A Blupete Biography Page

Separation of Powers, Part 10 to the Life & Works of
John Locke

The question of whether man would voluntarily put himself under government is but the first question: there then follows along the next, "What form of government is best." Hobbes, not surprisingly, given his view of the nature of man, preferred that there should be one supreme authority, a monarchy. While Hobbes could tolerate government by legislative assembly alone, as opposed to a monarch, he thought that power in the assembly should be absolute and not to be shared. Locke's view, more consistent with the social contract theory, was that there was no need for government to have great powers, which, in the final analysis, would only be needed to keep people down; at any rate, Locke recognized the real danger of leaving absolute power to any one individual, or group of individuals. Locke thought that government's power was best limited by dividing government up into branches, with each branch having only as much power as is needed for its proper function.14

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Peter Landry
2011 (2019)