Do We Need Government? (The Social Contract) - 8-Bit Philosophy
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- Опубліковано 20 гру 2014
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Press Start for “Do We Need Government?” by 8-Bit Philosophy, where classic video games introduce famous thinkers, problems, and concepts with quotes, teachings, and more.
Episode 19: What’s the Purpose of Government?
(Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau & The Social Contract)
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It's a matter of scale. On a small scale, like _just_ my friends or family, we collectively don't need a government because we're small enough and trust each other enough to make collective decisions. Tribalism, it might be called. However, once several tribes decide to live in the same area and use the same resources you're now going to have people having to cooperate with people they don't like and don't trust which will inevitably lead to conflict. With this larger scale, a government becomes necessary. The larger you scale up the population, the more powerful the central government has to be to maintain order.
Except people don't magically dislike or distrust someone in a free market. I value your pen more than my dollar, and you value my dollar more than your pen. We thus agree to trade, both parties are happy. There is no distrust. There is no dislike. We don't need a government because the free market has shown people can get along even if they don't know someone.
wo0t7 That's all well and good in a world where everyone has something to trade, but this isn't the case. If there's one banana and five apples, and each person with an apple wants the banana, how do they decide who gets the banana? Equal trading isn't always possible, and this will manufacture a conflict. You also have to factor in human greed. Someone is swindle someone at some point out of greed, and this will CREATE distrust.
Even beyond this, how do we replicate public works projects? If there's no government, then nobody's paying the police. Nobody's paying the fire department. Nobody's paying for the maintenance of roads and nobody's paying the salary of teachers. How do we keep these necessary aspects of life in play? Expect everyone to pay out of pocket for them? How is that any different from levying taxes to do it, and how do you ensure that everyone pays their fair share?
The day that humanity is completely rid of greed and laziness is the day that we can exist without government, but no sooner.
Even familial systems don't simply run on trust, and do have formal social governance system (even if not codified in writing). The rules and laws are decided by the top of the social hierarchy (matriarch/patriarch), and punishments exist if they are broken. (Disownment being the highest punishment.) Resources are pooled for more efficient use, making the family more competitive than other families or autonomous people, thus propagating its own gene set.
Government is just the extension of this system to a larger group, a result of the need to be competitive against other collectives of families. Incidentally, you will see a decrease in larger family structures (clans etc) and the emergence of the nuclear family, as formal government takes the role of these larger family units in rule making, resource management, etc.
That's true up to a point. When you have groups of people on opposite sides of a continent, have different cultures/religion/values, and different methods of dealings the local government should take care of the specifics and then those people should accept those decisions and respect any decisions that differ when traveling to the other group/region. You wouldn't pass a bill that enforces a certain belief over a region where 2 different groups that hold radically different ideals. The best way to describe this is by making the central as vague as possible while allowing each region how they would like to proceed with the vague decision.
TheJaredtheJaredlong "Family" is just a micro-scale government.
It has hierarchy, a division of labor, rules and values.
No one chooses to give up their rights. A violent gang of thugs comes in and creates a monopoly on force. It then claims that its authoirty is legitimate and that it does it for your own good. It claims that it is necessary and puts fear into people by claiming that society would collapse without it. Then it has the audacity to claim that by merely living in its territory, you have agreed to a contract and that this legitimizes its rule. I ask, where does a governments legitimacy come from? Where does it gain the right to coerce and under what cirumstances are human beings obligated to obey? It is morally wrong for me to steal from my neighbors because I'm the only one with a gun and then use that money to build a bridge or a road. How does this change when the entity calls itself government?
Government: Ideas so good they have to be mandatory.
The sheep need to be led.
Get your statist aids out of here.
For instance: "Don't murder people."
@@spongeintheshoe And also: Wear clothes in public
Ppl are socially conditioned to believe we need overlords.
🤦♂️ we don’t need them!
I'm a political scientist (with degrees and everything!). It makes me so happy to see vids like this that talk about political theory and philosophy in a really accessible way.
The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.
During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
-Alexander Tyler
+Stunami Didn't you mean 2000 years?
So the Western world is on the 2nd to the last step now, it appears.
hahah America's in 'dependence', give it 40 years and well be back to bondage, why im ditching the whole thing saving up prepping for the move and independence,
I don't plan on living very long, I think I'll be around for the start of bondage but not too long after
@@filozof90 no civilization has lasted that long. Just because we use the same calendar doesn't mean we're all part of the same civilization
I think the social contract is innate in us. We voluntarily formed hunter-gatherer societies because there was greater strength in numbers. We're naturally pack animals in that sense. A group of 10 can gather more food and withstand more attacks from nature and other humans than a single person can.
If a ruling class becomes too oppressive, however, the social contract becomes broken. What was created to protect people becomes a threat to those same people. In those times it becomes necessary to rebel. But after every successful rebellion, a new ruling system would take its place, with the expectation that it would give security without oppression.
Yes. This is true, the new system can possibly not be better. However, it usually is different. And with difference, there is room for variation/mutation. And with that random (or not so random since humans are choosing it) selection a better more stable government for the people can be formed.
It's silly to think this why people decided to form societies though. Hunter Gatherers lived easier, but more insecure lives, they were free with only the contracts of relationships holding them together. Settled society happened as a result of the agricultural revolution producing a surplus in food, meaning that not everyone had to work and groups of people had to organize better to defend the surplus. Nomadic people were better fighters and could pillage at will if they wanted, so settled societies created a class that would defend them and a class that would lead them and a god that would affirm the whole affair in the eyes of nature.
Question is did people decided to form societies?
Hunters and Gathers lived easier?
I dont think so. why should there life be easier? Looking at hunter gathers tribes around the world show you that they too have some very complicated structures in their societies. Hell their u have it even a tribe is a society with all that what makes a society like rules(law), leaders, philosophy / religion etc. even politics inside the tribe and with other tribes (maybe they dont fight about fields for their agriculture but they fight about hunting grounds, political and spiritual difference, even for woman or to steal the other tribes children (no joke ;) ).
Nomadic people were better fighters? Again why?
I dont think so ;D. Nomadic people were maybe better hunters, which dont make you a good warrior.
Early agrarian societies were small and the first of them dont have to be bigger than any other tribe. Think on it, they didn't had what later agricultural society's had like cultured corps. So they were way more infective than we might think. Again take a look at cultures who lived to modern days that way (ex. indian tribes in Brazil). You will observe that most of them have something like a hybrid between agriculture and hunting. So hunters and gatherers vs agriculture people has probably never happened, because they never really met. And if they would, i bet that an early Greek phalanx would have rip them apart (and we are long long before a time were full time warriors existed, that dudes were all farmers too, no specialists).
