Hobbes and Engels

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Slide 1

General Studies at NSG Do we really need a government?

Slide 2

General Studies at NSG

Thomas Hobbes

‘The Leviathan’ (1651)

Friedrich Engels ‘Origins of the

Family, Private Property and

the State’ (1884)

Slide 3

Hobbes’ question

How is social order possible?

Hobbes aimed to produce evidence for why we need a government based on rational argument and evidence without reference to the ‘divine right of kings’

Slide 4

Hobbes’ assumptions:

All men seek to avoid death and injury

Because men want a happy life, they seek sufficient power to ensure that happy life

All men have a ‘restless desire for power’

This leads to an ‘equality of hope in the achieving of our aims’

Slide 5

Hobbes’ assumptions:

Without a power able to enforce rules, there is chaos and misery

3 causes of conflict

men fight for gain

men fight for security

men fight for reputation

Slide 6

Implications

Everyone is pulled into a constant competitive struggle for power

the natural state of man is a war of all against all (‘the state of nature’)

People are insecure, and live in a constant fear of injury and death

There is no place for industry in the state of nature, because the fruit of it is uncertain. Hence, no agriculture, navigation, building, culture, science

Life in a state of nature is

"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"

Slide 7

Hobbes’ evidence to support his assumptions

The fact that people lock their doors

provides support for Hobbes’ view that

people are naturally inclined to fight each other.

Slide 8

Hobbes’ solution

Under these conditions, how can social order be achieved?

In the state of nature, people have liberty

Since man is rational, he will never use his power to harm himself

Man will try to achieve peace only if he is convinced that everyone else will do the same

Slide 9

How to make sure that everyone would seek peace?

No use for everyone to merely agree to give up their individual freedom and power (‘sovereignty’) because people would cheat whenever it was to their advantage