origins

Abstract

The idea that a group of like-minded individual entities is more effective collectively than individually in safeguarding its security is neither new nor original. ‘One for all and all for one’ would seem to be an obvious statement, based on logic and common sense. Man’s escape from what Hobbes called ‘the state of nature’ into the allegedly more secure environment of organized society brought about some relief from ‘continual fear and danger of violent death’, some improvement in the life of man, ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’ ¹ In the Hobbesian view the innate aggressive nature of man creates insecurity, and the consequent quest for security leads to the creation of a social and political system—Leviathan—capable of enforcing order and stability. This judgement is as false or true as the Panglossian optimism² of the political idealists about the inherent goodness of man. The Hobbesian view is balanced by the argument that man by his very nature is a social being and that some form of social organization and therefore mutual help is natural and basic to human behaviour. The ‘social contract’ is purely notional, of course, and there has never been a time when men and families of men were not united in tribes, clans and villages for their mutual benefit and security. It is the expansion of groups and societies which brings them into potential and real conflict with other groups and societies, thus enlarging and accentuating the problem of security.