EDIT: whit no cultured corps i dont mean they havent any crops i mean they have not breed it to a pont were it is nearly as productive than modern corps. In other words, the very first farmers cultivated something you would probably call nowadays "grass" ^^
AND i mean CROPS lol sry my english :D
Prometheus History has shown us that nomadic and semi nomadic peoples such as the centeral asian tribes, nomadic arabs, germanic tribes and even sub-saharan africa tribes were innately better warriors because defending their lives (either from one another or from the wilderness) was part of how they lived. Their lifestyle made them better fighters even though no one trained for it. Agricultural societies had to compensate with organization, training, and better equipment and still couldn't penetrate into the enemies territory.
It's been recorded in history that hunter-gatherers didn't work as many hours in the day as a settled farmer and didn't have to depend entirely on crops if they did farm because they could always depend on nature to have something worth harvesting. Tribal societies, especially those of the Americas since they were semi-agricultural, had very complex cultures, but if you study them you'd find they were quite laissez faire compared to say Rome or China or Persia. Everyone fought, everyone hunted, everyone farmed. no one "owned" any thing s/he didn't use every day. All those first europeans who didn't simply dismiss them as savage heathens often describes tribal society as a veritable paradise if it weren't for how violent they were. But most Native American societies never grew because agriculture never became that efficient or productive. They couldn't domesticate the native animals or produce a surplus that could reliably sustain a large population.
Only in Peru and Central America did such surpluses occur, and there you see very complex societies take root that look a lot like China and the Middle East. They had organized religion, a contingent of regular soldiers, shit the Inca had a centrally planned economy and a federated government. Why? because once wealth exists in a society it has to be defended and to do that people have to be organized. Tribes can be complex culturally, but not structurally or politically, because there isn't enough power in the system to back up that kind of complexity. Any sort of tribal politics always boils down to A.) what do the "wise men/women" think B.) what do the young warriors think and C.) what doesn't the 'chief' or most respected figure think. There's never been tribal bureaucracy calculating what number of people need to be fishing versus how many people need to be farming. Tribal societies were more organic than that, they lived in a state of nature. But if they ever came to the point where they could develop long term wealth and power, they'd HAVE to form a more complex society to defend it. hence the Aztec civilization which waged constant war against it's less developed neighbors to avoid being dominated by them (which they of course eventually were).
@KaiGonGinn i am not fully convinced of that theory but you made some good points there :)
i don't remember consenting to be governed, and when did i sign this social contract?
Read Crito by Plato and you'll answer your own question
Now I cant name any fancy books by philosophers but pragmatically speaking, if the 'leviathan' were to not exist we'd be back to the "might is right" system all over again (something which keeps occuring in nature on a daily basis)
B Venkat however humans don’t necessarily live in nature, at least not in the same way other sentient beings do. Supposedly we have the ability of rationality that we can use for the good. But if you think that humans would fail to be good in nature I wonder if we are really doing any better with government.
The idea of (Might is right) is not a system but rather an eternal truth whether you like it or not.
This was a critique leveled by David Hume, a friend of Rousseau's. In theory the social contract is good, but in reality most of us are born into a society without agreeing to the contract.
Where's Locke in this vid?
+Kibrom Fesseha
People should be allowed to do what they wish, but government is needed to protect private property and defend against tragedy of the commons.
The author is probably a lefty.
I would ask why a person cannot defend themselves or pay others to do it for them and how does violently enforceable authority defend against the tragedy of the commons?
or Hume or Calhoun or Montesquieu?
8 bit phil vids are short, it can't cover every single person to every contribute to the idea of the state of nature.
They Locke him away.
I'll show myself out.
Loved the new episode. You guys should do an episode on Edmund Husserl or Phenomenology. It's a super complex discipline of philosophy that would be awesome to see in 8bit style!
I still love watching these from time to time. Loved this era of this channel
no rulers, no masters
This is pretty much the best channel on youtube.
I prefer John Locke's view saying the government is needed to protect are natural rights being property, liberty, and life.
He meant by property that not only actual property but yourself. You have control over yourself so you can do anything to pursuit happiness.
Nome of this are natural rights. We don't have them in nature.
+SuperTortilhaDeMorango Without any external intervention, you have all three of those things.
+Arbitrary Renaissance Not really. I mean, you do have life without intervention, and you theoricaly have freedom, but your life is not guaranteed. The only thing you really have in nature is the duty to survive. And that duty severely limits your freedom. So you only kind of have those two things if you are living in a society that makes surviving easier. As for property, no one really owns anything in nature. In nature you only "own" something until someone takes it away from you, there is no inherent right for property, you have to fight to keep what you own.
SuperTortilhaDeMorango We have different definitions of what a "right" is, then. To me, a "right" is anything that you inherently have or can do until someone takes it away. And in some societies, we sacrifice certain rights for the sake of cooperation--like the right to murder and steal. Just because there exist entities that threaten your life, speech, liberty, freedom, and just about anything else you can think of, that doesn't mean that you suddenly don't have those rights anymore. Otherwise, the word kind of becomes meaningless.
While the Social Contract sounds ideal, it is not. For on closer inspection, the solution doesn't solve the problem. If people are naturally savages (which they are not, being as that would make little sense for the advancement of our race and its survival) then electing someone from the people who we say are naturally savage makes little sense. Why choose a leader to keep a bunch of "natural savages" in line unless he himself is a savage for being from this group?
The reality is that humans are natural at cooperation and are deeply swayed by society. What a man wants to be is easily close to what society wants a man to be. Here we now find the problems of society of the modern world. The necessity of greed in capitalism combined with the inherit "object of power is power" state forms very quickly a society based on these principles of greed and self-interest.
With this we can go further and find that a society based, instead of these harmful principles, on cooperation, unity, and also individuality within the unity, creates a successful society.
Alon Such a group only exists because the capitalist system creates criminal problems without true help for these problems. If capitalism were to be abolished, crime such as that would rare, to which the armed population can handle it.
Alon I actually agree with you. Collectivization is crucial to humanities survival.
The Soviet Union was not a communist state. If you have classes, money, government etc. it is not communist. The only reason it was called that was because of Stalinism. The Soviet Union was a socialist dictatorship
Rezzy uh huh so i guess before capitalism, none of this ever happened right?
