The Origin of Civil Society

The Origin of Civil Society

the Social Contract is notable for the way in which it establishes the relationship among the members of a body politic. By emphasizing the fact that each member of a society forfeits a certain amount f personal freedom for the greater good of the whole, and by emphasizing that the sovereign has immense responsibilities to the people, Rousseau conceived the structure of government in a novel way. Today we think of that way as basically democratic, since Rousseau constantly talks about certain types of equality which he expects to find in a well-ordered society. Equality before the law is probably the most important element of that society.

Equality before the law, a concept which we approve today, was a very revolutionary view for 1762. It implied that people who were born aristocrats would be equal before the law with those who were born commoners it implied the same thing for the wealthy property holder and the pauper. Neither of these conditions obtained in any nation of the time, although Rousseau saw same hope for such equality n the achievements of English law. Rousseau is careful not to say more than was possible considering the times, but he implies that the body politic should be a commonwealth in which property would be much more widely distributed that it was in contemporary France.

He takes an interesting stance in proposing a time which he calls the natural state when men were not joined in social orders. Eventually the surrendered that natural state for a civil state, because there was a general willingness to subordinate individual rights, government came into being, The novelty of this idea for Rousseau's day was his emphasis on government as a product of the act of the people's will rather than as a product of the force of the sovereign. It introduced, as well, a concept the French monarch Louis XV(1710-1774) was not quick to accept or understand.