The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

When men appeal fromEDWARD COLESONto GODOPPRESSION is as old as mankindand unfortunately is still with us.A few decades ago we were certainthat we were rapidly outgrowingthis ancient affiictionwith the advanceof civilization, but thesehopes have not materialized. Stillthe quest continues. There arethose who look back to, a golden ageof freedom and brotherhood in thepast, while others seek to find theirearthly paradise with the childrenof nature on a remote tropical islandsomewhere. It may be an interestingexercise of the imaginationto dream up an idyllic state ofnature where "noble savages" aretruly brothers and they all livehappily ever after. Yet, Rousseauand a lot of other romantic visionariesnotwithstanding, there havebeen relatively few Utopias overthe ages.Dr. Coleson is Professor of Social Science atSpring Arbor College in Michigan.Hobbes l much more realisticallydescribed life in this state of natureas "nasty, brutish and short."It is not only that primitive manfinds it difficult to satisfy his needswith his bare hands or crude tools,but that men prey upon each other.To Hobbes men were brutes so lifedegenerated into a perpetual conditionof "war of every managainst every" other in a strugglenot just to survive, as Darwinwould say, but to dominate his fellows.For man is possessed of "aperpetual and restless desire ofpower after power that ceasethonly in death." President Wilsonpressed for "self determination"as a right of all peoples duringWorld War I on the assumptionthat they wanted to rule themselves.According to Hobbes, theywant to rule each other. Nor isthis view unique.Adam Smith 2 suggests that this323