Building a State on Paper
This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.
The course's political instruments used in sequence: pick a state of nature, sign what nobody signs, patch consent with a veil, and draw liberty's line.
Step one—choose your emptiness. The state of nature is a load-bearing-wall exercise, and which blueprint you start from decides the building. Hobbes's version—war of all against all, preemption as rationality—justifies a strong sovereign; almost any order beats the alternative. Locke's version—rights intact, inconvenience rather than war, feuds without a referee—justifies a limited state: an umpire hired for a specific job, fireable for cause. Same method, opposite constitutions. The choice of starting picture is the real constitutional convention.
Paper states test principles, not politics—no actual constitution fell out of a thought experiment. The instruments show what arguments can justify, which is a different and older service.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.