This was a video I had to watch for a presentation for Lord of the Flies haha, nice work!
"Look at this damn castle. Why don't we have a castle?" LOL
"Without law there can be no freedom" - Solon
Obviously both extremes absolutely suck. What's best is what is called limited government, brought about in a system called a Republic, in which people vote to elect their leaders, and there are strong limits placed on what leaders can or cannot do. One extreme is called anarchy, the other oligarchy. In reality the former is just a transition state between two of the latter. So what's best is something really in between.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner
you need to read some spooner
Laws are just death threats. The answer is no government. Also all governments have to expand because as the population grows, it must spend more to manage more, requiring more extortion in form of taxation. Like Anarchy Cat said, read some Spooner.
"and there are strong limits placed on what leaders can or cannot do."
I'd like to know which government is like this?
Sure they all have idealistic laws that say their leaders can't do certain things, but which ones can actually enforce it, not only reliably, but also in accordance with the original heart of the law, and not just how it's explicitly written on paper? Humanity's societies grew out of a need to feel protected and be with like-minded individuals.
We need society, not government.
Society is like a neighborhood, and government is like an HOA (Home Owners Association). Most people like neighborhoods: nobody likes HOAs.
The leaders don't have to follow the limits that THEY put in place.
That argument is the fallacy of the middle ground (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation). Either way, I think the extremes are Monarchy (all power to one ruler, Hobbes) vs Direct Democracy (Power to the people, Rousseau), with Representative Democracy or Liberal Monarchy in the middle (Locke). Anarchy is having no government and not in the same spectrum of who has the power over others.
The last 3 hourse I've been trying to formulate my comment. Soo many contradictory ideas going through my mind right now. I need to ponder the matter more thoroughly...
I feel I could write a book about my thoughts on the subject.
Thanks 8-bit philosophy for putting the gears in my head into motion!!
They're both right. Life before civilisation would've been terrifying but also have some good bits, much like life today. And when civilisation was created, some safety was issued and people felt at peace now that there was someone to tell them what to do, with this freedoms were lost and a whole bunch of problems were created, but it gave those who need rules rules to abide by and tangible punishment to enforce them. I think the key issue is that people, in general, have a desire to be ruled. Whether by a god or a king or an elected official, people want someone to be alpha. I think if we really want to move on from pointless wars and arguments about made up deities, we as a species need to grow the fuck up and accept agency and responsibility over our life. That's the true next step in civilisation (in my opinion)
No, people do not have a desire to be ruled. People have a desire to rule. The first civilizations were formed by conquest, those being conquered were not happy about it but were too weak to do much about it.
No, WaPier, I will maintain that essentially what I have said is correct. People do not want to be ruled though perhaps we are using the word in slightly different ways.
People may want to be told what to do from time to time or may be willing to give up their personal freedom for safety or security or whatever but that is different from wanting to be ruled.
In a free society, one with none or very limited government, those who want to give up their rights are always free to do so. They can sell their labor or their body to achieve the goals they desire or they can choose to make their own way. They would also like the freedom to change their circumstances if there are better options, to go from serving a business to running a business. Being ruled does not allow for the changing of circumstances (though obviously some could give up even the right to change their circumstances but such people are so rare that in essence my statement is still true).
With almost no exception government comes in to take from people against their will. As conquerors, or even democratically they come in against the will of the minority to rule them in ways they do not desire (likely even those who approve will find the government doing many things against their will).
PMetheney84 eh, you might be confusing what they mean by the state of nature. Think more hunter-gatherers then old civilizations like mayans. I think last thing I read was that hunter gatherers would live to their 70s.
people have a desire to be ruled. i think you are right.
when a leader is the one taking care of choises he's also the one to take responsability for those choises. so people feel freedom in being ruled and told what to do, thats freedom from responsability. it's easy to blame the president for the state of the country, but society is made up of more than just the president, most of a country's trouble is not because of their leader but because of the sum of the small actions of all their citizens.
i do think both of them were right, but i mostly agree with hobbes
"life before civilisation would've been terrifying"
I see two problems with this statement. The assumption that government and civilisation are the same thing, and the implicit assumption that government has actually solved the problems rather than simply handing out psuedo-monopolies on the use of force. Just because power has been reallocated does not mean that risk has been solved.
Imagine if King Mike were to establish social security across the lands of Mikedonia, and then the Treasury of Mikedome blew all that money on hookers and blow. I like to say they would spend it on hookers blow because compared to "expendeture oversight failure", its humanising.
Turns out that your MikeOcare account might have been been a worse investment than if you had simply held that money, even if you had blown it on hookers and blow yourself, because at least then you would have recieved a service. We're told we can't have this because of our deeply horrible dark human heart can't be tolerated, so instead we should entrust this money to fuck-o-crats..
So it turns out that the illustrious Mike couldn't really derisk your life. The risk was still there the whole time. They were just lieing to you that it was gone.
Turns out that the awful dark evil in your human heart was just as present in Mike's and his Bro's, and now that you've gone to complain about it, oh hey look Mike's friends have swords and Castles and a legitimised monopoly on the use of force. Hmmm.
The problem has nothing to do with humans being "good" or "bad". Against what yardstick could you even measure them as such? They just "are".
And that's kind of the problem, isn't it? Every person to their own devices will live by incompatible self-determined rules of law and value.
So, when every tribe, or every household, or even every adult person is sovereign, then how do you settle disputes?
Historically, you either resort to, or you voluntarily agree to build protocols rooted in *violence*.
Violence is the root of all dispute resolution.
But nobody likes violence: it is incredibly destructive to all parties involved. Even when there is a winner, it's blindingly obvious that faithful agreement to a more subtle method of dispute resolution would have been cheaper for all involved, winner and loser alike.
However, you can't *keep* that faith (eg, enforce good sportsmanship and make sure everybody plays by the agreed upon rules) without the understanding that violence lay at the fundamental layer. Also, partly because of that, you cannot have *more* faith in the upper layers than you can back with potential violence: anybody in the position to break the rules due to their ability to short-circuit the matter by winning in a violent conflict (such a as a coup, assasination, successful theft, etc) is in high danger of doing just that unless you can reasonably dissuade them with your *own* capacity to answer violence with violence.
So we build larger, more complicated apparatuses for dispute resolution methods which proxy violence, which lend to centralization as we have to server larger and larger groups of individuals, any pair of which may need dispute resolution between one another. We build courts to decide matters between people, and we build prisons to house the recalcitrantly dangerous individuals who refuse to to maintain the faith of our growing social contract.. to both limit the violence they can continue to do against ordinary citizens and hopefully the violence we need to expend in order to keep them in line.
