Narveson, Classics of Political Philosophy . . . . 1

Rousseau: The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Excerpts from the translation by Judith Masters(St.Martin’s Press, New York) - with considerable modification by JN. Excerpts are not necessarily continuous - omissions are not generally indicated.

Bk. I1: Subject of the First Book

Man was, and is, born free; yet everywhere he is in chains. One who believes himself master of others is nonetheless a greater slave than they. How did this change occur? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? I believe I can answer that.

As soon as a people can shake off the yoke im-posed by force, it does even better than if it continues to obey. Yet the social order is a sacred right that serves as a basis for all the others. However, this right does not come from nature; it is therefore based on conventions. The problem is to know what these are.

2: The First SocietiesThe family is the most ancient of all societies,and the only

natural one. Yet children remain bound to their father only as long as they need him for self-preservation; when that ceases, the natural bond dissolves. All then return to independence, and if they remain united, it is voluntary, and maintained only by convention.

This is a consequence of man’s nature, for his first law is to attend to his own preservation. The family, then, is the prototype of political societies. The leader is like the father, the people are like the children. Yet all are born equal and free; they only alienate that freedom for their utility. The difference is that the father loves his children, who reward him for his care; but in the State, the pleasure of commanding substitutes for love.

Aristotle said that some men are born for slavery, others for domination. He was right, but not the way he thought. Men born in slavery are born for slavery, indeed: Slaves lose everything in their chains - even the desire to be rid of them. Force makes the first slaves; cowardice perpetuates them in it.

3: On the Right of the StrongestNo one is strong enough to be master forever, unless he

transforms his force into right, obedience into duty. Force is only physical power, not moral power. Yielding to it is at most an act of prudence. In what sense could it be a duty? Nothing but confusion can come from supposing that force makes right, for as soon as one can disobey, one legitimately does so: if the strongest is always right, the only thing to do is make oneself the strongest. But what is a right that perishes when force ceases?

Might, then, does not make right. Only legitimate power obligates. So we still need to understand that.

4: SlaveryNo man has natural authority over his fellows; thus there

remain only conventions as the basis of legiti-mate authority among men. Couldn’t we alienate ourselves, though? One who makes himself another’s slave does not give himself, he sells himself, at the least for his subsistence. Why does a people sell itself?

To say that a man gives himself gratuitously is to say something absurd and inconceivable. Such an act is illegitimate and null, and he who does so is not in his right mind. To say that a whole people does this is to suppose a race of madmen. And madness does not make right.

In any case, nobody can alienate anybody except himself; his children are born free. The process would have to be repeated in every case, then.

Grotius derives the alleged right from war: the victor has the right to kill the vanquished, but the latter can buy back his life, at the cost of his freedom - which is profitable for both of them.

But this alleged right to kill in no way results from the state of war. Men are not naturally enemies, if only because in their original independence they do not have sufficiently stable relationships to constitute either the state of peace or of war. War is not a relation between man and man, but between State and State. There private individuals are enemies only by accident, not as men or even as citizen, but as soldiers - not as members of the homeland, but only as its defenders. And they can be killed only while armed and acting as defenders; once they lay down their arms and cease to be soldiers, they become simply men again, and no one has any longer a right to their lives. War confers no right that is not necessary to its end.

The supposed right of conquest can have no basis other than the law of the strongest. If war does not give the victor the right to massacre vanquished peoples, this right cannot establish the right to enslave them. Indeed, one has the right to kill the enemy only when one cannot enslave him; so the right to enslave him cannot come from the right to kill him. Thus exchanging liberty for life is an iniquitous exchange. The right of life and death derives from slavery, yet that of slavery comes from that over life and death. Clearly, this is a vicious circle.

5: A First Convention is Always NecessaryThere will always be a great difference between subjugating

a multitude and governing a society. In the former case, we have master and slaves, not a people and a leader - an aggregation, not an association. The man who enslaves them, in turn, is not a true leader, but a mere private individual.

Grotius observes that a people can give itself a king, which implies that it is a people before it does so. Thus before we

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consider the act by which it elects a king, we should consider the act by which it becomes a people. For that act must be the true basis of society. And in the absence of such a convention, what basis could there be for the minority to submit to the choice of the majority? How do a hundred who want a master get to vote for ten who do not? The law of majority is itself a convention, and presupposes that there be unanimity at least once.

6: On the Social CompactI take it that people turn to the state when the problems of

self-preservation in an independent condition become insurmountable.

