If humans lived in a state of nature, put simply a condition in which there was no political organisation or power, there would be catastrophic war and anarchy.
At least according to Hobbes, who made his mark witting The Leviathan around the time of the civil war. It was a book discussing the relationship between citizen and the state, in which it was argued we should cede power to protect us to a mighty sovereign.
The Leviathan can be characterised as a theory of the state. In context, at the time Hobbes composed his work, the state was commonly associated with the notion of popular sovereignty- where it was the name of the ‘body of the people’ organised for political power. Crucially, he repudiated the fundamental assumption that the people exist as a single, unified body.
His premise was illustrated with what became a celebrated piece of iconography. Taking a human body, the state was shown as having sovereign as its head, but being made up of all individual members as the body. The point being that they all exist as individuals, and attain an artificial unity through the sovereign head. So it reverses idea that body politic creates a state, saying it is only through having a sovereign that you have a 'body of the people.'
The background to the Leviathan lies in the breakout of the civil war of 1642. It was a response to the lawless nature of society and a guide so that people should understand how to produce peace instead of war.
Ostensibly it sets out a thought experiment investigating the contract of government. But perhaps the thought experiment is more than reverse engineering, and is meant to serve as a warning that life a without law, inevitably equals war. It starts with the 'state of nature' in which everyone exists just as individuals. An egalitarian, Hobbes believed that we all desire the same things- scarce goods- and that we have the same powers to obtain things.
The result is a war of everyone against everyone in which everyone is constantly liable to sudden death, in which the natural life of man is solitary, brutish and short. Circumventing this problem requires therefore that we take steps to talk to each other to avoid war. In doing so, we come to share the view that sudden violent death is intolerable; this consensus is the keystone for state, relating back to the idea that 'Fear of death is beginning of wisdom.'
The covenant is each with each, whereby we all covenant that someone should be our sovereign, thereby creating an artificial person; a representative of ourselves. It recognises that someone’s will must count as the will of everyone. The demands are that whereas I used to act according to my will, I will now operate according to yours. In the state of nature, society fails to function because there is a conflict of interest between individuals and the state, due to the fact everyone retains all their freedoms, regardless of how they impact upon others, and impinge on the rights of those around you. The covenant means giving up practically all your rights to ensure peace, especially any right to exercise discretion in respect of law. Consequently, the sovereign’s will now counts as your will.
It would appear thus far to be an authoritarian state in that it details the abandonment of your will to another. But as Hobbes emphasises, there stark choice is between subjection and death. For that reason, the role of monarch is to create an artificial unity of the people, in which the will of sovereign counts for everybody, rather than to represent interests of each and every. This fictional entity created by sovereign is called the state.
This is not the idea where the body of the people appoints a sovereign representative as an executive arm of the people; that of popular sovereignty. Instead, the people ask the sovereign to represent them, and an analogy is drawn to the court of law, where it is the role of the legal system to acquit us. Similarly, the sovereign should keep the peace with sovereign power vested in it, in a form of representative government.
We have inherited his tradition, and every 5 years we appoint representatives, giving them sovereign power to determine our interest’s thereby imparting power to make decisions on our behalf.
Finally, we do not always have to obey will of sovereign, because we must not give up rights which are indispensable to maintaining our lives, or else, why would you enter the state? Essentially, we keep hold of the liberty to act against call of state if it would endanger your existence. As such, conscription is refutable because it is dangerous and could result in death.
So the state is something other than body of the people, otherwise we would have direct democracy. Instead we have representative democracy, where the state is name of fictional body which embodies our values in order to maintain peace.
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