Thomas Hobbes is considered to be the founder of modern political philosophy. He is best known for his 1651 book LEVIATHAN, which expounds on his theory of a “social contract.”

Western civilization has adopted Hobbes’ idea of the “war of every man against every man” paradigm and taken it to heart. Hobbes’ concepts of ‘survival of the fittest – pre-Darwin – and the idea of ‘every man for himself’ have become essential elements of neoliberal thought.

The notion of universal conflict continues to be the primary motivating factor in Western capitalist society, even though few nations actually practice true free-market capitalism.

‘Game Theory’ is a term used to describe the science of explaining and calculating to a very high degree the forces at work in society which cause conflict and competition – and how these factors can be used to predict future trends.

The nasty, brutish sorts who actually rule the planet use these kinds of tools and algorithms in an attempt to control society and manipulate it in such a way that will maximize profits – in a world where material wealth is valued above all else.

There is a lot of money to be made off of human misery, if current trends are any indication…

It appears that Hobbes was correct in his assumption that, left to his own devices, men would simply run amok in a frenzy of self-gratification, caring not for his fellow man or even his own family in this totally amoral “natural state.”

The evidence is clear that self-interest is indeed the most fundamental law of human nature: Greed, power, and sex still seem to be the only things that really motivate people. The famous quack psychologist Sigmund Freud even borrowed some of Hobbes’ ideas about human motivation for his grand theses.

Thomas Hobbes writes extensively about covenants. He envisions a covenant as a form of social contract that individuals agree to, so that everyone can pursue “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” [sound familiar?] in peace, without the threat of having it all taken away tomorrow.

These covenants are basically agreed to in order to protect us from each other.

When entering into such covenants, people voluntarily agree to restrict their own freedom, because the benefits of giving up many of those freedoms [to rape, murder and pillage, presumably] outweighs that of personal self-interest.

In other words, our self-interest eventually demands that we stop acting purely on self-interest alone. At some point we have to agree to cooperate and get along with each other until the temptation becomes too great, and we lose control. Again.

Unfortunately, today we are forced to obey laws which are in many cases immoral, discriminatory, unequal and just plain wrong. Most of the laws which have been thrust upon us are simply man’s unnatural laws – which are increasingly arbitrary and unjust.

The big problem I have is this: The social contract WE are supposed to abide by simply does not apply to the Ruling Class. The punitive laws we’ve been forced to obey only apply to us, the Great Unwashed Masses.

But Our Rulers don’t have to abide by anything. They can live in the ‘natural state’ of self-gratification forever, apparently.

The covenants we have agreed to for the sake of survival are being used against us for the purpose of control and subjugation. We live in a world where there really is no justice, so our covenant with Our Rulers has already been broken.

So what do we do now?