I’ve completed Hobbes’s Leviathan today and this came to my mind because people always refer to Hobbes as the founder of liberalism or at least an important philosopher in the development of liberalism. Many people also say that his ideas are centered on humans being self-preserving entities but he says humans are like that only in the state of nature. And he only mentions property rights and nothing like the existence of inheritence laws or anything. He also mentions that people should have an area in which they are free from other people but not from the sovereign. However, this does not imply liberalism in any way shape or form. I mean are people not allowed to enter eachothers’ houses only in liberal societies?

For example, lets say you are living in some kind of a communist village of 50 families. You are the king and your village has produced 500 breads last week and you are going to distribute them equally among all families and you do this every month after you collect the entire production as tax to redistribute it late. So you gave 10 breads to each family for this week. If there were no property rights, then there is nothing preventing one of those families from stealing a bread from the other. One of those families may be sick which would make them more vulnerable to theft. In conclusion, you can distribute products produced equally but it should still become their property by law am I wrong?

I would write individualism vs collectivism too but it would be too long but in short, I think Hobbes defends collectivism in an indirect way despite popular belief. Hobbes does not say humans are inherently greedy and self-interested self-preserving individuals but they are like that in order to be able to protect themselves in the state of nature.