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The "state of nature", as delineated in Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, has been long consigned in the ashes of history ever since the Neolithic Revolution about 12,000 years ago.
Hobbes' conception of a Bellum omnium contra omnes, in whose the life of man is "nasty, brutish, and short", is a hypothesis on the pre-societal state of mankind. The most defining character of this state of nature is "every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body. (Ch 14) and that "nothing in unjust." (Ch 13)
These characteristics of society have long been abolished ever since the dawn of civilization. Sumer, the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia that emerged around 4500 BCE, already has the most primitive form of law. The Code of Ur-Nammu, for example, explicitly outlaws murder and prescribes capital punishment for all murders. (https://www.worldhistory.org/Ur-Nammu/) Given the advent of agriculture and emergence of art, craft, and pottery, property laws were also enforced. Hence, the state of nature that Hobbes delineated is no longer relevant for more than six thousand years.
Furthermore, the quality of human life has also been shown to improve since the neolithic revolution. With the abandonment of hunting-gathering and the application of agriculture, humans were able to domesticate livestock and thereby gaining immunity to germs (https://www.history.com/topics/pre-history/neolithic-revolution). Jared Diamond, in his Guns, Germs, and Steel, argues that the rise of food production also led to complex writing system and the advent of new technology. Although the neolithic revolution did not significantly improve the average life expectancy in the beginning, the complex society it enabled eventually led to a much better life for humans.
Hence, Hobbes' description of the pre-societal state of nature is extremely obsolete and hypothetical.
I would make a slightly different argument.
Prior to what we call civilization and the agricultural revolution, there wasn't much of any hierarchy within groups. "Work weeks" were something like 12 to 20 hours, though many hunter-gatherers don't have separate words for "work" and "play", as the concept of "doing work you don't otherwise want to do" is relatively foreign. Hunting is play. Setting up shelter is play. Taking care of children is play. Cooking is play.
The first couple thousand years of agriculture and especially stagnant civilization were defined primarily by extreme scarcity, inequality, and disease. Scarcity meant not everyone could have enough, leading to inequality. Resources were controlled and competed for by men as competition between women would collapse the society. So men either controlled the resources or were left to die, and women were under the control of the men who remained.
If you look at spiritual beliefs of pre-agricultural people, they are usually beliefs of a generous god, gods, "spirits" etc. After agriculture, the spiritual beliefs turn to genocide, control, hatred, and vengeance. Agriculture certainly advanced and was able to take care of many more people. (In fact, people had much more leisure time prior to the industrial revolution), but many of the social structures remained, and we have been chipping away at them ever since.
I wouldn't make some crazy claim that life is WORSE now or anything. Mostly point is that it is a myth to say agriculture and civilization were a positive thing right away.
Look at where most civilizations started. Wet oases surrounded by ever-expanding desert. Many didn't turn to agriculture because it was a superior method of resource gathering, but rather because they were stuck in place. As many hunter-gatherer groups knew how to plant and harvest plants. They just didn't stick around to wait for it to grow. Usually they would head off and then come back later in the year. This is actually the main reason they believe we are attracted to flowers.
There's a similar pattern when it comes to egalitarianism in society too.
Hunter Gatherers were almost completely egalitarian societies, before the advent of farming and settlers created surplus that could be hoarded by the most powerful. To your point above, early 'civilisation' is characterised by massive inequality in the distribution of fatherhood: only the most powerful men got to reproduce.
We've been rolling that inequality back, stutteringly and patchily, ever since...
This was written by a man during a period of long, toil-filled working lives.
He described what he believed primitive life would be on the assumption that it would be worse in nearly every way. Describing it as solitary, nasty, brutish, and short. Let's tackle those one by one as they pertain to people like hunter-gatherers.
Solitary: It is basically impossible for an individual human to just live completely on their own in nature. We aren't built like bears or rhinos. We are much too physically weak. Cooperation is our most important evolutionary advantage.
Nasty: This is a little more vague. But yes, you would very likely die from more extreme means. However, they say the more medical technology advances, the more we die in horrible drawn-out ways. Would you rather spend 30 seconds being eaten by a Hyena, or spend a couple decades as alzheimer's eats your very soul, or spend your last decade in a constant state of nausea, vomiting, and immobility as cancer slowly eats away. There isn't a correct answer to that question.
But if we are compare ourselves to other animals, the average human life is pretty chill.
Brutish: Maybe compared to a posh part of 1600's England where he grew up. But animals that must compete through brutishness have no good mechanism to become weak and more efficient like we are. Gorillas get their size because raw intimidation is an advantage. Where brute force and intimidation are not an advantage, the animal is free to explore other means of evolution. In our case, running and endurance, which is easier on a more gracile body. Something you can't get if the stronger guy always wins.
Hunter-gatherers practice fierce egalitarianism. They have little tolerance for individuals putting themselves above others. Rooting for the underdog and knocking people of their high horse are in our nature.
And while many might point to scale warfare as an example of our brutish nature, moving the combat to specific combatants reduces the amount of violence experienced within the group.
Short: They like to say "most people didn't live to turn 30." However, 30-40 would be the average life expectancy, not the median life span. It would be more accurate to say "Most people didn't live to turn 5 or 10. But those who did could probably hit 50". Most of the low number comes from infant mortality. While older people didn't make up the majority like in modern developed countries, 70+ year olds were not super uncommon.
Thomas Hobbes was an English Philosopher who is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy.
Thomas Hobbes was influenced by the havoc caused by the English Civil War and was concerned with how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger of fear of civil conflict. He is best known for his 1651 book [Leviathan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book), in which he develops and explains social contract theory. In the absence of a social contract, Hobbes described life in a state of nature as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”; therefore, to maintain social order and prevent anarchy a strong state is needed.
Hobbes is traditionally classed as a conservative theorist as he favours an authoritarian state in order to prevent the collapse of social order. Also, Hobbes believes that human nature is rational and has a pessimistic view of our behaviour.
The statement mis-characterizes Hobbes' position because for Hobbes it is only in the state of nature that these conditions obtain. With no common power, there is no means to enforce and protect rights beyond those which one can protect with his own physical force. Thus, it is in the interest of all to accept the rule of a singular entity--Leviathan.
Man is by nature both violent and subservient to his own good- thus Hobbes was accurate in stating so in rhetorical terms.
The state of Nature, that is with no governmental system installed, is going to be conflicted because of this. we naturally are for our own survival and our subsistence, so Hobbes's argument follows as logical from this. Consider teh fact that the closest we ever went to a state of Nature was during the Prehistoric periods; archeological evidence shows us that humans back then perhaps even ate each other, not to mention mauled and decapitated each otehr frequently over possessions, people or domains.
Humans can be seen as naturally good- for they have moral instincts. Choosing a State of War in a State of Nature is overruling this instinct, which is not possible as we all have one. Hobbes comes to the conclusion that we are war-like in a state of nature when we are truly just a blend of aggressive and thoughtful. We of course want to survive, but often hold dear those around us and our items of possession; thus Hobbes is making an invalid generalization here for we are not all cannibalistic or evil or butchers.
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