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> It's rather the opposite, Hobbes's treatise explains why you didn't witness it throughout recorded history. Once a population group got large enough to have t

> It's rather the opposite, Hobbes's treatise explains why you didn't witness it throughout recorded history. Once a population group got large enough to have to worry about silly things like common property it ended up having leaders/warlords (either homegrown or due to conquest from abroad). Is there any evidence that humans ever weren't large enough to worry about common property? I mean populations evolve, not individuals, right? And even families have common property within the household, right? If humans are social creatures, then it seems to me that this view of history can't be right because humans have always formed governments as required by our social nature. > But even so, you certainly saw it in recorded history when government was weaker. "Highwayman" used to connote a very scary idea, something that is most relevant in modern history to those driving in convoys in Afghanistan or Iraq. But bandits have almost always been a reaction to the formation (often by distinct government policies) of a destitute class. You see a major increase in banditry following the confiscation of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, for example, because this was instrumental in creating the destitute masses that would power the English Industrial Revolution. The FLN is a good example of the use of a war of all against all as a tactic to weaken governments. I don't think it is a good example of what happens without strong government though. A much better example would be blood feuds in medieval Iceland, or in weak government areas today. Blood feuds though are complex institutions. They don't really form a war of all against all. Rather they form a way for bad behavior to be punished. If a man in Papua feels that his wife has dishonored him and kills her, her brothers will likely do the same to him. This will spin around until everyone gets tired of it and decides to reconcile with some sort of settlement. As Jesse Byock has pointed out, one can see significant evidence that in medieval Iceland, the blood feud was an institution which provided a similar form of social control and stabilization to what we might think of as law and order. In short, blood feuds are law and order by a different means.

mpyne 13y ago
> Is there any evidence that humans ever weren't large enough to worry about common property? Well, yes, as long as you keep going back in the geological record (I won't say historical record since written language would seem to have required a dense-enough population). > If humans are social creatures, then it seems to me that this view of history can't be right because humans have always formed governments as required by our social nature. Well even at the family unit level you mention, there would be government (by head-of-household, whoever that was). In areas with multiple families you'd likely have common property which would need it's own form of government (warlord, popular tribal chief, what-have-you). But that's getting back to my original argument. I think we might actually be in agreement; the key to me seems to be that the Hobbesian nightmare doesn't occur when a populace and its government are organically grown. There's no reason you'd see all-vs.-all in history simply because there was always some form of government. Hobbes's nightmare seems to come from the collapse of government among a mass of people, and its subsequent power vacuum, which results in subsequent in-fighting (or invasion from abroad). There are multiple examples of this in recorded history as well. > But bandits have almost always been a reaction to the formation (often by distinct government policies) of a destitute class. I don't think anyone would argue that destitution increases crime and violence against the weak. It's easier to have morals when you don't have to die of hunger due to your principles. Likewise I think your point about blood feuds is spot on, but then we need to recognize that it has become government (as you say, law and order by a different means). The idea that the "war of all vs. all" would be transient (until some form of stable governance sets up) is probably the thing which keeps Hobbes from being as much of a nightmare. But it also wouldn't really make those who live through the transient feel any better about it.

mpyne 13y ago

> Is there any evidence that humans ever weren't large enough to worry about common property? Well, yes, as long as you keep going back in the geological record (I won't say historical record since written language would seem to have required a dense-enough population). > If humans are social creatures, then it seems to me that this view of history can't be right because humans have always formed governments as required by our social nature. Well even at the family unit level you mention, there would be government (by head-of-household, whoever that was). In areas with multiple families you'd likely have common property which would need it's own form of government (warlord, popular tribal chief, what-have-you). But that's getting back to my original argument. I think we might actually be in agreement; the key to me seems to be that the Hobbesian nightmare doesn't occur when a populace and its government are organically grown. There's no reason you'd see all-vs.-all in history simply because there was always some form of government. Hobbes's nightmare seems to come from the collapse of government among a mass of people, and its subsequent power vacuum, which results in subsequent in-fighting (or invasion from abroad). There are multiple examples of this in recorded history as well. > But bandits have almost always been a reaction to the formation (often by distinct government policies) of a destitute class. I don't think anyone would argue that destitution increases crime and violence against the weak. It's easier to have morals when you don't have to die of hunger due to your principles. Likewise I think your point about blood feuds is spot on, but then we need to recognize that it has become government (as you say, law and order by a different means). The idea that the "war of all vs. all" would be transient (until some form of stable governance sets up) is probably the thing which keeps Hobbes from being as much of a nightmare. But it also wouldn't really make those who live through the transient feel any better about it.