Which modern day leader follows the philosophies of John Lock and Thomas Hobbes?

John Locke’s philosophy is followed by the former President of Poland Lech Wałęsa. In The Two Treatises of Government, Locke emphasized equality between the government and the people, and promoted the idea of the people rebelling against a sovereign if the sovereign is limiting their rights. Before Wałęsa became the Polish President, he was involved in the formation of Poland’s first independent trade union known as Solidarność and helped lead the union. This occurred during the time when Poland and many other Eastern European countries were under the influence of the Soviet Union. Wałęsa’s Solidarność campaign helped to limit the USSR’s influence upon Poland and many other European countries. Solidarność started a movement that eventually led to the fall of the Soviet Union, which was a government with strict laws that made it hard for the public to disagree with them. Wałęsa’s philosophy may have been influenced by the strikes occurring in Poland at that time. The strikes were postulating the legalization of the unions in Poland and better working conditions as well as better pay. The strikes contributed to the formation of Solidarność, which promoted a less strict government in Poland.  Wałęsa eventually became the President of a new democratic Poland. He joked, “I leapt over the wall and they made me a president”, referencing the strikes that begun the movement (Wałęsa).

The elements of Thomas Hobbes’ philosophy can be found in the actions of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Hobbes, a sovereign should by obeyed and if an individual would not adhere to them in a conflict, they were to face execution. Through this, Hobbes emphasized that a king should be listened to no matter what the circumstance. This type of ideology can be considered as a dictatorship, and Putin’s presidency has been compared by many people to resemble that of a dictatorship. If a Russian citizen publicly opposes Putin on a topic, they are under risk of experiencing a punishment. Many journalists and people who try to exercise free speech have been killed or died in very strange circumstances. This includes the death of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian journalist and political rival of Vladimir Putin. "I'm afraid Putin will kill me," Nemtsov said about 2 weeks before his death (BBC). Nemtsov died in a strange situation in front of the Kremlin in 2015. Putin’s philosophy may have been influenced by the former Soviet Union’s government. The USSR had a reputation for being heavily communistic, which prohibited people from speaking out against their government. The communism in the Soviet Union is identical to a modern dictatorship. Since Putin grew up in the Soviet Union, he probably derived his views from the USSR.

Bibliography:

Wałęsa Lech, et al. The Struggle and the Triumph: an Autobiography. Arcade Publishing, 2016.

 "Russia opposition politician Boris Nemtsov shot dead". BBC. Retrieved 28 February 2015.