J. J.

Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself master of o
thers, but is himself the greater slave. How did this change take place? I do no
t know. What can render it legitimate? I believe I can answer this question.
If I were to consider nothing but force and its effects, I should say: 'As long
as a people is compelled to obey, and does so, it does well; as soon as it can s
hake off the yoke, and does so, it does even better; for in recovering its liber
ty on the same grounds on which it was stolen away, it either is right in resumi
ng it, or was wrongly deprived in the first place,' But the social order is a sa
cred right which serves as the basis for all others. And yet this right does not
come from nature; thus it is founded on conventions. The problem is to know wha
t these conventions are... ... This problem, in relation to my subject, may be e
xpressed in the following terms: To find a form of association which defends and
protects the person and property of each member with the whole force of the com
munity, and where each, while joining with all the rest, still obeys no one but
himself, and remains as free as before.' This is the fundamental problem to whic
h the social contract provides the answer.
The clauses of this contract... rightly understood, can be reduced to the follow
ing only: the total alienation of each member, with all his rights, to the commu
nity as a whole. For, in the first place, since each gives himself entirely, the
condition is equal for all; and since the condition is equal for all, it is in
the interest of no one to make it burdensome to the rest.
Furthermore, since the alienation is made without reservations, the union is as
perfect as possible, and no member has anything more to ask. For if the individu
als retained certain rights, each, in the absence of any common superior capable
of judging between him and the public, would be his own judge in certain matter
s, and would soon claim to be so in all; the state of nature would continue, and
the association would necessarily become tyrannical or meaningless.
Finally, each individual, by giving himself to all, gives himself to no one; and
since there is no member over whom you do not acquire the same rights that you
give him over yourself, you gain the equivalent of all you lose, and greater for
ce to preserve what you have.
If the social compact is stripped to its essentials, therefore, you will find th
at it can be reduced to the following terms: 'Each of us puts in common his pers
on and all his powers under the supreme direction of the general will; and in ou
r corporate capacity we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole'
...
The first and most important consequence of the principles thus far established
is that the general will alone can direct the forces of the state in : accordanc
e with the purpose for which it was created, namely, the common good. For if the
opposition of private interests made the establishment of societies necessary,
it is the agreement of those same interests that made it possible. It is what th
ese several interests have in common that constitutes the social bond; and if th
ere were no point on which all of them were in agreement, there could be no soci
ety. Now it is exclusively ; on the basis of this common interest that society m
ust be governed. I say, therefore, that since sovereignty is nothing but the exe
rcise of the general will, it can never be alienated; and that the sovereign, wh
ich is only a collective being, can be represented by itself only. Power may wel
l be transferred, but will cannot.
As a matter of fact, if it is not impossible for a particular will to agree with
the general will on some specific point, at least it is impossible for that agr
eement to be constant and durable; for the particular will tends by its very nat

