real state in
showing that it is rational.

• Hegel wants to show the rational in the irrational. Not only does he want to discover the
necessary essence of the state behind the contingent details, but he also wishes to show
that what appears irrational in the state itself works unconsciously toward the triumph of
the rational.

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 • But, what appears contradictory initially will finally be brought into harmony.

• Therefore, Hegel believed that the bad leads to the good, the passion to reason,
contradictions into synthesis

• He takes us to objective idealists who believe that reality is idealistic or spiritual in

nature, but it exists objectively or independently of us ‘out there’.

• Hence, Hegel said that reality was spiritual but it is under constant movement and
change.

• God controls the movement of human history.

• According to Hegel, the final mechanism by which this historical-spiritual process is

achieved is called dialectic.

Hegel’s Dialectical Conception of History

• Dialectic’ means the give and take between opposite states resulting always in higher
unity.

• In the views of Hegel, a thesis represents a given dominant idea, form of government,
social organization or religious belief at a certain phase of human history.

• According to Hegel, it is natural that every thesis produces its own enemy (antithesis),
which will ultimately destroy the thesis.

• The contradiction between the two opposites gives rise to the emergence of a synthesis,
which will transform itself to a thesis.

5.2. Socialism & Communism

Origin and Definition of Socialism and Communism

• Before defining socialism and communism, let us assess the socio-economic environment
that laid the foundation for new economic systems.

Q: What are conditions that led to dev’t of Socialism?

- The origins of twentieth-century socialist movements are found in 19 th Century Europe.

Socialism emerged as a reaction to the excesses of the industrial revolution and free enterprise.

- Over the course of the 19 th Century, the spread of manufacturing in Britain, France, Germany
and several other countries rapidly affected the cities and countryside with grimy factories and
slums.

51
 • Men, women, and children worked long hours for fewer wages. For much of the century,
governments did not do anything to regulate working hours, safety standards, or child
labor. Rather, business owners were free to deal with their work force as they wished.

• Moreover, health care and unemployment insurance either did not exist at all or were
grossly inadequate.

• The majority of the working class faced a desperate future with little hope of improving
their lives. Peasants who owned little or no land also labored for their landlords under
similarly difficult circumstances.

• Therefore, in the first half of the 19th Century, a number of socialist thinkers devised
detailed plans to replace the free-enterprise system (capitalism) with an entirely different
economic system.

• Capitalism was an exploitative and unstable economic system that had to be replaced by a
more human society based on the values of equality and community.

• The new economic systems were to enable the workers, or the people as a whole to
collectively own the factories, farms, mines, and other productive enterprises.

• Hence, it was thought that common ownership of the economy would replace private
ownership. Western literatures call these thinkers utopian socialists.

• The word Utopia originates with Sir Thomas More’s design for an ideal society, which he
devised in his book, Utopia, published in 1516. By extension, it denotes an imaginary
ideal society.

• An ideal society is typically one from which present evils have been eradicated and in
which perfect peace, harmony and social justice prevail. The earliest Utopia is Plato’s
Republic.

• However, efforts to establish ideal socialist communities largely failed in Europe.

Q: Who was the Pioneer of Socialism?

• It was Karl Marx who elaborated a more enduring approach to socialism. Utopian
socialists significantly influenced Marx. But in the course of his long career, he
developed a far more complicated system of thought that incorporated elements of
philosophy, history, economics, sociology and political theory.

• Marx turned out to be a principal intellectual source of the twentieth-century socialism. In

fact, his contemporaries and subsequent generations interpreted his complex ideas in
different ways.

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 • Yet, Marx himself shared the basic notion of the utopian socialists that capitalism was
inherently flawed. Hence, he argued that common ownership of property by the working
masses had to replace it.

Q: What does Socialism represents?

• Socialism represents a long tradition of political thought that emphasizes the values of
social equality and social solidarity. Its modern form began in the early 19 th century as a
response to industrialization.

• Earlier forms of socialism are based on small self governing communities. But, the
modern form of socialism stresses on state ownership and central economic planning.

• The revolutionary form of socialism is Marxism, which has a history of its own.

• However, it should be noted that most socialists seek to bring about social change
through peaceful means instead of revolutionary method.

• Therefore, in its original nineteenth-century conception, socialism became a political and

economic system in which some form of common ownership of factories, farms and other
productive enterprises would replace private enterprises.

Q: What is Communism? Tell differences with socialism

• Most nineteenth century theorists, including Marx, made no sharp distinction between
“socialism” and “communism” and used these words interchangeably.

• The experience of communist countries led many socialists to believe that the abolishing
of capitalism as a system was not a necessity. Rather, they focused on the creation of
ideal societies in terms of state-managed capitalism and extensive welfare systems.

• According to Marxist theory, communism is the final and the last stage of social
development. As an idea, it is a very old one.

• Western political thought has various ideas on communism in different forms for more
than 2000 years dating back to Plato’s communism.

• But, modern communism derives in most part from the works of Karl Marx and Fredric
Engels. It is a political theory and system which believes that greater equality and justice
will prevail in society where no private ownership of productive property exists.

• It places ownership of the means of production (property) in the community.

Q: How does communism characterizes human nature?

• Communism assumes that man is in general good.

53
 • It is private ownership of property that corrupts humans, thereby making them greedy,
selfish, arrogant and uncooperative.

• In other words, communism assumes that it is the social environment that causes immoral
behavior among human beings.

• This is a direct opposite of the classical, Christian and liberal political perspectives which
believe that evil exists in human nature.

Q: Identify & Explain the dimensions of Communism

• Communism has two dimensions. These are theoretical and practical.

• The former dimension has its clearest form in The Communist Manifesto which Marx
and Engels together wrote in 1847. However, the actions and programs of its great
leaders reveal its practical dimension.

• However, the latter is more important in the definition of communism.

• Communism is mainly a practical doctrine. For communism to take place, there should
be a revolution. In the views of Marxist-Leninists, the proletariat, under the vanguard of a
communist party, carryout the revolution. To achieve this aim, the working class makes
use of every possible means of violence and insurrection.

Q: Explain the laws of contradiction, according to Marx-Engels-Lenin’s interpretation

• According to the writings of Marx and Engels and Lenin’s interpretations, the laws of
contradictions in which material forces play the decisive roles cause all social progress.

• The society is divided into two contending social classes: the dominant or exploiting, and
the dominated or exploited.

• The former becomes the thesis and the latter anti-thesis, and the contradiction between
them leads to a new social development, i.e. synthesis. On the basis of this explanation,
Marx and Engels could predict that socialism replaces capitalism.

Q: Who was Lenin? What does he did?

