Johnny Concho vs. Social Contract Theory
Remnant Review
You have never seen Frank Sinatra’s first Western, Johnny Concho (1956). Anyway, that’s my guess. It was a sleeper. It did not achieve a cult following. It simply slept. Until February 2017, it was available only from Italy, overdubbed in Italian. Then someone posted it on YouTube. Since then, fewer than 1,500 people have clicked on it. It remains a sleeper.
The movie had a profound impact on me at the age of 14. I saw it in a local theater. I went back to see it again twice.
I liked Sinatra. I had seen High Society the year before. I was just learning to appreciate him as a singer. But it was the plot, not the acting, that grabbed me.
The movie shaped my thinking of civil government. I did not know how much it had shaped my thinking until five years ago, when I produced the first half of the government course for the Ron Paul Curriculum. There, I formalized my theory of the origin of civil government. I long ago abandoned the theory of the social contract, first articulated publicly by John Locke in his famous Second Treatise on Government (1790), but more famously by Jean Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract in 1762.
SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY
Here is the theory. Sometime in the distant past, a group of politically autonomous men got together and surrendered a portion of their sovereignty to a new institution, the state. They did this in order to make their property more secure, according to Locke. Rousseau developed this thesis. But he did not actually believe it. In 1754, he had entered an essay contest, which he won. His essays was A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind, known as The Discourse on Inequality. Early in the essay, he announced:
Let us begin therefore, by laying aside facts, for they do not affect the question. The researches, in which we may engage on this occasion, are not to be taken for historical truths, but merely as hypothetical and conditional reasonings, fitter to illustrate the nature of things, than to show their true origin, like those systems, which our naturalists daily make of the formation of the world. Religion commands us to believe, that men, having been drawn by God himself out of a state of nature, are unequal, because it is his pleasure they should be so; but religion does not forbid us to draw conjectures solely from the nature of man, considered in itself, and from that of the beings which surround him, concerning the fate of mankind, had they been left to themselves.
This was hypothetical history: history as it might have been, had it not been otherwise.
I offer another version of hypothetical history. I got it from Johnny Concho.
You may want to watch it first. I recommend that you do. It is worth watching as an example of artistically effective low-budget movie production in the 1950's.
THE BULLY THEORY OF THE STATE
I teach the government course in terms of the biblical covenant model: sovereignty, authority, law, sanctions, and time. We identify these in terms of five questions:
1. Who’s in charge here?
2. To whom do I report?
3. What are the rules?
5. What do I get if I obey? Disobey?
5. Does this outfit have a future?
In every social order, there is a division of labor. Different people specialize in different things. They are better at performing certain tasks than others are.
In every social order, there are bullies: Cains. They specialize in pushing people around. They are good at little else. They know that most individuals will not stand up to them. These bullies tend to attract other bullies. For every Scott Farkus, there is a Grover Dill. There are several Grover Dills. These become gangs.
If gangs consolidate their power, a few of them triumph. They make alliances. This is the origin of what I call the warlord society. They specialize in imposing negative physical sanctions on weak people.
But there are limits to every organization. Organizations extend power until they meet resistance. In order to limit private violence, citizens form civil governments: organized force. The state is a nonprofit organization that is based on violence. Citizens surrender authority to the state, not because they get together to create a government, but because formal and informal arrangements make it clear to both the oppressors -- public or private -- and their victims that there are limits to the expansion of tyrannical power. Laws provide legal predictability, which people want. But power is a great temptation, whether private or public. The guardians need institutional restraints to keep them from becoming predators. The larger the civil government grows, the more difficult it is to restrain the misuse of violence.
The state rests on a covenant, not a contract. It is bound by oath. So are families. So are churches. These are representative institutions. In one form or another, they form every society. They make up society. But there was never a meeting when men as autonomous individuals bound themselves to a specific state of their own creation by means of a contract.
