Modern Anglo-American law, like European civil law, is based on a testamentary theory according to which all contractual conditions bind the parties because they have chosen these conditions for themselves. This was less true when Hobbes wrote Leviathan; At the time, consideration, i.e. the mutual exchange of benefits necessary for the conclusion of an existing contract, was more important, and most contracts contained implied provisions that arising from the nature of the contractual relationship and not from decisions made by the parties. As a result, it has been argued that the theory of the social contract is more compatible with the contract law of hobbes and Locke`s time than with the contract law of our time, and that certain features of the social contract that seem anomal to us, such as the belief that we are bound by a contract written by our distant ancestors, would not have been as foreign to Hobbes` contemporaries as we were. [26] Epikur seemed to have had a strong sense of the social contract in the fourth century BC, justice and law being rooted in mutual understanding and benefit, as evidenced among other things by these lines of its main doctrines (see also epicurean ethics): according to the theory of the will of the Treaty, a treaty is not considered valid, unless all parties voluntarily approve it. either implicitly or explicitly, without constraint. Lysander Spooner, lawyer of the 19th. In his essay No Treason, a so-called social contract cannot be used to justify state measures such as taxes, because the government will engage in violence against anyone who does not wish to enter into such a contract. Consequently, such an agreement is not voluntary and therefore absolutely cannot be regarded as a legitimate contract.

The image above is from the Frontpeice of hobbes` Leviathan`s 1660 edition. Note that the figure of the state/sovereign is composed of citizens, territory and commerce. If you hear the term „body politic,“ you`ll know where it comes from. Hobbes has an important message for us today. Even though government structures have changed dramatically and political philosophies operate on very different bases, it is still common to hear proposals that we must give up freedom for security reasons. These proposals are directly related to Hobbes` ideas. Before such proposals are accepted or rejected, it is desirable to take them into account. Study Hobbes to find the roots and branches of these policy proposals. These arguments, however, were based on a corporatist theory of Roman law, according to which „a populus“ can exist as a legal person in its own right.