According to Rousseau, monarchy is one of the three structures of government (meaning executive power), along with aristocracy and democracy. In a monarchy, one person (or magistrate) holds absolute power to implement laws (or not) as they see fit. This does not mean that there is only one person in the government, but rather that one person controls the whole government. (It is also possible, although rare, for more than one monarch to share power.) Rousseau does not mean that the monarch gets to write their own laws: since he uses the terms democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy to describe executive power only, he is still imagining a state in which the people legislate as the sovereign. However, Rousseau does note that monarchs often try to usurp the power of the legislature and establish tyranny. This is the principal danger of a monarchic government, but monarchies are also inefficient for other reasons: monarchies overemphasize loyalty at the expense of talent, for example, and monarchies often become hereditary, which forces the people to deal with “monsters or imbeciles for rulers.” Nevertheless, because of the way they concentrate power, monarchies sometimes are effective, particularly in empires that have to rule over huge populations and enormous swaths of territory.
Monarchy Quotes in The Social Contract
The The Social Contract quotes below are all either spoken by Monarchy or refer to Monarchy. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 3, Chapter 15
Quotes
The idea of representation is a modem one. It comes to us from feudal government, from that iniquitous and absurd system under which the human race is degraded and which dishonours the name of man. In the republics and even in the monarchies of the ancient world, the people never had representatives; the very word was unknown.
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Monarchy Term Timeline in The Social Contract
The timeline below shows where the term Monarchy appears in The Social Contract. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 2, Chapter 6: On Law
...particular people. It can create “privileges” but not say who gets them, or create a monarchy but not actually “choose a royal family.” Because everyone collectively gives the law to themselves,...
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Book 3, Chapter 3: Classification of Governments
...aristocracy. And if there is one magistrate who has fundamental power over government, there is monarchy. But this is a spectrum, and there can be “mixed forms” (with different parts of...
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...he concludes, “democratic government suits small states, aristocratic government suits states of intermediate size and monarchy suits large states.” But there can be exceptions.
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Book 3, Chapter 6: Monarchy
In monarchy, a single person carries the government’s entire executive power. Therefore, it produces maximal results with...
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Rousseau recalls that, according to his calculations, monarchies work best in large states. He further explains that, because monarchies vest all power in...
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But monarchy has several serious problems. First, it rewards incapable but loyal people with powerful roles in...
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Book 3, Chapter 8: That All Forms of Government Do Not Suit All Countries
...taxpayers will see the benefits of their contributions. So taxpayers see the least benefit in monarchies, which must be “opulent” to survive. In general, in fact, monarchies concentrate power in private...
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...suggests, the more surplus it will produce (so the more likely it can have a monarchy). Overall, he declares, hot and cold climates are fitting for despots and barbarians (respectively), while...
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Book 3, Chapter 10: The Abuse of Government and its Tendency to Degenerate
...specifically ochlocracy, oligarchy, or tyranny (if the government started out as a democracy, aristocracy, or monarchy, respectively). “Tyrant,” Rousseau clarifies, is often used to mean any powerful king who ignores justice,...
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Book 4, Chapter 3: Elections
...also vote for some “places that call for special skills, such as military commands.” In monarchies, there are no elections, since the monarch controls the whole government.
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