The Social Contract

Book 1 establishes the theoretical framework of Rousseau’s political philosophy. As such, this analysis section will focus largely on the terms and definitions the author uses, while later sections will explore and interrogate those ideas in a real-world context.

Rousseau’s iconic first line—“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains” (23)—is as appropriate a place as any to dive into the political philosophy he lays out in The Social Contract. Human freedom is Rousseau’s chief concern—namely, how to preserve it in an era when humankind must form interdependent societies to survive. These societies can only function when citizens are beholden to the rule of law, but obedience to the law, by standard definitions, constricts freedom. This is the central conundrum which Rousseau aims to reconcile with The Social Contract.

His method is multifaceted, and much of it operates on a semantic level. Crucial to his efforts are the distinctions he draws between various types of freedom. First, there is natural freedom, which is essentially the freedom to do and take whatever one wants. This is constrained only one’s physical and mental capabilities. Prior to the organization of humans into societies larger than families, this freedom was practical and necessary to survival. But as humans flourished and families joined with others to form larger groups, we became dependent on one another, and it became advantageous to share in the gathering and utilization of food, water, and shelter. In this paradigm, natural freedom was no longer as favorable to survival because the individual who takes whatever they want whenever they want it will quickly find themselves at odds with the community. In turn, a community of made up entirely of selfishly motivated individuals will fail to benefit from what a community can offer in the first place.

Enforcing the laws of a community requires authority. This is where political philosophers tend to diverge dramatically, as the different forms and manifestations of authority are virtually infinite. Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, writing in his 1532 treatise The Prince, takes a brutally pragmatic approach to the matter, conceiving that the preservation of an authority figure’s power is an end in and of itself, with little thought to the happiness and prosperity of those subject to this power. This paradigm is referred to using the shorthand “might makes right.” In the 1651 treatise Leviathan, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued that force alone does not lend legitimacy to authority. Instead, there must be a social contract between the ruler and the ruled, in which the people willingly give up all their rights to a sovereign—which, in Hobbes’s view, is best represented by a king—in return for tranquility within the state and protection from outside invaders.

Rousseau adopts much of Hobbes’s terminology, including “sovereign” or “sovereignty” to describe the ultimate authority in a state and “social contract” to describe the agreement between sovereignty and the people. But from there, his philosophy diverges dramatically. Back to the issue of freedom, Rousseau believes that to give up one’s freedom in return for safety from internal and external enemies is not a legitimate contract. He writes, “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties” (25). Here and elsewhere, Rousseau effectively conflates the slavery of living under a king to literal slavery, an institution which was expanding at alarming rates in the Americas during his time, especially in French colonies. This is a deeply problematic equation that will be revisited later in the text.

Yet the conundrum still stands. Whether an individual relinquishes some or all of their freedoms to authority, they lose liberty. Rousseau seeks to reconcile this through a concept he calls “the general will.” Broadly speaking, the general will is defined as the collective will of the members of the state. Instead of investing sovereignty in a king or a council, as Hobbes does, ultimate authority is invested in this collective will.

Theoretically, by obeying the laws dictated by the general will as part of the social contract between a sovereign and citizen, an individual submits only to their own will, which is the essence of freedom. Moreover, because the general will is informed by the collective needs of a community rather than each person’s individual appetites, this “civil liberty,” as Rousseau describes it, has a moral dimension, which is what truly sets humans apart from animals. He writes, “We might, over and above all this, add, to what man acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty” (29).

The concept of the general will is much clearer in theory than in practice. Moreover, there will be occasion in this guide to discuss how Rousseau’s ideas fit into a historical context, and how they were adopted—and corrupted to disastrous ends—by the most extreme factions of the French Revolution.