Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [28]
For the individual, liberty exists only to the extent the Sovereign permits and only in those areas the Sovereign has not preempted with his own exercise of authority. “[A] free man is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do is not hindered to do what he has a will to do” (136). As in most tyrannies, the individual’s liberty will undoubtedly and steadily constrict and erode. Such is the nature of absolute power in the hands of one man or a relative handful of men. For Hobbes, the individual must not be generally free to live his life as he sees fit, for his egoism knows no limits. In this regard, Hobbes shares More’s mind-set in Utopia, in which More argues that the individual’s pride deserves scorn and must be controlled by the central authority. But what of the individual’s enlightened self-interest and ethical egoism—where, acting on his own behalf and in his own interest, he also benefits the greater society? Indeed, is this dynamic not vital to the functioning of a free and prosperous society?
Although Hobbes’s discussion of economics and private property rights is not well developed, his relentless attack on individual self-interest, which he believes leads to greed and undermines the Commonwealth, combined with the assertion in Leviathan that the Subject has “the liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contract with one another; to choose their own abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves think fit, and the like” only to the extent the Sovereign allows, suggests the Sovereign will have the authority to control and appropriate whatever property he believes necessary and freely intervene in the individual’s life decisions to ostensibly maintain the Commonwealth. Therefore, although the individual surrenders his rights and liberties to the Sovereign in exchange for protection and security, the Sovereign’s priority is to safeguard himself. Obviously, throughout history unspeakable misery and violence have been perpetrated by tyrants in the name of the greater and common good.
Hobbes, like Plato and More, strips the individual of human qualities that contribute to the essence of life—motivation, inquisitiveness, competition, exploration, inventiveness, accomplishment, etc. Is not a society that cultivates individual initiative, independence, and self-sufficiency rather than discourages, suppresses, and punishes them likely to be a humane society? Conversely, rather than alleviating man’s “continual fear and danger of violent death” and the miserable conditions that result in “the life of man” being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” does not Hobbes design such a society? (76)
Hobbes also contends there cannot be morality or what he calls moral virtue—justice, gratitude, modesty, equity, mercy, etc.—in the state of nature, where man is in a constant state of war (100). Moral virtue can only exist in the framework of covenants among men as enforced in the broader social contract with the Sovereign. But it is inaccurate to argue that only covenants enforced by an all-powerful Sovereign promote or define moral virtue. Moral virtue, whether intuitive, learned, or reasoned, has preexisted the Commonwealth (or government). It has existed within families and among friends since the beginning of man. It has existed among the earliest trading partners and among native tribes. But just as immorality also preexisted the Commonwealth, men can covenant to do immoral things and governments can establish laws that lack moral justification or are executed in ways that promote immorality. It is simply inaccurate to insist that moral virtue is only possible and more likely under an all-powerful Sovereign.
From Leviathan springs not a virtuous government protective of the civil society but a totalitarian regime. As in Plato’s Republic and More’s Utopia, in Leviathan Hobbes rejects self-government because, he believes, the individual and man generally cannot