Leviathans Legacy

On the Organization of Society

Ergis Sefa

SEDA Institute
Institute for Socio-Economic Development Alternatives

Working Papers
| Law | Society |
June 17, 2016

Leviathans legacy

Introduction
Hobbes Leviathan was a major contribution to modern political philosophy. It was not
simply a theoretical work based on readings and thoughts. It was as much practical based on the
events and circumstances happening around the author. It can be considered a set of practical
guidelines on the organization of a well-functioning society. The ultimate goal of which is peace
and prosperity for all men. It is a book for the common people as much as a must for a ruler.
In order to build a solid structure for society, one must understand the nature of its
components. That is precisely the foundation of the Leviathan. Hobbes wanted the reader to;
first, understand the nature of men, then the nature of the building blocks of a society. Only after
comprehending the nature of men, can we move to organize societies that benefit all. That is the
first major contribution of the Leviathan. To understand the nature of men means to get insights
on how s/he builds relationships and what values the most.
Hobbes refers to the natural state as the primordial status of humanity. It is the historical
stage where men lived in an individualized manner. They might constitute small groups of
hunters and gatherers but nothing more complicated to constitute a community. As if beastsatoms
spread out across the habitat, they tried to accumulate as much wealth as they could for
themselves. This is the fundamental nature of a human being (Hobbes, 1900). Man is like a wolf,
trying to get more for him/herself.
However, this essay will focus on another important part of the Leviathan: the building of
a society, a commonwealth. Men want to live together. Humans need to organize communality.
To achieve this, they need to united and live in peace. Hobbes forwarded the idea of the
commonwealth and how it should be formed and governed.

Leviathans legacy

The commonwealth
The establishment of a commonwealth best achieves social peace and unity. This
commonwealth can only be achieved through social contract. The fundamental idea is that men
recognize the limits of the resources in their habitat. They also recognize that individual power
will not grant them peace. Rather it will induce them in an endless war effort to gain as much of
the resources as possible. In the process, they will end up harming themselves more than
benefiting. They understand that collaboration will yield them more benefits than sole
temptation.
Hobbes sketches the commonwealth likewise a human body. Hence, it gives the idea that
the state should function like an individual man. All the parts of a human body symbolize the
different communities and social groups within a society. All have their importance and function.
The body does not function properly if any part is ill. For Hobbes, the commonwealth is ruled by
a sovereign power responsible for protecting the security of the people. For this reason, s/he is
granted absolute authority to ensure the common defense (Forsyth, 1981).
Why have a commonwealth?
The purpose of establishing a commonwealth is to escape the state of nature and to
provide peace and the common defense of the people; the sovereign is responsible for ensuring
this defense. The sovereign may be an individual or a group of people, but Hobbes always speaks
of the sovereign as "he." The power given to the sovereign permits him to do whatever he deems
necessary in order to protect the commonwealth. All rights of the individual have been
transferred to the sovereign in order for this protection to work, and the only right retained is the
right of self-preservation, which was the original reason for establishing the Leviathan.

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What are the benefits of a commonwealth?

As described, the fundamental laws of nature require that human beings seek peace and
collaboration for their own benefit. As a result, the establishment of a common, a social, contract
is the best means of doing so. Nevertheless, the natural human hunger for power always
threatens the safety of the social contract. That is why there must be some common power, some
sovereign authority, to enforce the contract and hold people to abide it. The people as part of the
contract would also establish this sovereign authority. It is from the people that it should get
legitimacy and endorsed with power (Ostrom, 1980).
This is a crucial contribution from Hobbes to the modern world. The idea that legitimacy
of power does not come from genetic lineage (monarchies, nobilities) nor from an outside
source. It comes from the individual member of society. The state is endowed with the individual
powers and wills of all citizens. Its power resides in the covenant it has with its people. It is the
ultimate guardian of that covenant. The only authorized to punish anyone who breaks it.
From this point, we can derive an important principle of the modern state: government
hold, by law, the monopoly of violence. It only can organize armed forces for the benefit of the
security of all individual members of society. Part of the contract is that private citizens do not
have the freedom to organize private armies. The state operates through fear. It is through the
threat of punishment that it reinforces the norms, rules and laws derived from the social contract
(Ostrom, 1980).
Forms of establishment for a government
Hobbes defines two ways that individuals came together to establish a commonwealth.
The first is through coercion, by force. Hobbes acknowledges the rights of the conqueror as
legitimate and a valid form of government. That is something that we do not validate anymore.

