  Holbach’s political theory, which he developed for the most part after his metaphysics and ethics, extends his ethical views to the state. Having described human interest as happiness and preservation in the System of Nature and Common Sense in 1770 and 1772, Holbach went on to develop a notion of the just state or, to use his own term, “ethocracy,” founded for the purposes of securing the general welfare. This theory is presented in several works published during the 1770s, La politique naturelle (Natural Politics, 1773), Système social (The Social System, 1773), La morale universelle (Universal Morality, 1776), and Ethocratie (Ethocracy, 1776). Holbach’s foundational view is that the most valuable thing a person seeking self-preservation can do is to unite with another person: “Man is of all beings the most necessary to man” (Système social, 76; cf. Spinoza’s Ethics IVP35C1, C2, and S). Society, when it is just, unites for the common purpose of preservation and the securing of welfare, and society contracts with government for this purpose. 