• But, as it could not occur in any capitalist country especially in Europe, Lenin discovered
the growth of capitalism into a form of imperialism that caused the First World War. This
implies that the crisis of capitalism that Marx and Engles predicated might not lead to its
collapse. Because as Lenin discovered it later, capitalism has various mechanisms to
reform itself and survive for a long period of time.

• As Lenin forcefully argues, in any and every serious revolution, a long, obstinate,
desperate resistance of the exploited, who for many years will yet enjoy great advantage

54
 over the exploited, constitute the rule. Never will the exploiters submit to the decision of
the exploited majority without making use of their advantages in last desperate battle or a
series of wars.

Q: What are the 2 stages that envisage the doctrine of communism?

• After successful socialist transition, there are two steps envisage the doctrine of
communism.

• The transitional stage comes after the victory of the working class in a social revolution
and establishment of proletariat dictatorship by abolishing the class of capitalists, feudal
lords, reactionaries and counter-reactionaries aiming at the creation of a classless society.

• The final stage is the ‘post-revolutionary stage’ or the last phase of social development
ensuring full freedom of man. It is the goal towards which the communists have to move.
Communist society is the final stage of human history as envisioned by Karl Marx.

• It follows the “withering away” of the socialist state. In Marx's view, capitalism comes
into power via the thesis-antithesis-synthesis paradigm, and will inevitably be overthrown
by the same way to create socialism.

• However, socialism will not be overthrown but will be a transition naturally into
“stateless communism”. Some writers object that Marx did not explain the (natural)
process by which socialism transforms to communism.

5.3. Karl Marx and Dialectical Materialism

The Genesis of Marxist Philosophy

Q: Who was Karl Marx? Trace the Genesis of his philosophy

• Karl Marx was born to a Jewish family in Germany and lived from 1818-1883. He
quickly became attracted to the ideas of Hegel especially his philosophy of dialectical
process of history.

• But Marx rejected Hegel’s assumption that God dictated the dialectical process because
Marx was an atheist at the time. By rejecting Hegel’s dialectical idealism, he developed
the theory of dialectical materialism.

• In his dialectical materialism, Marx combined Hegel’s dialectical evolution of history

with a new idea, i.e. material forces, not God, control the dialectical process.

• He developed a highly coherent theory of history, politics, economics and revolution. His
major work is Capital, whose first volume was published in 1867. It was Engels who
published the subsequent volumes following Marx’s death in 1883.

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 • As he wrote, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways.” He
said, “The point, however, is to change it.”

Q: What was/is/will be the main force dictating human history? What were r/ns b/n Marx and
Engels?

• In his early manuscripts on political economy, Marx concluded that economic factors
were the primary material sources of human action.

• In this new endeavor, Friedrich Engles (1820-1895), who was a son of a wealthy German
industrialist, joined him.

• The two became lifelong collaborators. Yet, Marx was the creative thinker while Engels
contented himself with popularizing Marx’s ideas.

• One of their most famous works was the Communist Manifesto. In this and other
subsequent works, Marx developed two critical ideas that defined the meaning of
dialectical materialism in practice.

Q: Explain Historical or philosophical materialism

• Historical or philosophical materialism is a political theory developed by Marx and

Engels that conceives historical change and progress as motivated by technological
advancement in economic production. It sees most of social phenomenon as
superstructures which reflect the materialist structure of the economy.

• For instance, the organic and hierarchical theology of Medieval Christianity reflects the
social class structure of the European Middle Ages and economic feudalism.

• This theory believes that it has discovered the laws of history, which prove that
capitalism will inevitably lead to socialism and then communism. Like that of Darwinian
Theory of biological evolution, it believes that human progress follows natural laws.
Hence, it rejects any supernatural and spiritual dimension to human history.

Marx’s Material Forces

Q: Explain the materialist view of history.

• According to Marx, economic factors determine everything else that happens in human
affairs. In other words, Marx thought that the motivating force for every human action is
the necessity to produce the means of subsistence (survival).

• This materialist view of history starts from the premise that the most important
determinant of social life is the work people are doing, especially work that results in the
provision of basic necessities of life, food, clothing and shelter.

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 • He also assumes that the way each work is socially organized and the technology used in
production would have a strong impact on every other aspect of society.

• In other words, what men work determines the essence of humanity, i.e. human beings
express themselves in what they produce. He maintained that everything of value in
society would result in human labor. Thus, Marx saw working men and women are
engaged in making society and in creating the conditions for their own existence.

Q: Explain “means of production and r/ns of production

According to Marx,

• All economies are based on certain material “means of production”, which include
factories, land, technology, and the human labor

• All economies have distinctive “relations of production,” which are the social
relationships that exist among individuals and groups that participate in the production
process.

The following examples show the relations of production that exist at different stages.

• Example 1: Under conditions of slavery, the relations of production centered on the

relationship between masters and slaves.

• Example 2: In nineteenth-century industrial capitalism, the relations of production

centered on the interactions between private employers and the work force.

• Marx claims that the means of production and the relations of production together form
the base of society.

Q: Explain the base of society

• Is the relationship between the infra-structure (i.e. the means of production and the
relations of production) and the super-structure ( i.e. the forms of state, politics, art,

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 morality, ideology, religion, law, science, education, society and so on).

• Hence, the economic base (infrastructure) determines the superstructure. To put it

narrowly, economic determines and influences politics.

• In this manner, whoever controls the economy also controls the political system and the
social institutions that support the class structure of society. Ideology and social
institutions, in turn, serve to reproduce and perpetuate the economic class structure.

Class Antagonism

Q: Explain Marx’s concept of Class Antagonism

• Marx maintained that whenever there was private ownership of the means of production,
social classes would come into being.

• From Marx’s point of view, the relationships between the main social classes under
conditions of private property, are invariably antagonistic.

• Thus, “The history of all hitherto existing society,” he wrote in the Manifesto, “is the
history of class struggles.”

Example 1: In the ancient world slave owning society, master class and the slave class were in
hostile confrontation.

Example 2: In the nineteenth-century capitalism of Europe, the capitalist class confronted the
working class.

Q: Who are the bourgeoisie & Proletariat?

• Marx used the term “bourgeoisie” in reference to the capitalist class. The term comes
from the word ``bourg``, to mean city. During Marx’s time, industrial capitalism was
largely an urban phenomenon.

• The bourgeoisie consisted of few entrepreneurs who owned factories and other
productive enterprises, together with other private business people who profited from
provision of services in a free-enterprise economy. These business people included
bankers, lawyers, accountants and so on.

• According to Marx, the term “proletariat” comes from the Latin term proletarians which
refers to the industrial working class, which mainly consisted of factory laborers.

