The Social Contract By Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a group of four books put together to discuss the importance of sovereignty and individual freedoms given within a group. He believed that true political authority can only come if all of the people in a state are in agreement over their mutual preservation. Rousseau was an active citizen during the pinnacle of the French Enlightenment period when everyone valued the powers of reason over blind faith. This is why he strongly believes that everyone should be able to think for themselves, instead of having a ruler that completely dictates their lives. Through an analysis of Rousseaus’ work, liberty and equality are shown to be very important to him and he wants his audience to understand this.
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He criticizes rulers who only care about his own interests instead of looking out for the people because that is not fair to the people he is representing. He wrote that “If any number of scattered individuals were successively enslaved by one man, all I can see there is a master and his slaves, and certainly not a people and its ruler” (Book 1, Part 6). He means that the ruler should not take advantage of his position, but listen to them and help them as much as possible. Equality should be given to every person in an organization because that makes it run more efficiently. His view on how a state should be run is that “Each man in giving himself to everyone gives himself to no-one: and the right over himself that the others get is matched by the right that he gets over each of them” (Book 1, Part 6). If the people follow his advice, they will be able to live in equality and will have a much better quality of life. Liberty and equality are what Rousseau heavily focuses on in The Social Contract and he puts great emphasis on people standing up for themselves and having their own thoughts. When equality is gained, the people can start obtaining liberties that were not present before. Once people form an organization where they are all working towards the common good, great things can be done and the people can get a lot more accomplished. When the people are joined together and have equal rights, they are experiencing the version of liberty that Rousseau strived to
He criticizes rulers who only care about his own interests instead of looking out for the people because that is not fair to the people he is representing. He wrote that “If any number of scattered individuals were successively enslaved by one man, all I can see there is a master and his slaves, and certainly not a people and its ruler” (Book 1, Part 6). He means that the ruler should not take advantage of his position, but listen to them and help them as much as possible. Equality should be given to every person in an organization because that makes it run more efficiently. His view on how a state should be run is that “Each man in giving himself to everyone gives himself to no-one: and the right over himself that the others get is matched by the right that he gets over each of them” (Book 1, Part 6). If the people follow his advice, they will be able to live in equality and will have a much better quality of life. Liberty and equality are what Rousseau heavily focuses on in The Social Contract and he puts great emphasis on people standing up for themselves and having their own thoughts. When equality is gained, the people can start obtaining liberties that were not present before. Once people form an organization where they are all working towards the common good, great things can be done and the people can get a lot more accomplished. When the people are joined together and have equal rights, they are experiencing the version of liberty that Rousseau strived to