The Social Contract
Summary
Rousseau begins The Social Contract with the most famous words he ever
wrote: “Men are born free, yet everywhere are in chains.” From this provocative
opening, Rousseau goes on to describe the myriad ways in which the “chains” of
civil society suppress the natural birthright of man to physical freedom. He
states that the civil society does nothing to enforce the equality and
individual liberty that were promised to man when he entered into that society.
For Rousseau, the only legitimate political authority is the authority
consented to by all the people, who have agreed to such government by entering
into a social contract for the sake of their mutual preservation.
Rousseau describes the ideal form of this social contract and also
explains its philosophical underpinnings. To Rousseau, the collective grouping
of all people who by their consent enter into a civil society is called the
sovereign, and this sovereign may be thought of, metaphorically at least, as an
individual person with a unified will. This principle is important, for while
actual individuals may naturally hold different opinions and wants according to
their individual circumstances, the sovereign as a whole expresses the general
will of all the people. Rousseau defines this general will as the collective
need of all to provide for the common good of all.
For Rousseau, the most important function of the general will is to
inform the creation of the laws of the state. These laws, though codified by an
impartial, noncitizen “lawgiver,” must in their essence express the general
will. Accordingly, though all laws must uphold the rights of equality among
citizens and individual freedom, Rousseau states that their particulars can be
made according to local circumstances. Although laws owe their existence to the
general will of the sovereign, or the collective of all people, some form of
government is necessary to carry out the executive function of enforcing laws
and overseeing the day-to-day functioning of the state.
Rousseau writes that this government may take different forms, including
monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, according to the size and characteristics
of the state, and that all these forms carry different virtues and drawbacks.
He claims that monarchy is always the strongest, is particularly suitable to
hot climates, and may be necessary in all states in times of crisis. He claims
that aristocracy, or rule by the few, is most stable, however, and in most
states is the preferable form.
Rousseau acknowledges that the sovereign and the government will often
have a frictional relationship, as the government is sometimes liable to go
against the general will of the people. Rousseau states that to maintain
awareness of the general will, the sovereign must convene in regular, periodic
assemblies to determine the general will, at which point it is imperative that
individual citizens vote not according to their own personal interests but
according to their conception of the general will of all the people at that
moment. As such, in a healthy state, virtually all assembly votes should
approach unanimity, as the people will all recognize their common interests.
Furthermore, Rousseau explains, it is crucial that all the people exercise
their sovereignty by attending such assemblies, for whenever people stop doing
so, or elect representatives to do so in their place, their sovereignty is
lost. Foreseeing that the conflict between the sovereign and the government may
at times be contentious, Rousseau also advocates for the existence of a
tribunate, or court, to mediate in all conflicts between the sovereign and the
government or in conflicts between individual people.
Analysis
Rousseau’s central argument in The Social Contract is that government
attains its right to exist and to govern by “the consent of the governed.”
Today this may not seem too extreme an idea, but it was a radical position when
The Social Contract was published. Rousseau discusses numerous forms of
government that may not look very democratic to modern eyes, but his focus was
always on figuring out how to ensure that the general will of all the people
could be expressed as truly as possible in their government. He always aimed to
figure out how to make society as democratic as possible. At one point in The
Social Contract, Rousseau admiringly cites the example of the Roman republic’s
comitia to prove that even large states composed of many people can hold
assemblies of all their citizens.
Just as he did in his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau borrows ideas
from the most influential political philosophers of his day, though he often
comes to very different conclusions. For example, though his conception of
society as being akin to an individual person resonates with Hobbes’s
conception of the Leviathan (see chapter 7, Thomas Hobbes ), Rousseau’s
labeling of this metaphorical individual as the sovereign departs strongly from
Hobbes, whose own idea of the sovereign was of the central power that held
dominion over all the people. Rousseau, of course, believed the sovereign to be
the people and to always express their will. In his discussion of the
tribunate, or the court that mediates in disputes between governmental branches
or among people, Rousseau echoes ideas about government earlier expressed by
Locke. Both Locke’s and Rousseau’s discussions of these institutions influenced
the system of checks and balances enshrined in the founding documents of the
United States.
The Social Contract is one of the single most important declarations of
the natural rights of man in the history of Western political philosophy. It
introduced in new and powerful ways the notion of the “consent of the governed”
and the inalienable sovereignty of the people, as opposed to the sovereignty of
the state or its ruler(s). It has been acknowledged repeatedly as a
foundational text in the development of the modern principles of human rights
that underlie contemporary conceptions of democracy.
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