Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Social Contract, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Human Freedom and Society
Sovereignty, Citizenship, and Direct Democracy
Government and the Separation of Powers
National Longevity and Moral Virtue
Summary
Analysis
Rousseau argues that a state must also balance its population with its size, so that there is neither too little food (and instability due to reliance on imports) nor too much land to protect. There is no equation for this, since the correct population and density will depend on the kind and quality of land, as well as the people’s rate of population growth. Finally, forming a state also requires “peace and plenty,” while tyrants tend to pass laws during times of crisis so that people do not notice.
The relationship between a state’s territory and its population is another principle that Rousseau believes can apply across different cultural contexts, because the need for food, water, and shelter is a constant across all human experience. However, by acknowledging that this cannot be calculated, he also stops short of many contemporaries who argued that scientific calculation and planning could be applied even to culture and human reproduction.
Themes
Rousseau concludes that there are many conditions that must be met for a people to be “fit to receive laws.” They must not already be organized into a state, and they need some common “origin, interest or convention” that holds them together, but not “deep-rooted customs or superstitions” that would prevent them from trusting rulers. Without being caught up in crises or wars, they must still be strong enough to defend themselves, and as a community they must be simultaneously self-sufficient and relatively small. It is rare to find all these conditions together, which is why it is difficult to start a society. In fact, Rousseau thinks there is only one place left in Europe that is “fit to receive laws,” which is Corsica (an island in the Mediterranean).
Rousseau again emphasizes that, to form a republic, people need the right amount of unity—not so little that they cannot imagine themselves as a nation, and not so much that their identity is already based on concepts that are mutually exclusive with citizenship. Rather than “customs or superstitions,” he wants politics and a sense of civic duty to be the cultural tie that unites citizens. Again, while the legitimacy of a state comes from its form (a social contract to which everyone freely consents), the character and longevity of a state depend on the content of a state’s identity—or the culture that citizens establish and maintain. By pointing out how difficult it is to truly create a functioning state, Rousseau reminds the reader that his picture of the legitimate nation is purely hypothetical: it is an ideal to which real states should aspire, and it is only natural that most of them will fall short.
Themes
