Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes
Without a common power, life is a war of all against all: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. From that picture Hobbes builds the first great social contract and the case for an absolute sovereign.
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Second Treatise of GovernmentLocke's social contract protects life, liberty and property, and a government that breaks it can be resisted. The book behind the Declaration of Independence.
Verified PDF · Secure download - The Social Contract
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Rousseau looks for a contract that keeps people free while bound by law, and finds it in popular sovereignty and the general will.
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