Q: Explain how these 2 classes operate under the laws of the dialectic

• In Marx’s view, these two classes are natural enemies operating under the laws of the
thesis and antithesis of Hegelian philosophy.

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 • According to the laws of the dialectic, the bourgeoisie creates the class that will destroy
it. By building factories, the capitalists in effect create the working class.

• Marx wrote that “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all is its own grave-
diggers.” This is a natural part of human history which the bourgeoisie cannot avoid.

• Marx believed as industrial capitalism matures over time the “contradictions” inherent in
the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat inevitably intensifies.

• The rich grow richer while the poor get poorer. Moreover, there is a fierce competition
among capitalists to get profit. In this fierce competition, capitalists exploit the working
class more than ever before. Then the most successful capitalists drive their competitors
out of business.

• Marx calls this process of competition monopolization. As a consequence, the

bourgeoisie class shrinks in size and society’s wealth concentrates in very few hands.

• The middle class, consisting of small and independent property owners such as shop
owners, artisans, small farmers, and so on, are also victimized by the relentless pursuit of
capitalist competition.

• Thus, crushed by aggressive large-scale businesses, the middle class literally disappears
and sinks into the working class.

• In this manner, the number of the proletariat increases and it becomes beyond the
capitalist system’s ability to employ them. Then, the unemployed grow into a vast
“reserve army of the proletariat,” called the lumpen proletariat.

Q: What is the role of state and its institutions, according to Marx in this process?

• Meanwhile, the capitalist elite use its control over the state to reinforce its subjugation of
the proletariat. For Marx, therefore, the state is always an instrument of class domination.

• The manifesto says, “Political power is merely the organized power of one class for
oppressing another.” He says that in capitalist societies, the executive of the modern state
is simply a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie.

• Police power, for instance, is used to enforce property rights and guarantee unfair
contracts between capitalists and workers. Religion serves capitalist interests by
pacifying the population; intellectuals, paid directly or indirectly by capitalists, spend
their careers justifying and rationalizing the existing social and economic arrangements.

• In Marx’s view, electoral democracy in capitalist societies does not generate any hope for
the working class. He rejects it as nothing more than a “bourgeois democracy,” whose
machinery the capitalist class manipulates for its own benefit.

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 • Electoral democracy, the legislatures, political parties and politicians, he maintains, do
not benefit the working class.

• When the proletariat eventually grows in number, Marx argues, the time becomes ripe
for carrying out a social revolution.

• The several social theories that emphasize social conflicts have roots in the ideas of Karl
Marx.

Q: Identify the emphasis of Marxist conflict theory of state. Explain his materialist
interpretation of history.

• In general, the Marxist conflict theory of state emphasizes on a materialist interpretation

of history, a dialectical method of analysis, a critical stance toward existing social
arrangements, and a political program of revolution or, at least, reform.

• Marx divided human history into five stages.

Q: Identify these stages and Indicate what form of economic and social organization
characterizes each of the successive phase?

• According to Marx’s outline of history, a sophisticated form of economic and social

organization characterizes each successive phase.

1. At the dawn of civilization, when cave dwellers and forest people shared the land, a
classless primitive communism prevailed.
2. As the centuries unfold, the world of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome emerged with
class struggles between slave masters and slaves.
3. This economic system gave way to medieval Europe, with aristocratic feudal landowners
confronting impoverished serfs and a rising business class, i.e. the bourgeoisie.

At approximately the same time, China and other parts of Asia experienced a mode of production
in which a central state organizes vast hydraulic (i.e., water management)

4. The fourth stage of history is Marx’s own time and place, i.e. 19th century Europe.
Characterized by industrial capitalism and the fierce struggle between the bourgeoisie
and proletariat; this stage has witnessed extraordinary scientific and technological
achievements. However, it was destined from the start to explode in a working class
revolution.
5. Socialism/Communism, the fifth stage of human history, would be the final stage,
marking humanity’s arrival at a state of veritable social perfection.

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Q: Explain Marx’s Theory of Alienation

• Marx’s Theory of Alienation

Marx’s Theory of Alienation is one of the most popular theories of Marx.

• It refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism
between things that are properly in harmony.

• It is based upon his observation that in industrial capitalism, workers inevitably lose
control of their lives. They do not have any control of their work and products of their
labor. The workers receive less that helps them to survive only

• As the exploitation increases, labor becomes a mere commodity. Machinery substitutes

creativity and skill. Since labor is part of the essence of humanity, Marx, assumes, this
situation alienates workers from themselves.

• Thus, they become dehumanized, deriving their satisfaction only from physical
pleasures. By so doing, capitalism creates complete alienation.

• Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because in work, each contributes to the common
wealth, but can only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a
production system that is not publicly social, but privately owned, for which each
individual functions as an instrument, not as a social being.

Q: What are the 4 types of alienation of labor under capitalism, according to Marx?

Marx forwards four types of alienation of labor under capitalism are:

• Alienation of the worker from his or her human nature , which is meant to produce freely
but is tied to forced labor. The worker’s life fails to manifest the characteristics of a truly
human life. He is also alienated from nature itself, which humanity is supposed to
control, but which enslaves humans;

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 • Alienation between workers (alienation from the community of his fellow men).
Capitalism forces individuals to compete and fight with each other while human nature
requires them to be cooperative to fulfill every one’s needs. Hence, it destroys social
relationships;

• Alienation from the process of production itself in that work comes to be a meaningless
activity, offering little or no intrinsic satisfactions to the worker.

• Alienation of the worker from the product he produces because the labor is not performed
freely and creatively so that the worker does not recognize or understand it. The product
is appropriated by the capitalist class, and becomes outside the worker’s control. His
labor, instead of producing something beneficial to the worker, produces misery.

Hence, the worker’s product becomes an alien, hostile, powerful and independent object in the
hands of capitalists. Private property is thus the product, the result and the necessary
consequence of alienated labor.

Q: What, when and how is Proletarian Revolution; and explain the role of proletariat in
the revolution?

Social Revolution and the Role of the Proletariat

• A proletarian revolution is a social and/or political revolution in which the working class
attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie.

• It is socialists particularly those of the communist variety that advocate proletarian

revolutions.

• In the Marxist view, proletarian revolutions will inevitably happen in all capitalist
countries regardless of any other super-structural differences. The workers themselves
take possession of factories, farms, and other productive enterprises.

• The proletariat, armed with a growing “class consciousness,” ultimately takes matters
into its own hands, undertaking the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions in
a spontaneous revolutionary outburst.

Q: Then, after revolution, what to happen?

• In some cases, the workers may have to establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat” to
supervise the gradual takeover of economic power from the capitalists. state, as Engels
put it, “dies out.”

• While politics withers away in communist society, economic conditions of the masses
vastly improve that is “From each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs.”

