Rousseau's Social Contract

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In this lesson from a TEACHER, we offer you a analysis of ANDl social contract from Rousseau is an excerpt from a more extensive work and that the Enlightenment philosopher title, The social contract or principles of political lawor (1762). Finally, the author did not complete it and therefore, at the beginning of the book the author warns: “This little treatise has been taken from a larger work, begun without my having consulted my strength and abandoned after some time. Of the various fragments that could be extracted from it, this is the most considerable, and the one that has seemed to me the least unworthy of being offered to the public. The rest has disappeared”. If you want to know more about this work, decisive in the history of political thought, continue reading this lesson.

Index

1. The concept of society in Rousseau's social contract
2. The perfect government in the social contract
3. Democracy in the social contract

We begin by analyzing the concept of society in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and that will cover in the first two books. For the author, society is a bad thing in itself by promoting inequality between human beings and having brought them out of their perfect state of nature, a primordial state in which goodness reigned and the human being was not divided between nature and culture. Society corrupts people, but Rousseau trusts in the natural goodness of the human being and affirms that perversion does not It is something inherent to the individual, but it resides in governments, which cause a bad relationship between the individual and the society.

Rousseau is optimistic in stating that reconciliation between nature and culture is possible, that it is possible regain freedom and equality lost, if the relationship between human beings and society is changed, if a form of government is established that defends individual freedoms.

“Find a form of association that defends and protects with all the common force provided by the person and property of each associated, and by which each one, uniting himself to all the others, obeys only himself, and therefore remains as free as before”.

Asocial contract founded on the alienation of individual freedoms, so that all lost rights are recovered, is the solution proposed by Rousseau. A) Yes, the individual gives himself to all and to none, and the rights that are gained are the same as those that are lost, and it is easier to keep the same. This contract would be the expression of the popular will, which the philosopher distinguishes from the will of all. It is not a question of the sum of all the wills that are directed to the self-interest only, but of not a more just will guided by the common interest, and of this general will it emanates all the authority of the State, and it is also what legitimizes it.

“Equality in wealth must consist in the fact that no citizen is so opulent that he can buy from another, and no one so poor that he is forced to sell himself ”.

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Thanks to the general will, the sovereign's power emanates from the people. And in this sense, Rousseau is going to defend a type of sovereignty absolute, since it has no other limit than itself and does not depend on more authority than itself. It is also, inalienable, since he cannot renounce the expression of his will. And finally, it is indivisible, because he belongs to each and every one of the members of society.

The people are both subject and sovereign, and therefore, he has to obey the law, since it is the same people who have determined them. Freedom, in this case, coincides with respect for the laws of the State, which are nothing more than the expression of the general will in the exercise of their freedom. The legislator will be, in Rousseau's words, like “the mechanic who invents the machine”.

In the later books, Rousseau offers a definition of government, whom he considers a

“Intermediary body established between subjects and the sovereign for the mutual communication of him, who is responsible for the execution of the laws and the maintenance of both civil and political freedom”.

The sovereign has the executive power, since the people have delegated to him, and in the same way, they can end his mandate.

To finish this analysis of Rousseau's The Social Contract, we will now talk about the philosopher's commitment to democracy as a form of government, especially if it is a question of small states, and he maintains that the magistrates must be the ones who propose the laws to the people. But it seems that the philosopher only considers democracy acceptable in some cases. The ideal government will depend on the country and the general will of its inhabitants.

“If there were a nation of gods, they would be governed democratically; but such a perfect government is not suitable for men ”.

The ideas expounded by Rousseau in the social contract were of great influence on moral and political philosophy, and have survived to this day. Kant or Fichte, They are an example of the repercussion of the Genevan philosopher in the history of political thought, although he also has detractors, having also earned great enemies throughout his lifetime.

In fact, the motto of the French Revolution “Equality, Liberty, Fraternity ”, is inspired by Rousseau. It is also possible to find the influence of Rousseau in the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

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Rousseau, J. J. The Social Contract. 1762. Ed. Espasa. 2012