Political-Talk.com

 

Confucius

The Chinese philosopher Confucius(551-471 BCE) was one of the first thinkers to adopt a distinct approach to political philosophy. His philosophy was “rooted in his belief that a ruler should learn self-discipline, should govern his subjects by his own example, and should treat them with love and concern.” His political beliefs were strongly linked to personal ethics and morality, believing that only a morally upright ruler who possessed “de”, or virtue, should be able to exercise power, and that the behavior of an individual ought to be consistent with their rank in society. He stated that “Good government consists in the ruler being a ruler, the minister being a minister, the father being a father, and the son being a son.”

Plato

The Greek philosopher Plato(428-328 BC), in his book The Republic, argued that all conventional political systems (democracy, monarchy, oligarchy and timarchy) were inherently corrupt, and that the state ought to be governed by an elite class of educated philosopher-rulers, who would be trained from birth and selected on the basis of aptitude: “those who have the greatest skill in watching over the community.” This has been characterised as authoritarian and elitist by some later scholars, notably Karl Popper in his book The Open Society and its Enemies, who described Plato’s schemes as essentially totalitarian and criticised his apparent advocacy of censorship. The Republic has also been labelled as communist, due to its advocacy of abolishing private property and the family among the ruling classes; however, this view has been discounted by many scholars, as there are implications in the text that this will extend only to the ruling classes, and that ordinary citizens “will have enough private property to make the regulation of wealth and poverty a concern.”

In his book Politics, the Greek philosopher Aristotle(384–322BC) asserted that man is, by nature, a political animal. He argued that ethics and politics are closely linked, and that a truly ethical life can only be lived by someone who participates in politics.

Like Plato, Aristotle identified a number of different forms of government, and argued that each “correct” form of government may devolve into a “deviant” form of government, in which its institutions were corrupted. According to Aristotle, kingship, with one ruler, devolves into tyranny; aristocracy, with a small group of rulers, devolves into oligarchy; and polity, with collective rule by many citizens, devolves into democracy. In this sense, Aristotle does not use the word “democracy” in its modern sense, carrying positive connotations, but in its literal sense of rule by the demos, or common people. A more accurate view of Aristotle denouncing democracy was that it was described as mob rule, or ochlocracy.

Niccolo Machiavelli

In his work The Prince, the Renaissance Italian political theorist Machiavelli put forward a political worldview which described practical methods for an absolute ruler to attain and maintain political power. His work is sometimes viewed as rejecting traditional views of morality for a ruler: “for Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power.” It is from Machiavelli that the term Machiavellian is derived, referring to an amoral person who uses manipulative methods to attain power; however, many scholars have questioned this view of Machiavelli’s theory, arguing that “Machiavelli did not invent ‘Machiavellism’ and may not even have been a ‘Machiavellian’ in the sense often ascribed to him.” Instead, Machiavelli considered the stability of the state to be the most important goal, and argued that qualities traditionally considered morally desirable, such as generosity, were undesirable in a ruler and would lead to the loss of power. Critics of Machiavelli have often pointed out his works were studied and put into practice by leaders such as Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler, who all argued their brutal programs were needed for security of the state just as Machiavelli recommended.

Thomas Hobbes

In 1651, Thomas Hobbes published his most famous work, Leviathan, in which he proposed a model of early human development to justify the creation of polities, i.e. governed bodies. Hobbes described an ideal state of nature wherein every person had equal right to every resource in nature and was free to use any means to acquire those resources. He claimed that such an arrangement created a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes). The book has been interpreted by scholars as posing two “stark alternatives”; total obedience to an absolute ruler, or “a state of nature, which closely resembles civil war…where all have reason to fear a violent death”. Hobbes’ view can therefore be interpreted as a defense of absolutism, arguing that human beings enter into a social contract for their protection and agree to obey the dictates of the sovereign; in Hobbes’ worldview, “the sovereign is nothing more than the personal embodiment of orderly government.” Hobbes himself argued “The final cause, end, or design of men (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, in which we see them live in Commonwealths, is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby.”