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 • They did not also outline a communist “constitution,” because there would be no
government since a classless and stateless society is to be established.

Q: What are Legacies of Marxism?

• Marxism has left its own legacy in both economic and political spheres.

• Economically, as stated earlier, West European countries have developed a social

democracy, a political system in which they mix private enterprise with that of a welfare
state system.

Features of a Marxist-Leninist State

• In contrast to Marx’s tenets, Soviet rulers created a powerful state. Thus,

• Instead of “dying out”, the state grew into a huge bureaucratic arm of Communist party
rule. The Soviet state became a highly politicized state.

• The state consisted of party and governmental institutions that joined in propagandizing
the population, controlling media, repressing dissent, implementing policies over which
the people had little or no influence. They key idea of Leninism is the primacy of the
communist party. It is the party that leads the revolution. He believed that it should be the
party that should govern the country once the revolution has eliminated its enemies.

Unit-6: Anarchism

Q: What do you think Anarchism mean? Let U guess its meaning and list some of its major
views about state and government.

6.1. Meaning of Anarchism

Literally- derived from Greek ‘anarchos’- without ruler.

• As a theory- refers to a natural state of society in which people are not governed by
submission to human-made laws or to any external authority.

• Anarchism is above all a moral doctrine concerned with maximizing the personal
freedom of individuals in society.

• As such, anarchism is the belief that governmental regulation is both unnecessary and
harmful to society.

• Human beings are by nature good, but are corrupted by societal institutions.

• Those institutions, particularly the state, must be destroyed to allow the natural
development of voluntary associations among individuals and groups.

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 • In other words, anarchism is a political theory which rejects (and supports the elimination
of) compulsory government or compulsory rule, and holds that society can (and should)
be organized without a coercive state. Anarchists believe that government is
both harmful and unnecessary.

In general, Anarchism is a political theory that holds that

• all state authority and other forms of authority such as family, school, church or God are
oppressive and unjust;

• the abolishing of government will produce the greatest individual and collective freedom
and prosperity and;

• it is governmental authority that imposes unfair rules on people, steals their money, and
keeps them in slavery.

Q: Take time and think over the practicality or truth of the Anarchist views held over authority
(state, Government, others).

6.2. Origin and Development of Anarchism

How & when did Anarchist thinking originated & Developed in d/t parts of the world?

• Humans lived for thousands of years in societies without government;

• rise of hierarchical societies(coercive political institutions) is criticized & rejected by

anarchists.

• The "Tao Te Ching", written around the 6th Century B.C. by Lao Tzu, encouraged many
Chinese Taoists to live an anarchistic lifestyle.

• In ancient Greece, Diogenes of Sinope and Zeno of Citium argued (in opposition to
Plato) that reason should replace authority in guiding human affairs, and envisaged a free
community without government.

• a variety of anarchistic religious and political movements in Europe during the middle
ages but none had much widespread influence.

• Modern Anarchism arose from the secular thought of the Enlightenment

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 • Jean Jacques Rousseau’s arguments for the moral centrality of freedom

• William Godwin (1756 - 1836) developed what many consider the first expression of
modern anarchist thought

• He advocated extreme individualism, proposing that all cooperation in labor

be eliminated

• Edmund Burke advocated the abolition of government

• Thomas Jefferson spoke of his respect for a society with no government, such as he saw
in many Native American tribes,

• Henry David Thoreau was another influential American with Anarchist sympathies.

• Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first self-described Anarchist, and has been called
the founder of modern anarchist theory (as has Godwin)

• Proudhon proposed what he called spontaneous order, whereby organization (sufficient to

maintain order and guarantee all liberties) emerges without central authority

• In the 19th c, Anarchist Communist theorists -emphasizing the importance of

a communal perspective to maintain individual liberty in a social context.

• Those, Mikhail Bakunin (1814 - 1876) and Peter Kropotkin (1842 - 1921), built on the
Marxist critique of Capitalism and synthesized it with their own critique of the state

• In the 20th Century, Anarchists were actively involved in

the labor and feminist movements, in uprisings and revolutions such as the Russian
Revolution of 1917, and later in the fight against Fascism.

• Jean Jacques Rousseau, William Godwin, Edmund Burk, Thomas Jefferson , Henry
David Thoreau, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin & Peter Kropotkin, all argued
or wrote against coercive political institutions.

6.3. Variants of Anarchism

Except rejection of compulsory state or government or any other such authority, proponents of
anarchism may support anything from

• extreme individualism (the political outlook that stresses human independence and the
importance of individual self-reliance and liberty) to

• complete collectivism (the political outlook that stresses human interdependence and the
importance of the collective)

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• Philosophical Anarchism

-William Godwin(founding father);

- State has no right to command individuals;

- advocate no revolution but gradually freeing individuals;

- accept the existence of minimal state as ‘necessary evil’;

- but argue that citizens do not have a moral obligation to obey the state when its laws
conflict with individual autonomy.

• Individualist Anarchism (or Libertarian Anarchism)

- Max Stirner (best known proponent);

- individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by

any collective body or public authority;

- emphasize negative liberty; supportive of privately held property & free markets;

- egoist form of it is presented by Stirner, which supports the individual doing exactly what
he pleases, taking no notice of God, state or moral rules.

- Its d/t forms include:

 Mutualism

- largely associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809 - 1865)

- envisioned a society where each person might possess a means of production either
individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of
labor (the labor theory of value).

- support markets and private property in the product of labor only insofar as they ensure
the workers right to the full product of their labor.

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- Some commentators suggest that Mutualists are more concerned with association, and so
are situated somewhere between Individualist and Social or Collectivist Anarchism

- Free-Market Anarchism( Anarcho-Capitalism-

- is a more extreme form of Individualist Anarchism that attempts to reconcile

Anarchism with Capitalism,

- and it forms part of the broader movement known as Libertarianism.

- It advocates the elimination of the state;

- the provision of law enforcement, courts, national defense, and all other security
services by voluntarily-funded competitors in a free market rather than through
compulsory taxation;

- the complete deregulation of non-intrusive personal and economic activities;

- and a self-regulated market.

Gustave de Molinari (1819 - 1912) most important contributor to the theory,

- and in general its popularity was centered in the United States.

 Agorism

- is an extreme form of Anarcho-Capitalism and Libertarianism,

- developed by Samuel Edward Konkin III(1947 - 2004) and building on the ideas
of Murray Rothbard (1926 - 1995), which takes as its ultimate goal “a society in which
all relations between people are voluntary exchanges, a completely free market in an
underground or "counter economy" in which the State is redundant”.

