Burke Vs Rousseau

Rousseau and Burke both make compelling points about what was wrong with the rule under King Louis XVI before the French Revolution and both men had their own idea of how to fix the issues. Rousseau approached these issues by writing The Social Contract, a contract that argues in favor of a citizen-led government. Rousseau believes that the general will should be the system in which a society is governed. Edmund Burke, on the other hand, published Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790 that became a defensive text for the social and political traditions of France. Burke had many opposing thoughts when compared to Rousseau on how the government should be run. Since I believe that citizens should have a say in how they are governed and their power should be checked, I lie in between Burke and Rousseau’s vision of how a civil society should be

Burke acts indifferent towards equal representation in government, for he believes the people should continue to follow orders under the King. He fully supports the absolute monarch and agrees that the people should follow orders given by the nobility or royal family. Both men have a vision of how representation should work, but I believe that all people in the civil society should be represented equally to an authoritative figure. While I want people to be equally represented, I do not want people fully in charge. I feel this is done well in a Democracy. People are still active in political affairs and their opinions are heard by elected representatives in their local, state, and national government, but their power is checked through a system of checks and balances which prevents any one person from having access to too much power. This form of government allows more individual interests to be heard and taken into consideration, in contrast to an absolute monarchy where the people's interests are not taken into consideration at