7 - Conclusions

Summary

The fundamental question of political theory, one that precedes all other questions about the nature of political life, is why there is a state at all. Is human cooperation feasible without a political authority enforcing it? Or do we need a state to live together? This problem then opens up two further issues. If a state is necessary to establish order, how (and when) does it come into place? And, if it does, what are its consequences for the political status and economic welfare of the citizens under its control?

Classical political thinkers offered (or at least attempted to offer) a comprehensive answer to all these questions. Their ultimate goal was of a normative or justificatory kind – to establish whether there should be a state at all and, if so, of what nature. But their (rather diverse) responses have shaped our empirical understanding of politics in a powerful way. In this conclusion, I revisit the contributions of three main thinkers, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, who can be thought of as the forefathers of our existing political traditions – from authoritarianism through liberalism to socialism. For each one of them, I summarize their positions on the three problems raised in this book: the feasibility of cooperation under anarchy; the conditions that elicit the formation of a state; and the political and economic effects of the latter. I then review the main findings of this book and the ways in which they disallow or qualify central tenets of political thought and political science. The final part of this concluding chapter takes a stab at one of today’s most pressing intellectual topics: the determinants of inequality in contemporary democracies.