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Summary: The Social Contract

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Terrance Kodger Kodger 1 History 102 Kevin Grubbs 22 March 2018 The Social Contract The Social Contract was a book which was written by Jean- Jacques Rosseau in 1762 in the mist of a monarchial French government. In this book Rosseau discusses his theories on how to establish a political community in the face of a broken commercial society. The main political objective discussed in this book was getting rid of the monarchy which was in power and give more political power to the people. Although many people did support Rosseau certain individuals such as Adam Smith felt that the commercial society they already lived on was the best thing …show more content…

He felt that this idea often did more bad than good for country. His main example of this was by way of slavery. Rosseau specifically states that no state has the right to enslave a people that has been conquered. He felt threating and forcing people to act upon your rules is not a legitimate power. From this came his first goal of the contract which was getting rid of slavery and having all men be freed. Rosseau felt that it is ridiculous to force a man to surrender his rights for slavery, and no one should have to live in a society in which their voice has no power in the laws being …show more content…

He felt that since a government is only as strong as its people the larger bigger the area the more power the government would have to use on the population. He felt a monarchy type government is able to enforce the most power over a area while a democracy provides the least. To sum this up he basically is stating the larger the bureaucracy the more power the government will have to exert. Which most of time would unfortunately have to result in a monarchy. This statement shows although he was against monarchies he still was logical in ideas for politics. So in light of his relation between size and power he argued that splitting everything up into small city states like his hometown of Geneva is the best way to have freedom spread throughout. He stated that states like this should have an elected aristocracy, and if there did have to be large states there should be a benevolent

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His ideas were dominant over other philosophers' about how a government should be run during the beginning of the French Revolution. “Democratic and Aristocratic states are not in their own nature free. Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to use it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.”

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He thought that the natural rights of men should be protected by the government. “To protect natural rights governments are established. . . .Since men hope to preserve their property by establishing government, they will not want that government to destroy their objectives. When legislators try to destroy or take away the property of the people...people who can then refuse to obey the laws” (Document 2).

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