Will of All Versus General Will
Rousseau distinguishes sharply between the general will and the 'will of all.' The will of all is a mere aggregate of private interests — what everyone happens to want at a given moment, which may be self-serving and transient. The general will, by contrast, is what the people would will if they were fully rational, fully informed, and directing their attention to the common good rather than private advantage. Sovereignty consists in exercising this general will, and the Sovereign can never alienate it to any representative or body.
The first and most important deduction from the principles we have so far laid down is that the general will alone can direct the State according to the object for which it was instituted, i.e. the common good: for if the clashing of particular interests made the establishment of societies necessary, the agreement of these very interests made it possible.
Always Right, But Not Always Seen
The general will is always right — it always aims at the common good — but the people do not always identify it correctly. Public deliberations can be distorted by factions, demagogues, and the manipulation of particular interests. Rousseau's disturbing conclusion is that a people can be deceived about what it truly wills: the will may be pure even when the deliberation is corrupt.
It follows from what has gone before that the general will is always right and tends to the public advantage; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people are always equally correct. Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on such occasions only does it seem to will what is bad.
Sovereignty and Inalienability
Because the general will is the exercise of collective self-governance, it cannot be transferred or delegated. The moment a people surrenders its sovereignty to a king or assembly, it ceases to be a free people. Representatives can act only as agents bound by clear instructions — never as substitutes for the sovereign people itself. This makes Rousseau one of the most radical critics of representative democracy in the Western tradition.
The general will is developed throughout Book II of The Social Contract (1762), especially Chapters I–III. G.D.H. Cole translation, 1913.
Related Concepts