• Social Anarchism

- emphasizes social equality, community, mutual aid and the communitarian and
cooperative aspects of anarchist theory and practice;

- at its heart is the idea of Libertarian Socialism (aims to create a society without political,
economic or social hierarchies);

- the d/t forms of Social anarchism include: - -- -

 Collectivist Anarchism (or Anarcho-Collectivism) is

the revolutionary doctrine, spearheaded by the Russian anarchist Mikhail
Bakunin (1814 - 1876),

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– advocated the complete abolition of the state and private ownership of the means
of production,

– which would instead be owned collectively and controlled and managed by

the producers themselves.

– The revolution was to be initiated by a small cohesive elite group through acts of
violence which would inspire the mass of workers to revolt and forcibly
collectivize the means of production, and the workers would then be paid based
on the amount of time they contributed to production.

– This wage system, and the idea of collective ownership (as opposed to a complete
rejection of ownership) are the major differences between Collectivist Anarchism
and Communist Anarchism.

– Bakunin was vociferous/determined in his opposition to Communism and state

Socialism, which he regarded as fundamentally authoritarian.

 Communist Anarchism-

– proposes a free society composed of a number of self-governing communes,

with direct democracy or consensus democracy (as opposed to representational
democracy) as the political organizational form, and related to other communes
through federation.

– The means of production would be collectively used (as opposed to collectively

owned) so that, rather than receiving payment for work done, there would be free
access to the resources and surplus of the commune.

– Anarcho-Communism stresses egalitarianism (that all people should be treated

as equals from birth) and the abolition of social hierarchy and class distinctions
that arise from unequal wealth distribution, as well as the abolition of Capitalism
and money.

– Early Anarchist Communist currents appeared during the English Civil War (1642
- 1651) and the French Revolution (1788 - 1799).

– Peter Kropotkin (1842 - 1921) and Emma Goldman (1869 - 1940) are perhaps
the best known Anarcho-Communists, although the Frenchman Joseph
Dejacque (1821 - 1864) was an earlier example.

 Anarcho-Syndicalism

– an early 20th Century form of Anarchism, heavily focused on the labor

movement.

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 – It posits radical trade unions as a potential force for revolutionary social change,
replacing capitalism and the State with a new society which would
be democratically self-managed by the workers.

– It seeks to abolish the wage system and private ownership of the means of
production, which they believe lead to class divisions.

– Anarcho-Syndicalists often subscribe to Communist or Collectivist Anarchism,

and the movement is more of a workplace organizational structure than an
economic system in and of itself.

– The German Rudolf Rocker (1873 - 1958) is considered the leading Anarcho-
Syndicalist theorist, and his 1938 pamphlet "Anarchosyndicalism" was
particularly influential.

6.4. Syndicalism: Meaning, Origin and Development

What is Syndicalism? Where & how did it evolved? Why did anarchists interested in
Syndicalism?

 Syndicalism is a form of revolutionary trade unionism;

 a movement for transferring the ownership and control of the means of production and
distribution to workers' unions

 emerged first in France; spread to Italy, Latin America, the United States and, most
significantly, Spain(2mln membership support)

 Evolved as a form of revolutionary trade unionism;

 drew upon socialist ideas and advanced a crude notion of class war;

 Workers and peasants were seen to constitute an oppressed class;

 the rest were portrayed as exploiters (industrialists, landlords, politicians, judges and the
police);

Why did anarchists interested in Syndicalism?

 syndicalists rejected conventional politics as corrupting and pointless

 They saw syndicates as a model for the decentralized, non-hierarchic society of the future
(constituting grassroots democracy)

6.5. Anarchism in the twenty-first century

Q: What do U think its fate is? What is happening to this thinking today?

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 • is a theory that has not been materialized yet. No country has ever tried to
implement anarchism as system

• Reading Assignment

• Why do you think this was its fate?

• Identify the three major drawbacks from which anarchism was suffered as a
political movement.

Unit 7: Fascism and Nazism

7.1. Meaning, Origin & Features of Fascism

- What is “Fascism”? What is “Nazism”?

- The term fascism comes from a Latin word, ‘fascio’ meaning ‘bundle’ or ‘bound
together’

- Fascism is an European ideology characterized by a belief in charismatic leadership,

elitism and extreme nationalism. It is a political theory that emphasizes on a unified
powerful state to which all individuals and groups submit.

- Fascism is an authoritarian Nationalist political ideology that exalts nation (and

often race) above the individual, and that stands for a centralized autocratic
government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social
regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

- National Socialism(Nazism), is nothing but Germany’s version of fascism.

Origin

• fascist beliefs date back to the late 19 th century, but it was the First World War & its
aftermath that shaped it

• Fascism is commonly associated with German Nazi and Italian regimes that came to
power after World War I

• Adolf Hitler in Germany, Benito Mussolini in Italy, Francisco Franco in Spain and Juan
Perón in Argentina were well-known fascist leaders of the 20th century

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 • Features

* fascism is a response to a specific combination of problems that face certain societies at a

particular juncture in their historical development (problem of democracy in Itly & Ger)

*it has 'anti-character'

-anti-French Revolution ideas

-anticapitalism, antiliberalism, anti-individualism, antidemocracy anticommunism,

*core theme- the image of an organically unified national community ('strength through unity‘)

*absorbed individual identity

*a hero motivated by duty, honor and self-sacrifice, prepared to dedicate his life to the glory of
his nation or race, and to give unquestioning obedience to a supreme leader.

*Italian Fascism was essentially an extreme form of Statism that was based on unquestioning
respect and absolute loyalty towards a 'totalitarian' state ('everything for the state; nothing against
the state; nothing outside the state‘)

*German National Socialism- constructed largely on the basis of racialism. Its two core theories
were Aryanism(‘master race’) & anti-Semitism

*Can you mention the two principal fascist leaders who practiced fascism in Europe in this
period?

*In economics, Fascism sees itself as a third way between laissez-faire capitalism on the one
hand and Communism or Socialism on the other

Q: List down the major elements of fascism

• Nationalism - based on the cultural, racial and/or religious attributes of a region.

• Totalitarianism-state regulation of nearly every aspect of public and private sectors.

• Statism-state intervention in personal, social or economic matters.

• Patriotism -positive and supportive attitudes to a "fatherland".

• Autocracy-political power in the hands of a single self-appointed ruler.

• Militarism- maintaining of a strong military capability and being prepared to use it

aggressively to defend or promote national interests.

• Corporatism-encouragement of unelected bodies which exert control over the social and
economic life of their respective areas.
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 • Populism-direct appeals to the masses, usually by a charismatic leader.

• Collectivism-stress on human interdependence rather than on the importance of separate

individuals.

Q: Explain how Fascism stands against Liberalism & Democracy?

