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The Political Spectrum | Locke and Hobbes
Locke and Hobbes
John Locke was born after Thomas Hobbes and has very different politcal beliefs. John Locke believes in a very small or no government at all. He believe that all people are good people and will do the right thing. He strongly believed in individual rights over protecting the society as a whole. Locke however was not stupid and realized that man would need protection from himself, and so there would be a police and army but a vastly reduced one. He believe that the rights of the people were god given , so they could never be taken away. Locke believed that there was a social contract, but he disagreed on all points of it with Thomas Hobbes. Locke also believed that the social contract was revokable, and that the people could create a new at any time.
Thomas Hobbes was quite the exact opposite of John Locke. He believe that men were evil, violent, greedy, and selfish. In a famous quote from Hobbes was,"Life in the stat of nature is nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes believed that men should give up there individual rights on order to protect the greater rights of soceity. He believed that the government should act as an enforcer to protect, both internally and externally, with a much greater police and army. Hobbe also believed in the social contract and that it was not revokable, because then man would fall back into the state of nature.