We should pause to take in the significance of these numbers. With a death rate of over 500 per 100,000, or 0.5 percent, a typical inhabitant of this society has about a 25 percent likelihood of being killed within a period of fifty years—so a quarter of the people you know will be violently killed during their lifetimes. It is hard for us to imagine the unpredictability and fear that such brazen social violence would imply.
Though a lot of this death and carnage was due to warring between rival tribes or groups, it wasn’t just warfare and intergroup conflict that brought incessant violence. The Gebusi of New Guinea, for example, have even higher murder rates—almost 700 per 100,000 in the precontact period of the 1940s and 1950s—mostly taking place during peaceful, regular times (if times during which almost 1 in 100 of the population gets murdered each year can be called peaceful!). The reason appears to be related to the belief that every death is caused by witchcraft, which triggers a hunt for the parties responsible for even nonviolent deaths.
It’s not just murder that makes the lives of stateless societies precarious. Life expectancy at birth in stateless societies was very low, varying between twenty-one and thirty-seven years. Similarly short lifespans and violent deaths were not unusual for our progenitors before the past two hundred years. Thus many of our ancestors, just like the inhabitants of Lagos, lived in what the famous political philosopher Thomas Hobbes described in his book Leviathan as
continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.
This was what Hobbes, writing during another nightmarish period, the English Civil War of the 1640s, described as a condition of “Warre,” or what Kaplan would have called “anarchy”—a situation of war of all against all, “of every man, against every man.”
Hobbes’s brilliant depiction of Warre made it clear why life under this condition would be worse than bleak. Hobbes started with some basic assumptions about human nature and argued that conflicts would be endemic in any human interaction. “If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and … endeavor to destroy, or subdue one an other.” A world without a way to resolve these conflicts was not going to be a happy one because
from hence it comes to passe, that where an Invader hath no more to fear, than an other mans single power; if one plant, sow, build, or possesse a convenient Seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united, to dispossess and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life, or liberty.
Remarkably, Hobbes anticipated Pettit’s argument on dominance, noting that just the threat of violence can be pernicious, even if you can avoid actual violence by staying home after dark, by restricting your movements and your interactions. Warre, according to Hobbes, “consisteth not in actuall fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.” So the prospect of Warre also had huge consequences for people’s lives. For example, “when taking a journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his dores; when even in his house he locks his chests.” All of this was familiar to Wole Soyinka, who never moved anywhere in Lagos without a Glock pistol strapped to his side for protection.
Hobbes also recognized that humans desire some basic amenities and economic opportunities. He wrote, “The Passions that encline men to Peace, are Feare of Death; Desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a Hope by their Industry to obtain them.” But these things would not come naturally in the state of Warre. Indeed, economic incentives would be destroyed.
In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth.
Naturally, people would look for a way out of anarchy, a way to impose “restraint upon themselves” and get “themselves out from the miserable condition of Warre, which is necessarily consequent … to the natural Passions of men.” Hobbes had already anticipated how this could happen when he introduced the notion of Warre, since he observed that Warre emerges when “men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe.” Hobbes dubbed this common Power the “great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH or STATE,” three words he used interchangeably. The solution to Warre was thus to create the sort of centralized authority that the Congolese, the Nigerians, or the members of anarchic, stateless societies did not have. Hobbes used the image of the Leviathan, the great sea monster described in the Bible’s Book of Job, to stress that this state needed to be powerful. The frontispiece of his book, shown in the photography section, featured an etching of the Leviathan with a quotation from Job:
There is no power on earth to be compared to him. (Job 41:24)
Point taken.
Hobbes understood that the all-powerful Leviathan would be feared. But better to fear one powerful Leviathan than to fear everybody. The Leviathan would stop the war of all against all, ensure people do not “endeavor to destroy, or subdue one an other,” clean up the trash and the area boys, and get the electricity going.
Sounds great, but how exactly do you get a Leviathan? Hobbes proposed two routes. The first he called a “Commonwealth by Institution … when a Multitude of men do Agree, and Covenant, every one, with every one” to create such a state and delegate power and authority to it, or as he put it, “to submit their Wills, every one to his Will, and their Judgments, to his Judgment.” So a sort of grand social contract (“Covenant”) would accede to the creation of a Leviathan. The second he called a “Commonwealth by Acquisition,” which “is acquired by force,” since Hobbes recognized that in a state of Warre somebody might emerge who would “subdueth his enemies to his will.” The important thing was that “the Rights, and Consequences of Sovereignty, are the same in both.” However society got a Leviathan, Hobbes believed, the consequences would be the same—the end of Warre.
This conclusion might sound surprising, but Hobbes’s logic is revealed by his discussion of the three alternative ways to govern a state: through monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. Though these appear to be very different decisionmaking institutions, Hobbes argued that “the difference between these three kindes of Commonwealth consisteth not in the difference of Power; but in the difference of Convenience.” On balance, a monarchy was more likely to be convenient and had practical advantages, but the main point is that a Leviathan, however governed, would do what a Leviathan does. It would stop Warre, abolish “continuall feare, and danger of violent death,” and guarantee that the life of men (and hopefully women too) was no longer “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” In essence, Hobbes maintained that any state would have the objective of the “conservation of Peace and Justice,” and that this was “the end for which all Commonwealths are Instituted.” So might, or at any rate sufficiently overwhelming might, makes right, however it came about.
The influence of Hobbes’s masterpiece on modern social science can hardly be exaggerated. In theorizing about states and constitutions, we follow Hobbes and start with what problems they solve, how they constrain behavior, and how they reallocate power in society. We look for clues about how society works not in God-given laws, but in basic human motivations and how we can shape them. But even more profound is his influence on how we perceive states today. We respect them and their representatives, regardless of whether they are monarchies, aristocracies, or democracies. Even after a military coup or civil war, representatives of the new government, flying in their official jets, take their seats in the United Nations, and the international community looks to them to enforce laws, resolve conflicts, and protect their citizens. It confers on them official respect. Just as Hobbes envisaged, whatever their origins and path to power, rulers epitomize the Leviathan, and they have legitimacy.