*opposition to Liberalism

-minimal interference by government

*opposition to Democracy

-fundamental values & principles of Democracy

Types of Fascism

*Italian Fascism

The authoritarian political movement (1922-1943) by Benito Mussolini; original model which
inspired other Fascist ideologies

• Nazism or National Socialism

- the ideology and practices of the German Nazi Party (or National Socialist German
Workers' Party) under Adolf Hitler(1933 -1945)

- strongly nationalist, totalitarian, racist, anti-Semitic and anti-communist movement- grew

up due to Germany’s humiliation in WWI blamed to Jews (belief in Superiority of
Aryan race)

* Clerical Fascism

- combines the political and economic doctrines of Fascism with theology or religious
tradition- Catholic support for the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini

* Neo-Fascism

- Any post-World War II ideology that includes significant elements of Fascism, or that
expresses specific admiration for Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism; & also includes
Neo-Nazi movements

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Features of Fascism

Q: List & Explain major features of fascism?

• Hypernationalism

- an extreme version of nationalism(a notion that the members of one’s nation (or people) must
act together to achieve certain collective goals)

- the nation is exalted as the supreme political value

- national glory and self-assertion assume the highest priority (acts of Mussolini & Hitler)

• Racism (ideology based itself on hatred of other peoples)

- Concepts of racial purity(pure-blooded) and superiority was a central tenet of Nazi doctrine
resulting in Holocaust of Jews

• Totalitarianism (demand for the existence of a powerful and unified state)

- regards the state as an organic unity that subsumes all divisions

- Totalitarianism is an exceptionally intrusive form of authoritarianism in which the state

monopolizes control not only over all institutions of government but also over the
individual (private life), educational system, the media, science, and the arts

- willing to permit private firms to do business but these businesses were subject to all
sorts of state regulations through “corporations,”

- All divisions and diversity is taken as anathema/curse

- Believe as ‘it is in war that the nation is most united, disciplined and possessed of sense
of purpose and national pride’

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- Any questioning or criticizing of the government is considered treasonous and is punished by
death

National Socialism/Nazism (German version of fascism)

- Nazism is said to be Fascism taken in to its extreme form. Being Racist and anti-Semitic
elements signify how extreme it was.

Q: Does fascism appreciate intellectuality and knowledge?

• Fascist’s ideas and methods tend to be intellectually crude or rudimentary.

• Indeed, they despise intellectuals and sophisticated theory.

• Instead, they stress on instinct/nature, emotion, will and above all action.

• As a consequence, fascism is widely understood as a return into barbarism and a denial of

basic values of civilization.

Q: What were factors contributed for the success of fascism among Germans?

• Economic Depression

• The rise of communism

• The destruction of traditional German culture

• The weakness of liberal republicanism

Major Principles of Fascism

- It stands for omnipotent state(unlimited sovereignty of the state over all spheres). The authority
of the state is absolute, unlimited and indivisible. Individuals should worship the state

- Democracy is a luxury for rich nations of the world

*there is no place for opposition of any kind

*Freedom of expression and thought is banned and any organized political party or social group
is outlawed.

- A fascist state is not the state of people;

- It promotes the idea that sovereignty is vested in the nation and its exercise is in the
hands of a small section of a ruling party or junta (elite formed around the personality of
a charismatic leader)

- Fascism has no fundamental doctrinal basis (It is essentially empirical and practical)

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 - Establishment of corporatist state, a realization of autarky and economic self-sufficiency
of the nation (skewed towards the capitalist’s ideology with heavy state involvement)

- Fascism is anti-socialism, anti-communism and always advocates war and violence; anti-
pacifisim

7.2. Giovanni Gentile and His Fascist Philosophy

• Gentile is the intellectual father of fascist ideology

• served as the party’s chief theorist and minister in Mussolini’s fascist government

• Hegel’s dialectical philosophy influenced Gentile

• divided human nature into two identities: Particular will (private) & universal will(of
nation, heritage)

• individual knows himself by recognizing the universal will within him(obedience to the
state is the fulfillment of the individual)

• It is natural for the stronger to conquer the weaker

• Gentile’s fascism favored the traditional family and religion (could teach people about
loyalty, devotion and sacrifice outside the “self”)

• In fascist society, the state becomes a kind of God, demanding absolute obedience and
submission

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Unit 8: Contemporary Political Thought

Contents

- The Essence of the Theory of Justice - The Basic Structure of Society

- Rawls’ Conception of Justice - Liberation Philosophy

- Principles of Justice *The Theory and Practice of Civil

Disobedience
- The Original Position and Just
Institutions *Feminism

8.1. John Rawls’ Theory of Justice

1. The Essence of the Theory of Justice

1.1. Rawls’ Conception of Justice

Q: Who was John Rawls? What does he did?

- an American philosopher, the most important political philosopher of the 20th century

- wrote a series of highly influential articles (helped refocus Anglo-American moral and
political philosophy on substantive problems)

- His first book, A Theory of Justice (1971), revitalized the social-contract tradition

- In Political Liberalism (1993), he recast the role of political philosophy

- Rawls takes the basic structure of society as his subject matter and utilitarianism as his
principal opponent

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 - The first part of the Theory of Justice designs a social-contract-type thought experiment,
the Original Position

- The second part of the Theory of Justice checks the fit between the principles of Justice
as Fairness and our more concrete considered views about just institutions

- The third part of the Theory of Justice addresses the stability of a society organized
around Justice as Fairness

Q: What is the concern of the theory of justice in Rawls’ view?

- Rawls theory of justice refers to social justice, whose major subject is the basic structure of
society, i.e. the way in which major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties
and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation.

• Rawls conception of justices generalizes the social contract theory of Lock and Rousseau.

- his idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the objects of
the original agreement

- These are principles that free and rational persons would accept to further their own
interests in an initial position of equality

- These principles determine all further agreements and they specify the kinds of social
cooperation that people can enter into and the type of government that people should
form.

- It is this way of regarding the principles of justice that Rawls calls Justice as Fairness.
Justice as Fairness is thus offered to people who are neither saintly altruists nor greedy
egoists.

- We are, as Rawls puts it, both rational and reasonable. We have ends that we want to
achieve, but we are happy to achieve them together if we can, in accord with mutually
acceptable regulative principle

Q: What are the major principles of justice that we would agree to if we desire to cooperate
with others?

- Rawls bases this “justice as fairness” on two principles of justice:

- 1. That each individual has the right to the most extensive liberty (of speech, religion,
property, movement) compatible with the equal liberty of everyone else, and

- 2. That any social and economic inequalities of wealth and position are arranged so that
the result is a greater benefit to the least advantaged and that all high positions are
democratic and open to all people through equal opportunity.

