Hobbes: On the Citizen (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

Rating:
Summary: Who should read this?
Review: It's a bit difficult to know who to recommend this book to. It's not that it's a bad book - it isn't - rather that it contains almost exactly the same arguments as Leviathan, only shorter and in less detail. Consequently they are more convincing in Leviathan than here, and I have to recommend Leviathan instead of this.

If you're unfamiliar with Hobbes, what his political argument basically boils down to is that people are naturally bad, and will all try to steal from their fellows, and kill those that displease them, and so on, meaning that in their natural state man is in a constant state of war. It is necessary then to establish the Leviathan, that is, a Sovereign, who has ultimate power unquestioned by anyone, who stops men from fighting by imposing laws with penalties for breaking them so harsh that it would be madness to not obey them. In this way order is kept.

That is the argument put forward here, and in the Leviathan, only, as I said, the Leviathan puts it better. I can only think this book would be useful to those who find the 500 odd pages of the Leviathan too daunting, and want to start with something shorter.