Yet they cannot engender new forces for this purpose: they can only redirect their existing resources: in particular, they can unite these forces, by cooperation. But since each man’s force and freedom are his primary instruments of self-preservation, how is he to engage them without harming himself? The problem is this: “to find a form of association that defends and protects each associate with the common force, and by means of which each one, though uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself -- and remains, therefore, as free as before.” This is the fundamental problem solved by the social contract.

All of the clauses in this compact come down to a single one: the total alienation of each associate, with all his rights, to the whole community. Since each gives his entire self, the condition is equal for everyone; and since it is equal, no one has an interest in making it burdensome for others.

Moreover, since the alienation is complete, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything further to claim. For if some rights were left to private individuals, there would be no common superior who could judge between them and the public. Each being his own judge on some point would soon claim to be so on all; the state of nature would subsist, and the association necessarily become tyrannical or ineffectual.

Finally, since each gives himself to all, he gives himself to no single one; and since there is no associate over whom one does not acquire the same right one grants him over oneself, one gains the equivalent of everything one loses, and more force to preserve what one has.

The social compact, in fact, reduces to this: that Each puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in a body we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.

This act produces a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as there are voices in the assembly - a public person, taking the name of Republic or body politic or State when passive, Sovereign when active; and the associates take the name people collectively, and Citizen as individual participants subject to the laws of the State.

7: On the SovereignThis act of association includes a reciprocal engagement

between the public and private individuals: each individual is doubly engaged, toward private individuals as a member of the sovereign, and toward the sovereign as a member of the State.

Note that public deliberation can obligate the subjects to the sovereign, but the opposite cannot happen: the sovereign itself cannot in any way be obligated. Just as a private individual cannot obligate himself toward himself -- for his decision to change would definitively destroy the obligation -- so the sovereign cannot bind itself. Of course it can enter into an engagement with other sovereigns.

Nor can it do anything to violate the original act by which it exists, e.g. by alienating some part of itself or subjecting itself to another sovereign. That would be for it to destroy itself.

Once united, one cannot harm any member without attacking the whole body, nor of course harm the body without the members feeling the effects. So duty and interest equally obligate the contracting parties to mutual assistance.

The sovereign, formed in this manner, cannot have any interest contrary to those who formed it; thus it has no need of a guarantee toward the subject, for it is impossible for the body ever to want to harm its members, and to harm any is to harm all.

But each individual has a private will, which can be contrary to his will as a citizen. This private interest can indeed speak quite differently from the common interest. One’s absolute and naturally independent existence can easily make us suppose that what we owe the common cause is a free contribution, loss of which will harm others less than it costs us. And considering the moral person of the State as imaginary, since it is not a concrete person, we might wish to enjoy the rights of the citizen without fulfilling our duties as a subject - an injustice whose spread would cause the ruin of the body politic.

Therefore, the social compact tacitly includes the following engagement: that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the entire body: that citizen will be forced to be free. For this is the condition that guarantees him against all personal dependence and alone gives legitimacy to civil engagements which without it would be absurd, tyrannical, and subject to the most enormous abuses.

8: On the Civil StateThis passage, from the state of nature to the civil state,

produces a remarkable change in us, by substituting justice for instinct and giving our actions the morality they previously lacked. Only then, when the voice of duty replaces physical impulse and right replaces appetite, do we, who until then considered only ourselves, find ourselves forced to act upon other principles and to consult reason before heeding inclination. And though we lose several advantages given by nature, yet we gain such great ones, our faculties are exercised and developed, our ideas broadened, our feelings ennobled, and our whole soul elevated to such a point that if the abuses of this new condition did not often degrade us beneath the condition we left, we ought ceaselessly to bless the happy moment that tore us away from it forever, and changes us from stupid, limited animals into intelligent beings -- into true persons, in fact.

Let’s tot it up, then. What we lose is our natural freedom and an unlimited right to everything we can get. What we gain is civil freedom and the proprietorship of all that we possess. We must here distinguish natural freedom, which is limited by the

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force of the individual, and civil freedom, which is limited only by the general will; and between mere possession, the effect of force or the right of first occupant, and property, which can only be based on a positive title.

To the foregoing acquisitions of the civil state let us add moral freedom, by which alone we are truly masters of ourselves. For the impulse of appetite alone is slavery, while obedience to the law that one has prescribed for oneself is freedom.

9. On Real EstateAt the moment of the formation of the community, each

gives himself as he is, including all the goods one may possess. Now, since the force of the City is incomparably greater than that of any private individual, public possession is by that fact stronger - but without being more legitimate, at least as far as foreigners are concerned. For the State is master of all goods through the social contract, the basis of all rights. But with regard to other powers, it is master only through the right of the first occupant, which it derives from its private individuals.

