Hobbes And the Ruling Class

It seems that Hobbes' Leviathan is all the rage. Well it should be with the Ruling Class.

...Hobbes, the father of modern statism and the first advocate of totalitarianism, rejected the insights of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas that man by his nature is a social animal who forms society by the demands and impulses of his rational nature working through free will. Hobbes also dismissed the notion that human reason possesses the power to discover the natural law.

Instead, Hobbes postulated that the state is founded on man’s right of self-preservation. He assumed that man is naturally in a state of complete liberty and is driven only by his passions and desires.

Well. That explains quite a bit. His adherents would include 100% of Madison Avenue--and about 99.5% of politicians.

Here's where the "politicians" come into play:

Due to their impulse for self-preservation and the realization of the incompatibility of competing interests, Hobbes holds men come together by compact (the general will) and cede their natural freedom to a sovereign who makes and enforces law.

Which, in the final analysis, forces Congress either: 1) to quit, as we have a President; or 2) to fuggedabout the hoi polloi they represent and become a playing part in that 'office of the sovereign.'

Think "Ruling Class."

In Hobbes’ doctrines there is no room for the concept of subsidiarity or the family as a necessary institution in society. In effect, Hobbes knew only the harsh antagonism of individual against state, a conflict he believed the state must win.

One final thought--

To [proponents of the Hobbesian state] ... liberty means obedience to the uncertain will of the elite, even in matters of life and death. To them, the modern liberal state, not God, is absolute.

Sharron Angle is NOT wrong.

HT: CatholicThing