man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains

7/12/2019 Man is Born Free Yet Everywhere He is in Chains

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MAN IS BORN FREE YET EVERYWHERE HE IS IN CHAINS"The Social Contract"Perhaps Rousseau's most important work is The Social Contract , which outlines the basis for alegitimate political order. Published in 1762, it became one of the most influential works of politicalphilosophy in the Western tradition. It developed some of the ideas mentioned in an earlier work, the article Economie Politique, featured in Diderot's Encyclopédie. The treatise begins with thedramatic opening lines, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself

the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they." Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefitsand necessity of cooperation. As society developed, division of labour and private propertyrequired the human race to adopt institutions of law. In the degenerate phase of society, man isprone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while at the same time becomingincreasingly dependent on them. This double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom.According to Rousseau, by joining together through the social contract and abandoning theirclaims of natural right, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is becausesubmission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individualsagainst being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselvesbecause they are, collectively, the authors of the law.While Rousseau argues that sovereignty should be in the hands of the people, he also makes asharp distinction between sovereignty and government. The government is charged withimplementing and enforcing the general will and is composed of a smaller group of citizens, knownas magistrates. Rousseau was bitterly opposed to the idea that the people should exercise

sovereignty via a representative assembly. Rather, they should make the laws directly. It wasargued that this would prevent Rousseau's ideal state from being realized in a large society, suchas France was at the time. Much of the subsequent controversy about Rousseau's work has hingedon disagreements concerning his claims that citizens constrained to obey the general willarethereby rendered free.

What Jean-Jacques Rousseau meant is that government, social class, wealth and poverty are man-made prisons in which people trap each other. In the "state of nature" to which we are all born, those things do not exist. Remember that in his day there were no democracies to speak of.People everywhere were ruled by absolute monarchs whose word was law. Rousseau does not goso far as to claim that simple good manners, altruism and general decent behavior are alsoprisons, although some libertarian philosophers certainly have gone that far.

Born free merely means not born into slavery.But it is arguable whether anyone is "born free". We are all enslaved by society to some degree.As a child we are at the mercy of our parents and teachers. Our parents can screw us up so easilywith wrong food , wrong support, wrong advice, etc. Our teachers can fill our minds with thewrong ideas and knowledge. But we have to do what they say.Later we may have to serve in the army, whether we want to or not. When they say jump you say"Yessir. How high, sir?"As an adult we have to work 9 to 5 five days a week for a boss to earn money to live. This meansdoing what we're told by the boss.At all times we are expected to obey thousands of laws, most of which we don't even know exist.If we don't we can lose our liberty.To travel we are searched and have to carry a passport.At one time it was even compulsory to go to church.So freedom is not as easily come by as all that. All the above are "chains" of one sort or another.

No, i agree with the answer. It is not "gay". I just want to add. By saying that one is in chains onemy think that even though our free here in america, you still have to follow the laws of thecountry.



The Enlightenment - The Age of Reason (ESS18)

Ending the bond between Science and Religion <RATE THIS ARTICLE>

"All men are born free, but everywhere they are in chains." -Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Much of what we've been discussing in articles dealing with John Locke, René Descartes, and IsaacNewton takes us right into the 18th Century phenomenon called The Enlightenment . Since themovement was especially prominent in France it is also referred to as the French Enlightenment .What had been begun by the likes of Copernicus, Galileo, and other heroes of the ScientificRevolution of the 16th and 17th Centuries, was given a major push in the 18th Century. The Enlightenment is conveniently tucked into the 18th Century but like most phenomena inhistory it's probably wise to look at a somewhat broader time scale. Many of the concepts thatcrystallized during the Enlightenment had already been hinted at by others in earlier times. All thesame, the concepts of religious freedom for all, equality before the law and the supremacy of human reason were proclaimed loudly and clearly by the heroes of the movement. In France theywere called the philosophes.They eagerly embraced scientific progress and geographical discoveries, and were dismayed at thecorruption, superstition, hypocrisy and injustice condoned if not fostered, by the church and thestate. To them ignorance was evil and they blamed this evil on the religious and political leaders, leaders who claimed to be the special agents of God's revelation in order keep the common peopleshackled in ignorance. The philosophes felt that human progress would only come throughintellectual and spiritual enlightenment²not blind obedience to authority. Enlightened humanitycould bring an end to poverty, injustice, racism, and all the other ills of society.In France some of the most prominent philosophes were, in no particular order, François MarieArouet²better known as Voltaire, Baron de Montesquieu, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte deBuffon(1707-1788), Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727-1781), DenisDiderot, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In spite of the name, the philosophes were above all, practical men, seekingnothing less than a whole new and improved society. A society in which man was no longerconstrained by outdated human institutions and belief systems. The impact on science was obviousand dramatic.Voltaire(1694±1778)One of the first of those institutions to warrant attention was the Roman Catholic Church which inFrance had become the only official state-sanctioned religion thanks to King Louis XIV. Voltaire ina tireless campaign argued that people should be permitted to worship as they pleased or not atall. The spark that set off this powder keg was the case of Jean Calas.Like so many of his peers, including a number of the founding fathers of the United States, Voltairewas a deist who believed that God had created everything but then let it evolve on its own.Although educated by the Jesuits, Voltaire hated the Catholic Church. He is famously quoted tohave said "Ecrasez l'infame" (Crush the horrible thing!) referring to the Church. He had writtenmost of his life on religious tolerance but the Jean Calas affair gave him the focus he needed andin 1763 he published A Treatise on Tolerance that focused entirely on the case.Making a powerful case for religious and intellectual freedom gave the fledgling ScientificRevolution in France a much needed boost. Also, his tireless efforts to promotethe empirical methods of Francis Bacon and John Locke of England as the only legitimate way topractice science were a direct challenge to the French rationalist tradition of , for example, RenéDescartes. Both traditions²religious and rationalist²proved difficult to dislodge, but change was in

the air and intellectual freedom especially, became a rallying point.de Montesquieu (1689-1755)The second culprit on our list, Charles Louis de Secondant, Baron de Montesquieu, wasn'tinterested so much in promoting open scientific inquiry as he was in the science of politics. In1748 he published Spirit of the Laws. Inspired by the British political system, he advocated aseparation of powers amongst the various branches of government. The English constitution haddivided state powers into three independent branches of government: the executive, thelegislative, and the judicial. This he felt would create a system of Checks and Balances. As amember of the aristocracy de Montesquieu's views were a bit ambivalent. He didn't favor arepublic but he was against slavery.



Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was born in John Calvin's Geneva on June 28th, 1712. His mother died inchildbirth. Unlike the other philosophes who were in favor of monarchy, at leastaconstitutional monarchy, Rousseau advocated direct democracy . In fact, the central concept inRousseau's thought is liberty and most of his works deal with the ways in which people are forcedto give up that liberty. His famous statement, "All men are born free, but everywhere they are inchains." begins his work The Social Contract published in 1762. Not only did this essay have animpact on the French Revolution, it also had a profound influence on theDeclaration of Independence adopted in 1776 by the new United States of America.Many of the ideas that Rousseau developed were spelled out in earlier works. The first of these, ADiscourse on the Sciences and Arts, was the winning entry in an essay contest conducted by theAcademy of Dijon in 1750. In this work, Rousseau argues that the progression of the sciences andarts has caused the corruption of virtue and morality. This discourse also won Rousseau fame andrecognition, and it laid much of the philosophical groundwork for a second, longer work, TheDiscourse on the Origin of Inequality , a 1754 essay also written for the Academy of Dijon.On the Origin of Inequality This work sets out many of his key ideas that were to greatly influence modern culture. Here weread about his thoughts on the "Noble Savage" and how he uses this concept to visualize how mandeveloped over the eons and how in his view this development "went off the rails". He refers totimes before the current state of civil society, when man was closer to his natural state, as happiertimes for man. To Rousseau, modern "civil" society is a trick perpetrated by the powerful on theweak in order to maintain their power or wealth. Therefore he begins his discussion with ananalysis of natural man who has not yet acquired language or abstract thought.In spite of the fact that he was born and raised in Calvinistic Geneva, Rousseau ignored the biblicalaccount of human history and instead set out to develop his own understanding of man's origins.As he contemplated his society he noted two types of inequality, natural or physical and moral orpolitical. Natural inequality involves differences between one man's strength or intelligence andthat of another²it is a product of nature. Rousseau is not concerned with this type of inequalitybut rather with moral inequality. This second type of inequality, he argued is endemic to a civilsociety and related to and caused by differences in power and wealth. It is not natural but isestablished by convention.As noted above, his solution was a "social contract" in which government is based on a mutualcontract between it and the governed; this contract implies that the governed agree to be ruledonly so that their rights, property and happiness are protected by their rulers. Once rulers cease toprotect the ruled, the social contract is broken and the governed are free to choose another set of rulers. You can easily see how most modern democratic states are based on this ideal. It's also asad commentary on our times that by manipulating the masses, many of today's governments

seem to be more inclined to followMachiavelli instead of Rousseau.Denis Diderot and The Encyclopedia The "Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers" first publishedin 1751, was in fact a collaboration between Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. Theencyclopedia was not just a massive compilation of what was known at the time about all thingsscientific and philosophical. It was also an expression of the radical and controversial ideasespoused by the philosophes. Many of its articles reflected the impious attitudes of its contributorslike Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau, for example. As such it served as a manifesto for a newway of looking at the world.Since the Industrial Revolution was just getting nicely underway, many of the various mechanicaldevices and processes which were transforming the world were described in detail and depicted inhundreds of engravings. D'Alembert especially, insisted on showing the dignity and genius of themen behind the inventions, men often scorned as commoners by the aristocracy. This whole thrustbecame a prelude to the egalitarian attitudes which were to eventually undermine the oldaristocratic order.

To quote Jean d'Alembert: "The contempt shown to the mechanical arts seems to have beeninfluenced in part by their inventors. The names of these great benefactors of the human race arealmost entirely unknown, whereas the history of its destroyers, that is to say, its conquerors, isknown by everyone. Even so, it is perhaps among the artisans that one should go to find the most admirable proofs of the sagacity, the patience, and the resources of the intellect."1 The Enlightenment Spreads The effects of the French Enlightenment soon spread beyond her borders. As noted the Americanindependence movement was certainly influenced but also in Europe itself , revolutionary thinkersin several countries took up the torch. In Scotland we find David Hume (1711-1776), regarded bymany as the most important philosopher ever to write in English. Born in a presbyterian home, hewas a relentless critic of metaphysics and religion. He was a contemporary and close friend



of Adam Smith (1723-1790) who is famous for his seminal work on Capitalism, An Inquiry into theNature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and for coining the termthe invisible hand . Early on, Smith expounded the economic philosophy of "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty".In England, Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) constructed his monumental work, The History of theDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon is widely regarded as a typical man of theEnlightenment, dedicated to asserting the claims of reason over superstition, to understandinghistory as a rational process, and to replacing divine revelation with sociological explanations forthe rise of religion. You get some sense of Gibbon's view of Christianity on this little site.In Germany we find Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) who was ironically, of Scottish descent. Kant wasborn on April 22, 1724, in Königsberg, Prussia (Now Kaliningrad, Russia). He was brought up andeducated in a strict orthodox kind of Christianity called German Pietism, which he never couldshake entirely. Kant is often a tough read partly because he does not translate well out of hisnative German and also because of the very abstruse philosophic concepts like the nature andsource of knowledge. Throw in terms like a posteriori and a priori and you can start rolling youreyes.If you do care to know, a posteriori knowledge is what we're most familliar with. It's the 'I saw it, tasted it, felt it so I'm pretty confident I can describe it' , kind of knowledge. The other one, a

