Hobbes & “Rousseau”

KMO welcomes Gyrus back to the program to discuss his book War & the Noble Savage. Prior to the advent of the state, a greater percentage of people died from violence than in modern industrialized Democracies, but does that mean that Hobbes was right? Rousseau never spoke of "the noble savage," but a cartoon straw man of Rousseau's position not only takes a beating from apologists for ensconced dominance hierarchies, but free marketeers also invoke it to justify unfettered competition in the capitalist arena.