The Social Contract Themes

In The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau asks where human society comes from and whether it can be founded on “any legitimate and sure principle.” Like his famous predecessors Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, Rousseau concludes that people form society by making an agreement—or social contract—in which they sacrifice some of their own freedom in exchange for certain rights. Hobbes believed that people renounce their freedom to society, whereas Locke saw society as a…

In a republic, who should govern and what powers should they have? By definition, a nation’s highest authority is its sovereign, or the body with legitimate authority to make laws. Rousseau insists that, because a people collectively agrees to establish a political community, or body politic, this same collectivity of people must make up the sovereign. In other words, the people must make their own laws—that is, have sovereignty over themselves…

While The Social Contract primarily focuses on what a legitimate republic should look like in theory, Rousseau also cites a number of historical examples to show why real states have failed in practice. In doing so, he emphasizes the unavoidable fact that no nation will survive forever, but he also outlines a number of strategies and best practices that nations can use to stay around for as long as possible. Even a state with perfectly-structured…