Every society invokes a source of sovereignty. For most societies, this is God. The source of law in society is its god. So is the source of final sanctions. But there is no universal agreement on the nature of this sovereign agent or force.
I cannot appeal to historical documentation any more than Locke could or Rousseau could. But I think my theory is more plausible. It starts with what is known: bullies. It extends to what is also known: gangs. It invokes the power of the warlords in history. The bottom line is this: it was not a voluntary social contract among autonomous families that led to civil government. It was the quest for predictability in a world of sin and violence. That social world was oath-bound.
1. WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?
The answer is not obvious when the movie begins. The movie begins with authority, but this is concealed.
Sinatra, who plays Johnny Concho, is walking down the dusty street of the Western town. He is cocky. Everybody is deferential to him. As the plot unfolds, it becomes clear that he runs the town. He gets his horse cared for free of charge by the local blacksmith. He buys what he wants at the local dry goods store. No one charges him money. Everyone hates him except for one young woman. In the evening, he plays poker. He announces what cards he holds, but he never shows them. He always wins.
There are a few references to his older brother, Red Concho. Red is a gunslinger. He is out of town. We never see him.
One evening, two strangers come into the saloon where the card game is being played. One of them is clearly the leader. He asks to sit in on the game. Johnny agrees. Johnny bets a lot of money. The stranger calls Concho's bet. Johnny announces, as usual, that he has three queens. The stranger admits defeat; he has only three nines. But then he asks to see Johnny’s hand. Johnny has two queens.
At this point, Johnny announces that his brother is Red Concho. The stranger is unfazed by this information. He tells Johnny that he killed Red two days ago in a gunfight.
At this point, Johnny’s world begins to collapse. He had long relied on the long shadow of his older brother. Now there was no shadow. There were only two strangers, one of whom takes his money for the evening. He also announces that Johnny has one day to get out of town.
Johnny makes a run for it. Anyway, he attempts to. But the blacksmith won’t let him out. He says that they had waited a long time for this event. Johnny is trapped.
2. TO WHOM DO I REPORT?
He goes to the sheriff. He asks the sheriff to do something. The sheriff then gives him a lesson in civil government. He said that the only reason why Johnny was able to get what he wanted at zero cost was because of his older brother. Nobody in the town wanted his older brother around. At the same time, the town wanted some degree of peace. The fact that his older brother could come back to town at any time kept other gunslingers out of the town. The sheriff informs Johnny that he was the anchor that kept Red Concho tied to the town.
He said that every month, everybody who had given Johnny anything submitted the bill to the town, and the town paid. Here was a theory of taxation.
The sheriff was a figurehead. He didn’t have any fighting to do, because of the long shadow of Red Concho. The whole town was living under the long shadow of Red Concho. Now that shadow was gone.
We learn from this exchange that the person who was in charge was the invisible and distant Red Concho. Johnny was his spokesman. The question, “to whom do I report?” was answered by this: "Johnny Concho." Why? Because Johnny represented the absent brother. Nobody wanted to deal directly with the absent brother. It was preferable to deal with Johnny. It was expensive, and it was humiliating, but it would not get you killed.
It becomes clear before the end of the evening that the two strangers have taken over the town. Unlike Red Concho, they clearly intend to stay. They are going to be a lot more dangerous than Johnny. They are a lot more dangerous than Red, because they were present, and Red had been gone. Now, the answer to the question, “who’s in charge here?” was the same answer as this one: “to whom do I report?” There would be no intermediary between the sovereign and the town. One man was the gang leader. The other was his flunky.
3. WHAT ARE THE RULES?
The new rules are simple: the gunslinger wants 20% of everything that is bought and sold. They both want free rent. These are far more oppressive rules than Johnny had imposed. Men’s property would be protected. They would keep other gunslingers out, but at a high price. The law would be more predictable, but also more tyrannical. The citizens are now worse off than they were before.
As for Johnny, the rules are even simpler: get out of town. There's no question that the scriptwriter knew what he was doing. Johnny tells the girl that he is a leper. We see this as he rides from town to town. The communities were placing a quarantine on him. His only hope was anonymity.
