Introduction A Note on the Text and TranslationSelect BibliographyA Chronology of Jean-Jacques RousseauPOLITICAL ECONOMYTHE SOCIAL CONTRACTAppendix: The General Society of the Human RaceExplanatory NotesIndex
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BOOK II INTEND to examine whether, in the ordering of society, there can be any reliable and legitimate rule of administration, taking men as they are, and laws as they can be. I shall try, throughout my enquiry, to combine what is allowed by right* with what is prescribed by self-interest, in order that justice and utility should not be separated. I begin my discussion without proving the importance of my subject. People will ask me whether I write on politics because I am a ruler or legislator. I answer that I am not; and that is the reason why I write on politics. If I were a ruler or a legislator, I should not waste my time saying what ought to be done; I should do it, or hold my peace. I was born a citizen of a free state and a member of its sovereign body,* and however weak may be the influence of my voice in public affairs, my right to vote on them suffices to impose on me the duty of studying them. How happy I am, each time that I reflect on governments, always to find new reasons, in my researches, to cherish the government of my country!Chapter iThe Subject of the First BookMan was born free,* and everywhere he is in chains. There are some who may believe themselves masters of others, and are no less enslaved than they. How has this change come about? I do not know. How can it be made legitimate That is a question which I believe I can resolve. If I were to consider force alone, and the effects that it produces, I should say: for so long as a nation is constrained to obey, and does so, it does well; as soon as it is able to throw off its servitude, and does so, it does better; for since it regains freedom by the same right that was exercised when its freedom was seized, either the nation was justified in taking freedom back, or else those who took it away were unjustified in doing so. Whereas the social order is sacred right, and provides a foundation for all other rights. Yet it is a right that does not come from nature; therefore it is based on agreed conventions. Our business is to find out what those conventions are. Before we come to that, I must make good the assertion that I have just put forward.Chapter iiThe First SocietiesTHE most ancient of all societies, and the only one that is natural, is the family. Even in this case, the bond between children and father persists only so long as they have need of him for their conservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved. The children are released from the obedience they owe to their father, the father is released from the duty of care to the children, and all become equally independent. If they continue to remain living together, it is not by nature but voluntarily, and the family itself is maintained only through convention. * Tis shared freedom is result of man’s nature. His first law is his won conservation, his first cares are owed to himself; as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he alone is the judge of how best to look after himself, and thus he becomes his own master.If we wish, then, the family may be regarded as the first model of political society: the leader corresponds to the father, the people to the children, and all being born free and equal, none alienates his freedom except for reasons of utility. The sole difference is that, in the family, the father is paid for the care he takes of his children by the love he bears them, while in the state this love is replaced by the pleasure of being in command, the chief having no love for his people. Grotius denies that all human power is instituted for the benefit of the governed. * He cites slavery as an example; his commonest mode of reasoning is to base a right on a fact. A more logical method could be employed, but not one that is more favourable to tyrants. It is therefore doubtful, following Grotius, whether the human race belongs to a hundred or so men, or whether these hundred men belong to the human race, and he seems inclined, throughout his book, towards the former opinion. This is Hobbes’s view also.* Behold then the human race divided into herds of cattle, each with its chief, who preserves it in order to devour it. ‘As a shepherd is of a nature superior to that of his flock, so too the shepherds of men, their chiefs, are of a nature superior to their peoples’—this argument, according to Philo, was used by the Emperor Caligula;* who would conclude correctly enough, given his analogy either that kings were gods or that the people were animals. The reasoning employed by this Caligula amounts to the same as that of Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle* too had said, earlier than any of them, that men are not naturally equal, but that some are born for slavery and some for mastery. Aristotle was right, but he took the effect for the cause. Any man who is born in slavery is born for slavery; there is nothing surer. Slaves in their chains lose everything, even the desire to be rid of them; they love their servitude, like the companions of Odysseus, who loved their brutishness. If there are slaves by nature, it is because slaves have been made against nature. The first slaves were made by force, and they remained so through cowardice. I have said nothing of King Adam or of the Emperor Noah, the father of three great monarches who shared the universe among themselves, like the children of Saturn, with whom they have been identified.* I hope that my restraint in this respect will be appreciated; for being descended directly from one or other of these princes, and maybe from the senior branch of the family, who knows but that, if my entitlement were verified, I might not find that I am the legitimate king of the human race? However that may be, it cannot be denied that Adam was sovereign over the world, like Crusoe on his iland, for so long as he was the sole inhabitant; and the advantage of this form of rule was that the monarch, firm on his throne, had neither rebellions, nor wars, nor conspirators to fear.Chapter iiiThe Right of the StrongestTHE stronger party is never strong enough to remain the master for ever, unless he transforms his strength into right, and obedience into duty. This is the source of the ‘right of the strongest’, a right which people treat with apparent irony * and which in reality is an established principle. But can anyone ever explain the phrase? Force is a physical power; I do not see how any morality can be based on its effects. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of consent; at best it is an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty? Let us suppose for a moment that this alleged right is valid. I say that the result would be completely senseless. For as soon as right is founded on force, the effect will alter with its cause; any force that is stronger than the first must have right on its side in its turn. As soon as anyone is able to disobey with impunity he may do so legitimately, and since the strongest is always right the only question is how to ensure that one is the strongest. But what kind of a right is it that is extinguished when that strength is lost? If we must obey because of force we have no need to obey out of duty, and if we are no longer forced to obey we no longer have any obligation to do so. It can be seen therefore that the word ‘right’ adds nothing to force; it has no meaning at all here. ‘Obey the powers that be’.* If this means: ‘Yield to force’, it is a sound precept, but superfluous; I can guarantee that it will never be violated. All power is from God, I admit; but all dicease is from God also.
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