TY - JOUR AB - The purpose of this article is to show the central role of Thomas Hobbes in the formation of capitalist ideology. He is the first author to present the ideology of the businessman (homo oeconomicus), with its most distinctive characteristic, individualism. Every constitutive element of the capitalist system is found in Hobbes’ writings. His mentality is bourgeois and he uses a model that can only correspond to a mercantile society of capitalist character, in which political rights are less important than security in the market. The economic liberalism of Adam Smith inherits from Hobbes its individualistic basis and its chrematistic platform. VL - 27 IS - 2 SN - 0306-8293 DO - 10.1108/03068290010253065 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/03068290010253065 AU - Zaratiegui Labiano Jesus M. PY - 2000 Y1 - 2000/01/01 TI - A reading of Hobbes’ Leviathan with economists’ glasses T2 - International Journal of Social Economics PB - MCB UP Ltd SP - 134 EP - 146 Y2 - 2024/05/11 ER -