Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

mands of the majority by including them in the meaning
oft he comm0 n good. T hus, for Ma r ita in, the r e ca n be
rig h t s 0 r c I aimsaga ins t the s tat e, some t h in g wh i c h
P I a t 0 and R 0 u sseau, wit h the i r em phas i son tot a I submission,
could never grant. What these two versions of
the comm0 n goodar g ume n t for the s tat e show is not so
much an agreement on the content of the common good as
the belief that the state is, regardless of the content,
the indispensable agent for attaining the common
good.
2. THE ARGUMENT FROM NECESSITY
A line of reasoning similar to the public-good
jus t i f i cat ion for the s tate, a 1tho ugh f 0 c using rno r e on
the uti lit Y tot h e i n d i v i d u a I rat her t han the mo r a I
duty of sacrifice, is the argument from necessity advanced
most articulately and consistently -- some would
say ruthlessly -- by Thomas Hobbes.
Hobbes ut iIi zed the phi losophical fict ion of the
"state of nature." According to Hobbes' mechanistic
psychology , man is i n e Ie c tab I y attracted to pleasure
and repelled from pain. Since the experience of pleasure
presupposes life, life becomes the greatest of all
goods. The fatal flaw of life in the state of nature,
he rna i n ta i ns, is tha t all men are by nature equal in
the sense that any man can kill any other man. The result
is complete insecurity and perpetual fear. The
state of nature, says Hobbes in a particularly pungent
pas sage, isac0 n d i t ion 0 f " war, wh ere eve r y rna n is
Enemy to every man." It is a condition
wherein men live without other security, than
what the i r own s t r eng t h, and the i r own i n ve n ­
tion shall furnish them withal! ••• And the
life of man (is) solitary, poore, nasty,
brutish and short.(23)
This perpetual fear of violent death, endemic to
the state of nature, is a powerfUl sensation. Since
man is repelled from pain he naturally tries to extricate
himself from this situation. His reason informs
him that if there were a code of laws which indicated
what each could and could not safely do, coupled with
sufficiently powerful penalties to back it up, all
would have their lives secured. ThUS, if all individuals
-- except, of course, the sovereign -- would surr
end e r the i r "n a t u r air i g h t Tl t 0 kill, the y wo u 1d no
longer have to fear being killed. No longer required
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