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
There is no single “best government,” because this question always depends on the territory and people governed. But there still could be “signs” that show “whether a given people is well or badly governed.” However, everyone will see these signs differently: some citizens prioritize security while others cherish their rights; some government officials want power and some subjects want the government out of their lives. So there is “no precise standard of measurement” for such moral questions. But Rousseau thinks that population is nonetheless a good sign, because it clearly shows that a country’s citizens are “protected and prosperous.” In fact, he declares that “the best government” is the one whose population grows the fastest.
Even if Rousseau’s specific analysis of how government does and should function in different contexts is largely based on outdated assumptions and tropes, this does not affect his overall conclusion: different peoples and places call for different forms of government. However, Rousseau thinks that it’s still possible to determine whether government is successful or not through “signs,” even though most of what people consider to be valid “signs” are actually less meaningful than they seem. But, in order to take Rousseau’s argument about the diversity of “signs” to its fullest logical extent, the reader must also ask whether he is right about population growth signaling that a state has “the best government”—ironically enough, in the 21st century, a country is seen as successful when it is able to slow down population growth, and the fastest-growing countries are generally considered the least developed and most poorly-governed.
Themes