ure to partiality, and the general will to equality. Even if this agreement did
remain constant, it would be the result not of skill but of chance, and it would
be even more impossible to guarantee that it would continue to do so. The sover
eign may well say: 'At the present moment I want what that particular individual
wants, or at least what he says he wants.' But it cannot say: 'What that indivi
dual wants tomorrow, I too shall want'; since it is absurd for the will to bind
itself for the fate, and impossible for any willing being to consent to anything
contrary to its own welfare. If, therefore, the people promises simply to obey,
it dissolves itself by that very act, and ceases to be a people. As soon as the
re is a master, there is no longer a sovereign; and from that moment the body po
litic is destroyed...
From the preceding it follows that the general will is always right, and always
tends to the public good; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the p
eople will always have the same rectitude. We always desire our own good, but we
do not always recognise it. You can not corrupt the people, but you can often d
eceive it; and it is then only that it seems to will something bad. There is oft
en a great difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter l
ooks only to the common interest, while the former looks to private interest, an
d is simply a sum of particular wills. But if you cancel out from these same wil
ls all the mutually destructive pluses and minuses', the general will remains as
the sum of the differences. If the people were sufficiently well-informed, and
if in their deliberations the citizens held no communication with one another, t
he general will would always result from the large number of small differences,
and the deliberations would always be good. But when cliques and partial associa
tions are formed at the expense of the whole, the will of each of these associat
ions becomes general with reference to its members, and particular with referenc
e to the state; then it can no longer be said that there are as many voters as t
here are individuals, but only as many as there are associations. The difference
s become less numerous, and give a less general result. Finally, when one of the
se associations becomes large enough to prevail over all the rest, the result is
no longer a sum of small differences, but one single difference. Then there is
no longer a general will, and the opinion which prevails is only a private opini
on.
In so far as several men conjoined consider themselves as a single body, they ha
ve but a single will, which refers to their common conservation and to the gener
al welfare. Then all the motive forces of the state are vigorous and simple, its
principles are clear and luminous; it has no quarrelling and contradictory inte
rests; the common good is everywhere clearly evident, and requires no more than
common sense to be perceived. Peace, unity and equality are the enemies of polit
ical subtlety. Upright and simple men are hard to deceive because of their simpl
icity; they are in no way imposed upon by wiles and subtle pleadings; they are n
ot even clever enough to be dupes. When, among the happiest people on earth, you
see crowds of peasants deciding affairs of state under an oak tree, and behavin
g with uniform wisdom, how can you help despising the subtleties of other nation
s, which devote so much skill and mystification i to making themselves famous an
d wretched?
A state thus governed has need of very few laws; and as soon as it becomes neces
sary to promulgate new ones, this necessity is universally recognised. The first
to propose them does no more than to say what all have already felt; and it req
uires neither intrigue nor eloquence to secure the enactment of that which each
has already decided to do, as soon as he is sure that the others will do likewis
e. What deceives the theorists is the fact that, seeing nothing but states badly
constituted from the beginning, they are impressed with the impossibility of ma
intaining such a polity among them. They laugh at the thought of all the stupidi
ties that an adroit rascal, an insinuating talker could persuade the people of P
aris or London to commit. They fail to realise that Cromwell would have been dru
mmed out of town by the people of Berne, and the Due de Beaufort given the cat-o

'-nine-tails by the Genevans.

But when the social bond begins to loosen and the state to grow weak, when parti
cular interests begin to make themselves felt and lesser associations to influen
ce the whole, then the common interest deteriorates and encounters opposition; u
nanimity no longer prevails in voting; the general will ceases to be the will of
all; contradictions and debates arise; and the best opinion does not go by any
means undisputed.
Finally, when the state, on the brink of ruin, maintains no more than a vain and
illusory existence, when the social bond is broken in every heart, when the bas
est interest brazenly flaunts the sacred name of public good, then the general w
ill falls silent; guided by secret motives, no one thinks as a citizen any more
than as if the state had never existed; and under the guise of laws are enacted
iniquitous decrees whose only purpose is to further private interests.
Does this mean that the general will is annihilated or corrupted? No, it is alwa
ys constant, unalterable and pure; but it is subordinated to other interests whi
ch prevail over it. Each individual, when he detaches his interest from that of
the community, is clearly aware that the two are not entirely separable; but his
share of the common misfortune is as nothing to him in comparison with the excl
usive benefit he hopes to appropriate to himself. Apart from this particular ben
efit, he seeks the general benefit, in his own interest, as vigorously as anyone
else. Even when he sells his vote for money, he does not extinguish, but eludes
, the general will within him. His fault lies in changing the terms of the quest
ion, and in answering one different from the one he has been asked; with the res
ult that, instead of saying with his vote, 'It is advantageous to the state,' he
says, 'It is advantageous to a certain individual or to a certain party that a
certain proposal should be enacted.' Thus the maintenance of public order in ass
emblies depends not so much on maintaining the general will as on ensuring that
it will always be interrogated, and that it will always answer.