Thursday, December 31, 2015

Leviathan, Marxism, Will to Grow

Modern Political Philosophy is framed by the English Civil War, which Hobbes diagnoses as rooted in a 'war of all against all', each of whom is motivated by Self-Preservation.  Accordingly, his solution is a general Peace, implemented by a contractually empowered sovereign.  Now, the arc of the Marxist doctrine can be recognized as a special case of the Hobbesian project--class warfare is the problem, resolved by the elimination of conflict in a class-less society, in which sovereignty is immanent.  So, both doctrines can be conceived as expressing a Will to Peace as its Species-Principle.  However, while the scope of Leviathan is national, that of Marxist Socialism is global, e. g. the exhortation to the workers of the world.  So, the Species-Principle expressed by the intervening two centuries is a Will to Grow.

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