priori knowledge basically means the 'I know what I know' kind of knowledge. This is a gross over-simplification but it'll serve us very nicely. Other than that, what was Kant all about that he'sincluded here. Well in his own way he was a rebel too.In much of his writings he laments the tendency of those in authority to impose not only obedienceto reasonable laws but (religious) control over men's minds. He was also disturbed by thewillingness of many people of his day to submit themselves willingly to this control. "If man makeshimself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.", he wrote.On the quest for knowledge, a central theme in his work , Kant proposed that we should notassume that our knowledge conforms to the nature of objects, but rather that objects conform toour ways of knowing them. This was his way of dealing with theconundrum that althoughexperience is the best way to learn about the world, without a frame of reference (a theory, aninsight) learning about the world is a difficult task.To Sum Up... I have not even begun to scratch the surface as to what the Enlightenment was all about. We'veonly mentioned some of the players. Also, there were some very influential women during thistime who rarely get a mention. Nevertheless we can draw some conclusions. The enlightenmentwas a very big stepping stone between the medieval world and the world we live in. Manyinstitutions while not abolished were dramatically altered. More importantly, men's minds wereradically changed.In the 17th Century and earlier, before the enlightenment, the number of people who were brave,

or foolhardy, enough to think or, heaven forbid, to openly speak or write about any number of issues considered risque, were few and far between. True, Copernicus had written that the earthwasn't the center of God's Universe. Newton had stated that for all intents and purposes God'sprovidential hand was no longer needed to keep the whole shebang running. Things like that. Butthis had always been cloaked in religious mumbo-jumbo so that the powers-that-be wouldn't gettoo upset and do something nasty to you like Galileo's fate for instance.The enlightenment opened up the floodgates of new ideas, new thoughts on everything from theway man saw government and his own role in society to the way scientific ideas were conceived, demonstrated and above all published and shared with the world. Young minds were becomingfree to pursue science in ernest and although they could be roundly condemned by all and sundryfor their "heresies" the threat of official reprisal was becoming increasingly rare.In the time that followed, the 19th Century for example, we see the rich harvest that a climate of freeer and less censored thought could produce. We see for example the first tentative steps incoming up with a non-miraculous explanation for the origin of the staggering diversity of life formson this earth of ours. There was Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) who discovered the basic rules of

inheritance. We see the son of a Shrewsbury physician, Charles Darwin overcome his fear of censure and using meticulous research to present to the world his ideas about the evolutionarynature of life and how using natural selection, that might actually work.Even in Darwin's day evolution was hardly a new concept. In 1800, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine deMonet, Chevalier de Lamarck had expounded his own theory of evolution. Even before that in1749,Georges, Comte de Buffon had published his Historie Naturelle(Natural History) in which hespeculated on the evolutionary tendencies in nature. And of course there was acontemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace who had independently come to many of the sameconclusions Darwin had. Finally his own grandfather,Erasmus Darwin had expressed similar ideas.There was John Dalton, who resurrected the old Greek notion that all matter was made up of atoms and not individually created by some Divine command. There was Dmitri Mendeleev who



neatly organized all this into the first periodic table of the elements. Of course the Newtonian viewof a mechanical universe was becoming the accepted view from a scientific perspective. Little bylittle the world of science was wrested from the straight-jacket of theology and began to take on alife of its own.For better or worse, we can thank the iconoclastic approach and temperament of the philosophesand other champions of the Enlightenment for the world we have today where science is ruled byits own internal controls of a rigid and transparent scientific method and rigorous peer review instead of some arbitrary outside agency.Many people today are offended by the idea that the Christian Church is blamed for many of theroadblocks to free scientific inquiry. Using all sorts of questionable history and logic, attempts areoften made to pretend it isn't so. Yet as we examine the enlightenment through its mainprotaganists we are struck by a common thread. Many of them, raised in orthodox circumstances, felt called upon at considerable personal risk, to cast off the shackles imposed by their variousreligious roots.



Analytical Overview

Rousseau's principal aim in writing The Social Contract is to determine how freedom may be

possible in civil society, and we might do well to pause briefly and understand what he

means by "freedom." In the state of nature we enjoy the physical freedom of having no

restraints on our behavior. By entering into the social contract, we place restraints on our

behavior, which make it possible to live in a community. By giving up our physical freedom,

however, we gain the civil freedom of being able to think rationally. We can put a check on

our impulses and desires, and thus learn to think morally. The term "morality" only has

significance within the confines of civil society, according to Rousseau.

Not just freedom, then, but also rationality and morality, are only possible within civil

society. And civil society, says Rousseau, is only possible if we agree to the social contract.

Thus, we do not only have to thank society for the mutual protection and peace it affords

us; we also owe our rationality and morality to civil society. In short, we would not be

human if we were not active participants in society.

This last step determines the heavily communitarian perspective that Rousseau adopts. If

we can only be fully human under the auspices of the social contract, then that contract is

more important than the individuals that agree to it. After all, those individuals only have

value because they agree to that contract. The contract is not affirmed by each individual

separately so much as it is affirmed by the group collectively. Thus, the group collectively is

more important than each individual that makes it up. The sovereign and the general will

are more important than its subjects and their particular wills. Rousseau goes so far as to

speak of the sovereign as a distinct individual that can act of its own accord.

We might react to these arguments with serious reservations, and indeed, Rousseau has

been accused of endorsing totalitarianism. We live in an age where individual rights are

considered vitally important, and it is insulting to think that we are just small parts of a

greater whole. Rather than make freedom possible, it would seem to us that Rousseau's

system revokes freedom.

Rousseau would not take these charges lying down, however. Looking at us in the new

millennium, he might suggest that we are not free at all. On the whole, we may lack any

kind of personal agency or initiative. We often have difficulty interacting with one another

in any meaningful way, and it could be argued that our decisions and behavior are largely

dictated to us by a consumer culture that discourages individual thought.

His system, he might claim, only seems unattractive to us because we have totally lost thecommunity spirit that makes people want to be together. Citizens in his ideal republic are

not forced into a community: they agree to it for their mutual benefit. He might argue that

the citizens of ancient Greece and Rome were very active and capable of achievements that

we have not come close to emulating since. The community spirit that united them did not

intrude upon their individuality; rather, it gave individuality an outlet for its fullest

expression.



The best response to Rousseau (aside from pointing out that those societies relied on

slavery and exploitation) might be to say that the world has changed since then. We could

borrow from social theorist Jurgen Habermas the distinction between the public sphere and

the private sphere, and suggest that Rousseau does not give careful enough attention to the

latter. Though Rousseau does permit citizens to do whatever they please so long as it does

not interfere with public interests, he still seems to assume that human personality is in

some way public. He doesn't seem to perceive a distinction between who we are in public

and what we are in private. By demanding such active citizenship, he is demanding that our

public persona take precedence over our private self.

Summary

With the famous phrase, "man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains," Rousseau

asserts that modern states repress the physical freedom that is our birth right, and do

nothing to secure the civil freedom for the sake of which we enter into civil society.

Legitimate political authority, he suggests, comes only from a social contract agreed upon by

all citizens for their mutual preservation.

Rousseau calls the collective grouping of all citizens the "sovereign," and claims that it

should be considered in many ways to be like an individual person. While each individual

has a particular will that aims for his own best interest, the sovereign expresses the general

will that aims for the common good. The sovereign only has authority over matters that are

of public concern, but in this domain its authority is absolute: Rousseau recommends the

death penalty for those who violate the social contract.

The general will finds its clearest expression in the general and abstract laws of the state,

which are created early in that state's life by an impartial, non-citizen lawgiver. All laws must

ensure liberty and equality: beyond that, they may vary depending on local circumstances.

While the sovereign exercises legislative power by means of the laws, states also need a

government to exercise executive power, carrying out day-to-day business. There are many

different forms of government, but they can roughly be divided into democracy, aristocracy,

and monarchy, depending on their size. Monarchy is the strongest form of government, and

is best suited to large populations and hot climates. While different states are suited to

different forms of government, Rousseau maintains that aristocracies tend to be the most

stable.

The government is distinct from the sovereign, and the two are almost always in friction.

This friction will ultimately destroy the state, but healthy states can last many centuries

before they dissolve.

The people exercise their sovereignty by meeting in regular, periodic assemblies. It is often

difficult to persuade all citizens to attend these assemblies, but attendance is essential to

the well-being of the state. When citizens elect representatives or try to buy their way out

of public service, the general will shall not be heard and the state will become endangered.

When voting in assemblies, people should not vote for what they want personally, but for

what they believe is the general will. In a healthy state, the results of these votes should



approach unanimity. To prove that even large states can assemble all their citizens,

Rousseau takes the example of the Roman republic and its comitia. Rousseau recommends

the establishment of a tribunate to mediate between government and sovereign and

government and people. In cases of emergency, brief dictatorships may be necessary. The

role of the censor's office is to voice public opinion.

While everyone should be free to observe their personal beliefs in private, Rousseau

suggests that the state also require all citizens to observe a public religion that encourages

good citizenship.

Context

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was active at the height of the French Enlightenment.

Thinkers such as ##Voltaire##, Diderot, and d'Alembert headed a movement that placed

supreme faith on the powers of reason. They were disdainful of religion or blind faith of any

kind, believing that reason and knowledge could slowly bring about the betterment of

humankind. Diderot and d'Alembert undertook the editorship of the Encyclopedie, the

crowning glory of the Enlightenment, which was meant to serve as a record of all human

knowledge collected to date.

Rousseau was initially friends with the other Enlightenment figures, and contributed several

articles (mostly on music) to the Encyclopedie. However, he did not share their faith in

reason or human progress, and intellectual and temperamental differences increasingly

drew them apart.

Rousseau's political thought was primarily influenced by two groups. First, there is the

voluntarist tradition of ##Hobbes##,

Pufendorf, and Grotius, who support absolute monarchy. They argue that only by entering

into society and swearing absolute allegiance to a king can people escape the depravity and

brutality of a life in the wild. Second, there is the liberal tradition of ##Locke## and

Montesquieu, who argue that society exists in order to protect certain inalienable rights of

its citizens.

While Rousseau draws ideas from both traditions, he also disagrees with both in significant

ways. He is more favorably inclined toward the ancient Greeks and Romans, and often

refers to Sparta or Rome when looking for an example of a healthy state. The societies of

antiquity were characterized by a strong civic spirit, where citizenship was considered not

only an honor but a defining characteristic of who one was. The influence of such thinking

pervades The Social Contract, and we feel especially the influence of Aristotle's ##Politics##.

When it was first published in 1762, The Social Contract was met with outrage and

censorship. Rousseau became a wanted man both in France and in his native Geneva.

However, thirty-two years later, in 1794, after the ##French Revolution## his remains were

transported to the Pantheon in Paris and he was buried as a national hero. The Social

Contract was the foremost influence on the intellectual development of the French

Revolution, and that stormy period in history is our best example of Rousseau's ideas put



into practice. It is not fair to blame the Reign of Terror and the many disasters of the

Revolution on Rousseau, but his influence was certainly felt throughout.

Terms

Social contract - The agreement with which a person enters into civil society. The contract

essentially binds people into a community that exists for mutual preservation. In entering

into civil society, people sacrifice the physical freedom of being able to do whatever they

please, but they gain the civil freedom of being able to think and act rationally and morally.

Rousseau believes that only by entering into the social contract can we become fully human.

