Reading Hobbes

Might does not make right.

There is no such thing as right for it to make.

But there is surely might.

As to his particular variant of egoism,  I think Hobbes is mistaken,  though not by much.

Says he, early in Leviathan,

" . . . of the voluntary acts of every man the object is some good to himself. "

This is untrue.

But the object is rarely the good of another.

And such others are few.

And the cost to oneself is rarely much, if anything,  in net.

It might be said in defense of a more altruistic view of humanity that, after all, for very nearly all of us just staying alive is a struggle.

It's root, hog, or die.

But that cannot account for the behavior of the rich and mighty, can it?

It is many long decades since Bill Gates faced such a struggle.

That's the thing about the great and the mighty.

They are exempt from any such desperate necessities.

And we see what they do in their freedom.