Leviathans legacy

Modern societies have refused to acknowledge the war of conquest as a rightful form of
governance over the conquered. From this point of view, we differ from what Hobbes presents as
normality in his Leviathan. However, we should consider the historical circumstances where he
wrote the book (Ostrom, 1980). As all his contemporaries, the Reformation and the English Civil
War heavily influenced him.
The second way for the establishment of a commonwealth comes through
institutionalized agreement. Individuals elevate themselves from the natural state of nature and
freely form a covenant to live in communality. Hence, they form a society, which is
institutionalized through the formation of the state, the Leviathan. At the head of this structure,
the government, the monarch, the power holder, has two main functions: to protect society and
secure its peace. The first relates to the external threats that might come from an enemy. The
second relates to the internal law and order necessary for the society to function (McLean, 1981).
This idea, of the government as protector of the rights of all individuals, all citizens, and
keeper of peace, is the foundation of the modern nation state. Even at the right end of the
political spectrum, where the role of government in society is seen as not desirable, these
fundamental roles are acknowledged to be the domain of the governing power structure, not the
market. Meanwhile, the other side of the political spectrum, the left, has expanded the role on
government building on the ideas of Hobbes.

Types of sovereign authority

In the Leviathan, the sovereign is both the foundation of all true knowledge and the
embodied power enforcing civil peace (Hobbes, 1900). Any reader of the Leviathan forms an
impression that the author favors monarchy as a type of authority in society. In fact, monarchy,

Leviathans legacy

where power resides in one individual, is the first type of authority described by Hobbes. He
included absolute monarchy, where all power is concentrated in the hands of one man. Hobbes
warned about the tendencies of such men to move toward draconian ruling and make their
subjects, individual citizens, suffer from choices they did not make, nor were they asked to
(McLean, 1981).
The other types of sovereign authority are aristocracy and democracy. Aristocracy is the
rule of a selected group over the entire population. In a certain sense, the power that resided in
the monarch now is distributed among a group of people. Each of them holds and exerts a part of
power as the head of the societal body. Same as with the monarch, the people have no say in the
decisions and functions of this aristocracy. Meanwhile democracy is the form where all
individual citizens have a say in governing society. At least, those individuals who are willing to
participate in the process. This is the foundation of modern liberal democracy.
Interesting to note that democracy is one of the types of sovereign authority described in
the Leviathan, yet it is not the preferred one. Hobbes preferred monarchy as a type of
organization of power. He saw the monarch as one with the people because his political body is
the same as his public body. Secondly, a monarch has the opportunity for better counsel than
aristocratic or democratic rulers do, because s/he can select experts and advisers on selected
issues. This will enable him/her to have the best professional expertise on the issue. What is
more important, the policies of a monarch will be more consistent because he is of one mind
(Hobbes, 1900).
Hobbes disfavored democracy because of a lack of consistency in policy-making and
rising tensions among various social groups in a society. However, it seems that modern societies
took the advices of Hobbes vice versa. We value democracy and despise absolute monarchy. We

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value that differences makes us stronger whereas concentrated power in the hands of one man or
woman, harms us all.

Conclusions
The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbess masterpiece has left an undisputable influence in modern
societies. He set the foundations of the social contract for the organization of a society. Leviathan
demonstrated the evolution of men was headed toward communality. Yet, it warned that the
nature of man is to pursue his/her own interest despite the consequences to others. Nevertheless,
individuals understand the value of coming together to live in organized groups, in
commonwealths. They realize that together can harness more fruits from their habitat (Forsych,
1981).
That is why a commonwealth is inevitable, formed either by coercion or by free will. Modern
men understood the value of togetherness but rejected the idea of communality by force.
Individuals come together as free men and form a covenant to organize society. Of the three
types of organization of authority, we chose democracy. The social contract has value if people
participate in its formation and all are represented. Even though Leviathan preferred a monarch,
like Platos wise ruler, we took the idea of the social contract and broadened its base to include
everyone living within society, inclusive of his or her differences.

Leviathans legacy

References
Forsyth, M. (1981). Thomas Hobbes and the constituent power of the people. Political
Studies, 29(2), 191-203.
Mitchell, J. (1993). Hobbes and the Equality of All under the One. Political theory, 21(1), 78
100.
Ostrom, V. (1980). Hobbes, covenant, and constitution. Publius, 10(4), 83 100.
Hobbes, T. (1900). Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth,
Ecclesiasticall and Civil (Vol. 21). Yale University Press.
McLean, I. (1981). The Social Contract in Leviathan and the Prisoners Dilemma
Supergame. Political Studies, 29(3), 339 351.