Cover: Political Theory by Pete Woodcock

Dedication

To
Raphs and Issy

Political Theory

A Beginner’s Guide

Pete Woodcock













polity

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of teaching I have delivered at the University of Huddersfield, and prior to that at the University of Southampton; I am in the debt of colleagues and students at both institutions that have endured my endless wittering on the subjects contained within these pages. I appreciate how lucky I am to spend my working life discussing these things with you all.

Whilst writing this book I have sought refuge in the University of Huddersfield’s library, the Leeds Library, and Lindley Library (Kirklees), and have benefitted greatly from the expertise of the staff of those institutions, and the tranquillity of the surroundings.

Numerous colleagues have provided me with a sounding board for ideas throughout the years whilst working on this project, but in particular Catherine McGlynn, Shaun McDaid, Leonie Jackson, Russell Bentley, David Owen, and Michael Bacon deserve special mention. George Owers and Ian Tuttle from Polity have worked beyond the call of duty in making the final product vaguely coherent. Needless to say, despite all this assistance, any errors contained herein are entirely mine.

Most of all I would like to thank my mother, Viv Woodcock, and my much missed father, Lloyd Woodcock for the help and support they have provided me throughout my learning journey; I hope that creating a book to pass on knowledge is some small recompense for all that I have taken from others. And much love to my kids Raphs and Issy for keeping me smiling when the writing got tough; they might be impressed if this book results in my YouTube channel getting more views.

Please follow me on Twitter for supporting activities and media: @petewoodcock

1
Introduction

Purpose of this book

On a hot summer’s day in 1749 the polymath Jean-Jacques Rousseau decided to walk the six miles from Paris to Vincennes to visit his friend Denis Diderot who was imprisoned there for his persistent criticism of the government. Taking a break, he opened his newspaper and glanced upon an advert for the Academy of Dijon’s essay writing competition; entries were invited to the question ‘has the progress of the sciences and arts done more to corrupt morals or improve them?’ (Rousseau, 1953: 327). Rousseau outlines the effect that seeing this question had on him in his letter to the statesman/philosopher Lamoignon-Malesherbes. His head began spinning as thousands of ideas flooded into his mind of how he could answer this question, he burst into tears, and then collapsed under a tree where he remained for an hour and a half contemplating the philosophical issues that arose from the question. He was thereafter unable to do anything other than work on his essay. He could not sleep, so spent the night-times meditating on the essay, writing sentences in his head which he would dictate to his secretary in the morning. Perhaps this reminds you of yourself when writing an essay (other than the bit about the secretary).

When he had finished his essay, he sent it to the Academy of Dijon thinking it ‘the most feebly argued, the most deficient in proportion and harmony’ of anything that has ‘proceeded from my pen’ (Rousseau, 1953: 329). It won first prize and is a classic in the history of political thought, known thereafter as Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. Its central theme, that far from improving morals, the arts and sciences have corrupted man’s1 natural goodness, would be one that Rousseau returned to many times, and one we will discuss below.

Such is the impact of political theory. The artistic epiphany and breakdown that Rousseau suffered is probably not the reaction that you or I have when coming across an interesting theoretical political question; if you are reading this as part of your studies, it is unlikely that an essay question has had this effect on you, nor is it likely that an advert in a paper would produce this reaction. Nor is Rousseau’s method of writing, even if one has a secretary, necessarily a way in which many of us can work productively. It is not necessary to have this reaction to regard political theory as being interesting, or even useful.

I was a very boring child. I became interested in politics at a very early age, spent my pocket money on political manifestos, and watched the news diligently every evening over dinner, and discussed the key issues raised with my family. The politics that I was interested in then, however, was the political reporting you see on the news, that is to say basic British politics. It wasn’t until I became an undergraduate student at the London School of Economics that I was introduced to the history of political thought, and it immediately became my passion. Learning about political theory opened my eyes to a new way of discussing politics. No longer do I see it as being about individual politicians, about parties and pieces of legislation; instead, I now like to think of it as about ideas, arguments, and justifications. Understanding the history of the ideas that we cherish so dearly today and how they developed, whilst also noting how relatively recently those ideas have occurred, fascinates me. Likewise, noting how political theory greats such as Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes and Karl Marx would criticize the political ideas by which we live today, albeit from entirely different angles and viewpoints, fascinates me. We should all of us examine the basic philosophical underpinnings of the way in which we live our political lives today.

