Samuel Cunningham
POL 161
Essay #2

As everyone that has read the “Social Contract” can attest to, Rousseau believed every “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” (1) In book three of the Social Contract, Rousseau reveals several ways in which these shackles have yet to be released. In the following paragraphs I will consider what these chains are, give my own opinion on the subject, and discuss what it means to be truly free. To begin, in the radical and sometimes confusing political book, Rousseau believes that executive power does not belong to the people because it deals with particular acts and rather that the people should focus on general concerns. The people must have some sort of middle man or “agent” to pursue the general will and to be the messenger between the state and the sovereign. The purpose for this is to “full fill in the political entity the function that is performed in a man by the union of body and soul.” (2) For the government to carry out the general will, it must have its own life and be able to distinguish itself from the sovereign. While reading the “Social Contract,” it appears that Rousseau, while critiquing various forms of government, supports government being separate from the people, almost as if the government should be god-like. Be that as it may, he also says that the corporate will should always be less of a priority than the general will. To him, government should be an “intermediate body set up between subjects and sovereign to ensure their mutual correspondence, and [be] entrusted with the execution of laws and with the maintenance of liberty, both social and political.” (3)
In book three, Rousseau begins to explain the different forms of government and whether they would work or not. He analyzes what would and would not work for monarchies, democracies, and aristocracies. A government in which the sovereign gives power to all people is a democracy. An aristocracy can be another type of government, he says, which gives power to a small group of people. Finally, the sovereign can place a single individual in charge of government, like a king, and this is obviously a monarchy. In his eyes, there is only one correct form of government for each state, but that as a state changes it is not ridiculous for the government to change as well. In addition, he believes that the larger the state, the weaker the government will be.
He believed that the legislative power of government belonged to the people, but that executive power should be used by the government. From what I understand, Rousseau acknowledged that there, much like our government, should be a separation of powers. Without this separation, corruption and inequality would occur among the state. In this contract, an individual can help to make laws, but no one has the right to force someone else what to do. Essentially, to eliminate too much power and to avoid slavery, Rousseau believed the people who made the laws should not be allowed to enforce them.
His point that the larger the state, then the weaker the government is a valid one, and I understand where he is coming from; however, I find it hard to believe that the government in this country is less strong now than it was when there were only 13 colonies. In fact, citizens constantly fret (many times irrationally) that the government has gained too much power. Then again, perhaps the United States is not a true democracy. If Rousseau is correct, then a “true democracy has never existed and never will. It is against the natural order that the majority should govern and the minority be governed. It is impossible to imagine the people permanently in session in order to deal with public affairs.” (4)
Regardless, the point Rousseau is trying to make is that the right form of government will keep individuals from oppression and release them from their “chains.” The question is, though, what are these chains? Why does Rousseau believe we are born free but turn into slaves?
I believe Rousseau believed that issues like social class, wealth, power, and poverty create invisible prisons in which people trap each other. Before all these inventions of money, marriage, militaries, and even jobs, people were ultimately free. They had the freedom to live their lives the way they envisioned it. Nobody told them what to do; nobody told them what they could or could not do, and certainly nobody was owned by anyone.
Again Rousseau’s theories are certainly radical and controversial, but they are also thought-provoking and perhaps an influence in the construction of this country. While I do not necessarily believe we are all in chains, society has control over us to some extent or another. Chains people are tied to can be any number of things: The chains imprisoning people can be a drug addiction, parents, husbands and wives, bosses, television, and the media. Buddha believed that in order to truly reach enlightenment, to truly be free, people could not have any attachments. He believed that any attachment led to suffering. Now, this philosophy might not be exactly what Rousseau had in mind, and his views were obviously more politically charged, but I believe both are in the same ballpark. Rousseau surely did not believe in living without attachments, but he did understand the pressure of having to answer to someone, or some entity like government. He also believed that everyone should be treated as equals and, like mentioned in the reflection, Rousseau said “No man should be rich enough to be able to buy another, and none so poor as to be constrained to sell himself.” (5) With the crumbling of the economy in this country and the destruction of the middle class in the last decade, these words are just as valuable today as they were in the 18th century. While this particular quote might be viewed as Socialistic or even Communistic, Rousseau has a valid argument for this philosophy. This quote does not necessarily mean that everyone should have equal wealth, but instead means that poverty as well as an abundance of wealth should be eliminated.
In his ideals, Rousseau believes the people, collectively known as the “sovereign,” should control the state. While he acknowledges that there should still be government and law to enforce what the people want, the “sovereign” is what ultimately has the power. This philosophy sounds strikingly familiar to the United States since the government creates laws and police enforce the law, but the people are the ones that vote who is in charge of the government. However, the U.S. is a Capitalist Democracy and in many cases, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Rousseau knew this could and most certainly would happen, which is why he preferred variations of the middle class instead of three distinct and different classes.
In his state, there would still be the upper middle class, lower middle class, and the average middle class but no poverty and no one with too much power. That is basically what this theory boils down to; the fear of someone obtaining too much power and someone else having no amount of power. If a man is “rich enough to be able to buy another,” than Rousseau believed he would eventually become corrupt and use his money for personal gain. It is impossible to have a country in which the “general will” of the people is to pursue the common good when there are small minorities of individuals (such as the top 1% of the American population) that have an influence on the major businesses as well as elected officials because of their wealth. Likewise, the “general will” of the people cannot pursue the common good if a significant amount of those people are homeless, just struggling to make ends meet, or are willing to “sell himself” in order to eat their next meal.
Again, this theory is not implying that everyone should have the same amount in their back account, but rather that nobody have an excessive amount of control, or lack thereof. Rousseau is arguing that the severity of inequality takes away from freedom by corrupting the character of both the rich and the poor. If the upper-middle class makes 100,000-250,000 a year and the lower-middle class makes 25,000-50,000, with nobody below or above those numbers, then everyone can still provide food and shelter for their family as well as having an active say within their community.
With Rousseau’s statement, he was explaining that for a government to truly work for the people, poverty and wealth need to be eliminated. When this happens, lower income people will not be reduced to selling themselves on the street and higher income people will not be tempted to use their wealth for control and personal gain.
Rousseau’s theories on freedom, slavery, and government are so poignant and somewhat ambiguous that it is difficult to give a definitive answer of what he exactly meant or wanted. There is one thing for certain though; he was the definition of a philosopher. He asked questions most were probably afraid to ask or even comprehend, and his ideals were profound and ahead of its time. At the end of “Social Contract,” when Rousseau states “but all these form a new subject which extends too far for my weak sight; I should have always kept it fixed on things closer to me,” he even alludes that his ideals are larger than him. (6) This closing statement of “Social Contract” seems to me that he humbly acknowledged that his goal might never be realized, that he questioned whether he should even be involved with such a powerful and difficult task, and the masses could not let their morals or respect for the goodwill be compromised in such a case. He can be arguably viewed as both the father of modern democracy and even socialism, but at the same time did not exactly suggest that either would ever fully work. He was progressive for his time, envisioning a land where people as a whole held the power and the government worked towards the general good for all. He longed for a place where people could live as one, where there was no weak or corrupt, no major power and control except for the power of the people, and a hope, that a freedom could be found in a time where it did not exist.

Footnotes 1. Book I, Chap. 1, p. 45 2. Book III, Chap. 1, p. 91 3. Book III, Chap. 1, p. 92 4. Book III, Chap. 4, p. 101 5. Book I, Chap. 1, p. 49 6. Book IV, Chap. 9, p. 168