Overview
Question 1. Compare Rousseau and Hobbes on the question of how far rightful freedom and legitimate authority extends (once under the social contract, not in the state of nature). While both have tendencies towards authority, what are the differences in their approaches?
Question 2. Compare Rousseau and Locke on what institutions of governance and participation are best. Be sure to address both the institutions of governance and the degree and nature of public participation in politics.
Question 3. Compare Hobbes and Locke on justice as the source of freedom and authority. From where does the right to rule come? And how is it that people come to have any freedom at all?
Question 4. Many people have accused Rousseau of having a utopian, collectivist worldview that lends itself to totalitarianism. The easiest way to evaluate this charge is to see how Rousseau’s philosophy resembles or differs from a real-life collectivist tyranny. Pol Pot, leader of the genocidal Khmer Rouge (KR), studied Rousseau in Paris and later adopted many of his teachings in his version of communism. To what extent would Rousseau praise or condemn Pol Pot’s governance of Cambodia, and on what principles?
Here are some facts about the KR regime that you should know:
A.The Khmer Rouge regime is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million
people (from an estimated 1972 population of 7.1 million) under its regime, through execution, starvation and forced labor. Although directly responsible for the death of about 750,000, the policies of the Khmer Rouge led, mainly through starvation and displacement, to the death of over 1 million people. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population of the country it ruled, it was one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th century. B. In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into "New People" through agricultural labor. One of their mottos, in reference to those who resisted becoming “New People,” was: "To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss." C. The KR emphasized the virtuous life of the hardworking peasant over the decadent life of city-dwellers. Its first act upon assuming power was to empty the cities and force city- dwellers to labor in the countryside in order to make people more virtuous. D. The KR emphasized the need for absolute control of the collective over all aspects of individual life. Education, marriage, language, dress, and occupation were all under the control of the KR. E. The KR treated dissent or factionalism as crimes against the collective will, and punished them just like treason. F. The KR suppressed Western-style education and condemned modern values as corrupt, praising ancient Khmer culture. Indeed, it resisted the adoption of any new technology, arguing that people were better off with more natural ways of living. G. The KR killed all that it believed might rebel, including ethnic minorities, people who worked for the previous government, city-dwellers, people who spoke English, and even members of its own party that grew too influential or popular. H. Like Maoism, the KR’s political system was centralized, with a central committee of Communists determining the “mass line” which all people were expected to follow. I. The KR was finally driven from power after a few years when its massacres of ethnic Vietnamese and incursions into Vietnamese territory led Vietnam to invade and depose the regime.
Question 5: Use the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes to compare the following proposals for a worldgovernment, or to instead accept the international status quo (the international system as itcurrently stands). Hobbes may well have objections to both systems -- but which is more consistent with his philosophy?
A. A socialist world government option 1. A new international organization (the Nice World Organization, or NWO) will be set up, with all power held in a regularly-elected legislature of 100-200 members, elected on the basis of one person = one vote, which will in turn appoint a Prime Minister to govern the world. 2. The NWO will begin with China, the United States, and Russia as members. When states join the NWO, they transfer their sovereignty to the organization and their own governments exist only as far as it pleases the new, global sovereign. 3. The NWO will “invite” – and, if need be, force -- all other states to join, using the military forces at its disposal. 4. The NWO will impose total nuclear and biological disarmament on its members, and will create a standing army and nuclear force large enough to defeat any attempt at secession or revolution. 5. The NWO will follow, as general principles, the idea that every person has the right to food, safe water, safe housing, medical care, personal safety from war and crime, and other essentials for the preservation of life into old age. To prevent people from robbing or killing to get these things, the organization will tax everyone according to his or her ability to pay and distribute these social welfare benefits on the basis of a person’s needs.
6.Aside from these general (and largely self-imposed) limits, government policy
will be whatever the majority of the legislature says it is. B. The international status quo 1. The world is divided into nearly 200 states, each of them legally sovereign, but most of which are vulnerable to attack by well-armed states. 2. Policy disputes between states are settled by war, if the sides cannot reach a mutually beneficial arrangement (or when one side needs to gin up domestic support or find an excuse to repress an ethnic minority). i. These wars kill between tens and hundreds of thousands every year, and occasionally become regional or world wars, killing millions or tens of millions. In general, more non-participants (civilians) die in wars than actual participants (combatants), so one doesn’t need to be a soldier fear death in war. ii. At least nine states have nuclear weapons. A nuclear war between any two of the top seven or so would kill tens of millions in perhaps a few hours and cause a substantial drop in worldwide food production for at least a year or two. A full-scale nuclear war between the top three would probably kill around half a billion people directly, and at least as many indirectly, through starvation and disease.
iii. States spend vast sums of money to defend their people (or their leaders,
at least) from attacks by other states. 3. About 4 million people die from malnutrition each year, and another 18 million or so die from treatable diseases, often spread through unsafe drinking water. 4. Some states are monarchies or dictatorships, but most are anocracies (with political competition existing but limited to a narrow group of elites) or democracies (or republics, if you prefer). Some states are communist, some socialist, some mixed economies, and some are reasonably capitalist. Social welfare systems may be effective or terrible under any of these economic structures. 5. Most states’ people are at least partially dependent upon events in other states for their survival. For example, the shipment of oil is vital for fertilizer production, and few states produce both enough oil and food to feed themselves and maintain their economies and militaries. Those states which have isolated themselves from the world economy have tended to become even poorer and more insecure than when they were dependent on others (think North Korea and its recurring famines)
Question 6. Use the political theory of Locke to judge the case of Wickard v. Filburn (described below). What decision should the Supreme Court have reached in the case, comparing Filburn’sfreedom to the legitimate authority of the United States federal government? Provide a rationale grounded in Locke’s theory.
Background: Wickard v. Filburn (1942) was a United States Supreme Court decision that determined the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity.
A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat for on-farm consumption in Ohio. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to drive up wheat prices during the Great Depression, and Filburn was growing more than the limits permitted. Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it.
Decision: The Supreme Court interpreted the United States Constitution's Commerce Clause under Article I, Section 8, which permits the United States Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes".
The Court decided that Filburn's wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn's production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce. Thus, Filburn's production could be regulated by the federal government.