Recommendation

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s classic treatise is almost as old as Machiavelli’s The

Prince, and it appeared roughly 15 years after the publication of the King James edition
of the Bible. Leviathan evokes both works, with the former’s timeless insights into
human nature and power, and the latter’s God-fearing absolute religious reverence.
Thomas Hobbes’s insights into human behavior still resonate, and his exploration earns
its place as a classic. Hobbes contends that citizens must obey a single sovereign in
order to have an effective, peaceful and law-abiding commonwealth. His view goes
against the separation of powers and the accountability concepts adopted as the
cornerstones of Western liberal democracies. It also thwarts free speech, which Hobbes
opposes, because free speech might generate rebellion. So is his tract still relevant
today? Substantial sections are informative, though not dispositive, but that’s the way of
philosophy. A modern-day reader may find Hobbes’s themes as relevant today as they
were in the 17th century, given that the world still has dictators who answer to no one.
Arguably, the linchpin of Hobbes’s benign sovereign-monarch model – and its weak
spot – is that the fear of God will keep rulers in check. getAbstract recommends this
classic to those who wonder about the structure of effective government in light of the
vagaries of human nature.

In this summary, you will learn

 Why 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes advocates for a single-power, nation-
state form of governance; and
 Whether society must sacrifice certain freedoms to maintain order.

Take-Aways
 Human nature and behavior prove that people are prone to conflict.
 Collectively submitting to one sovereign power serves the population; one body can
make major decisions, maintain order and offer protection.
 Citizens enter a “covenant” – a social contract – of obedience with their sovereign; the
sovereign’s actions become their actions and are beyond their reproach.
 The sovereign answers only to God.
 The ruler’s “private interest” mirrors the public interest; it is better for the sovereign to
have the support of prosperous, contented and healthy subjects.
 The sovereign must control the militia and the means of paying its soldiers.
 The sovereign also controls “opinions and doctrines,” appoints judges, censors books,
and limits who can speak to the “multitudes.”
 Laws constrain people’s freedoms so that others do them less harm.
 A king may have family members and favorites to indulge; they are bound to be fewer in
number than the families and favorites of many members of an assembly.
 Advice to a monarch can be one to one and therefore candid.
Summary
Power

Human beings, left to their own devices, do not live together as harmoniously and
cooperatively as “bees and ants”; rather, they compete for “honor and dignity.” This
competition leads to jealousy, enmity and battle. Because everyone can reason, many
people think they’re smarter than other people and should be running things. As a
result, they try to change how their current government functions, thus sowing the seeds
of rebellion. Without the peace and order provided by a “covenant” – a social contract –
of obedience to a sovereign, society would never escape “continual fear,” and each
person’s life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

The main role of a “commonwealth” is to induce people to subsume their individual will
into a single will, that of a sovereign monarch or a sovereign assembly. A country’s
population must give up individual freedoms to create a secure commonwealth which
can protect them through its laws. Each individual loses some liberties but gains the
sovereign’s protection. The sovereign keeps other nation-states from acting against the
citizenry.

“All truth of doctrine dependeth either upon reason or upon scripture.”

Laws exist to stifle the freedom of men who, unconstrained, would hurt their fellow
citizens. Rules force people to help each other when a “common enemy” threatens. The
Leviathan’s purpose is “to set before men’s eyes the mutual relation between protection
and obedience.”

“In all deliberations and in all pleadings, the faculty of solid reasoning is necessary.”
Laws and the sovereign’s other actions have a primary obligation and intention:
maintaining the indivisible nature of the sovereign’s power in order to prevent conflict.
Without a strong central ruler to enforce laws and define power, human nature
guarantees that small disagreements and conflicts would escalate into widespread
anarchy, and that foreign countries would seize any opportunity to invade and conquer.

