CISTICERCOSIS HUMANA

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The first fault of the kinship theory is the tendency to regard the family as the basis of the state. It is rather more correct to recognize that the state is caused by many other factors like force, religion, political consciousness and social agreement, of which the family is just one. Besides, the state is more than an expanded family. The two social concepts are very much different in essence, organization, function and purposes.

Concerning the opposing positions of the patriarchal and matriarchal theories, it is not a historical fact that either of the systems was the only system at a point in time. The best we can do is to accept that there was a parallel development of both of the systems in civilization; even though the patriarchal theory commands more acceptability.

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As considered by its popular proponents, the history of the world is divided into two;

the period before the formation of government called state of nature, and the period after, referred to as the civil society. In the state of nature, there existed no society, government and political authority; as such there was no law to regulate the relationship of people. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau accept this basic point, but differ about the features of life in the state of nature, reason for converting to the civil society and the terms of the contract. They, however, accept that the nature of life in the state of nature made it necessary for a changeover. With this changeover, a government came into existence which gave the people security of life, and property, though the initial natural liberty of the former state was lost. Government assumed the role of the impartial judge and social security for individuals in the society. Thus, the contractarians believe that government was not a natural condition. “Government was a deliberately and rationally conceived human invention, and the social contract was the act of people creating and empowering government”.²⁰ Again, even though the state of nature was uncomfortable, it was not totally lawless as there was the natural law which guided individual lives. These were absolute and universal set of truths which applied and regulated the lives of individuals in this state equally. Therefore, “it is not moral for anyone to make an equal unequal, so all people owe each other certain considerations, which came to be called natural rights”.²¹ Lastly, there is implicit in the idea of the contract the fact that people are rational; that is, with regard to understanding their problems and rationally proffering solution to it. In this instance, the institution of government was a rational and deliberate attempt to solve the problems the people encountered in the state of nature. The commonwealth, in which each individual’s volition was part to, was a rational process.

Hobbes observes that the state of nature was characterized by chaos occasioned by strife of individuals for self-preservation. In this state, “there was no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all,

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continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.²² Even though man had the natural law, yet this could not guarantee control and freedom. Locke and Rousseau refuse to accept that the state of nature was essentially a state of war. According to Locke, though there was no government in this state, men were guided by the natural law which legislated to all as equals, and commanded that no man should interfere in the life, health, freedom and possessions of another. The absence of a superior among them meant that each of them was left with working out his own interpretation of the law of reason. “The result is that while the state of nature is not a state of war (as it is in Hobbes’ view) it is still ‘full of fears and continual dangers’ and man’s enjoyment of rights is very insecure”.²³ For Rousseau,

“this state of affairs, a period of ideal bliss and happiness, disappeared with the emergence of private property”.²⁴ Hence to exit the inconveniences of the state of nature, men entered into a contract, by giving up their control of their natural rights. Hobbes argues that by this “a supreme coercive power is instituted. The contracting parties are not the community and the Government but subject and subject”.²⁵ The state, thus created exercises absolute control over all the parties and its law is sovereign. Unlike this position, Locke and Rousseau point out that the original contract did not immediately institute a government, rather, it led into a community or society. Locke further adds that after this initial contract, another contract was made to establish a government. That is, in replacing the state of nature, the people created the civil society by a contract, after which they made another contract by which the government in the person of the ruler or the legislator was inaugurated. This implies that government is part to the contract unlike Hobbes’ Leviathan. Rousseau differs from Locke in that he accepts that government was an establishment by the act of the parties to the contract.

However, in both, sovereignty lies with the parties to the initial contract not with the government as Hobbes would have us believe. In the Two Treatise of Government, Locke explains:

The legislative power constituted by the consent of the people becomes the supreme power in the commonwealth,

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but is not arbitrary. It must be exercised, as it is given, for the good of the subjects. Government is in the nature of a trust and embraces only such powers as were transferred at the time of the change from a state of nature. The legislature must dispense justice by standing laws and authorized judges; no man can be deprived of his property without his consent, nor can taxes be levied without the consent of the people or their representatives. Finally, the legislature cannot transfer its powers to any other person or body. It is but a delegated power from the people, who alone can dispense of it.²⁶

Locke’s postulation in the above clearly depicts that there is no complete surrender of all rights in the contract. The parties agreed only to the enforcement of the natural rights, while retaining the rights to life, liberty and property. This partial surrender of rights places limitation on the powers of the government or state; that is, it functions only to arbitrate between individuals. The people can only commit to government as long as it operates within the contract that established it, else, it would be dissolved. Sovereignty lies with the people, though, this is latent. But in Rousseau’s idea, everyone surrenders all his rights to the community. This implies that:

The community, therefore, becomes sovereign. Its sovereignty is as absolute as that of the Government in Hobbes is. Prima facie, there is no need to limit its sovereignty in the interests of the subjects, for the sovereign body, being formed only of the individuals who constitute it, can have no interests contrary to theirs. From the mere fact of its existence, it is always all that it ought to be (since, from the very fact of its institution, all merely private interests are lost to it).²⁷

Individuals only retain such rights allowed to it by the law or which the law does not prohibit; sovereignty here is absolute as in Hobbes, but it lies in the contract not with the government. There is complete swallowing of the individual by the general will, and the individual can only achieve freedom or happiness by staying true to this will.

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The social contract theory has been widely denounced on the grounds that it espouses ideas that are fictitious. For instance, the idea of a contract antedating the establishment of the state is not historical, neither is the idea of state of nature. Part of this, is that the theory presupposes that there existed in the state of nature a basic understanding of what the state actually is in the parties to the contract, before the actual establishment of the contract. In other words, how could the primitive people who had no knowledge of the state conceive the idea of establishing the state by a contract? Can one have an idea of the goodness of the state who has never had experience of the state? Sir Henry Maine explains this confusion as the case of putting the horse before the cart; the theory supposes that contractual agreement is the beginning of the society when, in fact, it is status. Appadorai, extensively, exposes the stand of Maine:

Contract, according to Maine, is not the beginning but the end of society. The idea of contract postulates that individuals who enter into the contract are free to do things in their own way; but, says Maine, the evidence of early law and custom shows that primitive man had no such freedom. Primitive society rested not upon contract but upon status. In that society, men were born into the station and part they were to play throughout life. It was not a matter of choice or of voluntary arrangement in what relations men were to stand towards one another as individuals. ‘He who is born a slave, let him remain a slave; the artisan, an artisan; the priest, a priest-is the command of the law of status.²⁸

Early society moved from status, and with the growth of age, this was replaced with contract. Also, the above position makes obvious that men in the primitive society were unequal, whereas the contract theory supposes that there existed fundamental equality of men in the state of nature. Lastly, political scientists and sociologists have univocally established that the state existed as a result of a long process of development underlid by factors as kinship, force, divine sanction, family, contract and so on. As such, the state as an institution cannot be reduced to a product of an individual will, else, it would imply that there are situations in which the state lacks sufficient authority over its

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individuals. For instance, in a situation where the state’s authority contradicts the individual’s will. The state should not be reduced to such a partnership that could be easily be dissolved at the fancy of such parties to the contract. Yet, it should still be realized that the idea of a contract is always implicit in the concept of political association. This reduces the tendency of the state to abuse its authority over the citizens.