Green on Social Contract Theory

"If political society is supposed to have originated in a pact at all, the difference between it and the preceding state of nature cannot with any plausibility be held to have been much more than a difference between a society regulated by written law and officers with defined power and one regulated by  customs and tacitly recognized authority." -- Principles of Political Obligation, p. 46

This is an important point contra those who fantasize about "doing away with politics": there is no evidence of people anywhere ever having lived in a society without politics. Today, we just have more formally organized politics extending over wider domains than in the past.

Comments

  1. Which is also why "private law" and "markets in law" are pure gibberish.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Today, we just have more formally organized politics extending over wider domains than in the past."

    Does this mean that the private sphere is an illusion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, but it is social life seen from a partial perspective.

      Delete

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