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About this quote

What does it mean?
Without a common authority, life is a state of war where everyone is in conflict with everyone else.
In plain terms
Lack of central power creates perpetual conflict.
What can you take from it?
Strong institutions reduce chaotic competition.

Where it applies

  • state formation
  • community governance

Putting it to work

  • establish rule of law
  • create shared norms

Questions to consider

  • What mechanisms prevent war?
  • How much authority is needed?

Another view

Even with authority, oppression can arise.

More from Thomas Hobbes

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  2. For War, consisteth not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and the…

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  3. For Prudence, is but Experience; which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

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