Hobbes, Locke, Spontaneous Order And Making Sense of Ideology

As someone who sees political affiliations less on a spectrum of left and right and more so on a spectrum of libertarian and authoritarian, the apparently inconsistent opinions of mainstream Democrats on Republicans were puzzling. Democrats believe in the value of freedom in personal affairs but want to apply a great deal of control to businesses and the Economy in general. Republicans are the opposite and as least claim to want a frugal government, lower taxes, less regulations on businesses and approaches to monetary policy that are less interventionist. However, Republicans tend to like state control over one's personal life.

How on Earth can the two major parties have platforms that celebrate freedom in some parts of life but scorn it in others? I have tentative explanation for this inconsistency. It builds on many political compasses that use an x-axis and a y-axis. Most of them have stances on Economic issues on one axis and foreign policy and social policy on the other axis. This is a major improvement over the antiquated right and left spectrum. My political compass goes to even deeper and more fundamental assumptions about policy and politics.

My compass has one axis that measures if one sees history as formed largely as the result of millions of actors and an actions, the bottom up approach. At the other end of this first exist is the belief that much of history is shaped by a few powerful and/or dynamic individuals, whose actions and visions shaped the course of history.

The other measures one's views on why government exist and on human nature. One end of this axis has one who completely agrees with Thomas Hobbes. People are inherently bad and were willing to accept a powerful government that would protect them from themselves and from their neighbors. The other end of this axis has those who agree with John Locke. People are generally good and formed governments voluntarily in order to achieve common goals and desire authority only to satisfy those goals and no more than that.

This means that we have four general groups:

Bottom up-Hobbes: Republicans
Bottom up-Locke: Libertarians
Top Down-Hobbes: Totalitarians
Top Down-Locke: Democrats


This could explain the inconsistencies that exist in Republicans and Democrats. If you believe that people are generally good but are best when guided by top-down decision making, you are probably a Democrat and believe that we do need a huge military force, tough on crime laws and restrictions on drug use, abortion and marriage; however, free markets and families as autonomous decision making units are viewed with suspicion because they are a bottom-up formed entity that is not amenable to centralized decision making by elites.

Republicans are the opposite and tend to like entities that were formed in a bottom-up way and they like decentralized decision making in that regard. They are Hobbesian thought and believe that we need more military force, more police and more laws that ensure their definition of virtue.

Libertarians embrace freedom in the bedroom and in the market place and Totalitarians, as horrible as they may be, are pretty intellectually consistent. They want control over everything from the market place to the presses to one's own diet, entertainment and religion.


Looking at ideology along the lines of one's most basic assumptions can clarify apparent inconsistencies and explain how it is that so many people, given the same set of facts can reach so many differing and at times radical conclusions about how government should operate.