The Fundamental Problem
The fundamental problem of the social compact is to find a form of association that defends and protects the person and property of each member with the full force of the whole community, while each member, uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only themselves and remains as free as before. This seemingly impossible demand — to surrender individual independence in exchange for collective protection, without losing freedom — is what the social compact resolves.
"Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."
Forced to Be Free
The compact does not merely suggest; it obligates. Those who accept its benefits must also accept its burdens. Rousseau's most contested claim follows: when a citizen refuses to obey the general will, the community may compel him — not as an act of tyranny, but as the necessary condition of freedom itself. To live under no law is not freedom but the chaos of the state of nature; to live under self-given law is the only genuine freedom available in civil society.
In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free
The Transformation of the Individual
Entry into the compact transforms the individual. The natural person, driven by appetite and self-interest, becomes a moral and civic being, capable of justice and duty. What is lost in natural liberty — unconstrained licence — is gained back many times over in civil liberty, which is the only freedom worthy of the name.
The social compact is described in Book I, Chapter VI of The Social Contract (1762). G.D.H. Cole translation, 1913.
Related Concepts