That central apparatus is the kernel of a government, and this production pattern describes why they're always going to exist as a nash equilibrium in some form or another, at least until mankind can invent an even more superior pattern that outperforms it in the wild.
Best answer I"ve read on the matter. Both Hobbs and Rousseau make a fundamental error in their reasoning: humans are not born identical. Our system is not in place because of the majority of mankind, but to help the weaker individuals, and restrain the violent ones.
We are not born as equals. Genetics at birth have always, and always will, given humans a different set of physical tools. In a world without an established structure, the strongest, meanest, most ruthless of men, would be able to obtain anything they desire by force. Predators do not attack other predators, they attack smaller prey. Without government, weaker individuals would be prayed upon.
Violence is not inherent to everyone, but it is in enough of us, that we must keep it in check.
It is now that humanity is beginning to build a superior platform. The internet, bitcoin, and the like are the keys to unlocking the shackles of coercion and violence bound to our race. Change is coming. Big change.
@vinny fire
"WITH government, weaker individuals would be prayed upon."
Fixed that for you, Vinny
wow man. just wow. amazed by your contrast of serious subject matter and simple 8-bit graphics. gonna watch all the others.
Love your music!
I'd want to experience the lack of government just to know for myself. I feel like it would be great.
nickjoeb move to Somalia.
@@matthewarnold4557 no move to rojava or the countless communes in America & see why anarchy works
@@averageboi5195 who would protect the country from armies of looters or occupying forces?
@@averageboi5195 Rojava is a socialist ethnostate not anachist
Exactly it’s just freedom, it’s like I always say we can survive on the moral compass the people have laws don’t necessarily prevent crimes after all so it only becomes oppression & control over others actions.
Government is essential because it serves to slow the flow of power. It allows the possibility for passive people to live with equal power as those people who are inherently "takers" by nature.
Government is essential because it servers to slow the flower of power * to anyone that isn't the government* FTFY
You know those passive people would be jobless if those 'takers' hadn't gone up the totem poll, making business and creating jobs for the lesser?
wo0t7 and those passive people may end up living in squalid conditions, for it is in the taker's nature to take. Competition prevents this from happening, but keeping the market competitive can't be left in the hands of the takers, and another role for government is filled thusly.
Don Quixote No. Passive people can be geniuses who are just not social or strong in physical nature. This is how the arts are created. Without some layer of social protection for them, art would not be.
David A how tf can we live with "equal power" when the fcking government has power over you? Why are humans obligated to obey? Why? Fuck the government
This guy: "And thus all intelligent thought on freedom and social organization ended with Rousseau. Therefore Statism"
Me: "Ahh, what about the refined philosophy of Frederic Bastiat, Lysander Spooner, Carl Jung, Herbert Spencer, Auberon Herbert, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, David Friedman, John Hasnas, Gerard Casey, Thomas DiLorenzo, Lew Rockwell, Roderick Long, Michael Huemer, Bryan Caplan, Larken Rose...+200 others?" I doubt this guy has even heard of any of these brilliant minds much less absorbed any of their brilliance through reading for himself. Together they not just explode, but supernova the idea that government is legitimate. The erroneous legitimizing of government has only led human civilization to produce one failed experiment after another producing immeasurable suffering, death and destruction.
There will always, as long as people join together to form society, be some form of government, some form of leadership to head the group. Even the most primitive of people have elders that head clans, tribes, etc. that govern or set laws and rituals. People will always band together because there is strength in numbers, and when that happens there will always be a governing body. The real question is whether or not the will be just in their actions. Good example, read Lord of the Flies.
Lord of the Flies is a great example of democracy gone wrong.
+The Golden Arm You're actually incorrect that primitive peoples have elders etc. Moder day hunter gatherer tribes refuse to let an individual dictate to the rest of the group. An individual that attempts to take on an authority role within the group would be mock and ridiculed, exiled, or even murdered. Larger groups do require some form of hierarchy or leadership to provide many of the things that are required to sustain these larger groups though.
+Good Grief
Says you. Large groups have never been tested for anarchy.
Well in that case ideas would take the freedom from them, even the freedom of ruling over the rest. Anything that control any part of your actions or even thought process is taking freedom away, because none of those thoughts came from you, they always come from an extern source. So freedom doesn't exist. You will be always locked inside your believes (and when they change you will be locked again in the new ones). In fact what Joseph & Kimberly Woodard is saying doesn't touch that nature itself it's ruling the first one. Believe keeps you positive that somewhere maybe in another era or in other life things will be or were somehow perfect. Doesn't matter if perfectness for you is the idea of "freedom" or "God" or the "ideas of Platon" maybe perfectness for you is believing that perfectness doesn't exist. Anarchy is bullshit, Anarchy is as controlled and ruled as any other organisation of society. They are just groups of people that think the same and then base education doctrine their children to keep the anarchy working because they think is the right thing to do. So it's like christianism or islam or capitalism and Communism. Doctrine is everywhere even in this comment!
JN Woodard yes but would you rather follow a leader because you Chose to or because you were Forced to?
What an excellent channel, subscribed. :)
This is fantastic. Thank you.
I've watched nearly all of the 8-bits and this is the best explanation of two opposing philosophers so far. Really well done! I think Rousseau was an idealist, and feel like Hobbs is a realist with a more accurate view of human history!
1:10 Jean-Jacques Rousseau asking deep philosical question such has what is the name of his of grandson
His name is Arseface if you wonder
I miss these episodes, and I wish they would do another season.
Great video, You guys should do one on John Locke and his concept of the tabula Rasa.
As doc sweets said in his Animal Farm analysis, revolutions always comes full circle. The liberators become the oppressors. Nature works swings back and forth between both extremes of complete freedom to total control. The goal should be not to govern others, but to govern only yourself.
The thing is that both philosphers constructed the "state of nature" as a thought experiment, to explain the exisitence of society. The difference is not in the question whtether we want to be ruled or not but in the reasoning why it is necessary.
What, no mention of Lysander Spooner? A discussion about Social Contract Theory which excludes Spooner or any examination of the deontological school of individualist anarchism is sadly incomplete.
Oh, NES Dragon Warrior. I never knew I remembered you so fondly. (Half the backgrounds in the video come from this game)
That moment when you're glad about the major you chose because, at the very least, you got everything this video was about.
