Critique of Rousseau’s Social Contract, part 9
This week, we’re looking at Book 3, Chapter 1: Government in General. In this chapter, Rousseau finally describes what he calls the prince or government, the body that supposedly converts the laws of the Sovereign/general will into meaningful actions/decrees.
Full show notes here.
Now he has actually created a physical body with real people in it whose job is to enact the general will, but since the general will is unknowable, in reality the government in Rousseau’s framework will be an unaccountable tyrannical force that turns the people into helpless serfs.
He also looks at the effects of larger versus smaller States, and the results suggest that he has a very totalitarian system in mind.
Despite this, he notes that if ever the government fails to follow the general will, it dissolves immediately. The problem is that there is no way for the people to prove this, and even if they could, the government would hold more than enough physical power to subjugate any part of the population that got out of line.
This video is available on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.
Return to the table of contents for this series.
References:
My coverage of Book 1, Ch. 6 (definitions)
https://marginalnonhermit.com/?p=831
Book 2, Ch. 7 (citizens to be made dependent and powerless)
https://marginalnonhermit.com/?p=864
Book 2, Ch. 12 (legislators should use subterfuge and propaganda)
https://marginalnonhermit.com/?p=888
Intro quote from “The Trouble with the Constitution and the ‘Social Contract'” by Lew Rockwell
https://mises.org/mises-wire/trouble-constitution-and-social-contract
Intro music by Praz Khanal, courtesy Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/users/prazkhanal-24653570/
Thumbnail image by awsloley, courtesy Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/users/awsloley-3972173/