  The modern view of the fallacy of composition in social choice is a product of the understanding of politics as self-interested. That understanding begins partially with Niccolò Machiavelli, who advised the prince to act from his own self-interest. A century later, Hobbes did not bother to advise acting from self-interest because he supposed virtually everyone naturally does so. From that assumption, he went on to give us the first modern political theory of the state, an explanatory political theory that is not merely a handbook for the prince and that is not grounded in normative assumptions of religious commitment. To some extent, therefore, one could credit Hobbes with the invention of social science and of explanatory, as opposed to hortatory, political theory.