Who Were the Sea Peoples?

"[For Hobbes] the state is charged with maintaining social stability and preventing a return to natural anarchy... Human beings are thus, by nature, nonrelational creatures, separate and autonomous." -- Patrick Deneed, Why Liberalism Failed , 32 Proto-liberals like Locke and Jefferson and modern liberals like Mises and Rawls all start from a similar place: we are first and foremost human atoms, who only need enter into social groups in so far as it suits our interest to do so. Our original state was as free individuals, who "contracted" into social groups because we saw it was to our advantage. As Deneen notes, "Even marriage, Locke holds, is finally to be understood as a contract whose conditions are temporary and subject to revision..." (33). Or, as Mises put it: "The fundamental social phenomenon is the division of labor and its counterpart human cooperation. "Experience teaches man that cooperative action is more efficient and p...

I think the people who cooked up the idea hadn't read quite enough Hobbes, don't you?

Civil War England of Hobbes time, the anarchist says, was not actually an example of anarchy. You see, he continues, the factions fighting were each trying to establish themselves as the state. Well yes, that is what occurs under anarchy. How in the world is that supposed to be a refutation of Hobbes?

In the far away land of ancapistan, a problem developed. A rare plant was discovered, erutan foestat, from which a powerful drug called Worpe could be made. The problem was this: on the one hand, in low doses, Worpe was the most powerful anti-cancer drug ever developed, while on the other hand, it was the most addictive substance yet known to man. A single dose at a high enough level would cause full-blown addiction, and so dealers could and would garner clientele simply by slipping people one dose. The addict would then devote his or her life entirely to getting more of the drug. What to do? A council of defense agencies was called. They decided they would set up a corporation, in which they all owned an equal share, that would first buy up all of the land suitable for growing erutan, and then control the production of Worpe so that it would only be distributed to legitimate medical users. The program was wildly successful: almost immediately, addiction rates d...

In English political thought, from Thomas More to the American Revolution That's the working title of my next book. The theme explored is the historical development of what constitutes legitimate political authority, and when existing authority can be overthrown. Since this is a period that began with a dynasty put on the throne in a coup, and saw a civil war and two revolutions, these questions were often at the forefront of men's minds, and they were given serious attention. At present, my list of thinkers to address includes (updated to include recommendations from the comments): Thomas More William Shakespeare Richard Hooker George Buchanan Charles I John Milton Oliver Cromwell John Lilburne Thomas Hobbes Robert Filmer Algernon Sydney John Locke George Berkeley David Hume Thomas Jefferson Thomas Paine Edmund Burke Who have I left off the list?