Adherence to absolutism is the problem.. It's important have a bit from both perspectives while remaining flexible depending on circumstance..
Bingo! Of course we need a government. Its just a community and we all do better in a community than on our own. The next question how should government be arranged. And that goes into economics, social norms, and geography including weather, resources, and other factors. Its not black and white. Its like forecasting the weather. Lots of variables. But to put it into a simple question: Do we need government? Of course. Just like we need business to produce and sell stuff too.
How all this is all best arranged has many factors to be discussed. Its complex.
But the question itself is simple; it just doesn't explain the details the rest of the complexity. Requirement of government doesn't mean we need a king, dictator, or magical prophet we all pray to, or even a particular president or prime minister, or emperor. Those are other questions.
Hobbes's error is clear when we consider the words of Thomas Paine, who, in 1776, wrote, "SOME writers have ſo confounded ſociety with government, as to leave little or no diſtinction between them; whereas, they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedneſs; the former promotes our happineſs poſſitively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by reſtraining our vices. The one encourages intercourſe, the other creates distinctions. The firſt is a patron, the laſt a puniſher."
A "war of all against all" does not persist in every absence of statism, but rather exists in the absence of society.
Hobbes makes another error, in that he confuses privileges and rights. In the Hobbesian model, we, the members of society, give consent to the sovereign to rule over us, and that once this consent is granted, it is the property of the sovereign, and cannot be rightfully taken back by the governed. Thus, once consent is granted, the sovereign has absolute rule over his subjects for as long as he lives.
The problem is that Hobbes does not comprehend that there are different forms of authority. As I see it, there are three forms: rights, privileges, and usurpations. Rights constitute a form of authority that exists in every individual equally; it is not granted, but exists naturally, by virtue of being human. Since rights are not granted, they also cannot be revoked. The Jews (e.g.) had a right not to be murdered regardless of what the Nazi government (or any other state, for that matter) had to say to the contrary. If rights could merely be revoked, then states would be able to legitimately do whatever they want; but because rights CANNOT be revoked (not by any state, nor by any majority faction), when a state (e.g., Nazi Germany) acts to infringe upon the rights of its subjects (e.g., the Jews), that action necessarily constitutes an illegitimate use of authority. This is what we call usurpation. Usurpations are inherently illegitimate uses of authority because they inherently infringe upon natural authority (i.e., rights). Finally, we have privileges. While rights inherently constitute legitimate instances of authority, and usurpations inherently constitute illegitimate instances of authority, privileges are neither inherently legitimate nor inherently illegitimate. Privileges, unlike rights, can be granted, and thus can also be revoked, and they are only legitimate insofar as they are granted by a rights-holder; insofar as they are granted by usurpers, they are illegitimate. For example, if I own a book, and I grant you permission to borrow said book, that is a legitimate privilege, and I am free to revoke said privilege at any time. Contrariwise, if the state passes a law permitting you to borrow my book without my consent, that is an illegitimate privilege as it is coming from an usurper, viz., the state.
For Hobbes, we grant the sovereign the authority to rule over us, and insofar as we do, Hobbes treats this authority as a privilege. But, then he claims that we have no authority to take this authority back, thereby treating it as a right of the sovereign. Fortunately, John Locke starts the process of dismantling this error for us. He points out, correctly, that natural rights do exist in a state of nature, and he suggests that the only reason for forming a state is to better-ensure the protection of these natural rights. But, unlike Hobbes, he recognises that the sovereign has no right to rule, and suggests, correctly, that there are instances in which subjects may withdraw their consent from the sovereign, e.g., if the sovereign is doing nothing to defend his subjects' natural rights (in which case the people are in a state clearly no better than the state of nature) or if the sovereign is actively infringing upon his subjects' natural rights (in which case the people would clearly be better off in the state of nature, where at least they might have some chance of defending themselves). Locke's suggestions were highly influential on a young Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence; this document clearly borrows its philosophical underpinnings from Locke.
Still, Locke, like Hobbes, makes the colossal error in assuming that this so-called Social Contract can be assented to be a people before they are born, and both employ the mythical notion that a state of nature existed before the formation of city-states and nation-states, that people recognised some sort of problem with their existence and aimed to get together to form a rational governing body. Needless to say, this is fiction.
Try as Rousseau might to solve the problems of the Social Contract by introducing his conception of the "General Will," that, too, is nothing but a fiction; it does nothing to give statism any solid underpinnings.
The truth is, states did not arise from rational men coming together to solve problems otherwise unaddessed by the state of nature. Rather, as the German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer points out in his classic book The State, all states are ultimately borne out of conquest. Conquest, not some mythical "Social Contract," is the genesis of all statism.
Moreover, no one can consent to a social contract who is not yet born, and so the other assumptions made by proponents of "Social Contract" theory is also bunk. Some may say that it is different when there is a written Constitution to serve as a social contract, but the American lawyer and individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner, in his classic book No Treason, points out that a contract would never hold up in any court of law that is binding on those who have not signed it. Since the U. S. Constitution was only signed by a handful of men, and since all signers were at the time of Spooner's writing already dead, no court of law would be able to hold up the U. S. Constitution as a legitimate and binding contract. Spooner also demolishes the argument that we consent to being ruled in voting, pointing out that votes cast do not imply consent for the system itself and that votes are cast anonymously, anyway, thus prohibiting us from ever possibly claiming that this or that individual ever votes, let alone consented. Further, Spooner demolished the argument that we consent to being governed via paying taxes, pointing out that taxes are paid under threat of compulsion, and aptly comparing the taxman to a highwayman, arguing convincingly that the taxman is the more ignoble of the two.
The Social Contract, I can only conclude, is grounded in nothing but fancy. I am far more interested in authors who look to natural rights without also contriving social contracts in order to justify some sort of system that sidesteps natural rights. One short tract that Spooner wrote was called Natural Law, or the Science of Justice in which he argued that either (A) natural rights fictitious, in which case, notions of justice are equally fictitious, in which case there is no naturally legitimate reason to establish any state, or (B) natural rights are real, and thus so too is natural justice, in which case statism must be opposed since states can only ever infringe upon rights and thus defy the natural demands of justice. Either way, the state is neither necessary nor just. Now that is a creative argument.
Perhaps my favourite political philosopher is Murray N. Rothbard, who wrote such classics as For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto and The Ethics of Liberty. While he is not 100% without error, Rothbard successfully and creatively constructs his political philosophy around considerations of natural law and natural justice, arguing that civilisation can thrive quite successfully without the state apparatus, provided we recognise that society can organise effective defensive and legal systems without the compulsion to which we're accustomed under statism. Check out his works for his arguments to that effect, as well as The Market for Liberty by Linda & Morris Tannehill and The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman.
