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'''The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right''' (1762) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is the book in which Rousseau theorised about social contracts.
Like John Locke, Rousseau believed that a government can only be legitimate if it has been sanctioned by the people, in the role of the sovereign. Rousseau claimed that a perfect society would be controlled by the "general will" of its populace. While he does not define exactly how this should be accomplished (as there are many possible ways, each suited to different situations), he suggests that assemblies be held in which the every citizen can assist in determining the general will. Without this input from the people, there can be no legitimate government. Importantly, this input cannot come from representatives, but must be from the people themselves.

THE Sovereign, having no force other than the legislative power, acts only by means of the laws; and the laws being solely the authentic acts of the general will, the Sovereign cannot act save when the people is assembled.^[2]

Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void — is, in fact, not a law.^[3]

''"The legislative power belongs to the people, and can belong to it alone"''^[4]
The Social Contract was a progressive work that helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. ''The Social Contract'' finally expelled the myth that the King was appointed by God to legislate; as Rousseau asserts, only the people, in the form of the sovereign, have that all powerful ''right''.
:''The heart of the idea of the social contract may be stated simply: Each of us places his person and authority under the supreme direction of the general will, and the group receives each individual as an indivisible part of the whole...''

Contents

Overview

Main concepts

Of the State of Nature

Of Wills

Of Direct Representation

Of Government

Of Religion

See also

References

External links

Overview

The stated aim of the Social Contract is to determine whether there can be a legitimate political authority. Mahatma Gandhi quoted from The Social Contract on numerous occasions during his speeches. ''Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains.''^[5] In order to accomplish more and remove himself from the state of nature, a man must enter into a Social Contract with others. In this social contract, everyone will be free because all forfeit the same amount of freedom and impose the same duties on all. Rousseau also argues that it is illogical for a man to surrender his freedom for slavery; and so, the participants must be free. Furthermore, although the contract imposes new law, especially on property, a person can exit it at any time (except in a time of need, for this is desertion), and is again as free as when he was born.
Rousseau posits that any administration, whatever form it takes, should be divided into two parts. First, there must be the sovereign (which could be the whole population if that is the majority's desire) who represents the general will and is the legislative power within the state. The second division is that of the government, being distinct from the sovereign. This division must be since the sovereign cannot deal with particular matters (it is then acting as particular wills and not the general will — the sovereign is no longer whole and therefore ruined), like applications of the law. Therefore a government must be separate from that of the sovereign body.
Rousseau claims that the size of the territory to be governed often decides the nature of the government. Since a government is only as strong as the people, and this strength is absolute, the larger the territory the more strength the government must be able to exert over the populace. In his view, a monarchal government is able to wield the most power over the people since it has to devote less power to itself, while a democracy the least. In general, the larger the bureaucracy, the more power required for government discipline. Normally, this relationship requires the state to be an aristocracy or monarchy. In light of all this, Rousseau seems to prefer a benevolent Tyrant over any other form of leadership (including a true democracy); however, he remains obscure on this point.

Main concepts

Of the State of Nature

Rousseau looks to the state of nature but not as a state of perpetual war like Hobbes suggested. Because, - as Rousseau claimed - ''...men living in their original state of independence do not have sufficiently constant relationships among themselves to bring about either a state of peace or a state of war.''^[6]. The state of nature is more like an unintelligent situation that all the humans must avoid being in. In this state there is no private property — in fact, the only property that is truly one's own, is property that can be taken from others or that no one else wants.
In this state of nature, strength rules, not by legitimacy, but by force itself. It is in this way that in a state of nature, man is only as free as he is strong; there is no protection from others, and might has no moral authority,^[7] Rousseau proposes to underwrite society with the only viable foundation: a social compact.^[8]
People enter into a Social Contract to empower themselves to thereby be able to accomplish more — with the help of others — than would be possible in a state of nature. The elementary point in this social contract though is legitimate leadership and freedom — freedom (and, for the first time, moral authority)^[9] to be the same as others (no special burden unique to one person) and the freedom to leave the social order and revert back to a state of nature. Freedom for Rousseau is living according to self-imposed code of ethics, as opposed to the slavery of barbarism.^[10]

Of Wills

One of the most important distinctions throughout the treatise is that of the separate wills of people (he calls ''sovereign'') and government (he calls the ''prince''^[11]).
For the people, there is the general will, the personal will, and the will of all. The general will desires what is best for the society as a whole, the personal will wants what is best for an individual, and the will of all is the summation of all personal wills — completely excluding the general will ''per se''. In government, there are three wills again: the general will, the corporate will, and personal will. The general will of the government is the same as those of the populace (as members of said populace make up the government), the corporate will desires the longevity of the government, and the personal will, as in the former case, is merely what people want for themselves.

