Thomas Hobbes came up with the concept of a social contract between the people and the government. Jean-Jacques Rousseau also supported such a social contract. Aside from that, however, the two men had profoundly different ideas. Neither had practical solutions to society's problems. It would take John Locke and Edmund Burke to formulate those. Hobbes and Rousseau have both had a strong influence on the principles that form the core of governments, however. Thomas Hobbes saw society as a necessary constraint on what would otherwise be, in his opinion, the unmitigated savagery of the human race. His ideas are perhaps best summed up in this excerpt from his work, Cive (1561):

But it was the least benefit for men thus to have a common Right to all things; for the effects of this Right are the same, almost, as if there had been no Right at all; for although any man might say of every thing, This is mine, yet could he not enjoy it, by reason of his Neighbour, who having equall Right, and equall power, would pretend the same thing to be his.

If now to this naturall proclivity of men, to hurt each other, which they derive from their Passions, but chiefly from a vain esteeme of themselves: You adde, the right of all to all, wherewith one by right invades, the other by right resists, and whence arise perpetuall jealousies and suspicions on all hands, and how hard a thing it is to provide against an enemy invading us, with an intention to oppresse, and ruine, though he come with a small Number, and no great Provision;. it cannot be deny'd but that the naturall state of men, before they entr'd into Society, was a meer War, and that not simply, but a War of all men, against all men; for what is WAR, but that same time in which the will of contesting by force, is fully declar'd either by Words, or Deeds? The time remaining, is termed PEACE.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on the other hand, viewed human nature as good, and believed that it was the constraints of society that prevented that goodness from being realized. His ideas are perhaps best summarized in this excerpt from Social Contract (1762):

This sum of forces can arise only where several persons come together: but, as the force and liberty of each man are the chief instruments of his self-preservation, how can he pledge them without harming his own interests, and neglecting the care he owes to himself? This difficulty, in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the following terms:

"The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone. and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution. . . .

Whose basic views of human nature and society do you support- or do you support a compromise? Personally, I think that if individuals are given excessive freedom they will destroy society and with it, the other individuals in it, but that if society is given excessive power it will destroy the individuals directly. Hence I support a compromise between the ideas of Hobbes and Rousseau.

I've always despised Hobbes. Ever since I figured out he wasn't actually a lovable plush tiger.
Rousseau all the way!

I disagree completely with Hobbes' absolutism, but his observations of society were profound- even if not congenial.

I like Hobbes.

I think Locke should be a choice too, but I think if you enter into a contract there should be no way out.

Locke says a contract should have an entry and exit, I think that makes things way to easy. Seriously, the Monarchs of the world shouldn't be disposable.

Rosseau, I think his idea is BS, although it would be the best, I doubt individuals could ever come up with a contract through collective will.

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"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " — John Stuart Mill