Is anyone familiar with the work of David Graeber?
He allegedly btfos Hobbsiean social contract theory by showing that there were many complex pre-state societies which were anarchical.
en.wikipedia.org
Anyway, i'm going to read his book over the next week or so. Impromptu book club in this thread if anyone else wants to join me.
Most MLs on Zig Forums are fairly Hobbesian, so I think this might be kind of fun.
PDF attached
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jstor.org
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I really like Graeber. Im not an anarchist and dont agree with a lot of his conclusions but he does some really valuable research and provides good explanations of it.
That's a tall order, son. I might just check this out.
Skimping trough this, only to find this on page 69
by the state apparatus, if one considers that the
minimal government apparatus which did exist
consisted entirely of slaves, owned collectively by
the citizenry.
So by the magic of not having enough bureaucracy and "minimal" state apparatus he just turns state entities into non-state ones. I have really hard time understanding the rationale behind this since it seems to illogical and cherry-picking just to prove the point that non-state entities existed in relevant format in history.
I haven't read it yet, but isn't cherrypicking precisely what you just did???
every successful instance of political economy on the contemporary planet has made use of Hobbesean theory. no amount of logical trickery will change that and appeals to proto-communism will change that.
on top of this Graeber is a retarded anarchist who believes in gift economies so it's no surprise he rejects all useful forms of statecraft.
It does not make sense even in the context of the chapter either since only other example of this is medieval England because of Magna Carta and petition of right.
Graeber is a CIA shill.
apparently there were pre-state political economies that were not hobbsean
this directly contradicts the account of state formation that Hobbes asserts (without evidence of course)
if a complex social contract existed before people were mutually awed by a central power, then Hobbes is simply wrong
how? it is extremely irresponsible to make claims like that without evidence
Hobbes being wrong about one thing does not discredit his entire theory. You're not better than the fags that say Marx was wrong just because 1929 didn't end in Proletarian revolution
I should have been more specific
Graeber allegedly evicerates Hobbes' theory of man's "state of nature"
Hobbe's argued that the state was necessary because we can not form social contracts in the state of nature. He claims they must be mediated by a sovereign.
Graeber says that there is evidence that central power emerged well after social contracts, instead of them emerging in tandem, as Hobbes's theory would predict.
Anti-Marxist, one big US military base in Syria shill.
What's supposed to be so mindblowing about this? Graeber picks an easy target. Just read Engels.
most people today who support constitutionalism don't think Hobbes was right about constitutional monarchy. Graeber isn't saying anything new.
when I said “sovereign” I didn’t mean a monarch specifically. I meant the state in all it’s forms.
Leviathan was not a work of anthropology, and his idea of the State of Nature was the result of a thought experiment, basically imagining a world where every person acts like a state. Stating that pre-historical societies were not like this does not actually contradict him, and it's not exactly an original line of thought. Bukharin already wrote about this over a century ago, and it's pretty much every half-brain highschoolers first reaction to Hobbes. Graeber is a hack as always.
Hobbes was not postulating some hypothetical world, he was trying to describe his own. He attempts to justify his analysis by making empirical claims without appropriate evidence.
Read Leviathan chapter 13.
Who cares?
Are you talking about this?
He literally says "Things were probably never generally like this, but there are plenty of places that are." His comment about native americans was ignorant, though I'll note that these societies were occasionally very brutal towards strangers, dunno if it was Graeberso or Bookchin who talked about this, so he's not even that wrong. Furthermore he isn't trying to "justify" his argument, his argument stands on its own, this is just an example. Have you even read the book?
I'm just saying that nothing Graeber states is original. In fact it's pretty banal.
how dare a leftist have a different stances on ideology and policy.
I'm sure Graeber is right, but given his ideology this just seems like him retroactively justifying blind anti-statism (he's anti-Marxist).
Marx recognized that you needed a worker-controlled state before you could have a stateless classless society. Graeber does't believe such things.
Hobbesianism (and Lockeanism while we are at it) is pure idealism; the idea of man divorced from society is incoherent. A human being divorced from any and all concept of social organization and everything it entails is a feral child; unable to organize complex thoughts, process language, or otherwise function as more than a nimble chimp. There is no "state of nature" because humans, *biologically*, are social. It is just as incoherent as asking what the state of nature of an ant is; ants are eusocial creatures and cannot survive or procreate without a colony. To ask what an ant is "truly like" outside of its social order is pointless.
Being against Marxism is fascist.
hot take
Also, like I said before, Hobbes is not trying to trace the origins of the social contract, how it came to be, as you imply. He's talking about why it exists, why it should exist. His idea of the state of nature does not even presuppose savagery, or the lack of social organisation. He talks about how a country in a civil war can be thought as being in a state of nature, and from his talk of equality of hopes you could argue, as later philosophers like Hegel and Marx sorta did, that any class society can be likened to a state of nature, because the interests of the master and the slave cannot be reconciled. I doubt Graeber ever talks about that.