Freedom or Liberty - The problem of freedom is the motivating force behind The Social

Contract. In the state of nature people have physical freedom, meaning that their actions

are not restrained in any way, but they are little more than animals, slaves to their own

instincts and impulses. In most contemporary societies, however, people lack even this

physical freedom. They are bound to obey an absolutist king or government that is not

accountable to them in any way. By proposing a social contract, Rousseau hopes to secure

the civil freedom that should accompany life in society. This freedom is tempered by an

agreement not to harm one's fellow citizens, but this restraint leads people to be moral and

rational. In this sense, civil freedom is superior to physical freedom, since people are not

even slaves to their impulses.

Sovereign - Strictly defined, a sovereign is the voice of the law and the absolute authority

within a given state. In Rousseau's time, the sovereign was usually an absolute monarch. In

The Social Contract, however, this word is given a new meaning. In a healthy republic,

Rousseau defines the sovereign as all the citizens acting collectively. Together, they voice

the general will and the laws of the state. The sovereign cannot be represented, divided, or

broken up in any way: only all the people speaking collectively can be sovereign.

Government - This is the executive power of a state, which takes care of particular matters

and day-to-day business. There are as many different kinds of government as there are

states, though they can be roughly divided into democracy (the rule of the many),

aristocracy (the rule of the few), and monarchy (the rule of a single individual). The

government represents the people: it is not sovereign, and it cannot speak for the general

will. It has its own corporate will that is often at odds with the general will. For this reason,

there is often friction between the government and the sovereign that can bring about the

downfall of the state.

Law - An abstract expression of the general will that is universally applicable. Laws deal

only with the people collectively, and cannot deal with any particulars. They are essentially a

record of what the people collectively desire. Laws exist to ensure that people remain loyal

to the sovereign in all cases.

General will - The will of the sovereign that aims at the common good. Each individual has

his own particular will that expresses what is best for him. The general will expresses what is

best for the state as a whole.

Will of all - The sum total of each individual's particular will. In a healthy state, the will of all

is the same thing as the general will, since each citizen wills the common good. However, in



a state where people value their personal interests over the interests of the state, the will of

all may differ significantly from the general will.

State of Nature - When Rousseau talks about the state of nature, he is talking about what

human life would be like without the shaping influence of society. So much of what we are

is what society makes us, so he suggests that before society existed, we must have been

very different. In a different book, Discourse on Inequality, he speaks very highly of this

prehistoric state, but in The Social Contract he is more ambivalent. In the state of nature, we

are free to do whatever we want, but our desires and impulses are not tempered by reason.

We have physical freedom but we lack morality and rationality. Still, Rousseau believed that

this state of nature was better than the slavery of his contemporary society.

Civil society - Civil society is the opposite of the state of nature: it is what we enter into

when we agree to live in a community. With civil society comes civil freedom and the social

contract. By agreeing to live together and look out for one another, we learn to be rational

and moral, and to temper our brute instincts.

Common good - The common good is what is in the best interests of society as a whole.

This is what the social contract is meant to achieve, and it is what the general will aims at.

Analytical Overview

Rousseau's principal aim in writing The Social Contract is to determine how freedom may be

possible in civil society, and we might do well to pause briefly and understand what he

means by "freedom." In the state of nature we enjoy the physical freedom of having no

restraints on our behavior. By entering into the social contract, we place restraints on our

behavior, which make it possible to live in a community. By giving up our physical freedom,

however, we gain the civil freedom of being able to think rationally.

We can put a check on our impulses and desires, and thus learn to think morally. The term

"morality" only has significance within the confines of civil society, according to Rousseau.

Not just freedom, then, but also rationality and morality, are only possible within civil

society. And civil society, says Rousseau, is only possible if we agree to the social contract.

Thus, we do not only have to thank society for the mutual protection and peace it affords

us; we also owe our rationality and morality to civil society. In short, we would not be

human if we were not active participants in society.

This last step determines the heavily communitarian perspective that Rousseau adopts. If

we can only be fully human under the auspices of the social contract, then that contract is

more important than the individuals that agree to it. After all, those individuals only havevalue because they agree to that contract. The contract is not affirmed by each individual

separately so much as it is affirmed by the group collectively. Thus, the group collectively is

more important than each individual that makes it up. The sovereign and the general will

are more important than its subjects and their particular wills. Rousseau goes so far as to

speak of the sovereign as a distinct individual that can act of its own accord.



We might react to these arguments with serious reservations, and indeed, Rousseau has

been accused of endorsing totalitarianism.

We live in an age where individual rights are considered vitally important, and it is insulting

to think that we are just small parts of a greater whole. Rather than make freedom possible,

it would seem to us that Rousseau's system revokes freedom.

Rousseau would not take these charges lying down, however. Looking at us in the new

millennium, he might suggest that we are not free at all. On the whole, we may lack any

kind of personal agency or initiative. We often have difficulty interacting with one another

in any meaningful way, and it could be argued that our decisions and behavior are largely

dictated to us by a consumer culture that discourages individual thought.

His system, he might claim, only seems unattractive to us because we have totally lost the

community spirit that makes people want

to be together. Citizens in his ideal republic are not forced into a community: they agree to

it for their mutual benefit. He

might argue that the citizens of ancient Greece and Rome were very active and capable of

achievements that we have not come close

to emulating since. The community spirit that united them did not intrude upon their

individuality; rather, it gave individuality

an outlet for its fullest expression.

The best response to Rousseau (aside from pointing out that those societies relied on

slavery and exploitation) might be to say

that the world has changed since then. We could borrow from social theorist Jurgen

Habermas the distinction between the public

sphere and the private sphere, and suggest that Rousseau does not give careful enough

attention to the latter. Though Rousseau

does permit citizens to do whatever they please so long as it does not interfere with public

interests, he still seems to assume

that human personality is in some way public. He doesn't seem to perceive a distinction

between who we are in public and what we

are in private. By demanding such active citizenship, he is demanding that our public

persona take precedence over our private

self.



Book I, Chapters 1-5

Summary

The first chapter opens with the famous phrase: "Man was born free, and he is everywhere

in chains." These "chains" are the

constraints placed on the freedom of citizens in modern states. The stated aim of this book

is to determine whether there can be

legitimate political authority--whether a state can exist that upholds, rather than constrains,

liberty.

Rousseau rejects the idea that legitimate political authority is found in nature. The only

natural form of authority is the

authority a father has over a child, which exists only for the preservation of the child.

Political thinkers--particularly Grotius

and ##Hobbes##--have asserted that the relationship between ruler and subject is similar to

that between father and child: the

ruler cares for his subjects and so has unlimited rights over them. This kind of reasoning

assumes the natural superiority of

rulers over the ruled. Such superiority is perpetuated by force, not by nature, so political

authority has no basis in nature.

Nor is legitimate political authority founded on force. The maxim that "might makes right"

does not imply that the less strong

should be obedient to the strong. If might is the only determinant of right, then people obey

rulers not because they should, but

because they have no choice. And if they are able to overthrow their ruler, then this also is

right since they are exercising

their superior might. In such circumstances, there is no political authority; people simply dowhatever is within their power.

Rousseau's suggested answer is that legitimate political authority rests on a covenant (a

"social contract") forged between the



members of society. He has a number of predecessors in theorizing a social contract,

including Grotius, who proposes that there is

a covenant between the king and his people--a "right of slavery"--where the people agree to

surrender their freedom to the king.

Grotius is less clear what the people get in return for their freedom. It is not preservation:

the king keeps himself fed and

contented off the labor of the people, and not the other way around. It is not security: civil

peace is of little value if the

king makes his people go to war, and desolates the country by stockpiling all its goods for

his own consumption. Yet it must be

something, because only a lunatic would give up his freedom for nothing, and a covenant

made by a lunatic would be void. Besides,

even if people were able to surrender their own freedom, they could not justifiably

surrender the freedom of their children as

well.

It is impossible to surrender one's freedom in a fair exchange. By surrendering their

freedom to their ruler, people surrender all

their rights, and are no longer in any position to ask for something in return. More

importantly, Rousseau links freedom with

moral significance: our actions can only be moral if those actions were done freely. In giving

up our freedom we give up our

morality and our humanity.

Rousseau also objects to the suggestion that prisoners of war could become slaves through

an even exchange, where the conqueror

spares the life of the vanquished in exchange for that person's freedom. Wars have nothing

to do with individuals. Wars are

conducted between states for the sake of property. When an enemy surrenders, he ceases

to be an enemy, and becomes simply a man.

The people in an absolute monarchy are slaves, and slaves have no freedom and no rights. A

people only become a people if they



have the freedom to deliberate amongst themselves and agree about what is best for all.

Commentary

The concept of nature is very important throughout Rousseau's philosophy. He is famous for

countering the common Enlightenment

position that reason and progress were steadily improving humankind with the suggestion

that we are better off in our state of

nature, as "noble savages." This opinion is expressed more forcefully in his earlier work, the

Discourse on Inequality; in The

Social Contract Rousseau is more ready to accept the possibility that modern society can

potentially benefit us.

It is not entirely clear what Rousseau means when he talks about "nature" or our "natural

state." In his Discourse on Inequality,

he seems to be alluding to a prehistoric state of affairs where people had no government,

law, or private property. However, he

makes no effort to support the historicity of this claim, and later denied that he intended

the Discourse to refer to an actual

former state of affairs.

Rousseau is not interested in history or archaeology so much as he is interested in

understanding human nature as it exists in the

present. His political philosophy is driven by the conviction that the political associations we

participate in shape our thoughts

and behavior to a great extent. His interest in a "natural state," then, is an effort to

determine what we would be like if

political institutions had never existed. Whatever is not a part of this "natural state" has

come about as a result of human

society, and is thus "unnatural."

In the Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau paints a very rosy picture of this natural state:

without property to quarrel over and

governments to enforce inequality, our fundamental human nature is compassionate and

free of strife. This view contrasts sharply



with most of Rousseau's predecessors. In the ##Leviathan##, Thomas Hobbes famously

asserts that human life without political

institutions is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes and Grotius both claim that

human society comes about in order

to improve this unpleasant natural state. Rousseau suspects that Hobbes gives such a

negative portrayal of our natural state out

of an assumption that human nature remains unchanged with or without political

institutions. If human beings today were suddenly

to find themselves without political institutions, they would indeed lead unpleasant lives

because they would have all the

selfishness and greed that society has bred in them without any of the safeguards and

protections of that society. Rousseau's

hypothetical natural state is pre-societal: before we were corrupted by politics, we had

none of the unpleasant characteristics

that Hobbes identifies. It is important to understand that Rousseau believes it is impossible

to return to this natural state.

It should be clear that Rousseau intends a sharp contrast between nature and civil society.

Human society is not a part of our

natural state; rather, it is formed artificially. Rousseau's suggestion is that it is formed by a

"social contract": people living

in a state of nature come together and agree to certain constraints in order that they might

all benefit. The idea of a social

contract is not original to Rousseau, and could even be traced as far back as Plato's

##Crito##. More significantly, Rousseau is

drawing on the ideas of Hobbes, Grotius, and Pufendorf, among others, who used the idea

of a social contract to justify absolute

monarchy. These thinkers suggested that people consent to be governed by an absolutemonarch in exchange for the protection and

elevation from the state of nature that this affords them.

Rousseau's own social contract theory is meant to overturn the theories of these

predecessors, suggesting that no legitimate



social contract can be forged in an absolute monarchy. His arguments are diverse, but they

rest on the fundamental assertion that

in surrendering their liberty to their monarch, people surrender the freedom and authority

to consent to a social contract, and so

render void any contract they make with the monarch. According to Rousseau, our freedom

and our humanity are closely tied to our

ability to deliberate and make choices. If a monarch has absolute power over us, we lose

both our freedom and humanity, and become

slaves.

