Final answer:
Thomas Hobbes believed that to avoid a life of chaos and anarchy, people must enter into a social contract and surrender their freedoms to an absolute monarch, ensuring social stability and order.
Step-by-step explanation:
Thomas Hobbes argued that people must give up their freedoms to enter into a social contract with an absolute sovereign to avoid the natural state of war and ensure peace, stability, and order. Civil society is thus formed under the rule of a monarch who holds absolute authority. This governmental structure is necessary, Hobbes believed, because without it, human life would be 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,' dominated by the continuous fear and real dangers associated with an anarchic state of nature where every man is at war with every other man.
Hobbes was a proponent of absolutism as opposed to anarchy, viewing government as the necessary means to protect the commonwealth from the egoistical actions of individuals. His social contract theory posits that in order to avoid the perils of anarchy, individuals collectively surrender their rights to an absolute monarch, who in turn provides security and maintains order. This exchange is foundational to Hobbes's conception of a legitimate government and civil society.