Hobbes to the Future

In "Of Commonwealth," Hobbes struggles to convey his ideology concerning commonwealths. Hobbes defines what a commonwealth is and why a commonwealth must be ruled by a sovereign; an individual that acts as the head of the state. The sovereign must make all decisions for the commonwealth, who will follow the rules enacted by the sovereign in exchange for the services provided by it. What struck me as interesting within "Of Commonwealth" was the small similarities to our current government structure, despite all of the differences. For example, early in the work, Hobbes mentions the different forms of government and outlines the way each works, covering aristocracy, democracy, and monarchy. He continues on this point, using the rest of the work to establish how a sovereign should rule over the commonwealth. Nearly all of this work can translate over to our own system of government; one of the chapters that comes to mind is Chapter XXI: Of the Liberty of the Subjects. He later goes on to say that monarchy is the strongest form of sovereign, as a democracy involves varying viewpoints from members of the sovereign, and therefore inspires controversy (leading to fighting among the sovereign). I found this interesting, as he mentions that any sovereign that rules as a democracy or aristocracy will quickly fail. Near the end of the work, Hobbes returns to this point, reminding the reader that while a monarchy may be the best form of government, every sovereign body is bound to fail eventually. It could be that he is only making this point because he has just witnessed the failure of his own government and is living in paranoia, but it still amazes me that Thomas Hobbes, who died 97 years before our the birth of our nation, was able to establish the future of worldwide governmental structures. After reading Hobbes, I feel like I should fear for the future of our government, but ironically, only feel more secure in it's existence.