Abstract

This paper compares the Hobbesean and Sartrean views of sovereign man. The thesis is that important similarities between the Hobbesean and Sartrean conceptions of sovereign man militate against the claim by Hobbes that sovereign man can be educated by an absolute state sovereign to appreciate the connection between obedience to the sovereign and the benefits of peace. This is because, for Hobbes, like Sartre, the actions of sovereign man speak louder than his words and, for all that its educative institutions preach the virtues of obedience to law, the state sovereign is an individual or collection of individuals who live lives that are above the law. Thus does the state sovereign inadvertently teach subjects to regard the state as an enemy and to seek what opportunities they can to retrieve the sovereign power that they have donated to the state. In conditions of modern capitalism,this opportunity is presented to those who control them by the industries of mass promotion, which give their owners power sufficient to challenge, overthrow or co-opt the state. The result is the capturing of the state by rapacious fascistic factions: but it is the result that the modern state has educated its citizens to achieve in the first place.