Book I, Chapters 6-9

Summary

There reaches a point in the state of nature, Rousseau suggests, when people need to

combine forces in order to survive. The

problem resolved by the social contract is how people can bind themselves to one another

and still preserve their freedom. The

social contract essentially states that each individual must surrender himself unconditionally

to the community as a whole.

Rousseau draws three implications from this definition: (1) Because the conditions of the

social contract are the same for

everyone, everyone will want to make the social contract as easy as possible for all. (2)

Because people surrender themselves

unconditionally, the individual has no rights that can stand in opposition to the state. (3)

Because no one is set above anyone

else, people don't lose their natural freedom by entering into the social contract.

The community that is formed by this social contract is not simply the sum total of the livesand wills of its members: it is a

distinct and unified entity with a life and a will of its own. This entity, called a "city" or

"polis" in ancient times, is now



called a "republic" or a "body politic." Some further definitions: in its passive role it is a

"state," in its active role a

"sovereign," and in relation to other states a "power"; the community that forms it is "a

people," and individually they are

"citizens"; they are "subjects" insofar as they submit themselves to the sovereign.

Because the sovereign is a distinct and unified whole, Rousseau treats it in many respects as

if it were an individual. Since no

individual can be bound by a contract made with himself, the social contract cannot impose

any binding regulations on the

sovereign. By contrast, subjects of the sovereign are doubly bound: as individuals they are

bound to the sovereign, and as members

of the sovereign they are bound to other individuals. Though the sovereign is not bound by

the social contract, it cannot do

anything that would violate the social contract since it owes its existence to that contract.

Further, in hurting its subjects it

would be hurting itself, so the sovereign will act in the best interests of its subjects without

any binding commitment to do so.

Individuals, on the other hand, need the incentive of law to remain loyal to the sovereign.

Self-interested individuals might try

to enjoy all the benefits of citizenship without obeying any of the duties of a subject. Thus,

Rousseau suggests that unwilling

subjects will be forced to obey the general will: they will be "forced to be free."

In contrast to the Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau here draws a distinction between

nature and civil society that heavily favors

the latter. While we lose the physical liberty of being able to follow our instincts freely and

do whatever we please, we gain the

civil liberty that places the limits of reason and the general will on our behavior, thereby

rendering us moral. In civil society,

we take responsibility for our actions, and become nobler as a result.



Rousseau concludes Book I with a discussion of property. He suggests that ownership of

land is only legitimate if no one else

claims that land, if the owner occupies no more land than he needs, and if he cultivates that

land for his subsistence. In the

social contract, each individual surrenders all his property along with himself to the

sovereign and the general will. In doing

so, he does not give up his property since he is also a subject of the sovereign.

Commentary

Fans of the Transformers may recall the "Constructicons," a group of smaller robots who

could join together to form one, large

robot: one Constructicon would be the left arm of this larger robot, another would be the

right leg, and so on. This is the same

sort of principle that Rousseau is applying here. Individual citizens have a life and a will of

their own, but in binding

themselves to the social contract, they also become a part of the larger life and will of the

sovereign. Like the large robot

formed by the individual Constructicons, the sovereign is not simply the sum total of its

individual members, but is treated by

Rousseau as an individual itself.

Just as each part of the body is responsible for working with the rest of the body and

ensuring that it functions smoothly, every

individual is committed to the sovereign. However, the sovereign owes nothing to its

subjects in the same way as a person owes

nothing to his pinky finger or his left knee. We try to keep our fingers and knees from harm

not because we are bound by some sort

of contract, but because our fingers and knees are a part of our body, and in harming themwe would be harming ourselves.

Similarly, the sovereign owes nothing to its subjects, but will nonetheless work to ensure

their well-being.



Rousseau's communitarian point of view can be understood by referring to his contrast

between the state of nature and civil

society. The freedom we have in the state of nature is the freedom of animals:

unconstrained and irrational. By entering into

civil society we learn to restrain our instincts and to act rationally. By leaving our natural

state of do-as-you-please, we come

to recognize that we need reasons to justify our actions. This rationality is what defines our

actions as moral. Rationality and

morality distinguish us from animals, according to Rousseau, so it is only by becoming a part

of civil society that we become

human. The community is superior to the individual because it is a community of humans

and the individual is just a solitary

animal.

Rousseau contrasts the physical freedom of following our instincts with the civil freedom of

acting rationally. In civil society,

we learn the freedom of self-control. Thus, according to Rousseau, we do not give up our

freedom by binding ourselves to the

social contract; rather, we fully realize it.

This background may help us understand Rousseau's disturbing claim that recalcitrant

citizens should be "forced to be free." If we

only gain civil freedom by entering into civil society and binding ourselves to the social

contract, any violation of that

contract will also violate our civil freedom. We undermine our very rationality and morality

by violating the contract that made

us rational and moral. By forcing its subjects to obey the social contract, the sovereign

essentially forces its subjects to

maintain the civil freedom that is part and parcel of this social contract.

If you find yourself uncomfortable with all this, you are not alone. Some commentators have

gone so far as to accuse Rousseau of



totalitarianism, though this is a bit far-fetched. However, his notion that the community

comes first and the individuals in it

second is contrary to the notions of individual liberty that characterize most modern

democracies, the United States in

particular.

To a large extent, Rousseau is motivated by the fear that in modern states where citizens

are not actively involved in politics,

they become passive witnesses of the decisions that shape them rather than active

participants. The civil freedom that comes

through active political participation is largely the freedom to determine one's own fate.

Still, if the ##French Revolution##, is any indication, Rousseau's doctrines can be misused.

Rousseau's ideas formed an

ideological backbone for the French Revolution, but as the evolving chaos of the Revolution

so clearly indicates, it may not

always be clear how the general will is determined, and in such instances terror and the

guillotine can become an attractive means

of forcing people to be "free." Though to lay all the extreme excesses of the French

Revolution at the feet of Rousseau is unfair,

some critics have noted that while Rousseau is usually quite careful in distinguishing

between force and right, he blurs that

distinction dangerously in saying that people must be "forced to be free."

Book II, Chapters 1-5

Summary

Society can only function to the extent that people have interests in common: the end goal

of any state is the common good.

Rousseau argues that the common good can only be achieved by heeding the general will as

expressed by the sovereign. The sovereign

is inalienable: it cannot defer its power to someone else, or be represented by a smaller

group. It expresses the general will,



which will never coincide exactly with any particular private will. As the will of the people,

the sovereign can only exist so

long as the people have an active and direct political voice.

Nor is sovereignty divisible: the sovereign always and necessarily expresses the will of the

people as a whole, and not of some

part. An expression of the general will takes the form of law, whereas the expression of a

particular will is at best an

application of law. Rousseau accuses other philosophers of failing to understand this

distinction. They take particular acts

(administration, declarations of war, etc.) to be acts of sovereignty, and since these acts are

not undertaken by the people as a

whole, they conclude that sovereignty is divisible. This conclusion permits thinkers such as

Grotius to then invest sovereign

power in the particular will of a single monarch, thus robbing the people of their rights.

Though the general will always tends toward the common good, Rousseau concedes that

the deliberations of the people do not always

necessarily express the general will. He draws an important distinction between the general

will and the will of all, stating that

the latter is simply the sum total of each individual's desires. These particular interests

usually balance each other out unless

people form factions and vote as a group. Rousseau insists that no factions form within a

state, and that each individual should

think for himself.

While he claims that the sovereign has absolute power over all its subjects, Rousseau is

careful to carve out a space for private

interests as well. A citizen must render whatever services or goods are necessary to the

state, but the state cannot demand more

than what is necessary from the citizen. Furthermore, the sovereign is only authorized to

speak in cases that affect the body



politic as a whole. Cases that deal only with individuals or particularities do not concern all

citizens, and so do not concern

the sovereign: the sovereign deals only with matters that are of common interest. As a

result, each citizen is free to pursue

private interests, and is only bound to the sovereign in matters that are of public concern.

Rousseau supports the death penalty, arguing that the sovereign has the right to determine

whether its subjects should live or

die. His strongest reason for this position is the claim that wrongdoers, in violating the laws

of the state, are essentially

violating the social contract. As enemies of the social contract, they are enemies of the

state, and must either be exiled or put

to death. It is possible to pardon criminals, but both pardons and punishments are signs of

weakness: a healthy state has few

criminals.

Commentary

The concepts of the sovereign and of the general will had currency before Rousseau, but not

in the form that Rousseau gives them.

A sovereign is the ultimate authority with regard to a certain group of people. It is the voice

of the law, and all people under

its authority must obey it. It is also independent of any outside influences.

In Rousseau's time, the sovereign was generally an absolute monarch. These rulers assumed

absolute control over their states, both

property and inhabitants. Louis XIV, the archetypal absolute monarch, is rumored once to

have said, "I am the state." Within

France, whatever the king said was law and had to be obeyed, and no outside force could

exert any influence either on Louis or his

state.

Rousseau holds on to the essential notion of sovereignty--that it is a power with absolute

and inalienable influence over its



subjects--but rejects the idea that a single person or elite group can act as sovereign. His

goal in The Social Contract is to

determine how people can maintain their freedom within the confines of political

association, so the idea of a single monarch with

absolute power over his subjects runs totally contrary to his ideal. The only way people can

be subjected to a sovereign power

without losing their freedom is if they themselves are this sovereign power. Thus, Rousseau

turns the idea of sovereignty on its

head, asserting that the people, and not the king, are sovereign.

In the case of absolute monarchy, sovereign authority is expressed in the will of the king. In

Rousseau's ideal republic,

sovereign authority is expressed in the general will. Just as a king uses authority to gain

what is best for him, the people

acting together use authority to gain what is best for all.

The general will, unlike the will of a king, is not the will of any particular individual. In fact,

Rousseau thinks it is

impossible that any single person's will should coincide with the general will in all cases.

Rousseau draws an important

distinction between the general will and the "will of all." The will of all is simply what we get

when we add up everything that

each individual wants. The general will aims at the common good. Rousseau suggests that

citizens should vote with the general

will, and not their private interests, in mind. In modern democracies, voters tend to pursue

their own interests: the rich favor

tax cuts, the poor favor social programs, and so on. In Rousseau's ideal republic, each

person will vote with the interest of

achieving what is best for all: the rich will recognize that taxation for social programs will

help those in need, the poor will

recognize that lower taxes can spur the economy, and so on.



The general will and the will of all often coincide to a great extent, and Rousseau even

seems to suggest that private ballot is

the best means of determining both. This raises the question of how we can distinguish one

from the other. The only clear

indication we get is that the general will is free of factionalism. If a significant number of

people band together because of

shared private interests and agree to promote these interests by voting as a block, they will

manage to unbalance the general

will. Rather than aiming evenly toward the common good, the state will begin aiming

unevenly toward the good of the most powerful

faction.

In a state free of factions, the difference, it seems, rests entirely in the attitude with which

citizens vote. In a healthy

republic, each citizen votes with the interest of securing what is best for the state.

Paradoxically, this requires that each

citizen think for himself rather than consult with fellow citizens on what they think is best. A

private ballot is essential to

avoiding factionalism.

We should not take Rousseau's insistence that citizens disregard their private interests

when voting as a sign that he disregards

private interests altogether. He is quite clear that the sovereign only has authority in

matters that affect and are of interest

to the body politic as a whole. In these matters, it is important that citizens think of the

common good rather than their own

interests. However, the sovereign has no authority over matters that affect only a portion of

the body politic. When dealing with

matters outside sovereign authority, it is obviously important that each citizen do what he

thinks is best for himself.


