Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, Chapter 17 summary

What happens

1. People accept restraint to preserve themselves, but natural laws and unsupported covenants cannot overcome the passions that produce conflict.
2. Neither small alliances nor large crowds provide security unless one continuing judgment directs their combined strength.
3. Bees and ants cooperate naturally, while human rivalry, competing judgments, and misleading speech make an enforcing power necessary.
4. Each person covenants with the others to authorize one man or assembly as their representative for peace and protection.
5. This union forms a commonwealth; its representative holds sovereign power, and the remaining people are subjects.
6. Sovereignty arises through force or voluntary submission, producing commonwealths by acquisition or institution.

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