A social contract is an agreement that people make that makes up the government. People must give something up to get something in return and in this case is protection that is provided from the government. It keeps people in line, and from doing things that would harm the community. Leaders are necessary so there is not crime and people follow the rules. The leaders keep everyone in line.

Hobbes believed that a social contract was necessary. His belief was that people were selfish. He did not think that the majority of people were kind. This is why Thomas Hobbes thinks that a social contract is needed. Locke had different ideas than Hobbes did about a social contract. While Hobbes wanted the contract to protect people's lives, Locke wanted it to protect rights. Locke also thought that people were good unlike Hobbes did. They also did not agree on amount of authority that the government should be given. Hobbes says unlimited authority but locke says that they should have limited authority. Locke and Hobbes had different views on social contracts.


Making a set of  rules that a community needed to follow was much more difficult than I expexted it to be. There are many things you have to think about that you normally would not. The rules we came up with are as follows. One, three leaders are selected by the people every four years. Don't start wars, finish them! Three, new members are accepted only if they agree to the rules. Four, have reasons for your actions. Five, everyone has equal rights, listen to others' opinions. Six, finally if rules are broken the leaders will choose punishments for people to vote on. It was difficult to come up with these rules because you had to think about so many possibilities and loopholes or flaws in the rules that people could find, and therefore wouldn't technically be breaking the rules if they did do something that was not necessarily allowed. There are many changes to some of the rules that I would make. First is with rule number one. I would say that four leaders will be elected every six months. This way if something happened to any of the rulers, they will still have more. Also by changing rulers more often people will believe they are more a part of the community. I would also reword some of the rules to make them more clear to people who are new to them.

Absolutist and Enlightened Rulers

King James the first says that a ruler has the god given right to rule. “God hath power to create or destrov make or unmake at his pleasure, to give life or send death, to judge all and to be judged nor accountable to none: to raise low things and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both souls and body due. And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects, thv have power of raising and casting down, of life and death, judges over all their subjects and in all causes and yet accountable to none but god only” by King James the first.  He believes that it is wrong to question a King because that is basically like questioning God. According to him, Kings are representatives sent from God to rule for him, as an absolutist. They have power that they were given and they have a connection to god. “Kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throne, but even by himself are called gods.” by King James the first. King James is asking parliament to keep their hands off what is rightfully his. He does not want to be told how to do his job, and how to rule his land and people.

I was fortunate to learn about Catherine the Great, also known as Catherine II. Catherine was both an absolutist and enlightened ruler. She did many great things like improve the education in Russia, and expanded the border to get Russia a warm water port. She also did things to make her an absolutist ruler. She formed a set of laws called the Nakaz. The Nakaz could have proved her to be an absolutist ruler or an enlightened ruler. The laws helped her people, taking away torture and making sure everyone would be treated equal. She made the laws happen by using her power and that’s why she can also be an absolutist. Without using all of her power she would not have been able to make the set of laws she created possible. To help her country she gained them a warm water port. On her part that was a good thing to do so her country would  be happy, but once she got her way she was still unhappy. She started another war which isn’t good for her country. Having people in war after she even got her way already is not a smart idea and it is not in favor of the people living in the country. That is just use of her power that she already has plenty of. Another horrible thing Catherine did was her decision to impose serfdom. The majority of the people under her rule were serfs. It was not only bad that she put serfdom in place but she also used the profits they made for her benefit.

In my opinion I think at times Catherine was a good ruler, but at the same time she did things that did not make her a good ruler. Catherine built schools to make the education in Russia better, and I thought that was one of the great things she did. That really helped the people and not herself because building schools wouldn’t help her. The people who got the education would benefit from it. Although, the way Catherine treated the peasants was inhumane. They suffered and they should not have had to. She gave control of the peasants to the nobles. The nobles were happy, but again the majority of the population was not happy. Catherine's reign was both good and bad.