Summary



The earlier discussion of the social contract and the sovereign explain how the body politic

comes into being; the question of how

it maintains itself calls for a discussion of law. Rousseau suggests that there is a universal

and natural justice that comes to

us from God, but that it is not binding. Evil people will not obey God's law, and so we must

set up positive, binding laws within

society, or else those who obey God's law will suffer at the hands of those who disobey it.

Rousseau defines law as an abstract expression of the general will that is universally

applicable. All laws are made by the people

as a whole and apply to the people as a whole: the law does not deal with particularities.

The law can never deal with individual

people or groups, so while it can say that a certain group should have certain privileges or

that a certain person should be the

head of state, it cannot determine which particular individual or group should receive these

privileges.

The law is essentially a record of what the people collectively desire. A law can only be

enacted if the people collectively agree

on it, and it must apply to all of them. A declaration of the sovereign that applies only to

certain people or certain objects is

not a law, but a decree.

The existence of civil society hinges on the existence of laws. However, Rousseau

acknowledges the problem of how laws should be

laid down. How can a people as a whole sit down together and write up a code of law?

There is not only the problem of how such a

large number could write up such a document together, but also the problem that the

people do not always know what they want or

what is best for them. Rousseau's proposed solution comes in the form of a lawgiver.

An ideal lawgiver is not easy to find. He must be supremely intelligent, and willing to work

selflessly on behalf of a people.



Because the laws shape the character and behavior of the people to a great extent, the

lawgiver must exhibit great insight. In

order for the laws to be unbiased, the lawgiver should not himself be a citizen of the state to

which he gives laws. He is outside

and above the authority of the sovereign. Remarking on the difficulty of finding such a

person, Rousseau notes: "Gods would be

needed to give men laws."

Not only is there the difficulty of finding a lawmaker of genius who does not himself wish to

govern; there is also the difficulty

of making the people obey the laws. People are unlikely to simply accept the laws given to

them by a particular person. Rousseau

notes that throughout history, lawgivers have used the authority of God or some other

divine power to support them. Moses, for

instance, claims that God gave him the Ten Commandments. An appeal to the supernatural

origins of the laws is generally a good

means of ensuring that they are obeyed.

Commentary

To a large extent, the agreement to live under certain established laws is what defines the

social contract. In the ##Commentary

section for Book I, Chapters 6-9##, we distinguished between civil and physical freedom,

suggesting that we give up the latter and

gain the former by entering into civil society. Physical freedom is characterized by the

unbounded freedom to do whatever we like,

following our instincts and impulses. Civil freedom places a check on our instincts and

impulses, teaching us to think and behave

rationally, and opening us up to the freedom of thinking for ourselves.

Rousseau is by no means the only philosopher to define "real" freedom not as an

unbounded do-as-you- please, but as the ability to

deliberate rationally. If our behavior is not restrained by laws of some sort, we are not free,

but are rather slaves to our



instincts and impulses. If our behavior is restrained by the laws of some outside force, then

we are not free, but are slaves to

that outside force. The only solution, then, is to define freedom as behavior that is

restrained only by the laws of our own

making. When we extend this solution to society as a whole, the only laws that can maintain

the freedom of citizens are those laws

that the citizens as a whole agree upon.

Rousseau is careful to distinguish between laws and decrees. Decrees are matters of day-to-

day business: a leader appointing an

attorney general, or the decision to condemn a traitor to death, or anything that deals with

individuals or particular groups is a

decree. Laws are made for the people as a whole by the people as a whole. They are the

general guidelines under which a people

chooses to live. As the restraints a people places upon itself, laws are what define their civil

freedom.

Because laws represent the restraints of civil freedom, they represent the leap made from

humans in the state of nature into civil

society. In this sense, law is a civilizing force upon us, so it is no surprise that Rousseau

believes that the laws that govern a

people define their character to a great extent. In the Discourse on Inequality, he asserts

that it is bad government, and not

human nature, that is the source of our evil. Here, he suggests that good government, or

rather good laws, can make good people.

People who agree voluntarily and as a group to abide by certain restrictions that will benefit

all of them will likely become

better people as a result.

Rousseau gives no practical solution as to how a code of laws is to be formed. On the

contrary, he remarks at length as to how

difficult it is to find someone who is up to the task. Because a set of laws largely defines the

people who live under these laws,



the lawgiver is responsible for determining what kind of people a certain state will produce.

Thus, a lawgiver is neither what we

might understand as a judge or legislator, nor even a political leader or dictator. The

lawgiver should be understood as someone

who invents a moral code. If we recall, morality is defined by rationality, rationality

(according to Rousseau) comes into being

with civil society, and civil society comes into being thanks to a lawgiver. We might even

think of the lawgiver as a saint or

prophet of sorts: it is no wonder that Rousseau associates the creation of laws with the

supernatural.

Despite all his talk about the difficulties of lawmaking, Rousseau himself undertook to write

two constitutions: one for Poland

and one for Corsica, at the invitation of those states. Poland was partitioned and Corsica

was annexed before either constitution

could be implemented. In both of these cases, Rousseau was playing the role of the

impartial lawgiver who stands outside the law:

he was neither Corsican nor Polish, and was giving these people laws without any personal

interest or hope for gain.


Summary

It is not only difficult to find a good lawgiver, but also difficult to find a people who are

suitable for good laws. Rousseau

suggests that a state must receive laws relatively early in its existence. If the attempt to give

laws is made too soon, the

people will not be ready to receive guidance. If the attempt is made too late, the people will

have become stuck in their

prejudices and will resist the improving influence of good laws. In rare cases, a revolution

may permit an older state to regain

its freedom under new laws, but such revolutions can only occur once.



Rousseau also remarks that a state must be of moderate size--neither too big nor too small--

if it is to do well. In a large state,

administration becomes burdensome and costly. Rather than one central government, there

will have to be many levels of regional

government, with each additional level costing the people. Furthermore, a large

government will be less swift and precise in

maintaining law and order, and a state spread out over a great area with different customs

and climates will be hard-pressed to

create one law that is fair to all. On the other hand, a state that is too small is constantly in

danger of being swallowed up by

neighbors who are in constant friction with it.

There must also be a balance between the number of people and the extent of territory in a

state. If a small number of people own

a great territory, they will not be able to maintain it all, and will be in constant danger of

invasion. If a great number of

people own a small territory, they will need to rely on goods from other states to sustain

them, and will constantly be tempted to

invade their neighbors. There is no magic number to determine the right ratio of population

to territory since a great deal hinges

on the kind of land, the kind of people, and so on.

The final condition Rousseau lists for the establishment of laws within a state is that it must

be enjoying a period of peace and

plenty, since the formation and establishment of laws leaves it momentarily vulnerable.

Bearing in mind all the above recommendations, Rousseau notes that there aren't many

states fit to receive laws. One case of

particular note, however, is Corsica. Rousseau remarks: "I have a presentiment that thislittle island will one day astonish

Europe."

All laws should pursue the principles of freedom and equality. By "equality," Rousseau does

not mean that everyone should be



exactly the same, but that differences in wealth should not unbalance the state. Within the

guidelines of these general

principles, however, there is a lot of room for maneuvering. Each state has different needs

and interests, and there is not one

"right" way that all states must follow. Each state should have laws that harmonize with its

natural circumstances.

Rousseau distinguishes four different classes of law. (1) Political Laws, or Fundamental Laws,

which are the main subject of The

Social Contract. These determine the relationship the body politic has with itself, the

fundamental structure of the state. (2)

Civil Laws, which deal with individuals in relation with each other or with the body politic as

a whole. (3) Criminal Laws, which

deal with cases where the law is broken. And most importantly, (4) the morals, customs,

and beliefs of the people. These determine

the quality of the people and the success of the more rigid, written laws.

Commentary

The end of Book II deals primarily with the people that make up a state. Rousseau is wise

not to be overly dogmatic in the

recommendations he makes. Instead, he notes that different people will have different

needs and will require different laws. A

people living in the mountains might be better off setting up a pastoral way of life, while a

people living by the sea might do

better with seafaring and naval trade. Throughout The Social Contract, Rousseau's

recommendations are meant only on a general, and

not a particular, level. For instance, the sovereign and the laws only have authority on those

matters that affect the body

politic as a whole. In Chapter 11, he suggests that the only absolute requirement for good

laws is that they should in all cases

preserve liberty and equality.



Liberty (or freedom) is the basic premise around which The Social Contract is structured:

Rousseau's principal question is how

people can preserve their liberty in a political union. Equality, it seems to him, is a necessary

condition for the preservation

of liberty. The Discourse on Inequality hammers on the idea that property, and material

inequality, are the root cause of human

misery and evil. And again, in Chapter 11 of The Social Contract, he argues that gross

material inequality can put liberty up for

sale. The poor would be willing to sell their freedom and the rich would be capable of

buying it. Both the very rich and the very

poor would value money more than liberty. Thus, Rousseau asserts that some level of

material equality is necessary to ensure that

liberty comes before profit.

Nonetheless, Rousseau is equally insistent on defending our right to private property. While

he is against overly eager

capitalism, he does not join socialist or communist thinkers in recommending the abolition

of private property altogether. If

everything we did were for the benefit of the state, we would no longer be free. Rousseau

would presumably accuse communist states

(there were none around during his time) of pursuing equality to such an extent that it takes

precedence over liberty. Equality is

important as a necessary condition for liberty, and it works against itself if it enslaves the

people it is meant to liberate.

There seems to be an interesting tension in Rousseau's discussion of law and its impact on

people. Though he insists that laws are

a defining characteristic of the social contract, and are thus necessary to ensure human

freedom, he also concedes that very few

states are ready for such laws. Does this mean that very few states are ready for freedom?

He explains that some states are not

yet civilized enough to receive laws and some states are too deeply set in old prejudices to

adapt to new laws. In Chapter 12, he



asserts that morality is more important for ensuring the well-being of a state than any of its

explicit laws. However, he also

suggests that morality is something that comes about with the creation of laws: laws and

life in civil society are what make a

person moral. Thus we run into a paradox of sorts: a people needs to be moral to some

extent in order to receive laws, but they

can only become moral when they have laws.

When Rousseau talks about laws and civil society making a person moral, he is contrasting

civil society with the state of nature,

where we exist in a pre-moral, instinctive manner. It is not entirely clear how things stand

with barbarian civilizations or

people living in absolute monarchies. They are not in the state of nature, nor do they enjoy

civil freedom. Because they live in

society and must be rational, they must have some sort of moral life, but Rousseau is not

clear how this morality manifests

itself. Clearly, though, it is rarely sufficient to raise them up into the civil freedom of a

republic.

One of these rare cases Rousseau mentions is Corsica, and it is an interesting case. In 1764,

two years after he wrote The Social

Contract, Rousseau was invited to draw up a constitution for Corsica. This constitution was

never implemented, since France

invaded and annexed the island in 1769. In that same year, ##Napoleon## was born in

Corsica. Though hardly as Rousseau had

envisioned it, Corsica did indeed "astonish Europe," as this little man became Emperor of

France and marched his armies all the

way to Moscow. And though not of the sort Rousseau might have imagined or esteemed,

Napoleon made himself into a lawgiver, and his

Code Napoleon remains a vital legal precedent from parts of Europe to once French-

controlled Louisiana.

Book III, Chapters 1-2



Summary

Rousseau opens Book III with an explanation of government and the executive power that it

wields. The actions of a state, just

like those of a person, can be analyzed into will and strength. To walk around the block, I

must decide to walk around the block

(will), and I must have the power in my legs to do it (strength). The will of the body politic is

expressed in the laws, which are

discussed at length in Book II. The strength that puts these laws into practice is found in the

executive power of the government.

