The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right

Rousseau argues that legitimate political authority rests solely on a social contract among free and equal citizens, who collectively constitute the sovereign. He rejects the divine right of kings, the idea that force creates right, and the notion that sovereignty can be alienated or represented. The problem the book solves is how individuals can be both free and subject to authority: by obeying laws they have collectively willed as members of the sovereign, they remain free.

The general will is the collectively held will of citizens aimed at the common good, distinct from the sum of private interests. Rousseau distinguishes it from the 'will of all,' which is merely the aggregate of particular wills. When citizens vote, they are asked not whether they approve a proposal but whether it conforms to the general will. If one's opinion is outvoted, Rousseau claims, this proves one was mistaken about the general will, not that one has been coerced.

Rousseau's popular sovereignty holds that sovereignty resides indivisibly in the people as a collective body. Unlike Hobbes, who ceded absolute authority to a sovereign ruler, and Locke, who grounded government in the protection of individual property rights, Rousseau insists that the sovereign is the people themselves and cannot be transferred or divided. The social pact creates a 'moral and collective body' that is simultaneously State, Sovereign, and People, depending on its mode of activity.

The book was immediately banned and burned. In France, it was condemned by Catholic censors and placed on the Index of Prohibited Books. In Rousseau's native Geneva, it was both banned and burned by the authorities. The controversy arose from Rousseau's insistence that legitimate authority comes from a social agreement among free citizens rather than divine right or tradition—a direct challenge to the established order of absolute monarchy and religious authority.

Critics, including Benjamin Constant and Jacob Talmon, read 'forcing him to be free' as a justification for totalitarian coercion. However, most scholars now agree the passage refers to compelling an individual who breaches the law to obey the general will they themselves share as a citizen. Rousseau's concern is preserving civil liberty and autonomy, not licensing government despotism. The passage means that obeying self-legislated law is freedom, not a warrant for authoritarian rule.

Rousseau argues that sovereignty consists essentially in the general will, and 'the will cannot be represented.' Deputies may be 'commissioners' who execute the people's instructions, but they cannot decide in the people's place. Any law not ratified by the people in person is null. He allows representation only as a practical concession in large states where direct assembly is physically impossible, and insists such representation must be strictly limited.