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 - Each of these centrally addresses a different set of primary goods: the First Principle
concerns rights and liberties; the principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity concerns
opportunities; and the Difference Principle primarily concerns income and wealth.

- *For Rawls the first principle is more important than the second because he believes that
equal basic liberties cannot be sacrificed for greater economic and social benefits.

- Rawls held that these principles of justice apply to the “basic structure” of fundamental
social institutions (courts, markets, the constitution, etc)

- Rawls further argues that these principles were to be lexically ordered, thus giving
priority to basic liberties over the more equality-oriented demands of the second principle

- The society that best takes care of the least advantaged (Rawls’ “maximin strategy”, i.e.
maximizing the minimum) is a mixed economy: free-enterprise capitalism with extensive
government regulation for the common good and with social-welfare liberalism. Why?

Q: What kinds of principles of liberties are forwarded by Rawls?

- 1st. Rawls argues that we would affirm a principle of equal basic liberties, thus protecting
the familiar liberal freedoms of conscience, association, expression, and the like (notably
absent are liberties associated with property ownership and contractual exchange).

- 2nd. Principle requires fair equality of opportunity, paired with the famous (and
controversial) difference principle. This ensures that those with comparable talents and
motivation face roughly similar life chances, and those inequalities in society work to the
benefit of the least advantaged.

2. The Original Position and Just Institutions

2.1. The Basic Structure of Society

Q: What Rawls meant by ‘Basic Structure of Society’?

…“the way in which the major social institutions fit together into one system, and how they
assign fundamental rights and duties and shape the division of advantages that arises through
social cooperation.”

Q: Why he used this institution?

- To reduce defects in many institutions

- to organize society around fair principles of cooperation

- To put all efforts together so that the rules of the game are fair

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2.2. The Original Position

As thought by Rawls, What is the Original Position?

- Is a hypothetical situation developed by John Rawls as a thought experiment to replace the

imagery of a savage state of nature of prior political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John
Lock and Jean Jacques Rousseau.

- In Rawls’s theory of Justice as Fairness, the Original Position plays the role that the state
of nature does in the classical social contract tradition.

- The Original Position is hypothetically designed to accurately reflect what principles of

justice would be manifest in a society premised on free and fair cooperation between
citizens, including respect for liberty, and an interest in reciprocity.

- He assumes that Original positions fills the gap in Social contract (gov’t power is limited)
with representatives of citizens, being placed behind a “veil of ignorance”(w/c assures
that each party to the choice is equally placed with no one enjoying greater advantage
over the other

- Rawls specifies that the parties in the Original Position are concerned only with citizens’
share of what he calls primary social goods, which include basic rights and liberties,
economic and social advantages or opportunities such as wealth.

- Rawls also argues that the representatives in the Original Position would adopt the
maximin rule as their principle for evaluating the choices before them (making the choice
that produces the highest payoff for the least advantaged position, representing
formulation of social equality)

- 2.3. Just Institutions

Q: What does the idea of just institution imply?

- Implying the moral arbitrariness of fortune, Rawls argues that “The natural distribution is
neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular
position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that
institutions deal with these facts.”

Q: Is it reasonable to Rawls to say getting what one deserves is a direct basis for
distributional claims?

- - He says no! He suggests that it is much more reasonable to hold that whether one
deserves the compensation one can command in the job marketplace, for instance,
depends on whether the basic social institutions are fair. Are they set up so as to assure,
among other things, an appropriate relationship between effort and reward?

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8.2. Liberation Philosophy

8.2.1. The Theory and Practice of Civil Disobedience

The Origin of Civil Disobedience Theory

• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1868-1948),

- he was an opponent of racial discrimination

- he became an active figure in his country’s nationalism

- In India in 1914, he became a leading figure in the cause of Indian nationalism but
assassinated by a Hindu extremist in 1948

- Gandhism cannot be identified with any school of western political philosophy

- Gandhi’s place in the world of political theory is unique.

- The value of his social, political and economic ideas provides moral goals for people who
aspire to realize changes

Q: What is civil disobedience?

- The philosophy of civil disobedience goes back to classical and biblical sources

- the medieval philosophers who advocated the principle of loyalty to the Higher Law
(God’s law) even by violating civil laws

- modern origin dates back to an American writer, Henry David Thoreau

- He is the first to coin the term civil disobedience in his essay entitled On Duty of Civil
Disobedience in 1849

- Thoreau stated that he protested government law by refusing to pay tax due to his
opposition against the institution of slavery in the south.

- He argues that any failure to protest unjust laws was effectively contributing to that
injustice.

- He claims that the individuals, who grant the state its power in the first place, must follow
the dictates of conscience in opposing its unjust laws.

- Thoreau characterized a law unjust based on the following elements:

- When a law is degrading to human beings. The law that permits slavery and allows
torture of prisoners of war is degrading to humans

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 - When it is discriminatory. Laws that apply to one group but not to another are unjust. The
laws of Apartheid in South Africa until the 1990s and the caste system in India are
discriminatory

- When it is enacted by an authority that is not fully representative.

- When it is unjustly applied, that may harass the other

• Thoreau’s work had an enormous impact on Gandhi and he practiced to the extent of
liberating India from British

• The Essence of Civil Disobedience

Q: How M. Gandhi associate civil disobedience with Hindu belief?

- Gandhi’s belief was mainly in satya, which he calls Truth, Spirit or God.

- He maintains that satya is a principle of the universe that is applicable to humans and
non-humans.

- This finds its root in the Hindu belief that a supreme intelligence or truth rules the
universe.

- Gandhi assumed that as human beings are part of a whole through satya, all differences
of race, culture, class, religion and geography are irrelevant.

- He argued that the only justified and proper relationship between human beings is that of
love (compassion), i.e. unconditional concern for the welfare and happiness of others.

- It is this love that implies his principle of non-violent action in fighting against socio-
economic and political injustices.

- The achievement of moral and political goals through love is what he called satyagraha,
i.e. non-violent action.

- The use of civil disobedience proved that armed and violent revolution was not necessary
to change society.

- The civil rights movement of the United States in the 1960s used it as a model.

- Gandhi believed that mankind could eliminate all moral weaknesses.

- In an attempt to avoid moral weaknesses, he used to sleep with many women naked to
test his capability of resisting sexual impulses.

- His beliefs rest on the assumption that all bodily desires are moral degradations and
submission to material wants.

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 - He argued all desires beyond sustenance of life are bad.

- For him, goodness implies the avoidance of sensual and worldly sphere.

- Gandhi also disregarded Western civilization as based on unlimited material desires.

- He believed that western civilization resulted in alcoholism, prostitution, drug use,

accumulated wealth and unnecessary pride.