Best regards,
Alexander S. Peak
the idea that life before government was peaceful and mostly good is absurd, the guy who came up with that reminds me of what an 8 year old innocent girl would say, if asked. the state of nature for humans is exactly what it is now for other animals, we are not special. the threat of being killed and/or eaten by humans or another species was a second to second reality and i'd venture a guess to say we had to worry about our fellow man just as much as the lions.
furthermore, think about it, what has changed from the state of nature until now? in reality not much. in the state of nature humans undoubtedly lived tribal lives, right? and what is a nation other than a much larger tribe? tribes wage wars against other tribes, just as nations wage wars against other nations and intra-tribal disputes are nothing but small scale civil wars and strife. there was no magic switch between having what we know as goverment today from the state of nature where man went from a peaceful being to a war-like savage who wants the king's jewels for himself. there has always been disparities amount man, there has always been a reason for you to kill your neighbor. we're (essentially) the same creature we were 10,000 years ago and this is a truth that some people just can't handle. i would even argue that homo sapiens have NEVER lived in a state of nature, not in the way these philosophers define it.
Government is a technology. Just like every other technology, it's something we've built to perform a task. It can and should be tinkered with as required, but I don't see it as an inherently bad thing, or something that must be done away with because its existence (or prominence) goes against a single-issue ideology.
Sometimes technologies are pure garbage and need to be done away with completely.
Inb4 all he hipster libertarians (a.k.a. anarchists) scream: "You can have rules with no rulers because I don't know what a government is."
great video!
PhilosophyTube is a great channel that should be featured on WiseCrack!
best webseries ever
The purpose of government is to abstract wealth and obedience from the governed. It's strange how they never addressed any prominent anarchist critiques of government such as Proudhon or Kropotkin.
Transcripts of these videos would be awesome.
Interesting video and topic as I can't help but relate this video to the video Thug Notes did on the parable, "The Grand Inquisitor". Solely from the perspective of the Thug Notes video, I would ask how many times do we find ourselves playing the role of "Christ", the "Grand Inquisitor" or both on a daily basis as parents, bosses, teachers, etc..
*As far as my exploration of history texts, anthropology, and psychology issues has revealed, the natural state of early humans was mostly peaceful.
A small tribe society was egalitarian, free of biased discrimination and mostly free of all crime and harmful conflict. This was true as long as each member of the tribe was able to form a meaningful relationship with other members of the tribe.
This situation starts to deteriorate when you reach dunbar's number, or the monkeysphere, which suggests there is a limited amount of people that one person can know and think of as real individuals. Exceeding the dunbar's number leads to all the criminal acts that we experience in our society.*
*_(shameless self promotion: Check out my original narrated fiction.)_*
Hobbes was right. People can be shitty and as such someone, or a group of people , has to keep everyone in line. The problem is that no one can really keep the government in line if it becomes corrupt.
The problem is that the government always becomes corrupt.
+Holly Totallyarealname at which point some group replaces them secures their rights again then gradually grows corrupt, ad infinitum. the struggle of chaos and order, old as the universe.
+Queen Kylee sure, unless we activly try to create a system which is made in a way to balance corruption itself without the need of revolution.
I do think it is possible, (and not hard as some may think). However, i doubt it will ever happen.
' corrupt government ' is a redundant statement.
Great video, I'd love to see Kropotkin!
Thomas Hobbes sprite reminds me of Gym Leader Pryce from Pokemon Gold and Silver. That's awesome!
Anarchy would be great if everyone made GOOD decisions, wouldn't lie, or do anything that creates conflict. But we don't, so because there is no trust, government (preferably limited) must exist.
Jeremiah Johnson government would be great if politicians made good decisions, wouldn’t lie, or do anything that creates conflict. But we don’t. So because there is not trust, anarchy must exist.
I don't consent to be ruled. Social contract void.
Great video
Super helpful, hugely creative, and well done! Subscribed and liked - I hope if you've monetized the channel it contributes in some way. You deserve it! Great content should be rewarded :D
I see Rousseau's immense impact upon Marx
Moral of the story:
YOU DON'T NEED GOVERNMENT.
Voltaire on Natural Law: Yes. Yes there is a Natural Law, it consists of neither doing wrong or rejoicing there-in.
I think we need little Government, of course achieving that right now is like cutting of chains with a rusty saw.
What about John Locke, the middle ground? I personally agree with his theory of the "Tabula Rasa"
Isn't it a bit of both? We need governments to instill laws and boundaries to keep the peace, yet at the same time provide enough freedoms for the civilization to prosper and grow in the arts, sciences, and religions?
no we dont
First 8-pit philos that wasn't totally one-sided towards statism. Thanks! Much better to compare all sides.
It is worth noting that Rousseau lived in France during their enlightenment and was originally from Geneva which was a city state and was in so many ways a smaller scale of government than the rest of Europe at the time and was very much influenced by reading on Republics and city states.
You guys need a merch store!
We need government because a person is good, but people are crazed, lawless animals.
+Kevin Thomas But people are what happen when several persons are unified under one government. It is order and bureaucracy that allows allows a person to join with another person to do crazed and lawless things.
People are bad, so we need a government made up of people.
+The Golden Arm People are bad, so we need to let other people do whatever they want running amok killing everyone without social contract.
Genius.
jorge a. moreno aldape
Government is bad.
*****
The social contract doesn't exist, genius.
People are bad, so we need a government made up of people. Derp.
Try again?
i can't believe videos like this have dislikes. how do you thumb this down? there's nothing here to "dislike". it's just like, "oh... this exists. that's very interesting." where does the downthumb come in?
Lack of other philosophers? Marx and Engles wrote on this subject quite a lot so maybe Marxists are salty their favorite philosophers weren't included?
from people like me
They did not include John Locke, who had his own important theory about social contract.
Also, where is theory of Hugo Grotius? He was the first to come up with the term 'social contract'.
ApplePie good point :-)
+ApplePie Probably it's because it's not easy to have different philosophers' thoughts to be synthesized as a 3-minute video with an 8-bit concept. Besides, not all of us has a degree in Philosophy so we need something simpler.
It is a debate with no easy answers. But than again Ive also found that many questions do not always have one answer.
...Something that was never taught in school. But I guess learning how to take the test will help me in life somehow.