Because the government deals with particular acts and applications of the law, it is distinct

from the sovereign, which deals only

with general matters. A great many dangers arise when government and sovereign are

confused or mistaken for one another.

There is no kind of social contract between a government and the rest of the people, since

the people do not surrender their power

or will to the government in the way that they do to the sovereign. The government is an

intermediary body that can be modified or

disbanded according to the sovereign will (or general will).

In a large state, each individual will be only a small part of the sovereign, and so each

individual will be less inclined to

follow the general will and more inclined to follow his or her own particular will. In order to

keep so many people in line, the

government will need to be able to exercise a great deal of power. Thus, the larger the

population, the greater force the

government must have relative to each individual.

On the other hand, the more powerful the government is, the more tempted the

magistrates in the government will be to abuse their

power and take advantage of their position. Thus, just as a strong government is needed to

control a large population, a strong

sovereign is needed to control a strong government.



While there is obviously no precise mathematical relationship that can determine the

proportionate power of government, Rousseau

suggests the following ratio as a good formula. The ratio of the power of the government to

the power of the people should be

equal to the ratio of the power of the sovereign to the power of the government.

Rousseau proposes that the government, like the sovereign, can be considered a unified

body, the main difference being that the

sovereign acts according to its own interests, while the government acts according to the

interests of the sovereign, or general,

will. Nonetheless, the government still has a life and ego of its own, and has its own

assemblies, councils, honors, and titles,

as well as a supreme magistrate or chief that acts as its leader. The difficulty lies in arranging

matters so that the government

never acts solely on its own behalf, making the general will subordinate to its own will.

Any magistrate in government will have to exercise three different kinds of will: his

individual will that pursues his own

interests, the corporate will that expresses the will of the government, and the general will

that expresses the will of the

people as a whole. The fewer magistrates there are, the more the corporate will shall

resemble particular wills, and the stronger

and more active relative to the people it will be. With a great many magistrates, the

corporate will shall resemble the general

will, but it will also be relatively weaker and less active. In a large state, where a strong

government is needed, fewer

magistrates are desirable.

Commentary

The first two books of The Social Contract deal with the abstract level of political right. In

those books, Rousseau explains the



principles according to which a republic that upholds freedom and equality might exist. He

concerns himself there with the

sovereign and with laws, both of which apply generally to all people equally and at all times.

In Book III Rousseau makes the transition from abstract to practical and from legislative to

executive, discussing how a republic

should be governed rather than the principles on which it should be founded. Instead of

discussing a sovereign or laws that are

general and apply to all, he discusses a government that is made up of a select group of

magistrates and that exercises power in

particular cases.

Rousseau's distinction between will and strength is closely linked to the distinction between

force and right. In the first two

books, he deals with will and right: he discusses simply how things ought to be, how we

should will them to be. Now he discusses

strength and force: how we can make things be the way we want them to be, how we can

put matters into effect. On the whole,

Rousseau is very careful to distinguish between force and right. A failure to do so leads to a

confusion between government and

sovereign, and such confusions lead thinkers like Grotius or ##Hobbes## to assert that there

is a social contract binding subjects

to a government of one person, who is also the sovereign. A proper distinction between

force and right is necessary to grasp the

subtleties of legitimate government. The importance Rousseau normally places on this

distinction further highlights his own

confusion of this distinction when, in Book I, Chapter 7, he insists that people who do not

obey the social contract must be

"forced to be free."

The discussion of the relative strengths of sovereign, government, and people can be a bit

confusing. Rousseau tries to explain



himself in terms of mathematical analogies whose clarity can be helpful. But, as he himself

acknowledges, we won't find the

precision of mathematics in moral calculations, and such precise ratios can be misleading,

especially since there is no precise

numerical measure for political power.

Rousseau's calculations are based on the assumption that every citizen exercises more than

one kind of will. I act first and

foremost in my own interests, as a single individual, and exercise a particular will. However,

as a member of the sovereign, I

also think and act with the general will in mind. If I am a magistrate in government, I also

think and act with a corporate will,

in concert with my fellow magistrates.

In a state with just one hundred people, I will constitute 1 percent of the sovereign. In a

state with ten thousand people, I will

constitute only one one-hundredth of 1 percent of the sovereign. The larger the state

becomes, the less I constitute the

sovereign. Rousseau concludes that the larger the state becomes, the more my particular

will shall take precedence over my

participation in the general will. Thus, in a large state, each individual will care less about

the well-being of the state, and

will care more about himself. To prevent selfish anarchy, Rousseau argues that a large

population needs a strong government to

keep it in line.

A strong government does not mean a large government. On the contrary, Rousseau asserts

that the smaller a government is the

stronger it is. In a large state, each individual's particular will is so much stronger than hisgeneral will because his

particular will concerns only himself, while his general will concerns a large group of which

he is only a small part. Similarly,



in a large government, the corporate will of each magistrate will be weak, and he will be

more interested in his own particular

will. In a small government, the corporate will of each magistrate will be stronger.

The larger the population, the smaller the government that controls them should be. The

danger, then, is that the corporate will

of a small government will be so much stronger than the general will that the general will

shall be ignored. The danger, it seems,

of large states, is that each individual will feel less committed to the general will, and so the

general will might be neglected.

Rousseau's ideas are deeply indebted to Greek political philosophers, especially Aristotle,

and so he thinks of the ideal

political unit as a small city-state, like Athens or Sparta, or the Geneva that he grew up in. A

large country is ill suited to

his recommendations.


Summary

Rousseau roughly distinguishes three forms of government. When all or most of the citizens

are magistrates, the government is a

democracy. When fewer than half the citizens are magistrates, the government is an

aristocracy. When there is only one magistrate

(or in some cases a small handful of magistrates), the government is a monarchy. There is

not one form of government that is best

for all. Rather, as Rousseau has already noted, the larger the population, the fewer

magistrates there should be. Thus, large

states are well suited to monarchy, small states to democracy, and intermediate states to

aristocracy.

Rousseau is very skeptical about the viability of democracy. He claims that "there has never

been a true democracy, and there



never will be." States, by their nature, tend toward having a smaller number take charge of

the affairs of government. When the

government and the sovereign are the same body, there is a great danger that the

combining of legislative and executive functions

will corrupt the laws and lead to the ruin of the state. A successful democracy would need

to be small, with simple and honest

citizens who have little ambition or greed. Because it is so unstable, democracy is also very

susceptible to civil strife.

There are three main kinds of aristocracy. (1) Natural aristocracy, frequently found in

primitive civilizations, where elders and

heads of families govern a village or tribe. (2) Elective aristocracy, which Rousseau considers

the best kind of aristocracy,

where those with power or riches, or those who are best suited to govern, are placed in

charge. (3) Hereditary aristocracy, which

Rousseau considers the worst kind of aristocracy, where certain families govern everybody

else. As long as the magistrates can be

trusted to govern justly, Rousseau believes that aristocracy is an excellent form of

government. It is better to have a select

group of the best men govern than to have everyone try to govern together regardless of

qualifications.

Rousseau expresses serious reservations about monarchy, just as he does about democracy.

Monarchy is tremendously efficient, since

all power rests in the hands of one man. However, this can be dangerous, as the corporate

will becomes nothing more than a

particular will. If a king wants his power to be absolute, it is in his best interests to keep the

people he governs in harsh

subjection so that they can never revolt. Monarchies are best suited to large states, where anumber of ranks of princes and

underlings can be assigned. However, a monarch will rarely assign these positions wisely,

and few monarchs have the strength to



govern large states single-handedly. There is also a problem of succession: if kings are

elected, these elections are prone to

serious corruption, and if there is a hereditary succession, there is the constant risk of

incompetent rulers. Rousseau also notes

that each successive king will have a different agenda, meaning that the state will not keep a

fixed course. For all these reasons

and more, it is difficult to find a good king.

No government is strictly one of these three forms: all are mixed to some extent. A

monarchy needs to assign power to lesser

magistrates and a democracy needs some sort of leader to direct it. On the whole, Rousseau

prefers simple forms of government, but

recommends mixing forms in order to maintain a balance of power. For example, if the

government is too powerful relative to the

sovereign, dividing the government into different parts will dissipate its powers.

Commentary

In reacting against the philosophers of the previous generation who support absolute

monarchy, such as ##Hobbes## or Grotius,

Rousseau looks even further back, to ancient Greek and Roman thinkers. In particular, he

owes a tremendous debt to Aristotle's

##Politics##. In that work, Aristotle makes a similar distinction between democracy,

aristocracy, and monarchy, depending on

whether government is by the many, the few, or by a single person. Aristotle also concedes

that different forms of government suit

different people, but tends to favor aristocracy. Perhaps, however, the differences are more

interesting than the similarities.

While Rousseau values freedom above all, Aristotle values the "good life," and sufficientlydisregards the value of freedom to

endorse slavery.

Rousseau's main reason for preferring aristocracy--or rather, his main reason for having

reservations about democracy and



monarchy--is that he is deeply concerned about cordoning off executive power and the

corporate will as distinct entities. In a

democracy, the corporate will and the general will are liable to be confused, while in a

monarchy, the corporate will is nothing

other than the particular will of the monarch.

We should recognize that when Rousseau talks about democracy and the dangers it entails,

he does not mean democracy in the sense

that we experience it today. Much of the modern world is made up of representative

democracies, where the people are involved in

politics only to the extent of electing officials to represent them in government. When

Rousseau talks about "democracy," he means

direct democracy, where the people are the officials who sit in government. According to

this scheme, every citizen would be

required to sit in assembly together and deliberate on matters of state. If we imagine trying

to do this in a country like the

United States, we can understand why Rousseau recommends democracy only to small

states.

The main problem with direct democracy, as Rousseau perceives it, is that it fails to

distinguish between the executive and the

legislative. The idea of forming the social contract is to ensure the freedom of each citizen.

This freedom would be seriously

curtailed if each citizen had to devote as much time to government as elected officials

normally do. The people as a whole are

needed only as a legislative body, to agree upon the laws and to agree to observe them. This

is enough to ensure the mutual

freedom of all citizens. Freedom does not rely on the executive work of carrying out day-to-

day matters of state, and Rousseau

discusses the formation of government precisely so that only a select group will have to deal

with such matters.

The dangerin a government of a select few, of course, is that the executive body may

become corrupt and no longer serve the



people. This danger is especially present in a monarchy. Because the executive body is

reduced to a single person, there is no

objective standard to distinguish the monarch's particular will from his corporate will as

representative of the people. As a

result, every monarch will face the temptation to govern in his own interests, and not in the

interests of the people.

It might seem odd that a philosopher who so ardently defends liberty and equality should

favor aristocracy. This term has been

taken in modern times to mean an undeserving and ineffectual upper class, but Rousseau

intends it in the Greek sense, as employed

by Aristotle. "Aristocracy" literally means "rule of the best," which Rousseau contrasts with

the literal meaning of "democracy":

"rule of the many." In a perfect world, a select group of magistrates will take on executive

duties, and these magistrates will be

skilled, efficient, and will serve the interests of the people. Rousseau acknowledges that this

is not always the case in an

aristocracy, but seems to think that the dangers of aristocracy are fewer and more easily

avoided than those either of democracy

or monarchy.

We should reiterate, however, that Rousseau does not insist that aristocracy is always the

best form of government. Democracy is

better suited to small states and monarchy to large states. His preference for aristocracy is

based, if anything, on a sense that

moderate-sized city-states, such as his home city of Geneva, are ideal. While monarchy is

the best form of government for large

states, large states are hard to govern regardless of the form of government.