The Sovereign

The sovereign monarch or assembly receives authority only from God and is answerable
only to God. This aligns with the idea that all citizens become, in essence, one person –
their sovereign. The person of the monarch embodies the commonwealth. The ruler is
essentially a human god to whom the citizenry shows obeisance by keeping the peace
and defending the realm. Anyone else who has any degree of power in the
commonwealth receives his authority from both God and the sovereign. The power of
the sovereign is the realm’s highest power, and no group or law can limit or control the
ruler’s authority or actions.
 “Covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at
all.”
A sovereign can gain the submission of a nation-state’s subjects in two ways: by
“acquisition” through power or war, or by “institution,” when people submit voluntarily.
Free people might yield without a fight, because, without a sovereign power, “amongst
masterless men, there is perpetual war.”

“Now in monarchy, the private interest is the same with the public...For no king can be
rich, nor glorious, nor secure, whose subjects are either poor or contemptible.”
A subject who submits forms a covenant with the sovereign. Through this covenant,
every citizen is the “author” of the sovereign’s actions and cannot accuse the sovereign of
injury, because “to do injury to one’s self is impossible.” If the sovereign is an assembly,
the members must each support the majority’s decisions – once an agreement has been
made – so that they can speak and act as one. A citizen who, under personal free will,
joins the government’s sovereign assembly has accepted the covenant by taking that
action and, thus, pledges to “stand to what the major part should ordain.”

A Supportive Population

Having a strong, healthy, supportive population best serves the interests of a monarch
and enables that ruler to build the nation’s prosperity and defend it against other
countries. Because citizens fight for the defense of the state, the monarch – for personal
protection – must care about the well-being of his subjects.

“A sovereign...may ordain the doing of many things in pursuit of their passions,

contrary to their own consciences.”
In contrast, differing members of a sovereign assembly can have conflicting interests
and profit from corruption, disharmony and “treacherous action.” The subjects of a
monarchic system may feel that their situation is terrible, but they must weigh their
position against “the miseries and horrible calamities that accompany a civil war.” A
country and its population thrive because there is order and because the citizenry obeys.
Calm and prosperity matter far more to the daily life of an individual than the means of
government.

“A monarch receiveth counsel of whom, when and where he pleaseth.”

Having a single monarch offers less opportunity for disunity than having a sovereign
assembly does. Although a king may have family members and favorites to indulge, they
are bound to be fewer in number than the families and favorites of the many members
of an assembly.

Tumult

Nations must closely confine the scope and longevity of regional representation systems
to make sure they produce no challenge or alternative to the sovereign’s power. If an
assembly proved to be the one true “representative of the people,” it would be a
sovereign power. If there are two sovereigns over any state, conflict – and possibly war –
inevitably results. In order to protect the authority of government, a sovereign must
declare large gatherings of people unlawful and “tumultuous” if the citizenry has no
peaceful reason for convening in large numbers. A gathering becomes threatening when
its participants become too numerous for officers of the realm – that is, police, militia or
soldiers – “to suppress and bring to justice.”

“The subordinate judge ought to have regard to the reason, which moved his sovereign
to make such law, that his sentence may be according thereunto...”

Protection and Defense

The relationship or covenant between subjects and their monarch, because it is based on
the ruler’s ability to “protect the people,” does allow subjects to be released from their
loyalty once the sovereign can no longer protect them. This might occur, for instance, in
times of civil war.

“The use of laws...is not to bind the people from all voluntary actions; but to direct and
keep them in such motion, as not to hurt themselves by their own impetuous desires,
rashness or indiscretion.”
During the era of Jesus, an individual leader, a monarch – governed Judea, and “an
assembly of the people” governed Rome. The assembly constituted “a monarchy; not of
one man over another man; but of one people over another people.”

The subjects of a commonwealth have the right to own private property and keep the
earnings from their labors. But the subjects’ right to keep all private gains does not
apply to money due to the sovereign. Without taxation or other levies, the sovereign
would be unable to carry out the primary duty of this station, which is to maintain
public order.

“The resolutions of a monarch are subject to no other inconstancy than that of human
nature."
Long-term defense of the commonwealth costs money. This defense may include risks
that the population is unaware of or irresponsible about addressing. Individuals’
“passions and self-love” might make them feel “a great grievance” at paying for the
realm’s protection, but people cannot see the far-off miseries that may threaten them
and that cannot be avoided without such payments. The benign sovereign has the right
to collect this money, even if it’s against the subject’s will, on the understanding that it is
for the subject’s own long-term good.

