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Of the
Social Compact
I suppose
men to have reached the point at which the obstacles in
the way of their preservation in the state of nature show
their power of resistance to be greater than the resources
at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in
that state. That primitive condition can then subsist no
longer; and the human race would perish unless it changed
its manner of existence.
But, as
men cannot engender new forces, but only unite and direct
existing ones, they have no other means of preserving themselves
than the formation, by aggregation, of a sum of forces great
enough to overcome the resistance. These they have to bring
into play by means of a single motive power, and cause to
act in concert.
This sum
of forces can arise only where several persons come together:
but, as the force and liberty of each man are the chief
instruments of his self-preservation, how can he pledge
them without harming his own interests, and neglecting the
care he owes to himself? This difficulty, in its bearing
on my present subject, may be stated in the following terms:
"The
problem is to find a form of association which will defend
and protect with the whole common force the person and goods
of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself
with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free
as before."
This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract
provides the solution.
The clauses
of this contract are so determined by the nature of the
act that the slightest modification would make them vain
and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never
been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and
everywhere tacitly admitted and recognized, until, on the
violation of the social compact, each regains his original
rights and resumes his natural liberty, while losing the
conventional liberty in favor of which he renounced it.
These
clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one —
the total alienation of each associate, together with all
his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place,
as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the
same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest
in making them burdensome to others.
Moreover,
the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect
as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand:
for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there
would be no common superior to decide between them and the
public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask
to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue,
and the association would necessarily become inoperative
or tyrannical.
Finally,
each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody;
and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire
the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains
an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of
force for the preservation of what he has.
If then
we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence,
we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms:
"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."
At once,
in place of the individual personality of each contracting
party, this act of association creates a moral and collective
body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains
votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common
identity, its life and its will. This public person, so
formed by the union of all other persons formerly took the
name of city, and now takes that of Republic
or body politic; it is called by its members State
when passive. Sovereign when active, and Power
when compared with others like itself. Those who are associated
in it take collectively the name of people, and severally
are called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign
power, and subjects, as being under the laws of the
State. But these terms are often confused and taken one
for another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them
when they are being used with precision.
The Sovereign
This formula
shows us that the act of association comprises a mutual
undertaking between the public and the individuals, and
that each individual, in making a contract, as we may say,
with himself, is bound in a double capacity; as a member
of the Sovereign he is bound to the individuals, and as
a member of the State to the Sovereign. But the maxim of
civil right, that no one is bound by undertakings made to
himself, does not apply in this case; for there is a great
difference between incurring an obligation to yourself and
incurring one to a whole of which you form a part.
Attention
must further be called to the fact that public deliberation,
while competent to bind all the subjects to the Sovereign,
because of the two different capacities in which each of
them may be regarded, cannot, for the opposite reason, bind
the Sovereign to itself; and that it is consequently against
the nature of the body politic for the Sovereign to impose
on itself a law which it cannot infringe. Being able to
regard itself in only one capacity, it is in the position
of an individual who makes a contract with himself; and
this makes it clear that there neither is nor can be any
kind of fundamental law binding on the body of the people
— not even the social contract itself. This does not
mean that the body politic cannot enter into undertakings
with others, provided the contract is not infringed by them;
for in relation to what is external to it, it becomes a
simple being, an individual.
But the
body politic or the Sovereign, drawing its being wholly
from the sanctity of the contract, can never bind itself,
even to an outsider, to do anything derogatory to the original
act, for instance, to alienate any part of itself, or to
submit to another Sovereign. Violation of the act by which
it exists would be self-annihilation; and that which is
itself nothing can create nothing.
As soon
as this multitude is so united in one body, it is impossible
to offend against one of the members without attacking the
body, and still more to offend against the body without
the members resenting it. Duty and interest therefore equally
oblige the two contracting parties to give each other help;
and the same men should seek to combine, in their double
capacity, all the advantages dependent upon that capacity.
Again,
the Sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who
compose it, neither has nor can have any interest contrary
to theirs; and consequently the sovereign power need give
no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for
the body to wish to hurt all its members. We shall also
see later on that it cannot hurt any in particular. The
Sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, is always what
it should be.
This,
however, is not the case with the relation of the subjects
to the Sovereign, which, despite the common interest, would
have no security that they would fulfill their undertakings,
unless it found means to assure itself of their fidelity.
In fact,
each individual, as a man, may have a particular will contrary
or dissimilar to the general will which he has as a citizen.
His particular interest may speak to him quite differently
from the common interest: his absolute and naturally independent
existence may make him look upon what he owes to the common
cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will
do less harm to others than the payment of it is burdensome
to himself; and, regarding the moral person which constitutes
the State as a persona ficta, because not a man,
he may wish to enjoy the rights of citizenship without being
ready to fulfill the duties of a subject. The continuance
of such an injustice could not but prove the undoing of
the body politic.
In order
then that the social compact may not be an empty formula,
it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give
force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general
will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This
means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free;
for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen
to his country, secures him against all personal dependence.
In this lies the key to the working of the political machine;
this alone legitimizes civil undertakings, which, without
it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most
frightful abuses.
The Civil
State The
passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces
a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice
for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the
morality they had formerly lacked. Then only, when the voice
of duty takes the place of physical impulses and right of
appetite, does man, who so far had considered only himself,
find that he is forced to act on different principles, and
to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations.
Although, in this state, he deprives himself of some advantages
which he got from nature, he gains in return others so great,
his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas
so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul
so uplifted, that, did not the abuses of this new condition
often degrade him below that which he left, he would be
bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him
from it for ever, and, instead of a stupid and unimaginative
animal, made him an intelligent being and a man.
Translated
by G. D. H. Cole
Edited
by Jennifer Brainard, c. Historywiz 2000-2003
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