Locke and Rousseau 171to use them, there developed an inequality based on the compe
tition that ensued. Men’s basic equality began to wane as
competition caused some to become richer, stronger, and domi
nant. Institutions developed to protect those who, having achieved
a superiority over their fellow men, desired to protect that which
they had acquired. Society became a means to encourage selfish
ness and to bring about the fall of the natural, good, and decent
“noble savage.”
His Social Contract begins with the statement, “Man is bom
free; yet everywhere he is in chains.” The chains he refers to are
the restraints placed on individuals, on their freedom and their
equality, by society. Since society has no right to impose these
unnatural conditions on men—“Since no man has a natural
authority over other men, and since might never makes right, it
follows that agreements are the basis for all legitimate authority
among men.” Thus in two sweeping statements the reasons for
and the necessity of the social contract is established.
Since man can never return to the natural state, and since by
mutual agreement he enters into civil society, how to moderate
the evil effects of civil society must be his main task. The answer
to this difficult question rests with his concept of sovereignty—
it rests with the people. Democracy however, must be an
expression of the “general will,” that is, what the body politic
truly desires, and that desire must be for the benefit of the
common good. He also uses the term “the will of all,” which is
quite different from the general will. When individuals vote for
their own particular interest and a majority agree on a particular
issue, that is the will of all, a corruption of the general will. The
general will represents the equality of all, the understanding of
the common good, and the effective enactment of law on behalf
of the community.
It is interesting to note the paradox inherent in this concept.
Rousseau begins the Social Contract with a statement about
freedom, then creates a theory which demands individual sub
servience to the the common good. The general will, then, is
whatever the common good demands, and what is good for the
group is good. Freedom, then, is the freedom to do what is good,
to conform to the common will. How does Rousseau then justify
individual desires? He doesn’t. If an individual goes against the
common good he is, by definition, in error and thus not free. This