The Social Contract - 2 - The General Will
Book Two
Quote
In addition to those categories of law there is a fourth, which is the most important of all; it is not graven in marble or bronze, but in citizens' hearts; in it lies the true constitution of the state; its strength augments day by day; when other laws decay or become extinct it revives or replaces them.
Notes
🔥 "Sovereignty, being only the exercise of the general will, can never be transferred ... Power can be delegated, but the will cannot."
🔥 "Sovereignty is indivisible for the same reason that it is untransferable: a will is either general or it is not; it is the will of the body of the people, or of a part only."
🔥 Political theorists often divide the sovereign into separate pieces, each being a separate power or authority. They "take manifestations of its authority to be parts of it." In fact, these "parts" of the sovereign are all subordinate to it.
🔥 The general will, being the emergent common interest of all people, is always right. But people can be misled, and individuals making decisions can make mistakes.
🔥 A state must be able to use coercive force, but only decisions by the general will are legitimate. Or else it is only this part of the body versus that part. Distinguishing what is the general will is difficult, but it must be where it applies to all equally and treats all as equals.
🔥 The death penalty is legitimate, says Rousseau, since someone committing crimes against his society "becomes a rebel and a traitor to his country." He's no longer a member of the state.
🔥 But, "it should be added that frequent use of the death penalty is always a sign that the government is feeble or lazy."
🔥 We need laws, in particular to hold wicked men accountable, since they won't conform to the social order without that.
🔥 The law always considers the people as a whole. You don't write laws to apply to a particular person. No one is above the law. Though it is possible for laws to apply to only a group of people, but never specifically by name.
🔥 A republic is any state ruled by laws, as opposed to one ruled by a man.
🔥 But how does a people determine their laws? "How can the blind multitude, often ignorant of what it wants, because it seldom knows what is good for it, accomplish by itself so large and difficult an enterprise as a system of legislation?"
🔥 The people need a guide. They desire the good, but don't know how to get it. An individual may see the good, but they need to be guided to follow it.
🔥 And so they need a legislator. The legislator needs to be enlightened and objective, and desire what is best for the people. "It is gods that are needed to give laws to men."
🔥 The power to make laws is also quite dangerous. It can't be given to someone who will use it selfishly.
🔥 It's also difficult to communicate the reason for a law, and people can get disgruntled without understanding what their sacrifices are for. They can only see and appreciate the benefit of the law later.
🔥 "The legislator has to have recourse to another order of authority, which can compel without violence and win assent without argument." This is why it was so common to attribute law to the gods. That was the only way you could get that kind of authority.
🔥 You need to understand the people before you can make laws for them. They have to fit together.
🔥 A people can become stubborn in its old age and resistant to change, but sometimes civil strife and catastrophe can reawaken it and revive it. Sometimes... if it doesn't destroy it.
🔥 A smaller state is easier to manage than one that gets too big. The administrative burden alone will be a major problem. Also, in a bigger state, the government can start to feel to isolated and far away from the people, who will then lose their allegiance to it.
🔥 The population needs to be the right amount in proportion to the amount of land. Otherwise you have too much land and become a target for other states, or not enough and you have to target others to get theirs.
🔥 Timing is also important when setting up a state. If there's too much chaos, a tyrant can get people to agree to things they otherwise would not.
🔥 A society must work to protect both liberty and equality, but there's a balance to be struck between these, too.
🔥 "Equality, it is said, is a theorists' vision, which cannot exist in practice. But if an abuse is inevitable, does it follow that it should not at least be controlled? It is precisely because the force of things always tends to destroy equality that the force of law should tend always to conserve it."
🔥 There are a few different categories of law, but the most important one, often missed, is the law of moral standards, customs, and public opinion (quote at the top).
Thoughts
Rousseau's concept of the General Will seems a bit abstract. He admits different types of people within a society can have different interests, and that people in government might be tempted to use their power to serve their own interests. And that the people, as a whole, might not really know what their interests are.
And yet, the General Will is some emergent property of a society that leads to good government when it's followed...? How is anyone supposed to figure out what the General Will is? I'm not sure.