My reading of this is “the state of nature likely never existed everywhere simultaneously, but whenever and wherever it has existed, it has meant war between all men”. The ambiguity he introduces is not about what he believes the state of nature entails.
I have not read Leviathan cover to cover. I skipped the parts about medical christcuckery, demonology, etc.
*medical
medieval
And the example he brings up of the civil war fits this perfectly. In a situation where there is no sovereign, no law or social order, the only one you can rely on is yourself. You might ally yourself with others, form a little community, but when push comes to shove it's you or them. In the end you will do what you must to secure your own, and as he says it is your right to do so.
Why what Leviathan says about the state of Nature isn’t completely applicable to primitive societies (it isn’t meant to) it’s very applicable to Syria, Yemen, and 90s Afganistan where a Hobbian state of nature definitely exists. When a central goverment is disolved in either whole or in part of a country, individuals find themselves in need of a power that can mediate disagreement between individuals thus new sovereigns from to take it’s place, and they fight with one another tell one reigns supreme. A state of constant warfare is their tell their is only one sovereign.
You come of as someone who already made up his mind: you want to like the book – just how Graeber has his preconceptions he wants to prove.
Having read Hobbes I am of the opinion that nobody reads Hobbes. Hobbes was very concerned with theology and definitions. The first 50 pages or so of Leviathan are spent defining terms.
Hobbes had a very hierarchical vision which required a top sovereign to remain logically coherent. God>King>Father.
He also ranked the severity of crimes and the necessary punishments. He saw that even if the sum of money stolen was equal that robbery was worse than larceny which was worse than fraud which was worse than embezzlement.
An anarchist critique of Hobbes that goes beyond "you're wrong" would be kind of tough because Hobbes' premises reject anarchism epistemologically. Maybe Graeber did it though. I haven't read his work. If he managed to write a good critique of Hobbes from an anarchist perspective then I would be impressed.
Graeber has a weird sort of primmie-reactionary thing going on but mostly he's really good and we need more people showing how much variation human social structures can have, that capitalism isn't human nature.
Specifically he seems to think it was a mistake to stop worshipping femininity/fertility like was common among hunter gatherers (who had no real idea how reproduction works and thought pregnancy was like divine magic). I don't have the link but he has a talk on youtube about R0java and he gets into this a bit. He also has a talk about "womens work" and non-productive but either reproductive or maintenance labor being the real basis of the economy, and that Marx was kind of a problematic male chauvinist shitlord for focusing so much on the "male" side of production/crearion. Some of the ideas he expresses on the topic are decent and it's generally interesting but imo he comes across as wanting brownie points.
If someone even implies that Hobbes was right wing in the contemporary sense of the word then they probably haven't read him.
He was an absolute monarchist. That's a right wing position. It was during the French Revolution, and it is today. There is no left monarchist position, and there isn't even a left absolutist position.
Social contract theory, in its modern incarnation, is a legitimization for the liberal conception of state. This is a justification for the status quo hearkening all the way back to monarchists like Hobbes. It is definitionally counterrevolutionary. Hobbes does not recognize the people's right to revolution. In fact, he explicitly argues against such a notion.
The very notion of an ahistoric/constant human nature is an example of reductive/mechanical materialism at best, reactionary at worst. If there is such a thing as "human nature" its "essence" is its own dissolution in historically contingent social practices.
You don't understand the first sentence.
You don't understand the mature Marx.
He wasn't necessarily a monarchist though. He just thought that it was the most effective way to government since the public person has to contend with the appetites of only one private person. He rejected the divine right to rule which is why he was controversial back in his day. In that way he was a lot less "spooked" than just about every other liberal theorist since most relied ultimately on quasi religious bullshit to justify muh rights and the like.
Graeber is as a great anthropologist but a terrible leftist
Yep, this is exactly correct. Marx abandoned the idea of an ahistoric human nature in his Theses On Feuerbach.
At the same time, Marx did say that there were four 'abstractions' which are valid for human beings in every epoch.
That's pretty much the only human nature that exists. Almost everything else is socially contingent.
Were you dropped as a baby?
Yeah, he was a protofascist. The only game in town in that direction at the time was absolute monarchy
There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes's discussion.[25] According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers, even the words.[26]
Retard
H-have you even read Hobbes?
Yes.
I've written on him too.
Your chromosomes are leaking.
Protofascism != fascism
He argued for the absolute authority of the state, which is the fundamental fascist position. The state, in the form of a single strongman, only has legitimacy through the people, but this cannot be questioned and does not arise from any process by which the people have actual input, which is also identicial to Italian fascism. In Hobbes' time, the only "sovereigns" around were monarchists. He provided a secular justification for their authority with social contract theory, as opposed to divine right. He argued vociferously against democracy, self-management, and the legitimacy of revolution, instead arguing that the stability that a strongman provides to society by "keeping the peace" completely legitimizes the absolute authority of the state (dictator) over every aspect of individual life.