John Locke

The English philosopher John Locke was “one of the greatest philosophers in Europe at the end of the seventeenth century”. His political philosophy is contained primarily in his Two Treatises of Government. In the First Treatise of Government, Locke refutes the theory of the Divine Right of Kings as put forward by Robert Filmer; he “minutely examines key Biblical passages” and concludes that absolute monarchy is not supported by Christian theology. “Locke singles out Filmer’s contention that men are not ‘naturally free’ as the key issue, for that is the ‘ground’…on which Filmer erects his argument for the claim that all ‘legitimate’ government is ‘absolute monarchy’.”

In the Second Treatise of Government, Locke examines the concept of the social contract put forward by other theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, but reaches a different conclusion. Although he agreed with Hobbes on the concept of a state of nature before existing forms of government arose, he challenged Hobbes’ view that the state of nature was equivalent to a state of war, instead arguing that there were certain natural rights belonging to all human beings, which continued even after a political authority was established. “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone…being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, health or possessions”. According to one scholar, the basis of Locke’s thought in the Second Treatise is that “contract or consent is the ground of government and fixes its limits…behind [this] doctrine lies the idea of the independence of the individual person.” In other words, Locke’s view was different from Hobbes’ in that he interpreted the idea of the “state of nature” differently, and he argued that people’s natural rights were not necessarily eliminated by their consent to be governed by a political authority.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The 18th century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his book The Social Contract, put forward a system of political thought which was closely related to those of Hobbes and Locke, but different in important respects. In the opening sentence of the book, Rousseau argued that “…man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains” He defined political authority and legitimacy as stemming from the “general will”, or volonté generale; for Rousseau, “true Sovereignty is directed always at the public good”. This concept of the general will implicitly “allows for individual diversity and freedom…[but] also encourages the well-being of the whole, and therefore can conflict with the particular interests of individuals.” As such, Rousseau also argues that the people may need a “lawgiver” to draw up a constitution and system of laws, because the general will, “while always morally sound, is sometimes mistaken”.

Rousseau’s thought has been seen by some scholars as contradictory and inconsistent, and as not addressing the fundamental contradiction between individual freedom and subordination to the needs of society, “the tension that seems to exist between liberalism and communitarianism”. As one Catholic scholar argues, “that it [The Social Contract] contains serious contradictions is undeniable…its fundamental principles–the origin of society, absolute freedom and absolute equality of all–are false and unnatural.” The Catholic Encyclopedia further argues that Rousseau’s concept of the general will would inevitably lead to “the suppression of personality, the reign of force and caprice, the tyranny of the multitude, the despotism of the crowd”, i.e. the subordination of the individual to society as a whole.

John Stuart Mill

In the 19th century, John Stuart Mill pioneered the liberal conception of politics. He saw democracy as the major political development of his era and, in his book On Liberty, advocated stronger protection for individual rights against government and the rule of the majority. He argued that liberty was the most important right of human beings, and that the only just cause for interfering with the liberty of another person was self-protection. One commentator refers to On Liberty as “the strongest and most eloquent defense of liberalism that we have.” Mill also emphasised the importance of freedom of speech, claiming that “we can never be sure that the opinion we are attempting to stifle is a false opinion, and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.”

Karl Marx

Karl Marx was among the most influential political philosophers of history. His theories, collectively termed Marxism, were critical of capitalism and argued that in the due course of history, there would be an “inevitable breakdown of capitalism for economic reasons, to be replaced by communism.” He defined history in terms of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie, or property-owning classes, and the proletariat, or workers, a struggle intensified by industrialisation: “The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

Many subsequent political movements have based themselves on Marx’s thought, offering widely differing interpretations of communism; these include Marxism-Leninism, Maoism and libertarian Marxism. Possibly the most influential interpreter of Marxist theory was Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union, who created a revolutionary theory founded on Marxist thinking. However, libertarian Marxist thinkers have challenged Lenin’s interpretation of Marx; Cornelius Castoriadis, for instance, described the Soviet Union’s system as a form of “bureaucratic capitalism” rather than true communism.