On The Social Contract by Rousseau

Hong Zhang
In class I have discussed this book briefly. My previous discussion is based
on how to frame and discuss possible problems like corruption based on
Rousseaus book. In this summary, I will analye some of the key and
interesting points either by this book or by the class discussion.
!his book is about political law, government and people. !his book gives
out bigger view of what a contract really means in different contents. It is
one of the most powerful books in human history. "et me try to understand
Rousseau#s world as follows$
"egitimacy and %ature "aw
Rousseau starts this book by legitimacy. &nfortunately, we have very short
life and no human being ever lives long enough to e'perience the historical
changes of the society. Rousseaus problem is a common problem to people
who is born in a ready society with e'isting classes, governments and
cultures. (ack into the civiliation history, there are too many e'amples of
making power by force. !hus the first point Rousseau argue is that power is
not right, unless it transfers obedience into duty, strength into right.
)therwise there is no need for a further discussion of the formation of the
society$ the strongest wins everything. Rather, Rousseau argues that right
comes from social convention. (ut what types of social convention will
prevent the strongest from being the absolute king of all others* Rousseau
doesnt answer this +uestion directly. Instead, in book I the first sentence is$
MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
My interpretation is that Rousseau uses the %ature law to ,ustify the social
convention. !o be more specific, Rousseau assumed that men are aware of
the fact that freedom is the given property as a birthright, or, he assumes the
e'istence of %ature "aw and the awareness of the %ature "aw by the
ma,ority people.
-s I have mentioned in class, in ancient .hinese philosophy, there is no
counterpart of the %ature "aw of freedom. In .onfusion man is born of the
society at no price, and in !aoism man is for the nature. (ut no statement is
for the individual himself. In the following /000 years of literature, there is
still no idea about the born rights. !hus one first +uestion about the
moderniation of .hina could be the %ature law. !o be more generalie, do
people realie that they have some born right and do people have right to
claim that right* 1e see that the moderniation of .hina began from end of
last century adopts a +uite different approach. !he identity of %ation as a
whole plays an e'tremely important role. !his is an interesting topic but I
wont have space to discuss it in length.
(ased on %ature law, man chooses to enter the social contract at the price of
his nature right. He gains civil liberty and proprietorship of all he possesses.
Rousseau didnt specify what is nature law and what is the %ature 2tate as
"ocke did. He might take it for granted. 1hat behind the nature law is the
choice of alternatives. 1e have seen that the whole modern economic
theory is based on the concept of opportunity cost. It is not hard to find out
the direct relationship between the opportunity cost and the concept of the
nature law. Here we see how powerful the idea is3 it is the foundation of our
modern society.
2overeign and "aw
It is interesting to see the e'planation why human being needs a society
anyhow. Hobbes identified the war of everyone against everyone for self4
preservation as the cause. Montes+uiieu thought it was in the human nature
5in his nature law6 that people want to live with others. Rousseau was
similar to Hobbes. He identified self4preservation as the primary goal and
he also mentioned the commonwealth that people gain from participating the
social contract.
Rousseau didnt specify what is sovereign. -gain, he might think the idea
self evident as the nature law. -nd he really regards the whole of social
contract participants as the sovereign. 1hat he did, is to develop a theory of
political law based on this sovereign. I dont know whether Rousseau was
the first one to give that meaning to the word sovereign and many other
words. (ut it is amaing that we still use the words Rousseau used in his
2ocial .ontract. )f course, we still use his ideas today.
Rousseau specifically makes distinguish between the two concepts about
common will, the will of all and the general will$
There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the
general will; the latter considers only the common interest, while the former
takes private interest into account, and is no more than a sum of particular
wills: but take away from these same wills the pluses and minuses that
cancel one another,
7
and the general will remains as the sum of the
differences.
%ow though he noticed that people have private interests, he believed that in
the aggregate will all the private interests will cross one anther to some
degree. If not then there e'ist some common interests for all social
participants. !herefore his sovereign is popular sovereign in the form of
everyones democratic right. Rousseau opposed interests of associations
formed by some members of the society. He said that
hen one of these associations is so great as to prevail over all the rest, the
result is no longer a sum of small differences, but a single difference; in this
case there is no longer a general will, and the opinion which prevails is
purely particular.
