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19794
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If we all give up all of our rights together to the community, we will always support one another [Rousseau]
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Full Idea:
The social compact reduces to a single clause, namely the total alienation of each associate, together with all of his rights, to the entire community. Since this condition is equal for everyone, no one has an interest in making it burdensome for others.
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From:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.6)
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A reaction:
He speaks elsewhere of basic natural rights which can never be alienated, such as self-defence. It is what small groups do all the time, if they start off as equals. Difficult to manage with large groups. Factions are the problem.
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7241
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In society man loses natural liberty, but gains a right to civil liberty and property [Rousseau]
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Full Idea:
What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and the absolute right to anything that tempts him; what he gains is civil liberty and the legal rights of propery in what he possesses.
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From:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.8)
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A reaction:
It is an appealing idea that the purpose of society is to increase liberty, not to restrict it. That, on the whole, is my view. American libertarianism opens up the world to gun crime, vigilantes, pornographers and bounty-hunters.
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19806
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We alienate to society only what society needs - but society judges that, not us [Rousseau]
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Full Idea:
Each person alienates, by the social compact, only that portion of his power, his goods, and liberty whose use is of consequence to the community; but we must also grant that only the sovereign is the judge of what is of consequence.
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From:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.04)
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A reaction:
The weakness here is how society sees its needs. He seems to assume that two societies will arrive at almost identical general wills, but Spartans, Prussians and Serbs may require the lives of your children for the state.
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19781
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Land cultivation led to a general right of ownership, administered justly [Rousseau]
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Full Idea:
From the cultivation of land, there necessarily followed the division of land; and from property once recognised, the first rules of justice. For in order to render everyone what is his, it is necessary that everyone can have something.
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From:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II)
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A reaction:
This looks rather obviously correct. You don't plant crops if you are not protected in your right to reap what you have sown, and you would expect to re-sow from the proceeds. Other people will want you to do this.
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19754
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If we have a natural right to property, what exactly does 'belonging to' mean? [Rousseau]
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Full Idea:
Others have spoken of the natural right that everyone has to preserve what belongs to him, without explaining what they mean by 'belonging'.
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From:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Pref)
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A reaction:
This is aimed at Locke. What Marxists will challenge is the legitimacy of property ownership, granted by patronage, enclosure, exploitation and conquest. These start as injustices, but that fades after a few generations. Locke has a labour-theory.
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