4. WHAT DO I GET IF I OBEY? DISOBEY?
Johnny wants out of town. If he leaves, he will not have to face the gunfighter. Obedience will let him keep his life.
This is also the same negative sanction that now applies to everybody who stays behind. They keep their property, but they live under oppression. They dare not challenge the new authority, who has sovereignty because he has a gun and knows how to use it.
Johnny’s girlfriend gives him her horse and saddle so that he can ride out of town. But wherever he goes, from town to town, the local sheriff runs him out of town. Nobody seems to know that Red Concho is dead. They just don’t want Johnny in town. He now lives under permanent negative sanctions. His only hope is to get to California, where nobody knows him.
The girl goes after him. She rides her father’s horse. She catches him on the trail. She says she has $300. She wants to marry him. He agrees. When they go to the next town, they look for a church where they can get married. They ride into the town in search of a church. There, they meet a drunk who tells them about the church at the top of the hill. It’s a nice church, he says. Hardly anybody goes there, but it’s a nice church. He also tells them the name of the pastor. The pastor turns out to be a former gunfighter and ex-marshal. Johnny and the girl depart for the church.
Two other gunslingers then show up. One of them has a score to settle with Red Concho. The drunk, unlike everybody else along the trail, knows that Red Concho is dead. He tells the gunslingers this. They head for the church.
We’re back to the doctrine of representation, meaning point two of the covenant. The gunslinger cannot settle his score with Red, since Red is dead. But he can settle the score with Red’s brother, who remains, in his eyes, Red’s representative.
At the church, the pastor is absent. The gunslingers show up. The leader asks Johnny what his last name is. Johnny lies. He says his last name is Collins. At this point, the girl loses hope in him. He really is a coward. She is about to marry a coward.
Now the pastor comes in from the back room. Why he was in the back room all this time, we are not told. This had more to do with drama than logic. The pastor tells the two gunslingers to take their hats off in the house of the Lord. One of them immediately does. The leader hesitates, defiantly. The pastor gives him until the count of three take his hat off or draw his gun. Naturally, before the pastor announces three, the gunslinger takes off his hat.
The pastor runs them out of the church. But the gunslinger says he’s going to get Johnny anyway.
The girl then leaves for home, taking her money with her.
Johnny then has a heart-to-heart talk with the pastor. The pastor seems to be the sovereign. That’s because he has the faster gun. He gives Johnny advice as a pastor. The advice is to be truthful. Johnny decides to go back to the town and face the town’s new leader. He knows he is probably going to get killed, but he decides that’s what he has to do. "A man has to do what a man has to do." This is a mid-1950's Western.
The pastor accompanies him on the trail. The two local gunslingers attempt to intervene. The pastor orders them to keep their hands away from their guns. He has a shotgun. He tells Johnny to ride on. Johnny rides on.
5. DOES THIS OUTFIT HAVE A FUTURE?
Meanwhile, back in the town, the gunslinger is now demanding that everybody transfer all of their property to him. They are to come by the next morning to sign the papers. He wants it all legal. One man resists. The man walks out of the blacksmith’s barn. The gunslinger shoots him in the back. Now he is a murderer.
Later in the evening, Johnny shows up. The gunslinger and his partner come out to face him down. Johnny is unarmed. The gunslinger tells Johnny he is going to take him apart one piece at a time. He pulls his gun and shoots Johnny in the shoulder.
At this point, the movie has its resolution. Johnny is lying in the dirt. The gunslinger is going to kill him in cold blood. The girl's father, who had been the major coward in the town, now has a gun in his hand. He fires at the gunslinger. Everybody else in town also fires his gun into the gunslinger and his partner. They writhe on the ground. They die a little bit at a time. The sanction which they had threatened to impose on Johnny is imposed on them by the town.
Johnny is clearly a repentant man. He says he’s going to leave. The townspeople say he can stay.
