The Social Contract
The Social Contract
NOTE: This Summary & Analysis section of this SparkNotes study
guide gives an overview of Rousseau's The Social Contract. There is
also a full SparkNotes study guide for this title that breaks down and
discusses The Social Contract in eleven Summary & Analysis
sections.
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,
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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 Leviathan ), 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
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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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