I am an extremely lucky man in that I am able to make a living teaching the subject about which I am passionate to students at the University of Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England. I no longer wish to simply learn about the history of ideas; I want to teach and enthuse others about the subject. I have been able to discuss all of the ideas contained within this book with many cohorts of students at the Universities of Southampton and Huddersfield, and I’ve arranged this text in the hope that you might become as fascinated by the topic as I am. Like so many other activities in life, one learns more about the subject the more one teaches it. Students ask different questions, apply them to different life experiences, and interpret the ideas in different ways. I have learnt far more about political theory from my students than they have ever learnt from me, and as a consequence this little book is a modest attempt to give something back to the discipline, in the hope that others may find it a useful guide to access the life-changing knowledge that is contained within the history of political thought.

As a lecturer in political theory, I also think that there is something useful about the discipline for us in the contemporary world. We have become more ideologically polarized over the past few decades, and political discourse has become harsher, and more personal in its vitriol. Disagreement is inevitable in pluralist democratic societies, and this disagreement is nothing to be scared of in and of itself. I hope, however, that discussions around central theoretical political issues might go some way towards making political discussions more genteel and civilized.

So the overall purpose of this book is to provide an introductory guide to some of the key questions in the history of political thought, and to provide a good sound knowledge of the ideas held by the key thinkers in political theory. I have written it in a particular way to attempt to make it accessible to anyone embarking on a journey of knowledge in political theory.

Why should we bother with the history of political thought?

Virtually everyone discussed in this book is dead; many long since so. So why should we find their discussions of politics useful in our modern world? Obviously, seeing as how I have written 80,000 words on the topic, I think they are interesting, and I strongly suspect that they are useful, but it is worth reflecting on precisely why this might be the case before we go any further.

To some of you, the question of interest and usefulness might be separate. We do not necessarily think watching Downton Abbey is useful, nor do we necessarily think this of a Shakespearean play or a novel by Goethe. We might engage with these things for the interest in and of themselves rather than helping us understand the present; we might enjoy it for the historical information it provides or the entertainment it brings. Likewise, one might be interested in the political ideas of historical figures and that that interest is sufficient reason to study them. This seems fine to me up to a point. Some of you might be interested in history, so to understand that John Locke’s outline of contractual government whose powers are limited by the pre-political powers of the individual was a contribution to debates on the Glorious Revolution in England would be of some interest. Here historical insight might be enough.

Others might be looking at these thinkers and debates in an attempt to understand why, say, Republicans in the United States view the political world differently to Democrats, or why the Labour Party is distinct from the Conservative Party in the UK. So here, studying political theory might have a contemporary use as opposed to only historical interest. A key use for the history of political philosophy is to show the genesis of the ideas that we hold today, and illustrate the changes and variations that they have gone through over the years. Take democracy for example; it is perhaps useful to know that the system of liberal representative democracy with universal suffrage that is dominant in the contemporary world is distinct from the direct democracy with limited citizenship that was practised in its first incarnation in ancient Athens. Also thinkers such as Rousseau provide us with a vocabulary to critique contemporary democracy if we do not think it extends sufficiently far. When using this justification for studying the history of political thought, we should be wary of presentism, the notion that all history is leading up to us, and avoid viewing the past through our concepts and concerns.

Another way to study the history of political thought is to focus not on how our ideas have been shaped over time, but instead recognize just how different political concepts were in the past, and to use this as a critical activity. When women were completely ignored in politics, when, without irony, slave owners could write that all men were created equal, when others suggested that the monarch was put there by God and was the only person with any legitimate power, it is too easy to just say ‘how could they believe that’ and move on. The thing is that people did believe in these things; and they believed in them just as much as you or I believe in those political things that we believe in. The critical activity therefore rests in this; just as we are viewing ideas from the past with some incredulity, so too will people reading textbooks like this is a few hundred years look on us with amazement that we could think or act politically in a certain way. We should reflect on our beliefs and wonder what future generations will judge us harshly on. The history of political thought here is not history for its own sake, nor a history to show us how we became who we are, but rather a thought experiment urging us to be critical of the ideas commonly held today.

How to use this book

This book has been organized to be a useful study guide for anyone interested in learning about political theory, be they a school or college student, or an autodidact who wishes to learn the basics on their own. No prior knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader, so the hope is that if the subject interests you, you can just jump straight in. It is a book for everyone, not only for people with substantial existing knowledge on this subject, or for that matter, any other. Perhaps you are studying political theory as part of a course at college or university. Perhaps you have become interested in politics recently, and wish to learn about how some of the central figures of political theory have addressed the issues that you are now grappling with. Or perhaps you simply wish to learn about something new. Whatever your personal learning goal is, my aim in this book is to give you a good solid understanding of the basics of political theory, which you can then build upon perhaps by picking up the primary works of the thinkers discussed within these pages.

