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The Evolution of Democracy:
Part 7:
Rousseau and the Enlightenment:
February 11, 2002:
Another philosopher who found his way to Paris during the enlightenment
was Jean Jacques Rousseau. He was born in Geneva in 1725. In Paris
he met Voltaire, but unlike the philosophers of the enlightenment,
Rousseau relied more on his inner feelings. In eschewing the strict
rules of logic he became a critic of the enlightenment.
Rousseau developed a political philosophy based on the social contract theory and on the assumption of an unspoiled natural man. Man, according to Rousseau was inherently good in his natural state. He was capable of acting in his own and in societies long term best interest. Although the result of a contract between men, society was not an artificial contrivance. It was a natural convention being an extension of the human personality. In this sense, society becomes an entity with a will. That will is identical with the natural will of the members of the society.
Here we have a departure from the social contract theories of Hobbes and Locke. For Hobbes, the contract once made is forever binding and irrevocable. For Locke, society is an artificial contrivance. Further, Rousseau begins with man as basic rather than some supposed natural law.
In his major work, "The Social Contract" Rousseau sets himself a task. "I mean to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be any sure and legitimate rule of administration, men being take as they are and laws as they might be."
He insists that man is born free and is justified in asserting his freedom against tyranny. He says that men do well when they are compelled to obey and do so. However, they do even better if they can shake off the yoke and shake it off. Man regains his liberty by the same reasoning as it was taken from him. Either he is justified in regaining it or there was no justification for those who took it away. Thus, the natural state of man is a state of freedom.
Rousseau endeavors to determine how society evolved from man's natural state. He argues that force does not make right and that no man has any natural authority of another man. Therefore, there must be a first convention which he defines as the social compact.
The essence of this social compact is, "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."
Rousseau defines the limits of the sovereign power which derives from the compact. Since the sovereign draws its whole power from the contract it can not do anything derogatory to the original agreement. It cannot alienate any part of itself or submit itself to another sovereign. Violation of the compact would constitute self annihilation of the sovereign. Since that would make it nothing it would not be able to act.
Rousseau also expresses the principle of majority rule. Without majority rule, the compact would be an empty agreement. So the concept of majority rule is implicit in the compact. Anyone who refuses to obey the will of the majority may be compelled to do so by the whole body.
There is a tradeoff in the social compact. A man must give up his natural liberty to seek and try to get whatever he pleases. What he gains is civil liberty and the right to keep and be protected in whatever he does get; his property.
Concerning real property, Rousseau gives us the basic outline of what became the American Homestead Act. In general, he gives right of ownership to the first occupier of a piece of land. He makes clear some of the conditions of that. First, the land must not already be inhabited. Second, there is a size limit, being the amount of land necessary to the mans own subsistence. Third, the man must actually occupy the land and work it. It cannot be done by some empty ceremony. I am convinced that Rousseau never intended that this should circumvent the legal ownership of non-agrarian peoples like the American Indian.
Rousseau also discussed many of the details of society in terms of his social compact. He holds that sovereignty is inalienable and indivisible in terms of the general will. The general will, he says, is infallible even if the deliberations of the people are incorrect. There is a difference between the will of all men and the general will. The general will only takes account of the common interest. In that, it is infallible.
Perhaps, the most important point of Rousseau's philosophy is that the government is ultimately the instrument of the general will. It is subject to constant review, whether by election or, when necessary, by revolution. This is the principle of government which justified the American revolution and later the French revolution. In theory, at least, it is embodied in the American Constitution.
In my next essay, I will get to our American Declaration of
Independence and That great American, Thomas Jefferson.
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