THOMAS HOBBES

Thus, none of us can ever consider ourselves safe as long as this natural condition prevails: only a sovereign power can rescue us from the anarchy of personal sovereignty.
             We move out of the state of nature by making a contact to transfer our natural rights (to survive, to protect ourselves, etc.) to a central sovereign authority. Such a transfer is considered by Hobbes to be unconditionally binding. Once that sovereign authority is in place, we have no right to contest its wishes, since it is presumed to represent the will of us all. While Hobbes does allow the possibility of an Assembly, such as a Parliament, wielding sovereign power, he is temperamentally drawn to the monarchial concept as the best method of achieving his objectives. Power is for Hobbes indivisible, and a monarch is proof against any slippage in this respect. Assemblies, on the other hand, are only too likely to break up into warring factions, and factions problematize succession, putting the commonwealth's future at risk. It might be objected that indivisibility raises the question of the arbitrary exercise of power, but Hobbes sees this as a negligible threat compared to those attendant on the absence of a strong central power. Where absolute sovereignty is wanting, civil discord will follow, and from Hobbes" perspective no one gains from that state of affairs. .
             Hobbes can see no alternative to absolute sovereignty and on those grounds he is willing to countenance what to us may be perceived as severe limitations on individual liberty. In fact, individual liberty in the Hobbesian commonwealth is reduced to whatever the sovereign sees fir to grant. Furthermore, the sovereign retains the right of life or death over his subjects. Dissent becomes a logical impossibility under such a dispensation: a case contradicting one's own contractual decisions. The implications for individual freedom of action are more than somewhat alarming, but Hobbes" fear of civil discord transcends all such considerations.