Attempts have been made throughout the book to give real-life examples of some of the dilemmas that we address in these pages, and these examples have been chosen with the aim of helping you understand a topic better, and show how the debate contained herein, is applicable to everyday life. Whereas political theory is quite an intellectual pursuit, we should never lose sight of the fact that it should be about real, everyday life; political theory should help us in everyday moral or ethical dilemmas, it should allow us to talk and think politically, and it should aid us in the ability to be good citizens and question political power wherever it may exist. We are not talking about abstract notions here; we are discussing things that happen around us every day.

The book has been organized around key political questions, questions such as ‘what is the nature of the just state?’, and ‘why should I obey the state?’ It is organized in this manner, rather than a thinker-by-thinker structure (i.e. a chapter on Plato, a chapter on Hobbes and so on) to allow you to see the contributions made by various philosophers to similar topics. This structure should better allow you to compare and contrast the thinkers, examine their views on similar topics, and therefore to adopt a critical attitude to their ideas, by showing how they would critique one another.

This book might look slightly different from similar textbooks on the history of political thought. You will not be faced with a wall of text, but rather you might notice some features which are unique to this book. Firstly, each chapter commences with some key questions which you might want to consider before starting the chapter proper. Then within each chapter, you will notice at various points certain keywords or phrases will be emboldened; this is because I feel that these points are crucially important to the discussion in hand. You will also notice small text boxes which give brief summaries of discussions scattered throughout each chapter, and larger text boxes which give you more information on an individual thinker that we are discussing, giving you brief biographical details and the like. You can dip in and out of these sections as best fits your method of learning.

Crucially there are also activities after every section within the book. These activities are designed to solidify your reading, and encourage you to reflect on what you have read. You may choose to do these activities as you read through each chapter, or you may like to do them when you have completed the chapter; it is up to you – do what you feel is best. At the end of each chapter are some text-based questions; these are, perhaps, slightly trickier than the activities contained within each chapter. The text-based activities contain some short excerpts from key texts discussed in the book, with some questions attached. I ask that you read the text, then attempt the questions.

Contents of this book

Each chapter in this book, as mentioned above, is organized around a central question in the history of political thought. They are as follows.

What is the nature of politics?

We begin by examining what acting politically entails, or what should people engaged in politics do? We will find a large variety of responses across the history of political thought. This chapter will commence with a discussion of the Greek philosopher Socrates and his life and thought. He argued that the individual should always strive for knowledge of the virtues, and that the unexamined life is not worth living. There is something inherently human and vital to discussing the very type of questions that we will be tackling in this book together. We will then go on to examine the work of the Florentine writer Machiavelli, who will argue that the chief goal of any politician should be glory, both for themselves and for the state. If one achieves glory, you can be forgiven immoral acts you have committed along the way. The utilitarian school of moral thinking will then be introduced, which posits that happiness, rather than glory, should be the driving feature of all government policy and political action. Immanuel Kant will then be introduced as a counterbalance to both Machiavelli and the utilitarians. Politics must always bend the knee to morality for Kant, that is to say that acting morally is always more important that achieving glory and/or happiness. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of Max Weber and his guidance that passion is an insufficient quality to succeed in politics.

Is humanity nasty or nice?

This chapter will compare and contrast the works of English philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the Genevan Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes will illustrate that in their natural condition man is violent and nasty, and left to their own devices, that is to say without a state, they will end up killing one another. Rousseau will counter that man’s anti-sociability is not a product of nature; indeed, he claims that in his natural state man is good if not moral, but rather a product of civilized man. Civilization has corrupted our innate goodness. We will also briefly examine here the thoughts on the nature of good and evil by German philosopher Nietzsche, who argues that these concepts are not unchangeable over time, and that which we call good these days is often life destroying.

Why should I obey the state?

This chapter begins by examining the social contract theory of Thomas Hobbes and his near contemporary John Locke. Although they both ultimately say that all obligation to obey the state rests upon consent, the type of consent and the powers of the sovereign differ greatly between them. It will then examine some critiques of liberal social contract theory, namely those of Rousseau, Hume and Pateman.

Is democracy the best form of government?

This chapter will examine some of the challenges that exist around discussions of democratic thought. It will firstly compare and contrast Athenian direct democracy to our contemporary understanding of politics, noting the central differences between the two being a limited citizenry as well as the lack of representatives. It will then outline Edmund Burke’s arguments in favour of representative democracy, and in particular non-delegated representatives who are not obliged to pay too much attention to their electors in between elections. We will then go on to examine some of the challenges to democracy, namely James Madison’s federalist paper number 10, which argues that the size of the proposed US republic would prevent faction, before overviewing de Tocqueville’s and Mill’s concerns about the tyranny of the majority. We will see that Mill suggests that whereas everyone should get one vote, some people should get more than that.