Now, the right of the first occupant, although more real than that of the strongest, becomes a true right only after the establishment of the right of property. Every person naturally has a right to everything he needs; but the positive act that makes him the proprietor of some good excludes from all the rest. Once his portion is designated, he should limit himself to it, and no longer has any right to the community’s goods. That is why the right of the first occupant, so weak in the state of nature, is respectable to every civilized man. In this right, one does not so much respect what belongs to others, as what does not belong to oneself.

Indeed, by granting the right of the first occupant to need and labor, hasn’t it been extended as far as possible? Is it impossible to establish limits to this right? Will setting foot on a piece of common ground be sufficient to claim on the spot to be its master? Will having, for a moment, the force to disperse others be sufficient to take away forever their right to return? How can a man or a people seize an immense territory and deprive the whole human race of it except through punishable usurpation - since this act takes away from the remainder the dwelling place and foods that nature gives them in common?

It is understandable how the combined lands of private individuals become public territory, and the right of sovereignty extended from the subjects to the ground they occupy as well. By holding the land, kings are quite sure to hold its inhabitants.

Yet far from plundering private individuals of their goods, the community thereby only assures them of legitimate possession, changes usurpation into true right, and use into property. Now the possessors are considered as trustees of the public goods, and their rights are respected by all and maintained with its force against foreigners - a transfer that is advantageous not only to the public but even more so to themselves, for they have, we might say, acquired all they have given.

Or it might be that people started to unite before possessing anything, and then, subsequently taking it over, use it in common or divide it among themselves, equally or according to proportions established by the sovereign. However it is done, the

right of each private individual to his own resources is always subordinate to the community’s right to all, without which there would be neither solidity in the social bond nor real force in the exercise of sovereignty.

A final comment: rather than destroying natural equality, the fundamental compact substitutes a moral and legitimate equality for whatever physical inequality nature may have placed among us: while we may be unequal in force or genius, we all become equal through convention and by right.

[A footnote by Rousseau: “Under bad governments, this equality is illusory, serving to maintain the poor in his misery and the rich in their usurpation. In fact, laws are always useful to those who have and harmful to those who have not. The social state, therefore, is only advantageous to men insofar as they all have something, and none of them has anything superfluous.” (JN’s italics)]

Bk II1. Sovereignty is inalienable [omitted]2. Sovereignty is indivisible. Our political theorists, unable to divide the principle of

sovereignty, divide it in its object: into legislate and executive power, rights of taxation, justice and war, internal administration and foreign office. Sometimes they mix these parts together, sometimes they separate them. In any case they turn the sovereign into a fantastic body formed of bits and pieces - as though they had constructed a man out of several bodies, one with only eyes, another only arms, and so on. And after taking it apart, they put the social body back together in some mysterious way.

What they do mistakes mere emanations from that author for parts of it. In fact, when we look at such divisions, we see that the rights mistaken for parts of sovereignty are always subordinate to it and presup-pose supreme wills which these rights only execute.

3. Can the General Will Err?Plainly it cannot.. But the people’s deliberations will not

always have the same rectitude. The people, though never corrupted, is often fooled, and then appears to want what is bad.

We must not confuse the will of all and the general will. Only the latter considers the common interest; the former consider private interests, and is only a sum of private wills. Take away the pluses and minuses that cancel each other out, though, and the remaining sum of differences is the general will.

What defeats this process is factions, partial associations at the expense of the whole: the will of each such association is general with reference to its own members, but particular in relation to the State. Then there are no longer as many voters as people, but rather as many as there are associations. The differences then become less numerous and produce a result that is less general; and if one is so big as to prevail over the others, there is no longer a general will, but merely a private opinion.

To prevent this, there must be no partial society in the State, so that each citizen gives only his own opinion. Such precautions

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are necessary to see to it that the general will is always enlightened, and the people not deceived.

4. The Limits of Sovereign PowerThough you may suppose I have said otherwise, we have to

make a clear distinction between the respective rights of the citizens and the sovereign. It is agreed that each person alienates through the social compact only that part of his power, goods, and freedom whose use matters to the community -- though it is also agreed that the sovereign alone is the judge of what matters.

The citizen indeed owes the State all the services he can render as soon as the sovereign requests them. But the sovereign, for its part, cannot impose on the subjects any burden that is useless to the community. For under the law of reason, nothing may be done without a cause.

