The "Greater Leviathan"
THE famous treatise in which the English philosopher Hobbes, during the revolt
against the tyranny of the Stuarts in the seventeenth century, sought to give
the sanction of reason to the doctrine of the absolute authority of kings, is
entitled Leviathan. It thus begins: "Nature, the art whereby God hath
made and governs the world, is by the art of man, as in many other things, so
in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. . . For by art
is created that great Leviathan called a commonwealth or state, in Latin civitas,
which is but an artificial man; though of greater stature and strength than the
natural, for whose protection and defense it was intended. . ."
Without stopping now to comment further on Hobbes's suggestive analogy, there
is, it seems to me, in the system or arrangement into which men are brought in
social life by the effort to satisfy their material desires — an integration
which goes on as civilization advances — something which even more strongly
and more clearly suggests the idea of a gigantic man, formed by the union of
individual men, than any merely political integration. This Greater Leviathan
is to the political structure or conscious commonwealth what the unconscious
functions of the body are to the conscious activities. It is not made by pact
or covenant, it grows; as the tree grows, as the man himself grows, by virtue
of natural laws inherent in human nature and in the constitution of things. .
. . It is this natural system or arrangement, this adjustment of means to ends,
of the parts to the whole and the whole to the parts, in the satisfaction of
the material desires of men living in society, which, in the same sense as that
in which we speak of the economy of the solar system, is the economy of human
society, or what in English we call political economy. It is as human units,
individuals or families, take their place as integers of this higher man, this
Greater Leviathan, that what we call civilization begins and advances. . . .
The appearance and development of the body politic, the organized state, the
Leviathan of Hobbes, is the mark of civilization already in existence. — The
Science of Political Economy — unabridged:
Book I, Chapter 3, The Meaning of Political Economy: How Man's Powers Are Extended • abridged:
Chapter 2: The Greater Leviathan
IN the economic meaning of the term production, the transporter or exchanger,
or anyone engaged in any subdivision of those functions, is as truly engaged
in production as is the primary extractor or maker. A newspaper-carrier or
the keeper of a news-stand would, for instance, in common speech be styled
a distributor. But in economic terminology he is not a distributor of wealth,
but a producer of wealth. Although his part in the process of producing the
newspaper to the final receiver comes last, not first, he is as much a producer
as the paper-maker or type-founder, the editor, or compositor, or press-man.
For the object of production is the satisfaction of human desires, that is
to say, it is consumption; and this object is not made capable of attainment,
that is to say, production is not really complete, until wealth is brought
to the place where it is to be consumed and put at the disposal of him whose
desire it is to satisfy. — The Science of Political Economy unabridged:
Book III, Chapter 1, The Production of Wealth: The Meaning of Production • abridged:
Part III, Chapter 1, The Production of Wealth: The Meaning of Production
PRODUCTION and distribution are not separate things, but two mentally distinguishable
parts of one thing — the exertion of human labor in the satisfaction of
human desire. Though materially distinguishable, they are as closely related
as the two arms of the syphon. And as it is the outflow of water at the longer
end of the syphon that is the cause of the inflow of water at the shorter end,
so it is that distribution is really the cause of production, not production
the cause of distribution. In the ordinary course, things are not distributed
because they have been produced, but are produced in order that they may be distributed.
Thus interference with the distribution of wealth is interference with the production
of wealth, and shows its effect in lessened production. — The Science
of Political Economy — unabridged
Book IV, Chapter 2, The Distribution of Wealth: The Nature of Distribution • abridged
Part IV, Chapter 2, The Distribution of Wealth: The Nature of Distribution
OUR inquiry into the laws of the distribution of wealth is not an inquiry into
the municipal laws or human enactments which either here and now, or in any other
time and place, prescribe or have prescribed how wealth shall be divided among
men. With them we have no concern, unless it may be for purposes of illustration.
What we have to seek are those laws of the distribution of wealth which belong
to the natural order — laws which are a part of that system or arrangement
which constitutes the social organism or body economic, as distinguished from
the body politic or state, the Greater Leviathan which makes its appearance with
civilization and develops with its advance. These natural laws are in all times
and places the same, and though they may be crossed by human enactment, can never
be annulled or swerved by it. It is more needful to call this to mind, because,
in what have passed for systematic treatises on political economy, the fact that
it is with natural laws, not human laws, that the science of political economy
is concerned, has, in treating of the distribution of wealth, been utterly ignored,
and even flatly denied. — The Science of Political Economy — unabridged:
Part IV, Chapter 1, The Distribution of Wealth: The Meaning of Distribution • abridged:
Part IV, Chapter 1, The Distribution of Wealth: The Meaning of Distribution
THE distinction between the laws of production and the laws of distribution is
not, as is erroneously taught in the scholastic political economy, that the one
set of laws are natural laws and the other human laws. Both sets of laws are
laws of nature. The real distinction is that the natural laws of production
are physical laws and the natural laws of distribution are moral laws. . . .
The moment we turn from a consideration of the laws of the production of wealth
to a consideration of the laws of the distribution of wealth, the idea of ought
or duty becomes primary. All consideration of distribution involves the ethical
principle, is necessarily a consideration of ought or duty — a consideration
in which the idea of right or justice is from the very first involved. — The
Science of Political Economy — unabridged:
Book IV, Chapter 4, The Distribution of Wealth: The Real Difference Between Laws
of Production and of Distribution • abridged:
Part IV, Chapter 3: The Distribution of Wealth: Physical and Moral Laws
Co-operation — its
Two Modes
ALL increase in the productive power of man over that with which nature endows
the individual comes from the co-operation of individuals. But there are two
ways in which this co-operation may take place. 1. By the combination of effort.
