Classical Liberal by Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was born in London in 1588. He received his college education at Oxford University in England, where he studied classics. Hobbes was born to an impoverished clerical family in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. At school, he made a reputation as a linguist and fluent poet and translator. After Oxford he worked for William Cavendish as a secretary, tutor, and general advisor to the family. During his employment, he went on several "Grand Tours" where he met the leading European intellectuals of his time. Hobbes was caught up in the turmoil preceding the Civil War and fled to France in 1640. He remained there until 1651. Because of his writings, especially The Leviathan, Hobbes lived in serious danger of prosecution after the restoration of Charles II. Hobbes's principal interests in his later years were translations. He lived out his old age in the Devonshire's home.

Hobbes travelled to other European countries several times to meet with scientists and to study different forms of government. Hobbes believed that humans were basically selfish creatures who would do anything to better their position. Left to them, he thought, people would act on their evil impulses. Hobbes believed that we are all driven by our own self-interest and in a constant state of war. Hobbes defined the basic right of man’s liberty "to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature." Laws of nature, on the other hand, are general rules that forbid man "to do that which is destructive of his life or takes away the means of preserving the same." Thus, finding himself naturally in a state of competition or war in which he is constantly in jeopardy of losing his life, man’s primary objective in the preservation of his own life is to seek peace with the other man. He does this by making a contract or covenant with other men, agreeing that he will "lay down this right to all things, and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself." To put it another way, he extends his rights only so far as they do not conflict with the rights of another.

For classical liberals — sometimes called the ‘old’ liberalism — liberty and private property are intimately related. From the eighteenth century right up to today, classical liberals have insisted that an economic system based on private property is uniquely consistent with individual liberty. Although classical liberals agree on the fundamental importance of private property to a free society, the classical liberal tradition itself refracts into a spectrum of views, from near-anarchist to those that attribute a significant role to the state in economic and social policy. Towards the most extreme ‘libertarian’ end of the classical liberal spectrum are views of justified states as legitimate monopolies that may with justice charge for their necessary rights-protection services: taxation is legitimate so long as it is necessary to protect liberty and property rights.

Hobbes’ most important work and one of the most influential philosophical test produced during the seventeenth century was “Leviathan”. It was written partly as the response to the fear of Hobbes experience during the political turmoil of the English civil war. Hobbes’ “Leviathan”  provides is a freedom from the State of Nature, that chaotic situation in which man’s very person is in constant threat of being invaded and harmed by others who have every opportunity to do so. The government removes this opportunity and thus provides its citizens with the freedom from each other. Hobbes composed “Leviathan” while in France, brilliantly articulating the philosophy of political and natural science that he had been developing since the 1630s. Hobbes's masterwork was finally published in 1651, two years after Parliament ordered the beheading of Charles I and took over administration of the English nation in the name of the Commonwealth.

“Leviathan” rigorously argues that civil peace and social unity are best achieved by the establishment of a commonwealth through social contract. Hobbes's ideal commonwealth is ruled by a sovereign power responsible for protecting the security of the commonwealth and granted absolute authority to ensure the common defense.