He no longer represents Red Concho.
The town now has a future. That is because the citizens were armed. As individuals, they had not possessed the courage to challenge the gunslingers. They were as good as disarmed. But when a representative figure stood up for a righteous cause in their midst, and he was shot for it, that pushed them all into action. There were more of them than there were the two gunslingers. They were armed.
By returning, Johnny was representing the town. The town was filled with armed people. But the town had lacked courage on an individual basis. The town was defenseless. Together, they possessed authority because they possessed guns.
Ultimately, the guns were not the source of legal sovereignty. The citizens’ moral commitment to defending an unarmed man who was representing them before the tyrants gave them the courage to risk their lives individually. Because they acted as a unit, they were successful in defending the integrity of the town. They outgunned the villains because the town’s integrity was based on a concept of ethics. But this integrity had been lacking before. They were all like Johnny. They just did not have Red to back them up.
HOLLYWOOD IN THE 1950's
The fact that the turning point in the movie took place in a church was representative of the religious outlook in the United States in the mid-1950's. This was best represented in the concluding minutes of The War of the Worlds (1953). The invaders from Mars had better weaponry. They had a completely different ethical system. They were merciless to humans. Science could not save the world from the invading Martians. Nuclear weapons were impotent.
The conclusion of the movie is inside a church. People are inside the church praying. A Martian military craft blasts the stained glass window with a destructive ray. The window is blown out. Then, one by one, Martian vehicles begin to crash.
This was not the ending in the novel, which was written by that consummate atheist, H. G. Wells back in 1896. But the nonpracticing Jews who ran Hollywood in the 1950's knew where their bread was buttered. The audiences believed in God. That did not change until 1960, when two films, Inherit the Wind and Elmer Gantry, hit the silver screens. That was the year that Ben Hur won 11 Academy Awards. Overnight, Hollywood changed. I wrote about this in 2002. Read my analysis here.
MAO ON CIVIL GOVERNMENT
Mao's most famous phrase is this: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." But the context is important. It was 1938. The Japanese had invaded China. There was a war between the Communists and the forces of Chiang Kai-shek. This was a struggle for political power in the society with the oldest national bureaucracy on earth. He was seeking to replace that shattered, post-empire, top-down bureaucracy with one of his own, just as Lenin had done with the Czar's bureaucracy.
Mao was speaking of far more than political power.
Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. Yet, having guns, we can create Party organizations, as witness the powerful Party organizations which the Eighth Route Army has created in northern China. We can also create cadres, create schools, create culture, create mass movements. Everything in Yenan has been created by having guns. All things grow out of the barrel of a gun.
The pre-1960 Westerns revolved around revolvers. But Hollywood never made the mistake of identifying the revolver with sovereignty. The central question was ethics. This is from Shane (1953). Shane, a gunfighter trying to reform and return to family-based society, shows a ten-year-old boy how he shoots. The noise brings the parents running. The mother confronts Shane. She hates guns. He replies: "A gun is a tool, no better or worse than any other tool, an axe, a shovel, or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that." She does not believe him. But his gun removes the threat to the families at the end. Then he leaves. The men he leaves behind are armed. They may be slow on the draw, but they are armed.
CONCLUSION
Johnny Concho taught me at age 14 a fundamental fact of civil government: it rests on ethics of one kind or another, and it rests on the ability of citizens to change the mode of government when ethically necessary. In the movie, an armed citizenry was the technical basis of this challenge. The United States still holds to this position. To a lesser degree, so does Switzerland. Both countries are known for their liberty. It is not that they confront agents of civil government in the streets. It is that they have the right to own the weapons that are the marks of authority. The symbolism of gun ownership is more important than the actual firepower of the weapons.
As for a theory of final sovereignty, there is no agreement in our pluralistic age. The modern world is divided on this issue. This is why civil governments in the West are now divided almost to the point of gridlock. There is limited agreement on ethics.