3 ms·

The 20th century is a stark repudiation of hobbes.

• lapcat 3y ago
  How so?
  • tomohawk 3y ago
    It was the countries that put the state first that killed millions of people - the fascists in Germany and Italy, the communists in Russia and China, and so on. Who stood up to them? It would be a much darker world without the one major country that is based on the idea that the government serves at the pleasure of the people, to protect the rights that they are naturally born with, and that the government has no other purpose than that.
    • lapcat 3y ago
      > It was the countries that put the state first that killed millions of people - the fascists in Germany and Italy, the communists in Russia and China, and so on. Who stood up to them? This is a rather bizarre, ahistorical interpretation, because the communist Soviet Union fought against Germany in WW2 and indeed was an ally of the US. Likewise with communist China against Japan in WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-American_Cooperative_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-American_Cooperative_Orga... In any case, I didn't intend to defend the whole of Hobbes's Leviathan. But I don't think there's any reason to believe that anarchy ("the state of nature") is any better. And remember that Leviathan was written during the English Civil War.