This theme of the social contract works well with the conflict in fight club
Goverment is like a parent
The borders is like a house
They have neighbours
It's citizens are like siblings
They require you to do chores to earn allowings
You can't leave the house without there permission
They have rules you're expected to folow
If you brake the rules they punish
Some parents are abusive some less
And they expect you to be there children all you're life
But don't we need to grow up and and become independent adults?
+CrimsonShoty
your comparison lacks something.
Parents love their children.
Goverment doesnt.
Rithmy not all parents
But you have a point
+Rithmy I think the main role of a parent, strictly speaking, is to provide for their children, which a good government does.
+Ricardo Santos hahah. There in lies the conundrum. Abusive parents or nurturing loving ones? In a male dominated patriarchy civilization you can be sure it will be the abusive kind.
Stunami
wtf,,,, "can be sure"
First, read The Lord of the Flies, then answer his question.
The Lord of the Flies taught us that governments use fear to get us to support it. Otherwise known as terrorism.
They started being violent after forming rules and supposed order.....
You do realize that book is fictional, and the characters are children right?
@@lucadecubellis7519 bruh its been 4 years i dont even agree with the message of the book anymore. Also the book used the kids as a metaphor for wider society, fiction tends to do things like that
Lord of the flies is based on a real sociological study where they took children into a "summer camp" and wanted to see how these children interacted in a "state of nature" scenario.
Eventually the study concluded that the children would go to "war" with each other. The book was written based on the ideas of the study.
Except it was a lie.
In fact they had to do the study twice, because the first time they tried, the children kept helping each other and peacefully coexisted.
The second time they tried, they literally pitted the children against each other by spreading rumors and stealing from one child and hiding the stolen item in another etc.
They tried all kinds of nasty tricks and they made a purposeful hostile environment and only after weeks of that did the children starts going against each other.
They where looking for a conclusion and fitted and manipulated their evidence to give them said conclusion. It was bad science.
The book is based on bad science and a lie.
People and children are more than capable of peaceful coexistence.
This is a really hard question to answer directly. I think the state of nature is different for everyone depending on certain factors.Your physique, amount of friends and family, and natural abundance of resources would greatly define your existence in the state of nature.
Running into a problem about 40 seconds in.
Human being never really lived in a state of nature as early philosophers imagined.
Human evolution and civilization were intrinsically tied together.
No, we don't, people should be able to govern them selves how ever they want
"Liberty is the sovereignty of the individual"
The problem is that man does not function as a society. "Society" is simply a way too big pack. Ants have society. They work for common good, not personal gain, however pack animals will always strive to be higher in the hierarchy.
Oliver Holm Only partially true: a pack IS a form of society. But you are right: our brains have evolved to handle packs of 100-150 humans and to manage a limited territory. We are therefore ill-equipped to adress the challenges posed by a society of billions and the management of an entire planet
Oliver Holm Also, ants have evolved in a completely different way, so they may not be the best comparison
Everyone! Look at me! I know better than everyone else, but my solution is "I don't think we can do anything right."
A stetles susaiety is posebol if ve beis IT on the pris of kapetolisem.
Kapetolisem Dos not rikvaier goverment to funhsen and intakt dus not benefit from IT bikos the goverment kriets takser and regulasions bittskader limit the opertunetis of antripenørs virts negativli afekts normol sitese baing paver AS vel AS making oss domber bai ofering bad skols
What's the game at 2:10? looks kinda like pixel dungeon
Does anyone know a fantastic page for Philosophical arguments or discussion?I'm very interested in Philosophy.
Humans aren't good or bad they just behave the same way they have been raised. Hobbes statement is inaccurate in my opinion as he is basing is thought experiment upon early human civilization where humans were ruled by the law of the strong. However Rousseau isn't right either. His statement is also inaccurate as he states that humans are born good. The manichaean view is taught to humans via punitions etc. Humans aren't born either good or bad. Rousseau's view could turn out to be true only if the young in his world receive a proper education. If they don't receive a proper education they will behave as necessary in order to survive. In today's world they would be closer to Hobbes world than Rousseau's.
"Might makes right" more than "society makes right," but the weak will create all sorts of excuses and diversions.
The English sub are wrong....
Thanks for pointing that out Alejandro. We've fixed them.
The freedom to choose is what creates good and evil. If it's taken, say, by a government, it can be for the better for some, but it inevitably creates disharmony and oppresses those who need this form of freedom, but wouldn't do any harm anyway. It's up to humanity to evolve in such a way that we transcend the fears we have of each other, work together towards a more humane world of interconnectedness and abolish the idea of government.
1:54 why does he look like he's about to give me a pokemon
Hobbes is right. We're not caring people. Without a strong fed gov we'll collapse. It'll be chaotic.
If people are naturally evil and not caring, how will giving a few people virtually infinite power prevent chaos?
Carter Vames
Magic....the Magic of Government....
Carter Vames
It's because *SOMEHOW* these people who are in charge are more caring than us...
Because reasons!
Carter Vames Most people have common sense and obey laws because it is in their favor, most psychopaths for example don't kill people, they know how to manipulate people in order to get what they want within the rules of society. Only the dumbest of people will fight against the law and provoke chaos just for the sole purpose of chaos, there's almost always a motivation like a certain ideology, religion etc...
Don't pay attention to these people. They have gotten fucked over once in the past and now they are like " HURR DURR HOOMANITY IS EVIL! WE NEED A STRONG CENTRAL GOVERNMENT TO BE MY PAPA AND TELL ME WHAT TO DO! I NEED MY MOMMY FOR EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!" just like Hobbes. What a joke.
Yeah anarchy, we know how that is gonna work out...
*****
First : i won't kill myself, even if the state wants me too
Second : i disagree a lot with the state, but without it it would be chaos
I just think, there is no point in freedom if you can't survive long enough too enyoy it, and there is no point in safty whitout freedom, but the system now (in my contry at least) is good enough, i got freedom and safty
+Name Chaos? As opposed to the order we have now?
Looooooool
Bryant Woods
What the weapons humans have developed now, then when can't afford anarchy (in the entire world) because if we do, a group of people will probably find this weapons and use it to create chaos.
+Name As opposed to the order we have now??
