NOTES 65 and constant expansion of territory, power—in one word, market—at the best. An idea worthy of its mercantile times! The fulfilment of the state "was, therefore, for him possible only through the absolute, amoral, heroic activities of one princs who would exercise the authority which belonged to the state per se. In effect, he drew a distinction between the psychology of the ruler and the ruled and adopted the view, later made more explicit by Nietzsche, tliat ordinary men exist only to give scope to the activities of heroes. Thus, while Machiavclli modernized the concept of the state by secularizing it and vesting it with sovereignty, the very necessity of his times made him adopt not a morally neutral attitude but the morality of the merchant—morality which could reconcile cutting the throat of a competitor with the common good of all members of the state. Bound as he was by his times, he visualized an ideal—popular or free—government, but the kind of popular government he had in mind and approved of liad never existed except in small republics. And yet, since his state is one which is constantly moving from one pinnacle of greatness, both in terms of power and of territory, to another, the state disappears and the individual ruler remains. Louis XIV of France, coming only a few centuries after Machiavelli, put it even more succinctly when he as the ruler proclaimed "U Etat C'est moi'\ The fact that his grandson, Louis XVI, had his head chopped off is enough comment on how far the modern world is prepared to accept such an absolute ruler! However, Machiavelli's idea of the state as an amoral body is the first modern concept of it. Where he goes wrong is when he does not distinguish between the merchants' search for market with the community's search for greatness and as 3i result, comes up with a position on that this can be achieved only through the efforts of one unscrupulous great man. This identification of the community with a band of merchants—generally, in those days, part-time pirates and robbers—was perhaps inevitable for a person who had before him the example of Borgia's Florence and the vision of Mussolini's Italy. Social Contract for Possessive Capitalism If Machiavelli was the political theorist of the piratical mercantile age, the proponents of the 'Social Contract5—Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau —represent the political spirit of capitalist society. In their theories, they portray the political expression of possessive individualism.2 Just as in capitalist society every nexus is reduced to the cash nexus, and human relationships in the process of production—the most vital process in human existence—are determined by contract between two parties, the Social Contract theorists thought society had always existed. They visualized state as having emerged from an "anarchical State of Nature" by contract entered into by conscious human beings. Both the State of Nature and Social Contract were absolute and valid for all times for Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau and on these points these three great political