Leviathan

Leviathan is a book written by Thomas Hobbes in the 1650s which western liberal democratic thought owes its origins.

Hobbes was writing during the English civil war, where the country was effectively in a state of anarchy and he saw all manner of horrific things happen due to the lack of order. In Leviathan, he argued that effectively, without someone to punish people for harming others, humans have no reason to trust each other and given their legitimate self-interest in wanting to remain alive, there is no reason for every person to not fear being murdered by every other person all the time.

This scenario without a "sovereign" (in Hobbes' terms) was referred to as the "state of nature". Hobbes believed that as all human life was in danger all the time in this state, humans should accept a "sovereign" under any conditions because it was still necessarily better than the alternative.

There was enormous backlash to the idea of allegiance to any ruler, regardless of how oppressive, both at the time (as seen in John Locke) and recently, especially when events of the 20th century have strongly called into question Hobbes' contention that even a despotic ruler is better than lack of rule.

The Manics are referring to this idea of unconditional obedience to any leader with contempt with most of this song, especially "dictators or democracy, obey the price to make us free".