Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
BOOK I, CHAPTER III
THE
RIGHT OF THE STRONGEST
The strongest is
never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into
right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which, though
to all seeming meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental
principle. But are we never to have an explanation of this phrase? Force is a
physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to
force is an act of necessity, not of will—at the most, an act of prudence. In
what sense can it be a duty?
Suppose for a
moment that this so-called "right" exists. I maintain that the sole
result is a mass of inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the
effect changes with the cause: every force that is greater than the first
succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity,
disobedience is legitimate; and, the strongest being always in the right, the
only thing that matters is to act so as to become the strongest. But what kind
of right is that which perishes when force fails? If we must obey perforce,
there is no need to obey because we ought; and if we are not forced to obey, we
are under no obligation to do so. Clearly, the word "right" adds
nothing to force: in this connection, it means absolutely nothing.
Obey the powers
that be. If this means yield to force, it is a good
precept, but superfluous: I can answer for its never being violated. All power
comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness:
does that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises
me at the edge of a wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion;
but, even if I could withhold it, am I in conscience bound to give it up? For
certainly the pistol he holds is also a power.
Let us then admit
that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only
legitimate powers. In that case, my original question recurs.
SLAVERY
Since no man has
a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must
conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men.
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 recognised, until, on
the violation of the social compact, each regains his original rights and
resumes his natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour 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,[1] 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.