- As a result, he avoided even wearing factory-made clothes, preferring local hand-made

goods.

- Gandhi always wanted India to grow by using its traditions and rural and indigenous
agricultural system, rather than applying the Western model of growth.

Q: What is Civil Disobedience?

- By definition, civil disobedience is the refusal of an individual or a group to obey a law

or follow a policy, which is unjust, for moral, religious or other reasons.

- Practitioners of civil disobedience usually employ the non-violent technique of passive

resistance.

- Non-violence implies the positive quality of doing good to others rather than simply
refraining from doing bad

- Risking punishment or imprisonment, they attempt to bring about changes in the law.

- The major techniques of civil disobedience are: demonstrations, marches, hunger strikes,
the occupying of buildings, blockades, sit-ins and strikes and other forms of economic
resistance. - - Gandhi’s theory of civil disobedience became highly successful in India’s
independence struggle.

• The Nature and Role of the State

- On Gandhi’s account of the true essence or nature of mankind, the state, as we usually
encounter it, is the antithesis of how human beings should be organized.

- The state, through the use of its machinery, institutionalizes violence.

- Gandhi argues that the state encourages dependence and undermines self-reliance of
individuals.

- In other words, the state dehumanizes human beings. However, at the same time, he
recognized that mankind could not live without government.

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Q: How then should society organize government so as not to be inimical to the real nature of
man?

- Gandhi’s answer is that the state should be a minimal in its organization, which is non-
coercive and gives its citizens maximum freedom to develop their potentials and talents
with self-respect.

- This kind of state, he believed, commits itself to the development or improvement of all
human beings rather than a ruling class or the favored few.

- The state should be organized in such a way that there are self-governing communities
ruled by custom at local level.

- These small villages elect their representatives for districts, which in turn elect their own
representatives, provincial representatives.

- This kind of state would consist of small and self-governing villages, which can be
effective in realizing the goal of common moral values without coercion.

- There would be decentralization of authority.

- Based on this, the state operates through persuasion and understanding.

• Interestingly, Gandhi suggested that no mistake should be considered as a crime.

- He held the view that what government call ‘crimes’ are simply ‘social illness’, which
society can cure.

- He even argued that the state should not punish individuals for committing ‘crimes’.

- He stated that punishment is not the right solution because the only corrective mechanism
to such kind of illness is enlightening those who commit the mistakes and giving them
help.

• Although he favored majority decision, Gandhi feared about tyranny of majority. He,
however, suggested two remedial measures:

*The proper representation of minorities, and;

*The inalienable right of individuals to civil disobedience in cases when governments force them
to act contrary to their conscience. Denying such rights to individuals violates the moral nature
of humanity at all, he supposed.

• He was also critical of parliamentary democracy and rejects parliament as an institution

comprising of self-interest seekers serving as a ‘talking shop’.

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 - He rather preferred a new social and political order that ensures complete justice and
equality.

- In his view, the state continues to exist as an institution but not as an organized institution
of coercion.

- State institutions such as the army, the police, bureaucracy, courts, and industry would
continue for the sake of common welfare.

• Gandhi’s theory may be criticized.

- His emphasis on the goodness of man is refutable because he has considered one side of
human nature only.

- Besides, his characterization of the state as an instrument of exploitation and oppression

reflects only part of the reality because the state also provides citizens protection and
welfare.

• Gandhi disapproved private property in as far as it involves exploitation and inequality,

which accords primacy to material desires.

- But, he concedes that since private property is an established fact everywhere, it would
not be feasible to abolish it.

- Instead, Gandhi suggests that the rich should hold their property in trust for community,
taking from it what they need and distributing the surplus to the poor.

- Later on, however, Gandhi was realistic enough to realize that his initial expectation
might not work in reality unless the state distributes wealth to the poor through taxation,
restriction on the rights of inheritance and nationalization of land.

8.2.2. Feminism

Definition and Essence of Feminism

• Feminist aspirations underpinned after the publication of Mary

Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women ([1792]

• it was not until the emergence of the women's suffrage movement in the
1840s and 1850s that feminist ideas reached a wider audience, in the form
of so called 'first-wave feminism‘

• 'Second-wave feminism', however, emerged in the 1960s. This expressed

the more radical, and sometimes revolutionary, demands of the growing
Women's Liberation Movement (WLM).

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As such, Feminism is a social ideology associated with the women’s movement in the Western
world during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Although a diverse movement, feminists generally agree on three propositions:

• Men and women are fundamentally equal in rationality and ability;

• Society has historically denied women’s equality with men prevented women from
fulfilling their human capacities; and

• Women should engage in political activities to secure legal, political and economic
equality with men.

Strands of Feminism

a) Liberal feminists(‘equal-right feminism’)

The most important tenets of liberal philosophy was individualism

• has been concerned with equal rights for women which include achieving
equal economic opportunity in education, employment and professional
advancement; equal pay for equal work and getting equal access to
traditional male-dominated professions such as law, medicine, and clergy,
military and executive and administrative positions

• they never tried to transform society, but, they seek to establish equality
with men within the existing social order. Legislation is the main means of
achieving their objectives.

• The concern for equal status of women has led to the adoption of various
social policies in the West such as:

– Divorce laws

– Birth control policies

– Abortion rights, and

– Lesbian rights

b) Socialist Feminism

• In contrast, socialist feminists typically highlight the links between female subordination
and the capitalist mode of production, drawing attention to the economic significance of
women being confined to a family or domestic life where they, for example,

- relieve male workers of the burden of domestic labor,

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 - rear and help to educate the next generation of capitalist workers, and

- act as a reserve army of labor.

c) Radical Feminists (“difference” feminism)

- considers women to be different from men and superior to them.

- belief that men are responsible for and benefit from the exploitation of women

- They often concentrate on the family as one of the primary sources of women’s
oppression in society

- critics the liberal notion of legislative reform

- engaged in direct action and political opposition aiming at challenging the existing socio-
political order such as capitalism, private property, religion and patriarchy

- argue that women can be emancipated only through the abolition of the family and the
power relations that characterize it. Radicalists argue for the overthrow of patriarchy
through

• Not engage in sexual relationship with men,

• to reclaim power over sexual reproduction (for example through the use of technology
such as artificial insemination),

• to provide and organize in women-only organizations.

Conclusion On Feminism

• The underlying themes of feminism are therefore, first, that society is characterized by
sexual or gender inequality and, second, that this structure of male power can and should
be overturned.

• Feminist theory also argues that the current system fails to promote the interests and roles
of women in the world community.

• By ignoring women`s contribution and issues, the history and present system of as well
as the approach to international politics is considered as one-sided, masculinity and not
fully representative.

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