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Political Theorists on
Personal Wealth & the Law Hobbes & Locke by Sophia Barkat In his book, the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html talks about what we have been discussing: That the State or King or Rules has power over it's citizens or consumers. That all citizens who swear by the Covenant - the Oath of Allegiance - are swearing to be servants to the State/King. The State/King confers some rights upon these "submissives". These are the little freedoms each will have in their lives upon which the State/King will not tread. Each citizen is thus equal to the next in as far as their few freedoms. They are not equal in other respects. Laws related to preservation of personal wealth apply to all. Personal wealth = life, land, natural resources, capital, relationships - whatever you place a value upon (not necessarily monetary value). Your rights and freedoms are related to your ability to respect one another's Personal Wealth. John Locke also discusses the relationship between Law and Order and Personal Wealth. Mainly he talks about empowering citizens with land http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/locke.htm#Two%20Treatises%20of%20Government "In Two Treatises of Government he has two purposes in view: to refute the doctrine of the divine and absolute right of the Monarch, as it had been put forward by Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, and to establish a theory which would reconcile the liberty of the citizen with political order. The criticism of Filmer in the first Treatise is complete. His theory of the absolute sovereignty of Adam, and so of kings as Adam's heirs, has lost all interest; and Locke's argument has been only too effective: his exhaustive reply to so absurd a thesis becomes itself wearisome. Although there is little direct reference to Hobbes, Locke seems to have had Hobbes in mind when he argued that the doctrine of absolute monarchy leaves sovereign and subjects in the state of nature towards one another. The constructive doctrines which are elaborated in the second treatise became the basis of social and political philosophy for generations. Labor is the origin and justification of property; contract or consent is the ground of government and fixes its limits. Behind both doctrines lies the idea of the independence of the individual person. The state of nature knows no government; but in it, as in political society, men are subject to the moral law, which is the law of God. Men are born free and equal in rights. Whatever a man "mixes his labour with" is his to use. Or, at least, this was so in the primitive condition of human life in which there was enough for all and "the whole earth was America." Locke sees that, when men have multiplied and land has become scarce, rules are needed beyond those which the moral law or law of nature supplies. But the origin of government is traced not to this economic necessity, but to another cause. The moral law is always valid, but it is not always kept. In the state of nature all men equally have the right to punish transgressors: civil society originates when, for the better administration of the law, men agree to delegate this function to certain officers. Thus government is instituted by a "social contract"; its powers are limited, and they involve reciprocal obligations; moreover, they can be modified or rescinded by the authority which conferred them. Locke's theory is thus no more historical than Hobbes's. It is a rendering of the facts of constitutional government in terms of thought, and it served its purpose as a justification of the Revolution settlement in accordance with the ideas of the time." by Trevor Batten Re: Sophia's post Sophia Barkat wrote: "In his book, the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html talks about what we have been discussion: That the State or King or Rules has power over it's citizens or consumers." I'm pretty sure that Hobbes did not mention "consumers"! In fact I find it extremely worrying that that it seems that people nowadays apparently cannot define themselves in any other way. You have made slaves of yourselves! Sophia wrote: "That all citizens who swear by the Covenant - the Oath of Allegiance - are swearing to be servants to the State/King. The State/King confers some rights upon these "submissives". These are the little freedoms each will have in their lives upon which the State/King will not tread. Each citizen is thus equal to the next in as far as their few freedoms. They are not equal in other respects. Laws related to preservation of personal wealth apply to all. Personal wealth = life, land, natural resources, capital, relationships - whatever you place a value upon (not necessarily monetary value). Your rights and freedoms are related to your ability to respect one another's Personal Wealth." Presumably, this represents quite a large (invisible) shift in society. One suspects that "personal wealth" (even in non-material terms) is one "capital" that one has to invest in order to survive (this is why it needs to be respected). However, in a corporate consumerist world -the corporations have all the wealth - and the individuals only have what they ccan temporally obtain (borrow) from the corporations in order to buy consumer goods. Because the individual is essentially uncreative (this is reserved for the corporations) the individual has nothing to "invest" and can only run (like a tame mouse) in the commercial treadmill. Ones rights and freedoms are then related to ones ability to run fast in the treadmill - and one looses them if one slows down (or has not managed to save in some sort of commercial saving/insurance/investment scheme). Sophia wrote: "John Locke also discusses the relationship between Law and Order and Personal Wealth. Mainly he talks about empowering citizens with land............(the long quote)" So, it would appear that the current US government wishes "civil" law to only apply to its citizens (with respect to the government) -while the US government refuses to accept the principle of "civil" law between nations. At the same time -it accuses all those states which do not conform to its wishes as "rogue states" -when in fact the US is the biggest rogue state - so its opponents are only following the eexample set by the US government itself. By chance (or divine right) 30 April is celebrated as the Queens birthday in Holland (it was her mothers birthday -and she has kept the date). Because Holland is the ultimate in petite bourgeois societies. The way they celebrate is to allow the people to sell things (mostly old junk) without paying tax (wow!)..... As a result, I found a book (From the Netherlands American Studies Association) entitled "Neo-Conservatism" (published in 1984 -so you can see how long Bush and his friends have been busy). The last chapter is titled "The first Neo-Conservative debate: Thomas Paine vs. Edmund Burke". The Author (Koen Koch) claims that "Paine had to misrepresent and even to misquote grossly, as I will demonstrate, the gist of Burke's writings"....... (nothing new there it seems -Bush and his friends have apparently learned their history well). Burke and Paine were old friends who fell out because Burke became opposed to the results of the French Revolution -while Paine supported it wholeheartedly..... Simply put -Burke did not believe that the ends justified any possible means but Pain did (a Stalinist!). Apparently, Burke was also opposed to the British restrictions which lead to the American revolution..... Koch concludes: "Burke is the bad conscience of Paine and generations of progressive radicals. They try to silence their bad conscience by turning Burke from a moderate political ally, who warns of the effects of the methods they choose, into a reactionary political opponent, who is not worth listening to. As a consequence, as Burke wrote, one can still see the gallows at the end of their avenues to power." |
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