!his is dramatically different from the works of Mar' who emphasied at
the very beginning that all opinions are opinions of social classes. !hus in
Mar's phrases, there is no room for Rousseaus sovereignty. !his is very
interesting. !he whole 7rench Revolution was sort of based on Rousseaus
system. 1hen Mar' observed the world, which is supposed to be based on
sovereign and general will, he observed the right of the strongest at the
social class level. !hough Mar' might goes to some e'treme case, his work
states some weakness of Rousseaus dream. !hat is, if a social contract is
violated totally, how can people come back to the ideal state. !his type of
dynamics is not considered by Rousseau. !hough he in later chapters
mentioned the decay of government, his social movement is based on the
friction between sovereign and government. )r, on the legitimacy of
government. He didnt ask the +uestion how to institute the sovereign itself.
Rousseau further discussed the freedom and e+uality in terms of social
contract. In other words, social contract is based on these two properties.
(ased on e+uality, the sovereign no long makes distinguish between
individuals. !his also makes a ceiling for the power of sovereignty, that is,
it can not e'ceed the limits of general conventions.
I have already discussed the law system in Rousseau#s book. 8ven though
he is not generally regarded as founder of modern law system, his
description about law is clear and intuitive. 7or Rousseau,
!" the social contract we have given the body politic e#istence and life; we
have now by legislation to give it movement and will. $or the original act by
which the body is formed and united still in no respect determines what it
ought to do for its preservation.
Rousseau adopted a narrow definition of law. !he law is about the relation
between two aspects of the entire ob,ect, without there being any division of
the whole. !hus law is always general, because law considers sub,ects en
masse and the actions in the abstract, and never a particular person or action.
!his satisfies Rousseau#s general will. (ecause general will itself will not
direct to a particular ob,ect. -nd the greatest good of all should be the end
of every system of legislation. !hus we meet the two common factors again,
7reedom and 8+uality.
"aw is divided by the relationship it is specifically designed to deal with.
!he 7undamental "aws 59olitical laws6 states the relationship between the
government and sovereignty. !he .ivil "aw states the relationship between
members one to another, or member to the body as a whole. !he .riminal
"aw is for relationship between the individual and the law, in another word,
the dis4obedience of the law and its penalty. Rousseau regarded morality
and custom as the fourth and the most important one. !his might be based
on his belief that society comes from convention, which is the base for the
sovereign will. (ut seems to me that the fourth law is not in a written form
and thus might have different interpretations by social contract participants.
1hen we come to the concept of sovereignty and law, we immediately find
ourselves in the center of many problems. 7or e'amples, if general will or
sovereign makes government legitimacy, then what makes an ordinary
contract legitimacy* %ote that in this case Rousseau#s law won#t offer a very
precise foundation of the legitimacy of ordinary contracts. !his is because
the law is general but the ordinary contract general says deal with very
specific conditions. )therwise we don#t need these contracts, we need ,ust
law. !hus contracts should be below the law but reflect some spirit of the
law, like the freedom or e+uality. It should be a very interesting topic as
what is a good contract 5in terms of general will6 versus what is a efficient
contract 5in terms of social cost, thus also part of general will6.
I have mentioned in class that generally speaking we can#t base our law or
contracts on common knowledge. !his is because the common knowledge
could be good or bad and not necessary lead to the general will of the
society. In class we discussed the e'ample of corruption. !he corruption
should be prevented by law because it violates the e+uality principle
directly. (ut it could be common knowledge that the assumption of
corruption is necessary as a format of friction cost. If common knowledge is
deceiving, there should be some other standards which guard the general
will. In Rousseau#s world, if we go one step further, we find out that it is
e'actly the fourth law, the morality and custom which defends the general
will. It is really a pity that Rousseau only discussed government corruption
under the general will. )therwise there should be very e'citing words on
this aspect too. !o some sense, the morality and custom are sort of
e'perience wisdom getting from long history of civiliation. If we look at
different countries, the different history and convention makes out different
moralities and customs. !herefore conflicts between different cultures seem
to be another interesting point to discuss. -s for the corruption itself, why
negative common knowledge will prevail despite of the fourth law* 1hy
systemic corruption could be +uite stable at some period* Rousseau#s work
provides a starting point to think of.
2ie of government and corruption
Rousseau put a special emphasie on the sie of a state as one of the
determinations of best constitution, law, form of government, etc.
8specially, when the population of a state grows, each individual#s will is
less represented in the general will. -t the same time, a bigger population
might ask for a more centered power to govern. - best e'ample is offered
by the study of direct democratic system in ancient :reek cities. -t about
the same age, most of the countries in the world adopt systems where there
e'isted one king. !herefore as the state becomes bigger, it is likely that the
government should go more efficient 5like ;ing4sub,ect system6, while the
sovereignty asks a strong checking power to prevent the government to
disobey the general will.
