Reading Rousseau: The Social Contract, Part III – Discourses on Minerva
The third book of Rousseau’s Social Contract is the most theoretical and philosophical. On one hand it covers familiar ground: the forms of government (democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy), how any form of government can be a “republic” (in the traditional sense of pertaining or relating to the public thing), why there are no pure democracies, aristocracies, and monarchies, how political orders dissolve and disintegrate themselves, etc. Any reader of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, or Locke, will be familiar with the themes and ideas that Rousseau outlines. Rousseau’s more personal contributions to political thought are also contained in the third book, namely his subject-citizen dialectic, and separation of state-government. Furthermore, Rousseau also outlines how the social compact originates (in contradistinction to Hobbes and Locke): law rather than fear or force. As such, I am going to summarize the third book by thematic content rather than undertake chapter-by-chapter summaries like in the first two books.
I. Three Forms of Government (Revisited)
Rousseau starts the third book by separating states and governments. This is important in the history of political thought – the state and the government are not one and same entity. At least not in Rousseau’s conception of the political. According to Rousseau, the state that exists in of itself is the apparatus and structural powers and institutions of any political society. Government, by contrast, is the “intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged with the execution of the laws and maintenance of freedom, both civil and political.” The state, then, is the structural apparatus. The government is the body that is actually executing the enforcement of laws, legislative prerogatives, and maintaining of the ideals of the social compact. To illustrate: State is the legislative house (as structure), judiciary, and presidency; the government is the body of legislators, judges, president, and so on, who engage with the daily executing of the social contract principles.
Furthermore, government – for Rousseau – is related to sovereign and sovereignty. Namely the physical executive for government is charged with the execution of the laws. Thus, government is wholly tied to General Will where the state is not.
It is also important to note how Rousseau further dichotomizes politics in the form of the two causes. “The will which determines the act” and the “physical – the strength which executes [the will].” This revisits the idea of “sovereign will” from the previous books. According to Rousseau, the legislature is linked to the will – for laws are creating in accord with the General Will. The executive is linked to the physical force, for the executive body is power that enforces legislation. They are not necessarily in opposition with each other since both are tied to the General Will but through a process. The Will manifests itself. The legislature which is most immediately tied to will responds and passes laws in accordance with the General Will. This is then transferred to the executive as one’s will is transferred to muscles and physical power. In order for a body to move one must will its moving. Ergo the same principle applies to the political. The willing is first enacted through legislation whereby the executive comes to receiving the willing and execute the willing.
It was fairly standard practice until the 20th century to write a political treatise and comment on the three forms of government: democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. Rousseau is no different. Rousseau’s outlining of the three forms are very basic and should be familiar to students with a basic comprehension of the exoteric nature of the three political forms. Democracy, as Rousseau imagines it, is the form of government where the whole people (or at least half) are in nominal control of the political system with executive power (by means of election or committees, etc.). Aristocracy is where a few people hold executive power. And the monarchy is where executive power is bound with a single person.
Rousseau goes through the standard analyses of the three forms, their deficiencies and positives. Democracy, of course, is the most ideal form of government but no true democracy exists. Democracy is best because it is the closest to actualizing and embodying the fullness of the social compact: liberty and equality for all. However, as Rousseau notes, the great enemy of democracy is wealth. The richer a society the more likely it is to fall into corruption and for wealth to be concentrated in a few hands whereby that wealth becomes the nexus of power in a democracy – corrupting it. But a democracy is the most ideal because it is the closest to living and executing the General Will qua General Will; there is no imposition of wills because all are one united in a democracy. But only a society of gods, Rousseau tells us, would govern itself democratically – men cannot govern themselves democratically because men are not benign gods.
Aristocracy is the happy medium from Rousseau’s perspective. It is also meritocratic, or at least can be meritocratic. Aristocrats are not always born into aristocracy – some aristocrats have their positions established for good and honorable deeds and services, a type of merit inborn to all aristocratic societies. The first societies were probably aristocratic Rousseau says, and unlike democracy wealth and aristocracy go hand-in-hand. And this is, implicitly, Rousseau’s problem with aristocracy; over time the good things of aristocracy: moderation, merit, and civil rule of law tend to lose out as wealth becomes the only tool for political gain. Here lies the problem at the heart of aristocracy.
Monarchy is the most troubling for Rousseau of the three forms. However, like democracy or aristocracy, monarchy can be “republican” if there is a benign king. So monarchy is not intrinsically incompatible with the idea of a republic. A monarchy may be a republic. Most monarchies, however, are not. With power vested in the hands of a single person a monarchy is most susceptible to falling prey to despotism – which is the imposition of a single will (or a few) over the many. This represents the destruction and dissolution of the social compact; the blatant violation of the General Will.
The reality of political life and order is that governments are mixed. So if governments are mixed what is meant by this? For instance, a committee is a blend of all three forms. The people vote to elect a small number of members who, in turn, have a single head (the committee president, for instance). Thus, a democratically elected committee is all three at once: democratic (the majority of people vote), aristocratic (x number of committee members) and monarchial (there is a committee head or leader). For Rousseau mixed governments should be as democratic as possible.