Sorry if the facts hurt your feelings.
Fascism has no fundamentals you fucking nerd.
Right, I guess it doesn't mean anything, and actually the anarchists are the real fascists. You sure convinced me with your cogent arguments, historical examples, and familiarity with the text being discussed. I guess it's time to stop being a leftist forever and become a brainlet chud that soils my diap at the thought of Amazon coming to my town to create jobs.
The sovereign isn't a monarch you dumb bimbo maybe read Hobbes again. Stupid hole.
Wow, what an insightful reply.
The world really is a better place because you're here.
Imagine how sad we would all be if you jumped off a bridge.
The void left on this board, nay, the world, would be completely unfillable.
Resident reactionary.
Why does Zig Forums have a fascination with Hobbes? As a monarchist reading through Zig Forums, I notice you people have an affinity for him and his worldview.
Hobbes was very hierarchical because Hobbes believed egalitarianism was a state of conflict. For Hobbes, mankind is an egoist with rational self-interest and passion to contend with. When people are on an equal plane, they bump into each other and don't respect one another. He was somewhat egalitarian in belief that people are equally capable of things and this is a bad thing. If you read what Hobbes says about liberty, it's more of the "freedom from" point of view rather than the "freedom to". Hobbes saw freedom as doing anything without resistance. I mean – anything. He knew men had access to their own bodies, but also the bodies of others.
Hobbes was an adamant monarchist. His whole jig was being an apologist for the royalists to the whigs. Basically, reversing social contract theory on them.
To Hobbes, the People cannot rule without a sovereign. They need a sovereign to have sovereignty. Without a sovereign, the People have no vector for establishing commonwealth to the protection of commonweal. He makes an example of Moses with the Jews being lead to them, and trusting Moses as the first sovereign.
It has been said that Hobbes' political philosophy is a modification of Aristotle's Politics. There is something orthodox about Hobbes' view. He doesn't separate the State from the People like the Lockeans and other social contract theorists. Hobbes maintains the view of a single vessel that everyone is on board. There are people in the government and people outside the government; it makes no difference because, as Hobbes understands it, the leviathan is the People. Even a single monarch -is- the People. This is no business of private or public property, only propriety and peace for commonweal. The traditional view of sovereignty is a kind of pool everyone is within. As kingship was known, as a 'ship'. The view of politics was like a vessel.
If anyone wants help understanding Hobbes, I recommend reading this article.
jstor.org
Start with Hobbes' De Cive, then you move to Leviathan. Leviathan is his treatise on statecraft. De Cive has a basic groundwork to start with Hobbes' political philosophy.
As for Hobbes and atheism, I think it's political slander from opponents. The big picture is that other monarchists saw social contract theory as a deviation from divine right as the rule of the People and not God.The stress is on consent and everything being consensual in this relationship. I don't think he really rules out completely, but there are grounds for conflicting views.
For example, Robert Filmer, in chapter III of Patriarcha, believes that the power and authority of monarch is natural law and not subject to positive laws. With Hobbes, the sovereign is not subject to positive laws because he is the top authority, the author of royal laws, the highest of laws, and changes this command structure at a whim. The difference is that for Hobbes this is through the will of the People. Important to stress, not a percentage of a people, or a party, but the grand total in a particular realm.
tbh, most people are social contract theorists or post-modernist trash in mentality.
...
Sure you have
ive worked on Hobbes and his Leviathan and OP is a faggot.
the social contract is agreed on as soon as two individuals promise eachother not to bash eachothers skulls in when one of them is sleeping.
unless youre saying that a fucking caveman battle royale society is superior to anything that came after you should stop posting and lurk for a few years.
Whatever you say buddy.
If it makes you sleep better at night, you can believe that I'm the same type of unlettered, unread rube that you are. You can't stop people from looking up to see that my off the cuff comments about Hobbes are correct though.
I read most of Fragments on a plane yesterday, thought I'd give you all a book report.
So far, the book is less interesting than it was hyped up to be. The best parts were little quips about marxism, anarchism, capitalism, capitalist realism, shitting on primitivists, etc. Graeber's example of anarchical peoples outside the grasp of the state in Madagascar is probably the clearest example of social contracts in the state of nature, which does btfo Hobbes a bit.
Another thing worth noting is that he mentions Autonomists a bit, which is a communist tendency I have never seen discussed here, most likely because it doesn't fetishize dictators or have a sexy trademark aesthetic. I'll try to finish the book tonight and write something a bit more insightful
Anyone who's read half a chapter of Hobbes would see that your "off the cuff comments" are hilariously bad. If you really have written on Hobbes, I would love to see it. I'm sure it's great.
Everyone here is a Stalinist and Stalinism is Leviathanism more so than anything else.
David Graeber was a fucking idiot and his Debt book essentially proved itself wrong in the first 10 pages.
Interesting how you have a lot of "you're wrong" shitposts with zero citations.
It's almost like you have no clue what you're talking about and have never read Hobbes at all.