In this way individuals may accomplish what exceeds the full power of the individual.
2. By the separation of effort. In this way the individual may accomplish for
more than one what does not require the full power of the individual. . . . To
illustrate: The first way of co-operation, the combination of labor, enables
a number of men to remove a rock or to raise a log that would be too heavy for
them separately. In this way men conjoin themselves, as it were, into one stronger
man. Or, to take an example so common in the early days of American settlement
that "log-rolling" has become a term for legislative combination: Tom, Dick,
Harry and Jim are building near each other their rude houses in the clearings.
Each hews his own trees, but the logs are too heavy for one man to get into place.
So the four unite their efforts, first rolling one man's logs into place and
then another's, until, the logs of all four having been placed, the result is
the same as if each had been enabled to concentrate into one time the force he
could exert in four different times. . . . But, while great advantages result
from the ability of individuals, by the combination of labor to concentrate themselves,
as it were, into one larger man, there are other times and other things in which
an individual could accomplish more if he could divide himself, as it were, into
a number of smaller men. . . . What the division of labor does, is to permit
men, as it were, so to divide themselves, thus enormously increasing their total
effectiveness. To illustrate from the example used before: While at times Tom,
Dick, Harry and Jim might each wish to move logs, at other times they might each
need to get something from a village distant two days' journey. To satisfy this
need individually would thus require two days' effort on the part of each. But
if Tom alone goes, performing the errands for all, and the others each do half
a days' work for him, the result is that all get at the expense of half a day's
effort on the part of each what otherwise would have required two days' effort. — The
Science of Political Economy — unabridged:
Book III, Chapter 9, The Production of Wealth: Cooperation — Its Two Ways • abridged:
Part III, Chapter 7, The Production of Wealth: Co-operation: Its Two Ways
Co-operation — its Two Kinds
WE have seen that there are two ways or modes in which co-operation increases
productive power. If we ask how co-operation is itself brought about, we see
that there is in this also a distinction, and that co-operation is of two essentially
different kinds. . .. There is one kind of co-operation, proceeding, as it were,
from without, which results from the conscious direction of a controlling will
to a definite end. This we may call directed or conscious co-operation. There
is another kind of co-operation, proceeding, as it were, from within, which results
from a correlation in the actions of independent wills, each seeking but its
own immediate purpose, and careless, if not indeed ignorant, of the general result.
This we may call spontaneous or unconscious co-operation. The movement of a great
army is a good type of co-operation of the one kind. Here the actions of many
individuals are subordinated to, and directed by, one conscious will, they becoming,
as it were, its body and executing its thought. The providing of a great city
with all the manifold things which are constantly needed by its inhabitants is
a good type of co-operation of the other kind. This kind of co-operation is far
wider, far finer, far more strongly and delicately organized, than the kind of
co-operation involved in the movements of an army, yet it is brought about not
by subordination to the direction of one conscious will, which knows the general
result at which it aims, but by the correlation of actions originating in many
independent wills, each aiming at its own small purpose without care for, or
thought of; the general result. The one kind of co-operation seems to have its
analogue in those related movements of our body which we are able consciously
to direct. The other kind of co-operation seems to have its analogue in the correlation
of the innumerable movement, of which we are unconscious, that maintain the bodily
frame — motions which in their complexity, delicacy and precision far transcend
our powers of conscious direction, yet by whose perfect adjustment to each other
and to the purpose of the whole, that co-operation of part and function, that
makes up the human body and keeps it in life and vigor, is brought about and
supported. — The Science of Political Economy — unabridged:
Book III, Chapter 10, The Production of Wealth: Cooperation — Its Two Kinds • abridged:
Part III, Chapter 8, Cooperation: Its Two Kinds
To attempt to apply that kind of co-operation which requires direction from without
to the work proper for that kind of co-operation which requires direction from
within, is like asking the carpenter who can build a chicken-house to build a
chicken also. — The Science of Political Economy — unabridged:
Book III, Chapter 10, The Production of Wealth: Cooperation — Its Two Kinds • abridged:
Part III, Chapter 8, Cooperation: Its Two Kinds
ALL living things that we know of co-operate in some kind and to some degree.
So far as we can see, nothing that lives can live in and for itself alone.
But man is the only one who co-operates by exchanging, and he may be distinguished
from all the numberless tribes that with him tenant the earth as the exchanging
animal. . . . Exchange is the great agency by which what I have called the
spontaneous or unconscious co-operation of men in the production of wealth
is brought about, and economic units are welded into that social organism
which is the Greater Leviathan. To this economic body, this Greater Leviathan,
into which it builds the economic units, it is what the nerves or perhaps
the ganglions are to the individual body. Or, to make use of another illustration,
it is to our material desires and powers of satisfying them what the switchboard
of a telegraph or telephone, or other electric system, is to that system,
a means by which exertion of one kind in one place may be transmitted into
satisfaction of another kind in another place, and thus the efforts of individual
units be conjoined and correlated so as to yield satisfactions in most useful
place and form, and to an amount enormously exceeding what otherwise would
be possible. — The Science of Political Economy — unabridged:
Book III, Chapter 11, The Production of Wealth: The Office of Exchange in
Production • unabridged
Chapter 9, The Office of Exchange in Production
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