When can my freedom be restricted?

This chapter will discuss a number of debates around the nature of freedom in society. It will commence with Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between positive and negative liberty; that there have been two different ways in the history of political thought that freedom has been conceptualized. This will be challenged by Gerald MacCallum who will argue that there is only one concept of freedom, and Quentin Skinner’s assertion that there are three. The chapter will end with a discussion of John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle, the notion that the just state should only ever stop someone from doing things that directly and physically harm someone else. The state, nor anyone else for that matter, has no right to ban someone from doing that which only harms themselves, or that which offends other people.

What would a just society look like?

In this chapter, we will examine different notions of justice in society. We will commence with Plato’s assertion that justice involves a harmonious state when each does that which best suits them; everyone in society has a role, but these roles are not equal. This will be contrasted to Aristotle’s notion of justice as balance. We will then examine justice more in terms of the distribution of goods, and outline John Locke’s famous defence of a natural right to private property, and show how this was critiqued by David Hume and Thomas Paine. Next, we will move on to the debate between John Rawls and Robert Nozick, two Harvard colleagues, about the nature of justice. We will see that Rawls argues that justice is arrived at via a mind game in which the participants do not know how they will be affected as individuals, which ends up as a defence of the social democratic state. Nozick, on the other hand, will argue that justice means that the only permissible state is that which defends individual property rights.

Why have women been ignored in the history of political thought?

This chapter will attempt to show why so many of the thinkers mentioned above are men. It will begin with Rousseau’s argument about the natural inequalities between men and women, before critiquing this with the ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. Wollstonecraft and Mill will argue that there are no natural differences between men and women, and, where differences exist, it is due to women’s inability to access social goods such as education and improving work, as well as their lack of rights. The chapter will conclude with I.M. Young’s contention that there are differences between men and women when it comes to ethical and political reasoning, but the male forms of reasoning are universalized. So liberal democratic culture is inherently biased towards men.

When is revolution against government justified?

Here we will overview a number of responses to when it is acceptable to overthrow the government. It will begin with the debate between Edmund Burke, who argues that revolution is only justified if one is restoring a set of rights and privileges that have been denied you, and Thomas Paine, who argued that only political institutions based upon reason are permissible. The chapter will end with a long overdue examination of Karl Marx, who will show that revolution is the natural driving force of societies, and overthrowing the capitalist regime is not only justifiable, but the only way one will achieve a communist society.

Conclusion: Ideologies

The book will conclude by highlighting the links between thinkers outlined in the discussions above, and the main world ideologies, namely liberalism, conservatism and socialism.

Methodology

Some methodological liberties have been taken with the contents of this book in an attempt to make it accessible and user friendly. One criticism that can easily be levelled at the chapter structure above is that I am taking thinkers from different societies, in different ages, responding to different political events, and moulding them together as if they were discussing the same political issues when they clearly were not. The history of political thought then becomes a dinner party with the various thinkers talking to one another, which is, of course, highly anachronistic. The only marginal defence I can make of my position here is that, in a number of the debates, people were responding to near contemporaries. John Locke was responding to Hobbes, Aristotle to Plato, Paine to Burke, Wollstonecraft to Rousseau and Nozick to Rawls. Rousseau was addressing Hobbes, although there was a century between them, and Nietzsche was addressing Socrates from the distance of well over a millennium. The convenience of structuring the book in this manner to use as an introductory text does, I hope, partially absolve any methodological qualms the reader may have.

Also, the book does focus on what might be referred to as the received canon of texts. Of course, these canonical texts are only elevated amongst others as we continually address them as such; we teach those texts that we have been taught ourselves and so the canon is perpetuated. Again, my only defence against this charge is that as this book is intended to provide an introduction to beginners to political theory it is best to focus our attention on those texts considered central to understanding the discipline. Readers might do well to reflect upon why dead, white, European males dominate this canon and challenge this.

Works cited

Rousseau, J.J. (1953) The Confessions. London: Penguin.

Notes

  1. 1. I use man here as it is the word that Rousseau uses – we can be pretty sure that he does mean man, rather than as a misguided shorthand for people. This is normal in the history of political thought until relatively recently. I can understand how you might find this irritating, but there is no sense in dressing up the sexism of the time as anything else.