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1. Authority and the State

   Political Force, Political Action
2. Review Plato’s dialogue Crito. Socrates claims that the Laws would say that he destroys the city in escaping his punishment, and this unjustly. The Laws say that a citizen stands in relation to the city as the child does to the parent, as the slave does to his master.
3. Review The Laws say to Socrates that he has entered into a contract with the state to act and behave in a certain way. Socrates agrees to obey the laws as they reflect higher reason and the state.
4. Review Thomas Hobbes He had a distinctive view of human motivation, according to which all human actions are motivated by self-interest. Hobbes asserted the thesis of equality as a purely physical fact that even the strongest or smartest among us. Given the fact that human nature is selfish, power-mongering, and equally distributed – Hobbes lays down the ‘state of nature’.
5. Review Concepts like right and wrong, justice and injustice, and “mine and thine” (property) are concepts generated by law, hence dependent on law. In the absence of law, these concepts cannot be meaningful. The concept of law is dependent upon power. A law with no power behind it is not authoritative because it cannot be enforced.
6. Review RRIGHT/WRONG POWER --- LAW --- JUSTICE/INJUSTICE PROPERTY/THEFT
7. Review Social Contract Theory: The ethical and political theory according to which morally right behavior and obligation should be determined by a hypothetical contract in which parties agree to accept certain standards as reasonable.
8. Review The solution to this dilemma requires another step in the contract. All of us must agree to transfer our right to violence and our right to sovereignty over ourselves to a mutually agreed-upon sovereign (a parliament or a monarch), which nor has absolute political authority over us. This sovereign promises to pass laws that create a state of peace.
9. Karl Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883)
10. Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895)
11. Karl Marx School of Thought: Marxism, Communism, Hegelianism Main Interests: Politics, Economics, Philosophy, Sociology, History, Class Struggle Notable Ideas: Marxism, Surplus Value, Alienation and Exploitation of the Worker, Materialist Conception of History
12. Marx
13. Marx
14. Marx
15. Property, Labor and Alienation: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology Marxism: A political or philosophical doctrine based on the writings of Karl Marx: politically a form of communism, philosophically a form of materialism known as dialectical materialism. Communism: The political theory that advocates the abolition of private property and asserts that goods must be held in common and that the ideal social unity is that commune.
16. Marx
17. Marx Materialism: The ontological view that all reality can be shown to be material in nature (e.g., that “minds” are really brains).
18. Marx Dialectic: in the philosophies of Hegel and Marx, the dialectic is a mechanism of change and progress in which every possible situation exists only in relation to its own opposite. This relationship is one of both antagonism and mutual dependency, but the antagonism (a form of violence) eventually undermines the relationship and overthrows it. (However, sometimes the term “dialectical” is used only to emphasize a relationship of reciprocity between two entities or processes.)
19. Marx
20. Marx Society is not merely the totality of individuals; rather, it is an organic whole that in certain ways creates the individual. For Marx, there can be no question of individual rights that somehow supersede social rights.
21. Marx “The alienation of the worker in his object is expressed as follows in the laws of political economy: the more the worker produces the less he has to consume; the more value he creates the more worthless he becomes; the more refined his product the more crude and misshapen the worker; the more civilized the product the more barbarous the worker; the more powerful the work the more feeble the worker; the more the work manifests intelligence the more the worker declines in intelligence and becomes a slave of nature. Labor certainly produces marvels for the rich, but it produces privation for the worker. It produces palaces, but hovels for the worker. It produces beauty, but deformity for the worker. It replaces labor by machinery, but it casts some of the workers back into a barbarous kind of work and turns the others into machines. It produces intelligence, but also stupidity and cretinism for the workers.” Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts - p.97
22. Marx According to Marx, humans are naturally creative, productive, artistic, aesthetic being who must express their being in their products. So another effect of unjust socioeconomic systems is that the individual's being is stolen – she does not produce as a natural outlet of her creative urge; rather, she is forced to sell her work to another person.