“Laws...of themselves, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed,
are contrary to our natural passions that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge and the
like.”
Limits

The sovereign should have the power “to be judge or constitute all judges of opinions
and doctrines” in areas which may affect governance and politics. Maintaining peace
and obedience is government’s most important task, so the state must censor dangerous
and rebellious ideas.

Regarding questions of politics and power, free speech has little value compared to the
risk of rebellion and disharmony that radical opinions might engender. This is why
suppressing or channeling public opinion to support the monarch ultimately serves to
govern the behavior of the citizens.

A commander “must therefore be industrious, valiant, affable, liberal and fortunate.”

For example, universities are the “fountains of civil and moral doctrine” and therefore
their waters must be “pure.” This is because “preachers and the gentry, drawing such
water” then “sprinkle” it across the wider population. Most subjects who are aware of
their responsibilities to the monarch will refuse to listen to “a few discontented
persons.”

The subjects “have authorized all [the] sovereign’s actions and in bestowing the
sovereign power, made them their own.”

Private Property

The sovereign should have the power to prescribe the rules of private property and
business, and to take from private business what is necessary to finance the defense of
the nation-state or its law and order. Subjects are free to “buy and sell and otherwise
contract with one another,” and are free to choose where they live, what they eat, what
they trade and how they raise their children.

The sovereign should establish and maintain good “propriety” relations – rules
establishing who owns what and how to record and protect ownership rights. Unless the
sovereign creates and upholds civil laws, “everything is his that getteth it and keepeth it
by force; which is neither propriety, nor community; but uncertainty.”

“But man, whose joy consisteth in comparing himself with other men, can relish
nothing but what is eminent.”

Disputes

A sovereign can give away many of the commonwealth’s economic advantages or

monopolies, but must maintain control of the militia to retain law and order. The ruler
must hold “the power of raising money” to pay the militia.

If a subject has a “controversy” with the sovereign which is “grounded on a precedent

law, he hath the same liberty to sue for his right, as if it were against a subject.” But if
the controversy involves questioning the sovereign’s power to make laws, then the
subject has no right to sue. The sovereign’s authority comes from “the authority of every
subject.” Those who sue the government are only suing themselves. Subjects can
challenge the sovereign for not following established laws, but they cannot challenge the
sovereign’s right to create and set the laws.

Counsel and Advice

A single sovereign monarch is better placed than a sovereign assembly to receive the
best advice and counsel. A monarch can take the counsel “of whom, when and where he
pleaseth” from any man or woman of any “rank or quality.”

Because not everyone – including the wealthy and highborn – is capable of providing
sound counsel, an assembly of the rich and powerful is not necessarily the best means of
making decisions. One-to-one counsel with a monarch can be more candid. In contrast,
an assembly might make decisions not based on wisdom but on the various members’
passions.

The monarch, being one person, can collect advice and hear controversial opinions in
secrecy. A monarch can “examine, when there is need, the truth or probability of his
reasons.” Because an assembly has so many members, no such body can enjoy candor,
reflection or confidentiality. Should advice followed by the monarch lead to an
unfavorable outcome, the ruler who sought the advice cannot punish the counselor.
Good counselors should have “ends and interest” that are consistent with those of the
monarch or assembly they are advising.

Counselors who resort to passionate “exhortation” are probably likely serving their
personal interests. Exhortation takes the adviser a step away from considering the
“consequence of what he adviseth” and the “rigor of true reasoning.”

Domestic Matters

When making decisions about domestic matters, the ruler can find good knowledge and
counsel “from the general information and complaints of the people of each province,
who are best acquainted with their own wants.” The sovereign’s subjects have no power
in the relationship, but the sovereign should try to find out and pay attention to the
concerns and complaints of the subjects firsthand, rather than relying on officials or
aristocrats. Subjects should be free to voice their opinions and complaints, so long as
they do not challenge the ruler’s power. 

About the Author

Political philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote Leviathan during the English Civil War,
when notions of kingship and sovereignty were central concerns.