>>286146I will quickly point out something first.
For example, the author's rejection of Cicero:
>There are several problems. The first is simply that he [Cicero] did not define a republic as requiring popular control. He observes that some define republics in this way, and even suggests that there may be some connection between popular control and freedom, as republicans claim. But this is not how he defines a republic. Rather, on his view, a republic is any regime in which there is a community of interest and shared conception of justice. He is explicit that monarchies count as republics–a claim republicans strenuously deny. His own preference, however, is for a mixed constitution blending the elements of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. It is difficult to see why we should count someone as a republican who denies one of its most central and distinctive political tenetsI'm not really a bleeding heart apologist for what people call republicanism as opposed to monarchy, but I'll make a few points.
>if there is a monarchist bookIdk, I'd recommend all the books I read.
I'm drawn to the names most synonymous with absolute monarchy.
Like Bodin, King James I, Robert Filmer, Hobbes, Bossuet, etc.
Although Dante Alighieri in De Monarchia & his political letters also has pre-eminent views of Monarchy.
Since, imo, the absolutist view of monarchy is the only view aspiring to what I call the "Pre-eminent State of Monarchy".
that I trace back to Aristotle's Politics, although Bodin corrects Aristotle a little I think Bodin's politics of sovereign monarchy is closest to monarchical pre-eminenceBodin's Six Books of Commonwealth:
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A16275.0001.001?c=eebo;c=eebo2;g=eebogroup;rgn=main;view=fulltext;xc=1"Republicanism vs Monarchism" distinction wasn't always a thing.
Jean Bodin's "Six Books of a Commonwealth" was originally called "Les Six livres de la République", but later as that tension grew on and that distinction developed the English translation changed the word "Republic" to "Commonwealth" in Richard Knolles' translation since by then the "monarchist vs republican" dichotomy had since then developed.
"Commonwealth" basically means the "public good" and I have read bloggers who disagree with Bodin strictly because they thought he was "too republican" for his study of the Roman state and the word "Republic" itself… because it wasn't Hoppean privatization or distinct of a civil state.
And while Bodin did talk of sovereignty in terms of ownership, I wouldn't go as far as to say a sovereign monarchy is solely a private affair with nothing concerning the "commonweal" or public, even in the keenest sense of absolute monarchy where the Sovereign Monarch is viewed as a superior to the people in general and particular.
<How is the term "Republic" like "Commonwealth" used in this sense, and why does Bodin use the term "Republic" and "Commonwealth" for Hobbes' Leviathan?Here's an important distinctionThe term "Republic" is a word for the State itself rather than the "form of state".
In absolutist terms, there are 3 forms of state and no such thing as a 4th mixed state, but only 3: monarchy, oligarchy, democracy.
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>Why the term "Republic" with State itself doesn't bother you?The State itself is synonymous with the political. Hobbes in his works refers to the State sometimes as the "City" and that's how politics in principle extended itself even beyond city-states to being the nature of states in general. Republic is understood in the same way to refer to the City since the City itself is the public good or "commonweal".
<how then does Bodin's use of the term "Republic" matter?Because absolutists somewhat universally back what Plato says, that there's no distinction between what is economical (household) or political (city). As if there were no difference between a great household or a small state, that no matter whether it be a king, a statesman, a dictator, or household manager, they all govern and have the same expertise and craft anyways.
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Hobbes calls a family a little city and uses that to refute the view that there were families before the institution of commonwealths or cities.
The same is understood when we use the term "public servants" for statesmen, since servants are something a household management has, whether it be a domestic master and slave or any business or industry with boss and employee.
Aristotle called it an erroneous view to see no difference between a great household and small state, but does mention how a Monarch should treat his subjects like his own kin and offspring and foreigners like slaves (I think) and how a Monarchy rules various kinds of state, like cities, nations, or empires like a household.
>like freedom as non dominationI haven't read the whole book itself, but while the book makes extensive reference to the "empire of law" I'd promptly ask what kinds of laws.
Bodin makes a distinction between the laws of God and Nature, the fundamental laws, and the Sovereign's own laws (that being the right command).
While the Sovereign Monarch isn't subject to his own laws, it's not the case that there isn't an onus to follow his own rules or that there was a power without law. For instance, absolute power is viewed pretty much as the law of nature since Bodin takes inspiration from the Roman pater familias who had the power of life and death and since Hobbes pretty much views it as a fundamental law for the State itself to exist and function healthily.
The book criticizes anarchists for being critical of the law and closely associates law with freedom, but although Bodin makes the case that law triumphs over custom–he did allude to a quote I read that said law was the tyrant and custom the noble king. And despite its criticism of Hobbes on freedom, I think there's a point to be made with how slavery was once the law of the land and many other laws could be deemed illiberal.
>what you thought of itA well-ordered republic is like a well-ordered family, as Jean Bodin adds. That book rejects sovereignty or talks about prerogative principle, but in my case the superior power is what defines the whole body-politic itself, that being the sovereignty and like Aristotle says "the whole in relation to the part" for what many people call the "common good" or "commonweal".