Absent a common power to restrain them, individuals face a war of all against all in which no productive life is possible.
Hobbes wrote it in 1651 with the English Civil War in view. The conclusion he drew — that almost any sovereign beats none — is more contested than the diagnosis.
In practice
- An unpoliced online marketplace where nobody can be held to a bargain settles into escrow, ratings and arbitration — a small sovereign, invented by traders.
- A shared house with no cleaning rota reaches a state where nobody cleans and everyone resents it, until someone writes a rota.
- Further reading
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- Law & Politics
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- Competing accounts of how power works