1hy government could disobey the general will* Rousseau uses the
conflicting of the wills to state this problem.
%n the person of the magistrate we can distinguish three essentially different
wills: first, the private will of the individual, tending only to his personal
advantage; secondly, the common will of the magistrates, which is relative
solely to the advantage of the prince, and may be called corporate will,
being general in relation to the government, and particular in relation to the
&tate, of which the government forms part; and, in the third place, the will of
the people or the sovereign will, which is general both in relation to the
&tate regarded as the whole, and to the government regarded as a part of
the whole.
-nd the problem comes from the fact that the general will is always the
weakest form of will. !he corporate will second, and the individual will
strongest of all. %n the government, each member is first of all himself, then
a magistrate, and then a citi'en ( in an order e#actly the reverse of what
the social system re)uires.
!hese are e'tremely powerful words which state that any political system, if
there is no check power functions, will go eventually to corruption.
Rousseau stated this in the following sentense$
*sooner or later the prince must inevitably suppress the &overeign and
break the social treaty. This is the unavoidable and inherent defect which,
from the very birth of the body politic, tends ceaselessly to destroy it, as age
and death end by destroying the human body.
Here he didn#t think that the difference between types of government will
make any different results.
-n interesting problem is that whether higher education will reduce
corruption, because people with higher education are supposed to have more
e'posure to law and moral standards. 1e see that if we follow Rousseau,
there is no difference for an education system. (ut history also tells us that
when there are outside balance power, even people still first behaviors
individually and then a magistrate, and then a citien, he will more likely go
to the common factors of the three different roles than difference.
.ompetition is often but not always a good way. 8specially, the government
is not competitive. !hus how to e'press sovereignty could be a key issue in
the modern society.
)n the form of corruption, Rousseau states that not the government, but the
&tate, undergoes contraction. :overnment no longer represents the general
will, and it begins to represent the will of associations. -t the same time, the
state is dissolving because general will is not represented. - new #state# is
born based on the will of all for the government members. )f course, the
new state is much less than the old one. !he contracting continuous and the
state finally dissolves.
It is very interesting to compare this with Mar'ism#s understandings about
state. 5-t least the standard education in .hina when I was in school.6 In a
typical Mar'ism interpretation, state is a tool for one group of people to
govern another group. !hus the key issue is what makes a government
legitimacy. <oes sie play a most important role here* Is it more legal for
=0> of the people to govern the remaining ?0> than the opposite condition*
If we use Rousseau#s analysis, none of these governments represents the
general will. It is very interesting to me that why Mar'ism had been once
popular even in western countries* @ust because it states out the reality that
power and sie do matter and the strongest should be king or something*
How about Rousseau#s sovereign* I guess there is no easy answer.
In Rousseau#s description, every free action is produced by two causes$ one
moral 5will6 and one physical 5the power which e'ecute it6. :overnment too
has legislative power 5will6 and e'ecutive power. In which case will the
e'ecutive power too strong to represent the legislative power* In which case
e'ecutive power itself is enough to cover the legislative power* In which
case the two parts goes into conflict and how a new balance is achieved*
Montes+uieu#s main concern is to protect the e'ecutive power from
e'cessive interference by the legislative and the ,uridical. - modern society
is more a hybrid of Montes+uieu and Rousseau. !his is because Rousseau
didn#t pay attention to the dynamic of the social movements while
Montes+uieu#s checking balance is pretty dynamic.
(efore I end this brief discussion of the 2ocial .ontract, let me use some of
the concepts here to discuss an organiation contract. I have mentioned that
contract should deal with more specific person or conditions and thus the
written law is not enough to regulate the contract. 8specially, the answer for
what is a good contract depends heavily on what is defined as good. "ike,
common wealth, fairness, participants# utility functions, etc. !hus we will
e'pect to see lots of legal but not morally legal contracts, implicit or e'plicit.
1ho has the power to ,ustify a mis4specified contract* -nd why*
7urther more, the contract theory of firm doesn#t answer a simple +uestion,
what is a good firm, and what firms make good society. -gain, goodness
might have different interpretations. 7or e'ample, if we emphasie the
fairness or e+uality of the contract participants, there is no aggregating
fairness, because even there is unfair contracts when we #sum up# the fairness
we balance the gets and loss of the participants of that bad contract. -
further +uestion is that does firm have more meanings than a pure economic
sense*