One Property and Patriarchy in Classical Bourgeois Political Theory

Classical bourgeois political theory articulated the political revolution that established possessive individualism as the basis of legitimate government and the foundation of civil society. In this respect, it inaugurated the systematic investigation of the objective rules governing subjective human existence. The work of Thomas Hobbes and of John Locke, like classical political economy and modern social science, rest squarely upon the notion of theoretical individualism—at least in the public domain. Both men, diverse prescriptive solutions notwithstanding, thus participated in the as yet unresolved assault upon divine authority. By rejecting divine sanction in favor of rationality as the first principle of civil society, they helped to establish the individual as the justification for and fundamental unit of political society. The theoretical clarity of bourgeois individualism, however, as Hegel and Marx respectively insisted, masked deep psychological and social—i.e., historical— contradictions, not the least of which concerned the appropriate social role of women.