Thomas Hobbes (traditional)

• Human Nature

  • People are flawed psycologically, morally and interlectually
  • People are unable to fuction alone in society and need disipline from above
  • Only an absolute monarch could lift humans out of the barbaric state of nature
  • Humans basic needs leads them to competition with other humans
  • Life is nothing more than a struggle for power
  • Humans are driven by a ruthless desire for supremacy and security
• Society

  • All forms of social order are preferable to an absense of social order
  • Authority derives from people themselves and its the people who provide legitimacy and consent to be governed
  • Ordered society allows for security over the importance of rights
  • Society cant exist organically, its created after order and authority is brought to human affairs
  • Society consists of individuals
• The State pt 1

  • Social order demands a decisive and coercive role for the state in order to prevent anarchy and ensure contracts are upheld
  • An authoritarian state is needed to prevent the collapse of social order
  • The state is a form of social contract with individhals voluntarily sacrificing some of their rights in the hope that a powerful authority would be better able to enforce them
• The State pt2

  • People have a right to disobey the authority of the state if their lives are under threat
  • The state should control the market as free markets are volatile and unpredicatble
  • The state rises 'contractually' from individuals seeking order and security
• The economy

  • The monarch can make a number of economic interventions in the interest of promoting peace and stability
  • The wealthy could be asked to pay more in taxes as they rely more upon the states protection
  • Good economic activity is impossible without a state guaranteeing order