52 Hobbes As Possessive Individualist

Hobbes as Possessive Individualist: interro-

gating the C. B. Macpherson thesis

JULES TOWNSHEND

If recent commentaries on Hobbes are anything to go by, C. B. Macpherson's analysis of Hobbes as a possessive individualist is virtually dead, maintaining a shadowy existence in the occasional dismissive footnote.' This is a far cry from when Macpherson's account of Hobbes appeared in The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (hereafter PI in 1962, as part of a wider project exposing the 'possessive individualist' roots of contemporary liberalism2. Then his thesis on Hobbes, along with the rest of the book, was widely reviewed, albeit with a strange mixture of genuine admiration and deep hostility. Macpherson seemed to be a Marxist gate-crasher at a liberal party to be shown the door, or any other point of exit, as politely and as firmly as possible. They took their time to eject on the grounds of a poor interpretation of Locke - indeed, Macpherson almost single-handedly created a Locke 'industry', keeping many academics gainfully employed in refuting his views. Ironically, only a few critics rejected Macpherson's assumption that a significant correlation existed between the rise of capitalism and Locke's political thought. However, his sim- ilar exercise with Hobbes seemed less persuasive and challenging, thereby eas- ing Macpherson's 'defenestration', a term he used in a unpublished reply to one of his critics.3 Nevertheless, although his critics may have been successful in marginalising Macpherson's vision of Hobbes, a stubborn question remains: was this because they had successfully demolished his argument? Oddly, few critics seemed to have bothered to reflect on, or acknowledge, his various rebut- tals, prefering stick to their criticisms, come what may. My contention is that, after evaluating replies to his critics, an important correlation if critically and sympathetically re-stated, remains between Hobbes' thought and the rise of capitalism, making him the founding father of the 'possessive individualist' or util-

' A. Ryan, for example regarded Macpherson' interpretationof Hobbesas 'wonderfully imag- inative, but entirely implausible.' T. Sorrell (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Hobbes (Cambridge, 1996),p. 245, footnote 64. This is the only reference to Macphersonin the entire volume, and perhaps significantly,he and this reference are not indexed. 2 Macpherson(Oxford, 1962). (hereafter PI) 3 Macpherson, 'Miller's Defenestrationof Possessive Individualism', B87/0069/004,Robarts Library, University of Toronto.

52 itarian element of the British liberal tradition. Curiously, his critics were in part guilty of doing to Macpherson what they accused Macpherson of doing to Hobbes, despite the exemplary clarity of his prose and presentation: they imput- ed certain false assumptions, and then demonstrated that the evidence did not support them.

Hobbes in Possessive Individualism

The following brief summary merely focuses on those parts of Macpherson's thesis critics have challenged, or overlooked. Macpherson's account of Hobbes in PI, was the result of developing an interpretation formulated somewhat ear- lier in 1945, building on Strauss' interpretation.4 In the intervening years he had developed his concept of possessive individualism, based upon Tawney's notion of an 'acquisitive society'.5 The concept saw individual freedom in terms of self proprietorship of capacities that were exchanged with other individuals to gain objects of satisfaction. The state's job was to regulate this process. Macpherson applied this concept to Hobbes and other seventeenth century English thinkers. Crucially, he saw Hobbes within a wider context which embraced his overall project. This aimed to expose the shortcomings of the 'possessive' side of liberalism, which had, he argued, become historically outmoded in Britain by the mid-nineteenth century. As a result of the working class coming within the pale of the constitution, the legitimacy of the liberal state which supported a possessive market society became open to question. Political equality could not be reconciled with the liberal vision of economic equality as equality of opportu- nity, because a market society could not yield equal substantive material bene- fits for all citizens. Hobbes' significance was as an obvious forerunner of the Utilitarian philosophy of Bentham and his followers, the liberal philosophy par excellence for a market society. According to Macpherson, 'Bentham built on Hobbes'.6 Hobbes' view of human nature and of the functions of the state pro- vided the intellectual foundations and justifications of the liberal capitalist state. In applying his possessive individualist hypothesis to Hobbes, Macpherson anticipated the charge that he was some crude Marxist economic reductionist. In stressing the possessive individualist roots of modem liberal theory, the con- cepts of freedom, rights, obligation and justice, were not reducible to the 'concept of possession', although they were 'powerfully shaped by it." Equally, he

4 Macpherson,Democratic Theory: Essays inRetrieval (Oxford,1973)(hereafter DT), 238-50; L. Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes(Chicago,1952), pp.118-28. 5 W. Leiss, C. B. Macpherson: The Dilemmasof Liberalismand Socialism (New York,1988), p. 28; Macpherson,DT, pp. 195-203. 6 PI, p. 2.