II. Subject-Citizen Dichotomy
One of the more novel products of Rousseau’s Social Contract is in his distinction between subject and citizen, which feeds into his commentary over the distinction between law and force which is a major theme in Book IV, especially when he analyzes the history of the rise and fall of the Roman Republic. Accordingly, Rousseau separates subjects and citizens to criticize Hobbes and Locke (and by extension, Grotius). For subjects are governed by fear and force. This is what the social compact of Hobbes and Locke represents. Citizens, on the other hand, are governed by liberty and equality, prizing the “freedom of the individual” as he says.
Subjects seek public order, security of possessions, want crimes to be punished, do not think government can ever become too severe (in the name of securing order and possessions, etc.), and, most importantly, “are satisfied so long as money circulates.” Rousseau argues that the liberal man, the English bourgeois liberal is whom he has in mind, speaks of liberty and equality but does not mean it. What the liberal man really wants is for money to circulate, to ensure he can possess many things in safety, consume many things in safety, and are always on the verge of accepting tyranny to ensure that they have their peaceful lives of materialistic consumption. For none of this is possible without that public tranquility.
Citizens, on the other hand, prize the freedom of the individual to do whatever they please (itself the true embodiment of the definition of freedom laid out by the English liberals). Citizens care about the security of themselves rather than possessions, believe crimes should be prevented (ergo justice is not a corrective but preventive), “prefer to be ignored [by their neighbors],” and “demand that the people shall have bread.” Citizens, according to Rousseau, are free and equal to each other and governed not by force and fear but by the law of nature: free, equal, and independent association.
People who see themselves as subject invite fear and force into society. People who see themselves as citizens invite liberty and equality into society. People who see themselves as subject, despite speaking the language of freedom and equality, are really inviting tyranny and corruption into society. People who see themselves as citizens “demand that the people shall have bread,” in other words, demand liberty and equality whenever that harmony of liberty and equality in society is lost. Subjects are passive. Citizens are active. A good government, and a healthy civil society, promotes the ethos of the citizen rather than the ethos of the subject.
III. Law and Force: The Metaphysics of Political Society
This subject-citizen split runs at the heart of Rousseau’s political philosophy: law or force? What governs a society, and what governs – pardon the pun – a government? The law of the General Will or the Law of brute strength and physical force?
This returns us to Rousseau’s earlier criticism of Hugo Grotius. This also embeds Rousseau’s esoteric criticism of Hobbes and Locke whom he never names (sans Hobbes, whom he finally names in Book IV) but has in mind throughout this work. Part of Rousseau’s critique of the prevailing spirit of social contract theory is that it is premised on force and fear. This is the social contract of Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke. By that token, this is the social contract of liberalism. Liberalism is governed by fear and force, seeking universal tranquility to ensure tranquil free-flow of commerce. The subject, remember, is happy so long as money flows without hiccups. Liberalism is the ideology of the bourgeois man whom Rousseau regards as the embodiment of everything evil – for the bourgeois man cares not about the common good and only ever himself and his own self-gain, and will do anything to achieve this goal even if it means abusing, enslaving, and subjugating others.
Rousseau’s adoration of law, especially sacred law, is the avenue by which he believes he can make government legitimate. Government needs to actually follow law and not force. Government needs to embrace the General Will, rather than serve the wills a few bourgeois men and their interests.
The social contract in its original construction was a construction under law. “By the first, the sovereign enacts that there shall be a body of government established with such or such form; and it’s clear that this act is law” he says in Chapter 17. It is important to note how Rousseau, unlike Hobbes and Locke, simply states his position as a given and doesn’t go through the pains of explaining why it is that we leave the state of nature and embrace the commonwealth or leviathan as Hobbes and Locke explain. Rousseau simply states his position that the institution of government is based on law. Whereas Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, and even Spinoza, in outlining their views, give us a clear portrait of their worlds and states of nature leading to the formation of the social contract that is governed by fear and force, Rousseau just shrugs that off and says what he says as if it were gospel.
But Rousseau’s declaration that the social contract emerges from amiable and good people in the state of nature interested in the preservation of their liberty and equality is his evidence. Man, in the state of nature, is amiable and good. He fears not others. He does not subjugate others. Rousseau’s state of nature, which is more visibly outlined in his Discourses on Inequality, is his evidence. What he does, in essence, is wave the magic wand and says that the state of nature was pure, good, free, and equal. As a result, the purity, goodness, freedom, and equality of the state of nature would have been embodied in the social contract to establish a pure, good, free, and equal society. It is only when the General Will, the common will, collapses, and the forces of government power are used to advance particular interests, that everything goes to hell which forces the General Will to actualize itself and legitimate (and therefore good) government heeds the call for more bread (e.g. greater restoration of liberty and equality) while illegitimate government ignores the General Will and dissolves itself as Rousseau explains in Chapters 10 and 11.
Rousseau’s splitting of law and force returns us again to his remarks about the “benign lawgiver” in Book II. Law is not a force because law is something good. Only something bad, which is the imposition of particular wills against the General Will, can be qualified as a force according to Rousseau.
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Paul Krause is the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView. He is writer, classicist, and historian. He has written on the arts, culture, classics, literature, philosophy, religion, and history for numerous journals, magazines, and newspapers. He is the author of Finding Arcadia, The Odyssey of Love and the Politics of Plato, and a contributor to the College Lecture Today and Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters. He holds master’s degrees in philosophy and religious studies (biblical studies & theology) from the University of Buckingham and Yale, and a bachelor’s degree in economics, history, and philosophy from Baldwin Wallace University.
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