The engagements that bind us to the social body are obligatory only because they are mutual, and their nature is such that in fulfilling them one cannot work for someone else without also working for oneself. Why is the general will always right, and why do we all want the happiness of each, if not because we all apply this word ‘each’ to ourselves, and think of ourselves as we vote for all. Which proves that the equality of right, and the concept of justice it produces, are derived from each man’s preference for himself and consequently from the nature of man...

We have to understand the the sovereign, the general will, can only consider what is general. There can be no decision of that will regarding any particular person or fact. What generalizes that will is not so much the number of votes as the common interest that unites them, for it is only this institution to which everyone necessarily subjects himself, for only here do justice and interest conspire to confer on common deliberations that quality of equity that vanishes as soon as private matters are under considerations.

Every authentic act of the general will obligates all citizens equally: the sovereign only knows the nation as a body, and makes no distinctions among those who compose it. Once we understand these distinctions, we see why the social contract involves no genuine renunciation of our private situations: for people have only exchanged an uncertain, precarious mode of existence for another that is better and safer: natural independence for true freedom, the power to harm others for personal safety, their personal force, which others could always overcome, for the invincible right of the social union. True, everyone must fight, if need be, for the homeland - yet they do not have to fight for themselves. Do we not gain by risking, for something that gives us security, a part of what we would have to risk anyway as soon as that security was taken away?

Book III

4. On Democracy

It might seem that no one knows better how to execute and interpret the law than the one who makes it. Yet this very thing makes a government inadequate. It is no good when the one who makes the laws also executes them, which involves turning away from general considerations to particular objects. Abuse of the laws by the government is a lesser evil than the corruption of the legislators themselves, but that is the inevitable consequence when private interests are allowed to influence public affairs.

Strictly speaking, a true democracy has never existed and never will. It is contrary to the natural order that the majority govern and the minority be governed. It is unimaginable that the people should remain constantly assembled to attend to all the affairs of the public. Think what it would take - a very tiny State where the people are easily assembled, and each knows all the others, great simplicity of customs, to prevent thorny discussions, great equality of rank and fortune, and little or no luxury - since wealth corrupts both rich and poor.

That is why a famous author names virtue as the principle of a republic. For all these conditions cannot subsist without it.

Let’s note too that there is no government so subject to civil wars and internal agitation as the democratic, for none tends so strongly and constantly to change its form, nor demands more vigilance and courage to be maintained in its true form.

If there were a people of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. Such a perfect government, though, is not suited to mere men.

9. The Signs of a Good GovernmentWhat is the end of political association? The preservation

and prosperity of its members. And what is the surest sign that they are preserved and prosper? It is their number. All things equal, the government under which, without external aid, immigration, or colonies, the citizens multiply the most is the best. One under which they diminish is the worst.

15. On RepresentativesAs soon as public service ceases to be the main business of

the citizen, the State is close to ruin. Is it necessary to march to battle? They pay troops and stay home. To attend the council? They name a deputy and stay home. Laziness and wealth conspire to create a condition in which soldiers enslave the country and representatives sell it.

The better constituted the State, the more public affairs dominate private ones in the minds of the citizens. There is even less private business, for the sum of happiness furnishes a larger portion of each individual’s happiness, so the individual seeks less through private efforts. In a well-run City, everyone rushes to the assembly; under a bad one, no one like to take even a step there, for no one takes an interest in what is done there - it is predictable that the general will won’t predominate, and anyway, domestic concerns absorb everything.

As soon as someone says “What do I care?”, the State should be considered lost.

Sovereignty cannot be represented for the same reason it cannot be alienated. For it consists essentially in the general will, and that cannot be represented. The deputies of the people,

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therefore, cannot be its representatives; they are merely its agents. They cannot conclude anything definitely. Any laws that the people in person has not ratified is null, is not a law. The English people thinks itself free. It is deceived: it is so only during the election of the members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, the English people are slaves again. When you consider the use made of those brief moments of freedom, the people there certainly deserve to lose it!

Since the law is only the declaration of the general will, the people cannot be represented in the legislat-ive power. But it can and should be in the executive power, which is only force as applied to law.

You, modern people, have no slaves - but you are slaves. The instant a people chooses representatives, it is no longer free, it no longer exists.

All things considered, the sovereign cannot preserve the exercise of its rights among us unless the City is very small.

Bk. IV

2. On VotingThe more harmony there is in the assemblies, that is, the

closer opinions come to unanimity, the more dominant is the general will. Dissension and debate indicates the ascendance of private interests - and the decline of the State.

Only one law requires unanimous consent: the Social Contract. Apart from that primitive contract, the vote of the majority always obligates all the others. The citizen consents to all the laws, even those passed against his will.

