I agree with a kind of societal emergence / evolutionary story, which I presume is somewhat like the “cellular automata” metaphor. I’ve never read or studied Hobbes’ earlier works, though perhaps I should.

My comments in that sphere were based only on Leviathan. On that score, I think it’s important to read Hobbes in the way Hobbes wrote. When he asserts that there are contracts between “every man with every man”, I take him at his word. (Be they tacit or explicit contracts — for my purposes, it doesn’t matter). And the objections which he lucidly tried to defend himself against do not seem cogent. It really isn’t the case that any reasonable person who is in constant fear of death can enter into any contract with his would-be assassin, because trust is impossible. A story about a collective unanamously joining hands in order to secure their mutual freedom and stave off mutual fear is patently implausible, not only because they have nothing to secure the confederacy but mere words, but also because they have every reason to hate and defile the would-be sovereign as they would hate and defile anarchy (Locke’s “lions and polecats” remark is an effective satire here).

A story of groups coming together in solidarity for mutual gain, or of families staying together for the same reason, ala Locke, is more plausible, but still a bit tortured. I see no reason to deny the explanatory power of power-relationships, and they seem to be partially at odds with the contract perspective. (You don’t do this, of course, but I’m speaking just in generalities at this point to be clear.)

You’re surely right about Hobbes being strangely dour about the positive benefits of human organization, a thing that Locke tried to push for.

Regarding your points on (3), they are interesting, but from my perspective they are changing the terrain of the discussion a bit. Instead of talking about general explanations for conflict, we are now talking about different kinds of situations which ought to be explained: the zero-sum, and the, uh, “not zero sum” (can’t think of a better description). In which case we seem to be leaving the bare-bones stuff behind, which makes me contented.

(4) I didn’t know it was a mistake to reduce economics to business and money (well, also to transaction and goods). I would have thought that symbol economies, including status holdings, would only be of economic interest insofar as they produce material gains. Seems far more like sociology to me (though of course ultimately these distinctions become useless to dwell on).

(5) At the risk of sounding maudlin, I can’t think of a better way to describe petroleum dependence except as “a slow collective suicide”. From what I understand the book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” by Jared Diamond seems to make consistent points on this, for example, with respect to the Easter Islanders.

And anyway, what about withdrawl (which is on the same axis as suicide)? Take Switzerland. They’re neutral; they withdraw from all conflict which doesn’t immediately affect them. Or take guerrila warfarists, who hide in the mountains or forests — their strategy is withdrawl. A society will adapt itself as best it can.

(6) is probably right. Not only that, but withdrawl from something to which people are both accustomed and beholden to is (according to the “J-Curve Theory” in sociology) the recipe for revolution.

But, to tie together some of these threads: surely if Hobbes were right, then people could collectively be forward-thinking enough to conserve collectively in order to receive long-term benefits. For that’s all they’ve done with the soveriegn.