Summary



Though freedom is desirable, Rousseau agrees with Montesquieu that it is not possible in

every environment. The government of a

state does not produce any goods itself, and so must live off the surplus produced by the

people. The closer the relationship

between the government and the people, the less the taxes levied by the government will

hurt the people. Democracy can survive

where there is little surplus and monarchy thrives where there is a great surplus. Thus,

Rousseau suggests that climate determines

government to a great extent. Colder, northern countries have little surplus and can support

democracy, while hotter, southern

countries have great surplus and support monarchy. In hot climates, people tend to eat less,

have more fertile soil, and need

fewer people to work the land. Because fewer people are needed, the population will be

more spread out, making them easier to

govern. All these considerations serve as evidence that monarchical government thrives in

hot climates.

Considering the many disputes regarding what makes a good government, Rousseau

suggests that the objective and easily calculated

factor of population is the best measure. Political associations exist in order to ensure the

protection and prosperity of their

members. A growing population is a sign of prosperity, and so a sign of good government.

Peace, culture, and other factors are

nowhere near as important.

The government is inevitably at odds with the sovereign, and the friction between the two

can cause the government to degenerate.

Either the government will contract--going from democracy to aristocracy or fromaristocracy to monarchy--or the state itself will

dissolve. The state dissolves into anarchy when the government usurps sovereign power.

Such usurpation breaks the social contract

so that citizens become free of their social obligations only to be subjected by force.



The friction between government and sovereign is bound to destroy all states eventually.

States, like humans, are only mortal, and

Rousseau notes that even Sparta and Rome (his two favorites) devolved after a time. The

longevity of a state relies on its

legislative power: if the laws are upheld for a long time, they become strong with tradition.

Commentary

Rousseau's peculiar analysis of the effect climate holds on government rests on a certain

picture of production and consumption.

Each individual needs to consume a certain fixed quantity of goods--food, clothing, etc.

However, each individual does not produce

these goods equally. While farmers and tailors produce food and clothing, government

magistrates produce nothing of the sort.

According to Rousseau, then, the farmers and the tailors are responsible not only for

producing sufficient food and clothing for

themselves, but also producing enough to take care of the government.

Rousseau is a bit vague in his formulation, and we could read this as a simple endorsement

of capitalism: magistrates get paid a

certain sum for serving in government, and they can use this money to buy food and

clothing for themselves. Magistrates get paid

taxpayers' money, each citizen paying taxes that are proportional to the profit he makes

from whatever business or trade he

undertakes.

However, Rousseau tends to speak negatively about finance and profit motives, so it is more

likely that he is thinking along the

lines of the Marxist slogan: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his

need." Farmers will give up a certain

amount of their food, not for the sake of profit, but simply because they produce more food

than they need and they recognize that

their surplus food is needed to feed government magistrates.



If this is what Rousseau means, he is making the rather naive assumption that the quantity

of goods produced will remain fixed

regardless. History suggests that workers who have nothing to gain personally from

producing a surplus will be less diligent in

producing that surplus. Capitalism and consumerism have had such astonishing success (we

will leave aside the question of whether

this is for the better or worse) because everyone has the direct incentive of profit to

increase productivity. When no such

incentive exists, productivity tends to decline, and the surplus becomes smaller. Rousseau

lists a number of factors that

determine the size of a surplus, but does not seem to consider that productivity depends

heavily on how the goods are distributed.

Rather than discuss economics, Rousseau discusses climate, and the kinds of soil and people

found in different lands. Rousseau

concedes that there is obviously no direct correlation between what degree of latitude a

state occupies and the kind of government

it has, but he also interestingly asserts that the actual facts of the matter have little bearing

on the truth of his theory. Even

if the south were filled with democracies and the north with monarchies, his theory that

hotter climates tend to produce

monarchies would still hold: it would just mean that the other factors he discusses outweigh

the considerations of climate. This

bold assertion raises two questions: How, then, could his theory be proved wrong? And

what kind of theory is it? It would seem

that he considers this theory to be a self-evident truth. However, it is rather unsatisfying

that those of us who might dispute it

are given no grounds to raise an objection. His discussion of climate seems to be less like atheory and more like blind

dogmatism.

One might also think it odd that Rousseau claims that democracy thrives on a small surplus,

but monarchy relies on a large



surplus. If there are more magistrates in a democracy, there would be more mouths to feed

in government, and so a larger surplus

would be needed. However, in this case, Rousseau is quite astute, noting that the

determining factor is not the size of

government, but how efficiently goods are cycled through society. In an absolute monarchy,

the king consumes all the surplus, and

the people receive nothing in return. In a democracy, the people who work are the same

people who enjoy the benefits of the

surplus, so even if this surplus is small, they still do well.

Lastly, one might be puzzled by Rousseau's assertion that population growth is the best and

only means of determining good

government. Throughout the Social Contract, Rousseau goes on and on about the

importance of freedom and equality, and yet here he

suggests that prosperity as reflected in population growth is more important. We should

note, though, that he is talking about

what makes a good government, not what makes a happy society. In fact, he goes on

immediately afterward to point out that

government and sovereign are in constant conflict and will ultimately pull the state apart. If

the population is healthy and the

state is prosperous, the government in power is likely to remain happily in power whether it

ensures the freedom of its people or

not.


Summary

In order that sovereign power may maintain itself, it is important that all citizens meet in

periodic assemblies. This may seem

unrealistic, but Rousseau points out that in ancient times, even cities as large as Rome

managed the feat. If it seems unrealistic

today, that is because of the laziness of the people and not because of logistical difficulties.

Generally, a state should not be



larger than a single town, so assembling the citizens should not be difficult. In the unstable

case where several towns are

united, Rousseau suggests not having a fixed capital, but rotating the seat of government

and popular assembly from town to town.

Though there is no set period of time, Rousseau suggests that the more powerful the

government is, the more frequently all

citizens should assemble. In such assemblies, the lowliest citizen has as much of a voice as

the most powerful magistrate. As a

result, these assemblies are a danger to the government, and the government will often try

to dissuade the people from assembling.

When the citizens are too lazy or reticent to exercise their freedom the government may

succeed in undermining sovereign

authority.

Often, a population that does not want to assemble to exercise legislative power elect

representatives to do their work for them.

Rousseau remarks that a state begins to dissolve when the people value comfort over

freedom, and pay representatives and

mercenaries rather than serve the state themselves. Rousseau derisively speaks of "finance"

as the practice of letting one's

wallet replace one's duty as a citizen. Representation is a modern idea that evolved from

feudalism, and Rousseau re-asserts that

sovereignty cannot be represented.

Rousseau notes that the ancient Greeks were able to assemble regularly largely because

slaves did most of their work. In the

modern world, the people have enslaved themselves by electing representatives to exercise

their freedom for them.

Rousseau addresses the institution of government, claiming contrary to the assertion of

other theorists that government is not

instituted by means of a contract between people and magistrates. First, sovereign power

cannot modify itself like that. Second,



such a contract would be a particular act, and therefore not a sovereign act. Third, there

would be no higher power to ensure that

the contract is honored. The decision to institute a government is indeed an act of

sovereignty, but the act of assigning certain

magistrates is not. Rousseau explains that, momentarily, the sovereign becomes a

democracy--a government where every citizen is a

magistrate--and the decision to name certain magistrates is a particular act of government.

Once magistrates have been named, the

sovereign ceases to act like a government, and the government and sovereign become two

distinct bodies.

Thus, government is instituted not by contract, but by law, and magistrates are not rulers,

but officers. A regular assembly of

all the people is the best means of ensuring that the government never usurps sovereign

power. At every assembly, the people must

vote as to whether the present government and magistrates should be kept in power.

Commentary

The distinction between government and popular assemblies is absolutely crucial to

Rousseau's system. He has already remarked on

the friction between government and sovereign: the government that wields power will

naturally want to act on its own behalf, and

not on behalf of the people as a whole. While in a healthy, happy state, the government can

be more or less trusted, some sort of

check must exist to keep the government at bay.

This check is the exercise of popular sovereignty. From the beginning of the book, Rousseau

has spoken about the sovereign as the

expression of the general will and the true voice of the people, but only here does he stateexplicitly how the general will is to

make itself heard. There should be an agreed-upon period of time, written into the

constitution, where all citizens must gather



together in an assembly and voice their concerns collectively. During this time, government

is disbanded. After all, the

government as executive is meant to represent the people, and when all the people are

present, there is no need for

representation. One of the matters discussed at every assembly is the performance of the

government and whether it should be

allowed to continue. This allows the people collectively to place a check on the government,

preventing it from acting against

their interests.

Rousseau probably got this idea of checks and balances between executive and legislative

from Montesquieu, whose influence he

acknowledges at other points in The Social Contract. Montesquieu's idea of dividing

government into executive, legislative, and

judicial functions, and establishing a system of checks and balances between them, is most

famously put into practice in the

American constitution.

The demand that all citizens should participate in popular assemblies is unique to Rousseau

in the modern world. It is a very tall

order, but one that is essential, Rousseau believes, to maintaining a healthy state. He has

already stressed the importance of

liberty and equality, and with the idea of the popular assembly he stresses the importance

of fraternity. "Liberty, equality,

fraternity" was to be the motto of the ##French Revolution##, which drew a great deal of

inspiration from his ideas.

Naturally, it is in the government's best interests to discourage popular assemblies: without

them, the government's power is

almost unlimited. For this reason, Rousseau insists that it be written in law that the people

must assemble on a regular, periodic

basis. Though this law can combat the selfish designs of the government, it cannot combat

the laziness of the people itself. (We



need only look at the voter turnout in most modern democracies to have an idea of how

low the likelihood that every citizen would

show up to deliberate on matters of state in a large assembly.) The survival of the social

contract depends to a large extent on

the enthusiasm of the people with regard to this contract. Those who have no interest in

exercising their civil freedom are

guaranteed to lose it, according to Rousseau.

Looking at Rousseau's hated terms--"representation" and "finance"--will help us understand

what is lost when people do not

exercise popular sovereignty as a group. The first temptation, representation, undermines

Rousseau's concept of fraternity. The

general will can only be expressed by the people as a whole, and they cannot elect

representatives to express this will for them.

If the sovereign is represented it ceases to be the sovereign.

The temptation toward finance undermines Rousseau's concept of equality. If those with

enough money can buy their way out of

service to the state, the state itself can ultimately be bought. We might find something

similar in modern democracies, where

hefty campaign contributions from wealthy interest groups and politically biased journalism

can do a great deal to sway an

election.

When the people undermine equality and fraternity, liberty will not be able to stand alone.

If we recall, Rousseau believes that

people can find civil freedom only by entering into the social contract and exercising popular

sovereignty. If people try to buy

their way out of their duty to the state, they are essentially buying their enslavement. Theywill no longer have a voice in how

the state is run, and they will become the slaves of those in charge.

This claim might seem a bit outlandish: most of us who live in modern representative

democracies are not "slaves" to the



government. However, Rousseau would suggest that we lack the initiative and agency we

would have if we lived in a true republic.

In the modern world, we may lack a certain degree of agency from falling too much under

the sway of consumer culture. While

"representation" may not inhibit our freedom too much, we might say that "finance" has

enslaved us to an extent that Rousseau

could not have imagined.