Of Direct Representation

Rousseau explains the threat of bribery, especially in a despotic (monarchical) government:

It is difficult for one to whom the state has been sold not to sell it in his turn, and recover from the weak the gold which the strong have extorted from him. Sooner or later, under such an administration everything becomes venal; and the peace which is then enjoyed under kings is worse than the disturbances of interregnums.^[3]

such is the risk when the gap between the richest and poorest citizens is too large:

... [T]he greatest good of all, which ought to be the goal of every system of law, ... comes down to two main objects: ''freedom'' and ''equality'': freedom because any individual dependence means that much strength withdrawn from the body or the state, and equally because freedom cannot survive without it.
I have already explained what civil freedom is; as for equality, this word must not be taken to imply that degrees of power and wealth should be absolutely the same for all ... no citizen shall be rich enough to buy another and none so poor as to be forced to sell himself ...^[13]

which violates the fundamental covenant of the social contract, which, in turn, is built upon man's fundamental nature:

To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties. There is no ''quid pro quo'' for one who renounces everything ... if you take away all freedom of the will, you strip a man's actions of all moral significance.^[14]

This is completely contrary to how society, based on covenant, should work:

In a genuinely free state, the citizens do everything [to do with state business] with their own hands and nothing by means of money; far from paying for exemption from their duties, they would pay to discharge them in person. ... I believe that compulsory service is less contrary to liberty than taxation. The better the state is constituted, the more does public business take precedence over private in the minds of the citizens. ... In a well regulated nation, every man hastens to the assemblies; under a bad government, no one wants to take a step to go to them ...^[3]

because a good, representative sovereign will ''"Good laws lead men to make better ones; bad laws lead to worse."''^[16]

There is indeed much less private business, because the sum of public happiness furnishes a larger proportion of each individual's happiness, so there remains less for him to seek on his own. ... As soon as someone says of the business of state — 'What does it matter to me' — then the state must be reckoned lost.^[17]

and it is important to remember the philosophical underpinnings of Rousseau's covenant:

Sovereignty cannot be represented, for the same reason that it cannot be alienated; its essence is the general will or it is something else ... Thus the people's deputies are not, and could not be, its representatives; they are merely its agents; they cannot decide anything finally. Any law which the people have not ratified in person is void; it is not a law at all.^[17]

Of Government

Every free action has two causes which concur to produce it, one moral — the will which determines the act, the other physical — the strength which executes it. [...] The body politic has the same two motive powers — and we can make the same distinction between will and strength, the former is ''legislative'' power and the latter is ''executive'' power.^[19]

The quintessential form of this Social Contract would be a democracy; however, unless, as Rousseau states, the population is one of Gods, this true democracy is impossible and, therefore, the state must be either an aristocracy or a monarchy, or a mixture of any of the three. The only duty of the sovereign is the embodiment of the general will, and when the general will fails to dictate the laws of the society, the sovereign has failed. To protect themselves from this, the people should have an active role in the government election of officials and the passage of laws and must not pass their rights off to representatives. As an example of this, Rousseau gives ancient Rome with a monarch and the three lawfully convened assemblies known as comitia. Through these assemblies all citizens were represented; however, the emperor had much power in each. As for the discussion and voting in assemblies, people should vote not according to their personal interests but according to the general will. If the executive (government) goes against the general will, it breaks the social contract and should be dissolved. Rousseau furthers this idea and suggests that the sovereign, like those in Rome, should legislate clear times for assemblies to be held which cannot be postponed by the leader(s) of the state. This safeguards the people from a government that is acting not for the general will, but for its own, corporate will by trying to extend beyond its constitutional power and act only directly in the interests of the administration.
Rousseau adds a caveat: in times that require a swiftness which a bureaucracy cannot attain, it is important to act quickly and in one of two ways: appoint one or two magistrates to act as the government, or place one man above the law — a dictator. Both are only temporary solutions and as soon as the danger that catalyzed the change in government abates, the officials must abdicate their position. This is in keeping with the general will because the safety of the state is its foremost concern and the suspension of laws and due process is sometimes, albeit rarely, the only method to ensure this.

