more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The laws regulating the relationship of the sovereign to the state are political laws, which are also fundamental. There is one way of organising a state, and people should stand by it. ...But a people is always in a position to change its laws.
Clarification
'Sovereign' here is rightful authority
Gist of Idea
Political laws are fundamental, as they firmly organise the state - but they could still be changed
Source
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.12)
Book Ref
Rousseau,Jean-Jacques: 'The Basic Political Writings', ed/tr. Cress,Donald A. [Hackett 1987], p.172
A Reaction
Constitutions take on a sacred and inviolable quality, but Rousseau clearly thinks 'the Sabbath is made for man'. I think the USA is crazy not to change its constitution on the subject of bearing arms.
Related Idea
Idea 19819 The state ensures liberty, so civil law separates citizens, and binds them to the state [Rousseau]
| 20566 | Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler [Hobbes, by Oksala] |
| 19930 | Sovereignty must include the power to make people submit to it [Spinoza] |
| 19787 | People accept the right to be commanded, because they themselves wish to command [Rousseau] |
| 20567 | Rousseau insists that popular sovereignty needs a means of expressing consent [Rousseau, by Oksala] |
| 19801 | Sovereignty is the exercise of the general will, which can never be delegated [Rousseau] |
| 19805 | Just as people control their limbs, the general-will state has total control of its members [Rousseau] |
| 19818 | Political laws are fundamental, as they firmly organise the state - but they could still be changed [Rousseau] |
| 19848 | The sovereignty does not appoint the leaders [Rousseau] |
| 23046 | States only have full authority if they heed the claims of human fellowship [Green,TH] |
| 23418 | Liberal state legitimacy is based on a belief in justice, not in some conception of the good life [Kymlicka] |
| 20086 | Nowadays sovereignty (once the basis of a state) has become relative [Reybrouck] |
| 20608 | Unjust institutions may be seen as just; are they legitimate if just but seen as unjust? [Tuckness/Wolf] |