Loooool
Bryant Woods
There would be even more chaos then it is now
Be it from physical limitations inherent to my physiology, the laws of the universe, the will of another or a government, there is no such thing as pure freedom. Freedom is always under constraints. Is it good to collectively CHOOSE said constraints by electing a governing power? I don't know, but the Idea sounds nice, and we surely haven't seen all we can do with that idea yet. I'm down for more trial! ;)
In the state of nature, small groups and families wouldn't need higher autorities, because they live close to and trust each other. But a larger group of individuals, let's say a couple thousands, would probably live in an unbalanced and possibly chaotic environment since it would be harder to achieve and maintain a sort of equilibrium without some kind of government. This is because many different factors (that we cannot fully control) mold one's identity and reasoning through out his life, which can become problematic on greater scales: since every individual is different in his thinking and reasonning, conflicts may ensue. It can be avoided with an education system, which would be very difficult to install without any form of government. Nowadays, in schools, we try to spread awareness of others and sensibilise the youth to learn about living in respect of others. Education teaches us about respect, thus, education is the path towards harmony and bring balance to life.
Incoming Libertarian comments about "limited government".
Bro, libertarians are tired of all government.
*For posterity's sake I'm responding to a 4 year old post...*
Why do you statists DEMAND that WE join your GANG? I prefer an amicable separation of governments within the same geographic boundaries. Imagine a Libertarian government and a Statist government. YOU choose which one to follow, but the caveat is that you receive only the benefits and "protections" of the government you are contracted with. You leave ME alone, Ill leave YOU alone. BUT if you threaten me with death or imprisonment in an attempt coerce me to do as YOU want me to -- I'll kill you in a bloody war.
Sound Fair?
...Of course not, you statists always want full control of those around you. Thats why there will ALWAYS be WAR. Your genetics must be wiped off the face of the earth if the world is to ever have peace.
It doesn't matter if they should be free to do as they wish, there is no where on this planet that isn't ruled by some nation that imposes it's laws on you. You are born having signed a social contract without your prior knowledge or consent.
you made avid fun
we watched it
im so glad you guys started making loner videos with jared's awesome presentation. 8 bit philosophy was too short, and hard to follow and it left much to be desired
From a technological view, we don't need a gov. at all - scientists research, engineers invent and improve, builders build, farmers grow veg, people keep the world turning - politicians just make life and developement more complicated and don't contribute essentially to life (like many other modern jobs). If we need rules, let them be OUR rules, universal rules, natural rules - sure that sounds naive.. but everyone can be a policeman, everyone can be a judge, together people can decide for themselves what's right or wrong, without having an oppressing authority above everything. Let's decentralise our world. We should stop having people above us - you won't ever meet and talk to - deciding for you. And organising a society, where it's necessary, is so easy nowadays with technology... bye bye oppressor, hello brave new world.
No we do not need government.
I was laughing so much when I saw the pirate sprite from Final Fantasy
I wish wisecracks did these videos again
Hobbes state of nature is so absurd and begs so many questions. If people are so evil and so uncaring of other people and don't interact peacefully without some sort of coercion from a centralized authority than how did civilization get started in the first place? People have to be altruistic at least to some extent unless you can provide me with a newborn that is capable of taking care of it's self. But that's not to say that we love everyone all equally We value our families and immediate communities in which we are born and raised in usually the most so i would say that the state of nature isn't all against all it's tribalism.
I've seen other videos describing his position and they all seem to describe Hobbes position of the state of nature as being everyman for himself. Your first statement is just kind of just kind of an appeal to authority that doesn't dispute my claim. If Hobbes state of nature was tribalism than i guess we would be in agreement than but I don't agree with his prescription of the leviathan as being a desirable solution to this "problem". Though no one really knows for sure how states arose I can know A Priori that states did not come before civilization, the reason being is that the ruling priestly class at the time did not engage in food production so in order to maintain them their needs to be a food surplus already in place so people had to at least organize themselves well enough to produce a decent amount of food.
Basic survival (i.e. of the species, rather than of the individual) is a natural instinct, firmly rooted in all animal life. Hence the "need" for a mother to care for her young, provided they can't take care of themselves, or that nature hasn't made her able to have so many offsprings that the death of some of them wouldn't endanger the species as a whole (like some species of turtles for example).
This should not be confused with the "gregarious instinct" of pack animals (to which group humans belong to some extent), which makes the "social contract" somewhat necessary. Packs need a pack leader, but more often than not this simple truth has led so many human groups astray on paths of self-destruction and violence against individuality, in the vague and misconstrued concept that "individual" necessarily means "individualism", and is therefore a threat to the pack as a whole. The answer should be a pack leader who recognises the individuality of each member and acknowledges it as long as it doesn't threaten the well-being of the "tribe". I believe humanity is slowly moving towards this equilibrium, but the thirst for power of so many would-be leaders is keeping us back, by looking for scapegoats and clinging on to outdated dogmas of uniformity and so-called "righteousness".
Fuck me, look at me getting all philosophical and shit. Gotta get back to work...
Awesome
To me it is simple- We have been oppressed for so long now we almost "need" our structure to keep all of us alive. But if we wanted to transform into a truly beautiful peoples with other the need for laws and oppression we need another rocky growing phase where a lot of people die for the sake of learning to do better, just like a lot of people have died to get us to where we are today (even if you do agree with how far we have come or not)
I say let have another growing phase- I'm bored and tired of being treated like a child by the gov't. Lets grow and learn!
One's right to swing one's fist ends where the other fellows face begins and on occasion the pressure/authority of others is required for the preservation of said nose.
I do think Rousseau was right that agriculture made social hierarchy (and thus oppression and coercion) more possible, but not innevitable. Egalitarian cities also existed in early civilization, and autonomous zones of stateless people have existed throughout history. I think it'd be preferable to keep fighting for more independence of the people from both government and corporations, in favor of some form of libertarian socialism (free association, commons, cooperatives, popular assemblies etc.)
This reminded me of assassins creed, the assassin vs templar debate
We've entered into an era where this is an old question. This question was asked in an era where there were kingdoms directly subjected to either a papacy or a very nonoptional code of piety. There was overlapping soveriengty in Hobbes' and Rousseau's time, but there was a clearer hierarchy: religion over government. Now, it is possible for corporations, who specifically do NOT represent people, to effectively have sovereignty. Even to the point where multinational corporations have more sovereignty in a country than the country's own government. In short, we live in a world that will have leviathans whether we like it or not. If we decide to do away with big government, unelected big businesses will take its place. If we decide to do away with big business, we would need a big government to regulate and control business. The real question isn't whether or not we should have government, but whether or not we should allow corporations to have government-levels of power unto themselves.
I just noticed this was posted during my political science finals -_- The only day I needed to actually know all this stuff