[lbo-talk] blog post: a nation in decline, part 2: signs of distress

Chuck Grimes c123grimes at att.net
Mon Sep 6 17:56:33 PDT 2010



> Myself, without thinking it through all that seriously, I would probably
> see Hobbes as a primitive but necessary stage in the development of Social
> Contract theory, corresponding to the primitive movement of the
> parliamentary forces in the Civil War. As Cromwell tended to lean on
> dictatorship where the social basis of his republicanism was too weak, so
> too Hobbes tended to a rather underdeveloped version of social contract
> theory (comparable to Machiavelli's) where agency is found in the
> Sovereign - modelled on the Lord Protector Cromwell in Hobbes' case, as it
> was on some Italian Prince in Machiavelli's.

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Thanks that helps a lot. I was having a hell of time trying to figure out Hobbes relationship to Cromwell.

CG



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