Abstract: There is “Achilles Heel” in liberal political thought, an issue of master-slave relationraised by Hobbes. Through the whole modern natural law theory, from Hobbes to Rousseau,runs the distinction between master and slave. Hobbes' master-slavestruggle is an eternal war. Locke's price for establishing peace is man's conquest of nature and the establishment of man as the illusory“master”, from whom western politics developed even though Rousseau's “politics of recognition” tries to solve at length the conflict between master and slave-all are revealed by Hegel's master-slave dialectics, which enlightens Marx's alienation theory in a sense. Only by understanding the master-slave distinction can we gain an insight into the truth and dilemma of Western political thought since modern times,thus establishing the critical basis for liberalism.

Key words: political thought, liberalism, master-slave relation, history of political thought