23. Marx “What constitutes the alienation of labor? First, that the work is external to the worker, that it is not part of his nature; and that, consequently, he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself, has a feeling of misery rather than well being, does not develop freely his mental and physical energies but is physically exhausted and mentally debased. The worker therefore feels himself at home only during his leisure time, whereas at work he feels homeless. His work is not voluntary but imposed, forced labor. It is not the satisfaction of a need, but only a means for satisfying other needs. Its alien character is clearly shown by the fact that as soon as there is no physical or other compulsion it is avoided like the plague. External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Finally, the external character of work for the worker is shown by the fact that is not his own work but work for someone else, that in work he does not belong to himself but to another person.” pages 98-99.
24. Marx Four Aspects of Alienation: The product of labor: The worker is alienated from the object he produces because it is owned and disposed of by another, the capitalist. The labor process: The second element of alienation Marx identified is a lack of control over the process of production. Our fellow human beings: Thirdly, we are alienated from our fellow human beings. This alienation arises in part because of the antagonisms which inevitably arise from the class structure of society. Our human nature: The fourth element is our alienation from what Marx called our species being. What makes us human is our ability to consciously shape the world around us. However, under capitalism our labor is coerced, forced labor.
25. Marx Marx’s Vision of Society True/False Needs: True needs derive from our real nature as biological and social beings (e.g., the need for food, shelter, clothing, medical care, love, and education). False needs are any artificial needs of the privileged that are at the expense of the true needs of the majority, any exaggeration of true needs that are instilled in some while others go without. The foundations of social production must not be privately owned but must be socially owned and democratically controlled. Social production must be such that individual workers are not forced to enter into streams of specialization that constrain the natural abundance of the creative urge. No one may be objectified in a specific role.
26. Marx “ …in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
27. Marx Under these conditions, the motto of justice will be “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The release of the human creative potential – true individuality – “true consciousness”
28. The German Ideology Marx begins with an analysis of the family, which harbors a ‘latent slavery’ – wife and children are the slaves of the husband. This slavery is linked to the ‘power of disposing the labor-power of others’ – to show how the whole of society is structured in ways which reflect the unequal distribution of power.
29. The German Ideology The Division of Labor: Forces people to work exclusively at a particular task to gain their livelihood, means that ‘man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslave him instead of being controlled by him’. The masses are forced to work in ways which ‘fix’ them in a particular role, restricting their freedom, and robbing their lives of meaning.
30. The German Ideology Alienation in turn generates the pressures for the revolution of the proletariat to rise up and take power.
31. John Stuart Mill
32. The Limits of Majority Rule: John Stuart Mill, On Liberty Mill saw his goal as that of distinguishing between the public and the private. He believed there was a realm that was genuinely the concern of society – and hence of the body politic. He also believed there was a realm that was genuinely the concern of the individual, and in that realm, politics had no business.
33. On Liberty The Principle of Liberty: drawing the distinction between the public and the private.
34. On Liberty “The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle … That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forebear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise.” –John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. p. 23-24.
35. On Liberty The body politic, the general will, or whatever one wants to call political authority, can legitimately restrain the action of individual members of the society only if those actions harm other members of the society. Question of harm ---
36. On Liberty Mill extended his principle of liberty to encompass such areas as freedom of thought, expression, and assembly. No government, not even a pure democracy, can legitimately legislate against these rights, according to Mill. It was clear for Mill, that democracy was the best form of government.
37. On Liberty Laissez-faire or “hands off” (literally, “leave alone”. There are certain realms where government has no business, except to protect the existence of precisely those realms. “Laissez-faire .. Should be the general practice: every departure from it unless required by some great good, is a certain evil.” –p.950
38. On Liberty Among other applications, this doctrine means that, in most respects, the government ought to keep its hands off the marketplace, allowing a system of free enterprise unhampered by the state controls.
39. On Liberty Such a policy of legitimate state intervention not only justifies for Mill a governmental subsidy of the arts, bit it could also be used in today’s world to protect citizens from the contamination of vicious profit