The Social Contract - 3 - Government
Book Three
Quote
The political body, like the human, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries within it the causes of its own destruction.
Notes
🔥 "I am ignorant of the art of making myself clear to those who do not with to concentrate," Rousseau says to open this book.
🔥 Every free act has two causes: will and force. These correspond to the legislative and executive power. The legislative is made up of the people, but the executive has to be more distinct.
🔥 Government is an "intermediate body set up between subjects and sovereign to ensure their mutual correspondence, and is entrusted with the execution of laws and with the maintenance of liberty."
🔥 The size or population of a state impacts the size and strength of a government. Though its power needs to be restrained, same as it can restrain the liberties of the people for the common good.
🔥 There are three types of wills: individual will, corporate will (of the government), and the general will. Ideally, the general will should dominate, but the will becomes more vigorous the more it is concentrated, so the individual will tends to be the strongest.
🔥 Rousseau argues that there is a just proportion for balancing the number of members in a government with the size of the population, according to the way the above wills work (it's kind of complicated...)
🔥 He classifies three types of government: democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. The question about which form is best depends on the context. There's no one size fits all.
🔥 In its strict sense, true democracy has never existed. Too many factors need to fit, like the size of population (can't be too big), and equality among members in wealth. If there's too much variance it leads to conflict.
🔥 Democracy is most liable to "civil war and internal disturbance." Democratic citizens must have the attitude that "I prefer freedom with all its dangers to tranquility and servitude."
🔥 "If there were a nation of gods it would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is not suitable for men."
🔥 There are a few different types of aristocracy: natural, elective, and hereditary. "The best and most natural order of things is that the wisest should govern the multitude" as long as they govern in the people's interest, not solely their own.
🔥 Monarchy has the advantage of stripping away the opposing forces that complicate decision-making. A king can act more swiftly and easily. But it's also easy for him to rule for himself, not the people.
🔥 Kings usually prefer that their people are weak so they can't rebel. Succession is also a huge problem. People raised in a king's family often don't make good kings, despite their education. Their education actually corrupts them. The inconstancy of monarchy is a problem, too, since government changes more drastically from king to king.
🔥 The best form of government depends on the character and context of the country. Also on the fertility of the land, and the climate, and how spread out the population is.
🔥 People disagree about what the best form of government is or how to tell if a people is governed well, since they have different ideas about what government should or shouldn't do. But, Rousseau says, the easiest and most reliable way to see is by looking at the birth rate. If the population is growing, that's a good sign, if diminishing, not so good.
🔥 The "natural tendency" of a government is to degrade from a democracy to an aristocracy and then to monarchy. Power contracts into a smaller and smaller group.
🔥 "If the people is grasping, faint-hearted, and cowardly, fonder of leisure than liberty, it will not hold out long against the constant pressure from government."
🔥 "I believe that taxes are more contrary to freedom than forced labour." Paying someone else is giving up your responsibility.
🔥 In a good state, people see the well-being of society as a benefit to themselves, not a cost.
🔥 "As soon as anyone says about the affairs of the state, 'What does it matter to me?', the state must be regarded as lost."
🔥 "Sovereignty cannot be represented." The moment that a people provides itself with representatives, it is no longer free, it no longer exists."
🔥 Finally, Rousseau asks if slavery is necessary for liberty. "Maybe" (?...).
Thoughts
Some strange quotes stand out here. I also think that if we used Rousseau's criteria to assess our governments, I doubt any of them would be healthy. The birth rate in a lot of 1st world countries is low. And plenty of people are happy to abrogate responsibility and simultaneously complain about how their government operates.