Natural Balances

Thomas Hobbes, the father of modern Conservatism, proposed the State originated in the overwhelming desire of men for order. Rather than continue suffering the 'war of each against all,' men were willing to assign some of their freedom to a Sovereign.  The Sovereign, having acquired the power of all its constituents, was always superior to any individual, so it could always enforce its will. That enforcement secured the peace, based on whatever justice was within the wisdom of the Sovereign.

Hobbes' solution to the problem of war is often advocated and used in human affairs. Plato's Philosopher King was one of the earliest instances of the idea, and is the likely source of Hobbes' Sovereign. During the recent Cold War, the same idea was the basis of Foreign Policy, restated as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). All that is required for the Hobbesian Sovereign to function is the sufficient fear of its subjects. That fear can be inspired in many ways, as in totalitarian Stalinist or Hitlerite States, or abstractly, as in MAD.  Subjects obey because they value their lives more than any inconvenience  the Sovereign imposes.

Rule by Plato's or Hobbes' Sovereign has a side-effect: whatever it does is presumed just. It is not logical to complain of Sovereign decisions as unethical or immoral, because it was made all-powerful by its constitutents in order to dispense justice. The root premise of such a Sovereignty is that mere survival alone is worth every other good, so whatever it does must be just (right) as long as its constituents live. The only way one can object to a Sovereign is to overthrow it; i.e., dissenters must defect, revolt or otherwise declare war. In Hobbes' world, each nation has a Sovereign constantly at war with all other Sovereigns because they have different beliefs or aspirations. Thus, to advocate Sovereignty is to believe there are different sorts of justice in different places. There can be one, overriding justice only if there is one Universal Sovereign (as in monotheism).

Putting one's trust in the Sovereign is an application of might makes right, the law of the jungle. The main principle of such an assignment is one's own safety and security, for which all else is sacrificed. The method by which the Sovereign enforces order is the fear consequent on the power of punishment. While the Philosopher King may be supremely reasonable and try to persuade its subjects of its justice, that endaevor is useless if the subjects cannot be made to obey when they are not persuaded. Obedience must be inculcated in subjects, by whatever means, or the Sovereign system does not work; i.e., the essence of sovereignty is power. In 1984and other totalitarian societies, that obedience is first obtained by education (brainwashing) as well as by the human proclivity to conformity and fear. When none of that works, more stringent measures are always taken. Obedience can have only one master, so systems of Sovereignty are always unstable whenever there is any doubt about the master. The Sovereign must not only hold power, but subjects must be certain of sure justice.

Theocracy, Divine Right, Monarchy, Dictatorship and Totalitarianism are all historical doctrines of Sovereignty. The progression of forms of Sovereignty from Theocratic to Totalitarian rulers represents the deepening of the idea in History. That is, the idea of the Sovereign developed historically from its simplest forms to fully extended ones. The Totalitarian State is the latest, most highly developed, form of Sovereignty, which reveals how deeply the concept must be rooted in each individual's mind, hence society, to work. It is, as it were, that the evolution of Sovereignty is like a theorem proving sequence in mathematics. Each new development (theorem) is a further explication of the implicit meaning of the original concept.
 

Sovereignty, as discussed so far, always tends to unity: there must be just one omnipotent ruler. In modern times, people have rejected and overthrown rulers who make such demands. The modern idea is exactly opposed to Hobbesian Sovereignty: the collective, not an individual, is assigned power. Modern philosophy separates Justice from Sovereignty; i.e., we now believe the Sovereign is capable of error. For this reason, I prefer to reserve the term "Sovereign" to Hobbes and Plato, and use the Latin term, "Res Publica" or Republic,  to designate the collective of the people.
 

Since the Enlightenment, there has been a lot of confusion about Sovereignty and the nature of Justice. Confusion arises because people are used to having one ruler, not many. Most people find it difficult to balance the demands of many rulers, so often wish for a unifying principle. In current politics, that is the fervent desire of the so-called centrists or moderates who cannot abide politics. "Please," they say, "why don't you guys get together and come up with the solution." But that is an impossible demand for any number of reasons, starting with the idea of the Republic as a collection of (equal) people. Unless people are willing to throw out the Republic in favor of a Sovereign, they are stuck with deciding issues. Unfortunately, it is exactly indifference or displeasure in decision making that gave rise to many modern totalitarians. Mussolini and Hitler were elected to office. Most Russians were more than willing to accept the Bolsheviks in 1917, even if the Whites later revolted and fought a losing Civil War against them.
 

This desire for a single solution, however inappropriate, leads to monopoly in politics and economics. Adam Smith imagined an economy that was balanced by competition in market places. His sellers were a myriad of small businesses, entepreneurs out to make a buck for themselves. The justice of the market place was determined by spending money. Since Adam Smith and many of his successors thought people are fickle, no producer would come to dominate the market (so their greed was excusable). Since no one had too much money, no buyer would corner the market. In the imagined world of perfect competition, the power of choice would always be distributed among the people, not given any Sovereign. Sadly, it did not work out that way: Smithian economics always tends to oligopoly or monopoly both in the buying and selling (as in Wal-Mart). For that reason, Capitalism is a flawed theory.
 

The political machine invented by the American Revolutionaries now suffers the same fate. It is dominated by Big Money, Big Business and Big People. The rich and famous, together with Plutocrats, are put before us very day and, especially, on Sunday morning. We hear their opinions, their desires and their solutions. We see them, not us. If an actress favors a certain dress maker, every girl has to have a copy. If telephone companies want their business arranged a certain way, Congress obliges in a Telecommunications Act. If a would-be politican wants to run for office, he or she must seek approval from party Big Wigs. That only the rich and famous are recognized becomes a carrot dangled before ordinary people; thus the rush to buy lottery tickets or get on a Reality TV show. Most people know that unless they get lucky, they are nothing. The Republic invented two hundred years ago has become the Winner Take All society, which is neither democratic nor a Republic.

The Enlightenment thinkers emphasized a handy notion: equilibrium. Aristotle had a handle on it, too, twenty five hundred years ago, when he is reputed to have said 'everything in moderation.' When an engine runs out of control, and the flywheel comes off, it is almost certainly not in equilibrium. When insane greed propels people to do anything for money, that is not moderation. When those things happen, it is time to shut down the mechanism, unless, of course, you prefer to be ruled by an ungovernable Sovereign.