Green Leviathan? Thomas Hobbes, Joel Bakan and Arnold Schwarzenegger

Abstract

Thomas Hobbes postulates that men are driven by "a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death." The miserable consequences of this drive for power and the competing "desire of ease and sensual delight" and "fear of death and wounds" lead them to establish and obey. Substituting "profit" for "power" yields a description of the modern corporation, but without the desires or fears of natural persons. Such "unnatural persons" lack the Hobbesian ground of obligation, yet have appropriated the privileges and protections of natural persons. They challenge or undermine the sovereign wherever it limits their profits. Governor Schwarzenegger's re-election in California, however, on a strong anti-CO(2) program, suggests a willingness by threatened natural persons to re-empower Leviathan.