Book IV, Chapters 1-4

Summary

Though the general will can be silenced or sold to the highest bidder in states that lack the

simplicity of peace, unity, and

equality, it can never be annihilated. The general will cannot be changed, but it can be

subordinated to other wills, notably the

particular wills of each individual citizen. Even when the will of all ceases to express the

general will, the general will

continues to exist, however little it is heeded.

Unanimity in popular decisions is a sign of a healthy state. That is a sign that the general will

is agreed upon by all. When

everyone is expressing only his own particular will, there are bound to be disagreements. In

a worst case scenario, unanimity

reappears when people vote in accordance with a tyrant either out of fear or flattery.

While the social contract itself must be agreed upon unanimously, and all who dissent from

it must be expelled from the state, all

other acts of sovereignty may be decided by a majority vote. In matters of great importance,

a vote should need something close to

unanimity in order to pass, and in unimportant administrative matters, only a majority of

one should be needed. Those who take the

losing side of a vote are not having their wills counteracted so much as they are found to be

mistaken in determining the general



will. When acting as a sovereign, people must not vote for what they personally desire but

for what they perceive to be the

general will.

Rousseau distinguishes between election by lot (choosing at random) and election by

choice. The former suits a democracy, where

the only fair method of determining who should bear the responsibility of office would be a

random one. Election by choice suits

aristocracy, since the government should be free to choose its own members. Generally

speaking, election by choice is better for

filling offices that require a certain degree of expertise (such as military offices), and

election by lot is better for filling

offices (such as political offices) that require only the common sense, justice, and integrity

that should be common to all

citizens.

Chapter 4 launches a lengthy discussion of the Roman comitia to show how a large city was

able to maintain the sovereignty of the

people for such a long time. There were three different popular assemblies. The comitia

curiata was made up of only the

inhabitants of the city, and not the wealthier citizens in the outlying countryside, and was

generally quite corrupt. The comitia

tribunata was an assembly of the people that excluded senators and wealthy patricians,

thus favoring the voice of the people. The

comitia centuriata was an assembly of all citizens, but the vote was weighted heavily in

favor of the wealthy. Rousseau

particularly admires this last comitia, and notes that, in spite of Rome's immense size, all the

people collectively exercised the

sovereign powers of enacting laws and electing officials, taking on some executive duties as

well.

Commentary



If we recall, the general will is the will that aims at the common good. As a result, the

general will continues to exist even if

it is totally disregarded. If we recall, Rousseau draws an important distinction between the

general will and the particular will

of each citizen. Insofar as Rousseau treats the sovereign as one collective individual, the

general will is the particular will of

this sovereign. Just as the particular will of each individual aims toward that individual's best

advantage, the general will aims

toward the best advantage of the sovereign, which is the common good.

In a healthy state, citizens see themselves as only a small part of this more important whole.

They recognize the general will and

they aim for it. In an unhealthy state, citizens lose their sense of civic duty, ignore the

general will, and pursue their own

interests instead. Even in an unhealthy state, the general will continues to exist so long as

the sovereign exists, but the

sovereign is in poor shape when no one looks out for its interests.

Decisions of the sovereign are made in the assembly by means of popular vote. When

citizens assemble to act as the sovereign, they

are expected to place their vote in accordance with what they believe the general will to be.

Thus, citizens are expected to vote

against their own private interests sometimes if they think that will benefit the state as a

whole. In a healthy state, these

votes will almost always be unanimous, because all citizens will be intimately aware of the

general will and will want nothing

more than to vote in accordance with it. If a citizen votes for a losing cause, this should not

reflect that his desires are

unpopular so much as it reflects that he was mistaken. If he, just like everyone else, votes in

accordance with what he believes

the general will to be, he will simply have made a mistake and thought that the general will

was other than what it is.



There are two related problems with this view. The first is how the citizens are meant to

know what the general will is. Suppose

the sovereign has to vote on whether Swiss cheese or cheddar should be the official cheese

of the state. Not only do most citizens

prefer cheddar, but for whatever reasons, cheddar cheese is closer to the common good

and so expresses the general will. However,

there is a very vocal and very powerful minority that supports the Swiss cheese movement.

This minority manages to persuade the

people that in fact most people prefer Swiss cheese and that it is in the common interest to

vote for Swiss cheese. Even

supporters of cheddar cheese will feel obliged to vote in favor of Swiss cheese if they feel

this is the expression of the general

will.

In Rousseau's system, people don't vote for what they want, but for what they think is best

for all. If they can be deceived into

thinking that an unpopular and unhealthy choice is in fact in the interests of all, they will be

duty-bound to vote for that

choice even if it is against their interests. Because citizens in the assembly are not meant to

voice personal interests, there is

no sure way of finding out that the unpopular choice is in fact unpopular. Rousseau provides

no criteria beyond honest intuition

for how citizens might determine what they think the general will is.

The second, related problem, has to do with distinguishing between the general will and the

will of all. In modern democracies,

elections voice the will of all: we add up what each person wants and we go with the most

popular choice. In a healthy republic,

the will of all and the general will are identical: everyone wants what is in the best interests

of the state. However, when

people's particular wills start taking precedence over the general will, there will be a great

disparity between the two. The



problem (which has been mentioned in the ##Commentary section for Book II, Chapters 1-

5## is that both the general will and the

will of all are determined by popular vote. If both are determined in the same way, how can

we distinguish between the two? There

seems to be no criteria for how we can look at the results of an election and determine

whether the general will was indeed

expressed or not. Thus, our nefarious Swiss cheese supporters can pass their law and there

will be no objective means of showing

that this vote did not express the general will.

Book IV, Chapters 5-9

Summary

In certain cases, Rousseau recommends the establishment of an additional body called the

"tribunate," whose business is to

maintain a steady balance between sovereign and government and between government

and people. It has no share in executive or

legislative power, and is outside the constitution. Its only purpose is to defend and ensure

the safety of the laws.

In rare cases, dictatorship may be necessary to save the state from collapse. The laws are

inflexible, and there may be

circumstances under which they must be suspended for the safety of all. A dictator does not

represent the people or the laws; he

acts in concert with the general will only to the extent that it is in the interests of all that the

state should not collapse.

Obviously dictatorship is volatile and can descend into tyranny, so dictators should only be

appointed for a short term.

The censor's office acts as the spokesman for public opinion. Public opinion is closely related

to public morality, which we have

seen is in turn closely related to the laws. The censorial office sustains the laws and public

morality by sustaining the

integrity of public opinion.



Rousseau's final topic for discussion is the controversial issue of civil religion. In early

societies, he suggests, the heads of

each state were the gods that that state worshipped, each state believing that its gods were

responsible for watching over its

people. Christianity changed things by preaching the existence of a spiritual kingdom that is

distinct from any earthly kingdom.

Worshipping the Christian God does not necessarily ally one with any particular state, and

people of all states may worship this

same God. As a result, church and state cease to be identical and a tension arises between

the two.

Rousseau distinguishes three different kinds of religion. First, there is the "religion of man,"

which is a personal religion,

linking the individual to God. Rousseau admires this kind of religion (and indeed professed

to practice it) but suggests that by

itself, it will hurt the state. A pure Christian is interested only in spiritual and other-worldly

blessings, and will happily

endure hardships in this life for the sake of heavenly rewards. A healthy state needs citizens

who will struggle and fight to make

the state strong and safe.

Second, there is the "religion of the citizen," which is the official religion of the state,

complete with dogmas and ceremonies.

This religion combines the interests of church and state, teaching patriotism and a pious

respect for the law. However, it also

corrupts religion, by replacing true, sincere worship with official, dogmatic ceremony. It also

breeds a violent intolerance of

other nations.

Third, there is the kind of religion that Rousseau associates with the Catholic church, among

others, which he condemns

forcefully. In trying to set up two competing sets of laws--one civil and one religious--it

creates all sorts of contradictions



that prevent the proper exercise of any kind of law.

Rousseau recommends a compromise between the first two kinds of religion. The sovereign,

as he has already stated, only has power

to determine matters that are of public concern. So long as it does not disturb the public

interest, the people are free to

worship whatever and however they please. However, all citizens should also pledge

allegiance to a civil religion with a very few

basic precepts: the existence of a God, the belief in an afterlife, justice for all, the sanctity of

the social contract and the

law, and the prohibition of intolerance, which should prevent friction between members of

different religions.

Commentary

When The Social Contract was first published, the book was condemned and its author

found himself a wanted man both in France and

in his home state of Geneva. The outrage the book caused arose almost entirely because of

the chapter on civil religion, which was

considered blasphemous by the religious authorities of the time. In advocating civil religion,

Rousseau advocates a worship of the

state that is contrary to the edicts of any form of Christianity.

The idea of civil religion, as Rousseau admits, is largely inspired by the cultures of antiquity.

Almost all ancient cultures have

a pantheon of gods and a mythology to explain the origin of their people. Their gods are

their parents and their protectors. All

people of a certain race or tribe share their gods in common, to the exclusion of all

outsiders. Thus, in ancient times, the

worship of these gods was a way of cementing the bonds and traditions that hold a peopletogether. Rousseau notes that this is

true even for the Jewish God of the Old Testament. He is frequently referred to as "the God

of Israel," and serves as a common

bond that unites the tribes of Israel.



Christianity is different in that it is an evangelical religion. As soon as the apostles began

converting gentiles, there ceased

to be any cultural or racial tie that connected all Christians. They do not find their common

heritage on earth, but after death

in the kingdom of heaven.

Rousseau acknowledges that there is no point in trying to replace Christianity with older,

tribal religions: Christianity has

arrived and has taken over. Trying to return to tribal religion would be like trying to return

to the state of nature.

Furthermore, Rousseau himself was a devout Christian, having been brought up in the

Calvinist state of Geneva and educated by

devout French Catholics. The question of religion was just one on which Rousseau disagreed

bitterly with the atheistic proponents

of the Enlightenment.

However much Rousseau respects the scriptures and the gospels, he has little patience for

much of the established religion of his

day. He was neither the first nor the last to accuse the Catholic church of superficiality and

an incompatible mixing of the

earthly and the heavenly kingdoms. Rousseau's Christianity was a personal one, more

closely allied to a love of nature than a

respect for the establishment. Personal faith of this kind is compatible with his political

philosophy because it does not

intersect at any point with the public life expected of all citizens. Church and state may

conflict, but private religion and

state should not. The sovereign is only interested in matters that are of public concern, and

one's private faith does not fall

under that umbrella.

Rousseau's idea of civil religion is essentially an attempt to return to the ancient idea of

cementing good citizenship in faith.



In Book II, Chapter 7, he suggests that lawgivers often invent supernatural origins for the

laws for a similar reason: if people

believe that the laws came from the gods, they will be less likely to violate them. His civil

religion is not very complicated. It

is not caught up in a great deal of dogma, and is just intended to ensure that the citizens

remain productive and obedient. Still,

during an age when religion has been effectively divorced from the state in most developed

countries, the attempt to bring them

back together might seem uncomfortable.

The notion of worshipping the state seems disturbingly totalitarian. Rousseau is careful to

make tolerance one of the precepts of

his civil religion, but such an action does not prevent an unreasoned subservience to the

state. In agreeing to the social

contract, citizens agree rationally to join together for the betterment of all. Yet in basing this

contract to some extent on

faith rather than on reason, we might argue that citizens sacrifice the rationality and civil

freedom that are the purpose for

forming the social contract in the first place.

On a historical note, during the ##French Revolution##, the state instituted national festivals

such as the "Festival of the

Supreme Being" that were largely inspired by Rousseau's discussion of civil religion.

Bibliography

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. Trans. Maurice Cranston. Harmondsworth,

England: Penguin Books, 1968.

Wokler, Robert. Rousseau. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains

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