Discuss: Do either of these views help us understand how humans have organized themselves into political states?

Philosophers and social scientists have long pondered over why and how humans first came to organize themselves into a state of commonwealth. Two classic works on this subject are Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan and John Locke’s An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent and End of Civil Government.Hobbes and Locke disagree about the reasons for the existence of the commonwealth. For Hobbes, the state was formed as a mechanism of control. Such power to control is the only means by which to prevent humans from falling into complete anarchy that is referred to as the “war of all against all.” Locke, on the other hand, proposed that humans first joined together to form society because they realized that by themselves each person could not supply himself or herself with all the desired amenities of life.Where Locke saw “enlightened” and common self-interest, Hobbes saw only savage chaos in people trying to assure themselves of contented lives because, he wrote, there is in humans “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceases only in death.” For Locke, the commonwealth is the defender of private property, a homeostatic alliance marching in eternal stability; whereas for Hobbes it is a nuclear reactor lurching toward meltdown, barely contained by graphite control rods.Whether the commonwealth was formed to prevent the war of all against all or to insure the preservation of property, Hobbes and Locke do agree that it was necessary for humans to “reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will,” (Hobbes). For Locke this translates as the rule of the majority, while for Hobbes it is the rule of the monarch. In either case, both agree this collective sublimation of wills was brought about by the mutual consent of the governed.Discuss: Do either of these views help us understand how humans have organized themselves into political states? What relevance do the works of Hobbes and Locke have in regard to non-state societies? How does their work relate to how societies formulate rules of behavior? What special contributions can anthropology and archaeology make to our understanding of these issues?