I noticed in one of the year-ahead round-ups that Malmesbury has badged itself as the UK's Philosophy Town, with an annual Hobbes festival. I particularly love the sound of its

for obvious reasons.

Hobbes is a particularly interesting philosopher for economists because he is the origin of the idea of self-interest as the basis for human behaviour, something for which you can acclaim or blame him depending on your perspective. The extent to which he relies on an extreme and unrealistic view of humanity is often overstated, I think. (There's a good summary of the debate here.) Many of his works are readily available online (here is Leviathan at Project Gutenberg), so you can make your own mind up. I'm not sure anyway that Hobbes's thought is really appropriate for our own political context. Although he's historically important for originating a number of key ideas – another is the distinction between state and civil society – he was  a man of his own disordered and war torn times. Our 21st disorders are very different.