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
Democracy “unite[s] the executive power with the legislative,” but this creates a situation Rousseau calls “government without government.” Namely, “the body of the people” should stay focused on making the laws, rather than implementing them in relation to “particular objects,” because this essentially means allowing “private interests” to run the government and corrupt the state.
Again, Rousseau’s definition of democracy must not be confused with the present-day idea that a government is democratic if all the citizens are represented. Rather, when Rousseau talks about “democracy,” he is imagining a system in which all the citizens not only assemble to write the laws, but also assemble to decide how they will be enforced. This means that the same assembly both writes and directs the implementation of laws, but this defeats the purpose of the separation of powers in the first place, which to let the sovereign focus on determining the general will while the government implements laws without interference of “private interests.” This conflict of interests is why Rousseau argues that this kind of democracy would be “government without government.”
Themes
Of course, no “true democracy” can ever exist—an entire country’s population will not “sit permanently in an assembly to deal with public affairs.” Democracy requires a state small enough that everyone knows everyone else, “a great simplicity of manners and morals” so that people actually implement laws, almost perfect social equality, and “no luxury,” because luxury breeds corruption and inequality. In short, these conditions require a profound degree of virtue from citizens—virtue is important in all states, but even more so in those that have democratic governments. Finally, democracies are also prone internal conflicts like civil wars, because they are very fickle. Democracy, Rousseau concludes, is suitable for the Gods, but not for human beings.
The “government without government” that Rousseau described above is basically impossible, so when he argues that democracy could work in a small and equal state, he is really talking about systems of government that are closer to democracy than anything else. In fact, the differences between democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy exist on a spectrum, because power can be subdivided and redistributed at a variety of different scales. Still, a mostly democratic government—in which a majority of citizens collaborates to decide how to implement the laws—can only be successful in a state with an extraordinarily equal and virtuous moral culture, where any other form of government would likely work, too. Therefore, Rousseau seems to essentially rule out this kind of democracy—although, again, the thing he’s ruling out is not the same as what contemporary people call “democracy” (which is actually the precise kind of popular sovereignty that Rousseau favors in this book).
Themes