This presupposes, it is true, that all of the characteristics of the general will are still in the majority. When that ceases, there is no longer any freedom, no matter which side one takes. ...

8. On Civil ReligionMan had at first no other kings than the Gods nor any other

government than theocracy. ... it followed that there were as many Gods as there were peoples ... Thus under paganism, there were no wars of religion: each State made no distinction between its Gods and its laws, so political war was also theological. ... Of course, since each religion was uniquely attached to the laws of its State, the only way to convert a people was to subjugate it.

Then along came Christ, to establish a spiritual kingdom on earth. This brought an end to the unity of the State, and caused those internal divisions that have never ceased to stir up Christian peoples. Of course the pagans didn’t understand this, and regarded the Christians as rebels who, beneath a hypocritical submissiveness, were just waiting to become the masters, adroitly usurping the authority they pretended to respect out of weakness. And the pagans were right - the humble Christians changed their language and soon this supposedly otherworldly kingdom became, under a visible leader, the most violent despotism in the world. Meanwhile, though, the State had to continue, and so a double power resulted, leading to a perpetual conflict of jurisdiction that has made any good polity impossible in Christian States: whom were the people to obey - the master or the priest?

Only Hobbes, of all Christian authors, saw the evil and proposed the remedy - reunification of the two heads of the eagle and a complete return to political unity. But he failed to see that the dominating spirit of Christianity was incompatible with his system, and that the interest of the priest would always be stronger than that of the State.

There are two types of religion: that of man and that of the citizen. The former, with no temples, altars, or rituals, is the pure and simple religion of the Gospel. The latter, necessarily inscribed in a single country, has dogma, rites, and external cult prescribed by laws. This makes the homeland the object of the citizens’ prayers - and a kind of theocracy, in which the prince is the pontiff, its magistrates the priests. Dying for one’s country is martyrdom, violating the laws impiety.

But this religion, being based on error and falsehood, deceives men, making them credulous and superstitious. And it becomes exclusive and tyrannical and makes a people bloodthirsty and intolerant to the point where its people live only for murder and massacre, believing it performs a holy act when killing whoever does not accept its Gods.

Now, as to the religion of man, Christianity - I know of nothing more contrary to the social spirit. The Christian’s homeland is not of this world. He does his duty, with profound indifference for the good or bad outcome of his efforts. If the State is flourishing, he barely dares to enjoy the public felicity, for fear of becoming proud of his country’s glory; If the State declines, he blesses the hand of God that weighs so heavily on His people.

Suppose there is a single ambitious man in a Christian society, a single hypocrite - he will certainly get the better of his pious compatriots. Does the despot abuse his power? He is the rod with which God punishes His children. It would be against conscience to chase out the usurper. And after all, what does it matter whether one is free or serf in this vale of tears? The essential thing is to go to heaven, and resignation is but an additional means of doing so. Indeed, ‘Christian republic’ is a neologism: Christianity preaches nothing but servitude and dependence. True Christians are made to be slaves.

But let us return to right and determine its principles on this important matter. The right that the social compact gives to the sovereign over the subjects does not exceed, as I have said, the limits of public utility. Therefore, the subjects do not have to account for their opinions to the sovereign, except insofar as these matter to the community. Now, it matters greatly that each citizen have a religion that causes him to love his duties; but the particular dogmas of that religion are of no interest to the State or its members - except insofar as they relate to morality, to the duties that anyone who professes it is obliged to fulfill toward others. Beyond that, everyone can have what he pleases. The sovereign has no competence in the other world; the fate of subjects in the hereafter is none of its business, so long as they are good citizen in this one.

There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith, the articles of which are for the sovereign to establish - though not exactly as religious dogmas, but rather as sentiments of sociability without which it is impossible to be a good citizen or a faithful subject. Though it can obligate no one to believe them,

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the sovereign can banish anyone who does not: not for being impious but for being unsociable. Anyone who publicly acknowledges these dogmas, yet behaves as though he does not believe them, should be punished with death, for he has committed the greatest of crimes: to lie before the laws.

The dogmas in the civil religion ought to be simple and few in number. The existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent, foresighted, and providential divinity; the afterlife, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws, are the positive dogmas. As for the negative ones, I limit them to one: intolerance, which belongs with the cults we have excluded.

Now that there is no longer and can never again be a national religion, one should tolerate all those religions that tolerate others insofar as their dogmas are not contrary to the duties of the citizen. But whoever says “There is no salvation outside of the church!” should be chased out of the State - unless the State is itself the church and its prince its pontiff.