Thomas Hobbes, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx were each concerned with the same problem: What was the best form of government for men to live under? Each philosopher believed in a different distribution of power. Figuring out the answer to this problem was crucial for those concerned with political philosophy, because, as Hobbes observed, men, when left in an ungoverned state of nature, live hard lives. Hobbes, in fact, writes that in this state, “Every man is enemy to every man” and each man can only live according to his own inventions. There is, he says, in this state, “no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain.” He suggests that men in the state of nature make few cultural developments, do not make advances in navigation or shipping over waterways, they do not engage in “commodious building” and they do not develop efficient transit. He suggests that they do not even develop knowledge of earth sciences, mathematics – even to develop a sense of time and they cannot engage in fields like art. Worst of all, he says, they live in “continual fear, and danger of violent death” and their lives are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” 1
Yet when governments become oppressive, men also rebel and engage in violence, creating conditions that are much the same as Hobbes suggests men exist in in the state of nature. By determining which governments are fairest and most conducive to peace and harmony, political philosophers may be able to make recommendations that can foster longer periods of peace and greater prosperity.
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"Hobbes, Hegel, Marx and the Problem of Governance".
Each philosopher had a different answer to the problem above. Because Hobbes believed that when men were left to their own devices, they often treated each other violently, they needed a monarch to rule them in an orderly fashion. Hegel writes that men are conscious of themselves, but that, necessarily, “self-consciousness is faced by another self-consciousness.” 2
Hegel suggests that rights are not natural. He suggests that what is instinctive for us is self-interest and we see others as non-essential. Our interests and the interests of those outside us, therefore, clash. 2 Just as Hobbes observes that men are naturally the enemies of one another, Hegel writes that “In so far as it is the action of the other, each seeks the death of the other.” 2 Men, therefore, engage in struggles with each other. “It is,” he writes, “only through staking one’s life” that people obtain freedom. Only those who struggle this way are really conscious of themselves.
Lords are those, Hegel says, who are victorious in their struggles against others, while bondsmen are those who prove unable to break free. Lordship, for Hegel, is earned though struggle, rather than inherent or appointed by religious forces as it is for Hobbes.
Marx challenges the rightness of this relationship, condemning relationships based on private property accumulation, saying, “With the mass of objects grows the realm of alien powers to which man is subjected, and each new product is a new potentiality of mutual fraud and mutual pillage.” He suggests that systems based on lordship and the mastery of others are not good, but systems which make man become “ever poorer as a man.” 3 Instead, he suggests that men have communal natures which involve helping one another and recommends a more equitable distribution of power. He suggests that capitalist systems make men pay to live in their own mortuaries, instead of allowing them to live and cooperate as they should. 3
The ideas of Hobbes, Hegel and Marx suggest that people struggle with one another both politically and personally. While Hobbes suggests that this means they require outside leaders to settle their disputes and Hegel suggests that those who are best fit to lead are those who are victorious in struggles over leadership, Marx suggests that we, as people, get along best when we agree to cooperate.
- Hobbes T. Leviathan. London: McMaster University; 1651.
- Hegel GWF. Phenomenology of the Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1977.
- Marx K. NEED, PRODUCTION AND DIVISION OF LABOR. Marxists.org. August 23, 2000.
