I'm planning an essay. It's all a little 11-hour. I'd be indebted if people could suggest writers on the justification of authority. Please, be very terse - just an author and a book title would really be great.
The only one I can think of right now is Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan -how last minute is this, though? Because it's a pretty hefty tome, if you want to actually read it.
I heard a typically unpleasant Boyd Rice rant to that effect yesterday- it was along the lines of resistance by the weak to the string is unnatural, because it involves the weak taking up the tools and motivations of the strong, ie those which aren't theirs to use. From there he extrapolates that therefore all acts perpetrated on the weak by the strong are natural and to be applauded.
Like I said, typically unpleasant.
It might be worth looking at Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State And Utopia -which I disliked intensely, but it does aim for a justification of the (very limited) power of 'the State' (if not of power in the abstract). Would that be relevant to what you're writing?