Of Religion

Rousseau separates religion into two categories: religion of the man, and religion of the citizen. Religion of the man requires only an inner belief in a supreme being; the religion of the citizen, however, requires dogmas, rituals, and external forms of worship; and views other religions as alien and backward.
Rousseau continues and adds that there is a curious, third form, that "one might call the religion of the priest." (Rousseau, 1762) This form bestows upon men two rulers, two motherlands, and two legislators, thus, placing the citizens in a paradox. Due to the inherent contradiction between church and state in this form of religion Rousseau declares it to be fatal to social unity and therefore utterly useless. He considers the religion of the Lamas, the Japanese, and that of the Catholic Christianity to be such religions. Due to their innate flaw, he does not expound further on this form, but focuses only on the first two.
The second form of religion is excellent for the state as it binds men to it via a divine being. Therefore, obeying the laws of the sovereign is, by proxy, obeying the laws of God. Similarly, dying for the state is, by proxy, viewed as dying for God, et cetera. In this case, the government is also the clergy. (This is not the same as the clergy being the government.) This form of religion does have its downsides, though, in that it deceives men and thereby makes them "credulous superstitious". Furthermore, this form of religion breeds intolerance and propagates bloodthirstiness because the citizens believe it a holy task to kill those that believe in other deities.
The first form of religion is more or less inert. It does not place men at odds with one another, but it also does not unite.
According to Rousseau, the dogmas of a "civil religion" must be simple and small in number. He gives as examples of positive dogmas: "the existence of an omnipotent, intelligent, benevolent being that provides and foresees; the life to come; the happiness of the just; the punishment of sinners; the sanctity of the social contract and the law;" et cetera. The only negative dogma Rousseau allows is for no intolerance. "Intolerance is something which belongs to the religions we have rejected."
The most important idea stemming from this chapter is the separation of church and state. According to Rousseau, when the church becomes the government, the sovereign is no longer sovereign. Intolerance leads directly to this consequence. Due to this, there must be no national religion, but rather all faiths should be embraced, with one exception: religious dogma that forces people to be bad citizens — this must not be tolerated.
Interestingly, although Rousseau proves slavery unjust, he also posits that it may be the only way for a society to be free. In other words, in order to be free yourself, you must enslave another lest you both be slaves to someone else.

See also

★ Social contract; the more general concept

References

1. R.A. Leigh, Unsolved Problems in the Bibliography of J.-J. Rousseau, Cambridge, 1990, plate 22.
2. The Social Contract, Book III, Chapter 12:How the Sovereign Authority Maintains Itself.
3. The Social Contract, Book III, Chapter 15:Deputies or Representatives.
4. The Social Contract, Book III, Chapter 1:Government in General.
5. The Social Contract, Book I, Chapter 1:The subject of Book I
6. The Social Contract, Book I, Chapter 4:Slavery
7.

To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will; it is at best an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a moral duty ... once might is made to be right, cause and effect are reversed, and every force which overcomes another force inherits the right which belonged to the vanquished. As soon as man can obey with impunity, his disobedience becomes legitimate; and the strongest is always right, the only problem is how to become the strongest. But what can be the validity of a right which perishes with the force on which it rests? If force compels obedience, there is no need to invoke duty to obey, and if force ceases to compel obedience, there is no longer any obligation. Thus the word 'right' adds nothing to what is said by 'force'; it is meaningless. 'Obey those in power.' If this means 'yield to force' the precept is sound, but superfluous; it will never, I suggest, be violated. ... If I am held up by a robber at the edge of a wood, force compels me to hand over my purse. But if I could somehow contrive to keep the purse from him, would I still be obliged in conscience to surrender it? After all, the pistol in the robber's hand is undoubtedly a power.

The Social Contract, Book I, Chapter 3:The Right of the Strongest
8.

Since no man has any natural authority over his fellows, and since force alone bestows no right, all legitimate authority among men must be based on covenants.
The Social Contract, Book I, Chapter 4:Slavery
9.

The Passing from the state of nature to the civil society produces a remarkable change in man; it puts justice as a rule of conduct in the place of instinct, and fives his actions the moral quality they previously lacked.

The Social Contract, Book I, Chapter 8:Civil Society
10.

We might also add that man acquires with civil society, moral freedom, which alone makes the man master of himself; for to be governed by appetite alone is slavery, while obedience to a law one prescribes to oneself is freedom.

Ibidem.
11.

The best kings want to be able to be bad if they feel like it without ceasing to be masters; a political sermonizer may well tell kings that since the people's force is the king's force, a king's best interest is to have the people flourishing, numerous and formidable; but kings know very well that this is not true. Their personal interest is primarily that the people should be weak, wretched and never able to resist them.

The Social Contract, Book III, Chapter 6:Monarchy
12. The Social Contract, Book III, Chapter 15:Deputies or Representatives.
13. The Social Contract, Book II, Chapter 11:Various Systems of Law.
14. The Social Contract, Book I, Chapter 4:Slavery.
15. The Social Contract, Book III, Chapter 15:Deputies or Representatives.
16. Ibidem.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. The Social Contract, Book III, Chapter 1:Of Government in General

External links

★ The Social Contract at constitution.org

★ Catholic Encyclopedia Critical article

★ GradeSaver® summary and criticisms on ''The Social Contract''

★ SparkNotes® entry on ''The Social Contract''