Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract - Essay Example

Jean-Jacques Rousseau "The Social Contract" Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a renowned and acclaimed philosopher, and artist whose writings and thoughts made a significant impact on the French revolution and evolution of the political thoughts in a wider perspective. His works not only influenced the triggering point for the French revolution, rather they were a setting stone for the later policy making concerning education, economics and political processes. Rousseau presented many classical works depicting his thoughts about diverse political systems and he always tried to propose a permanent solution to the emerging problems of the world. He never feared to highlight the loopholes of the socially validated concepts which are much widespread in the society and modern world (Hendel, 1934). Rousseau emphasized on the importance of individuals’ reasonability in the society in order to run the matters of the state. To emphasize on this point, he asserted in his book “the social contract” that, as soon as any man says about the affairs of the State that what does it matter if I will not do it? The State may be given up for losses and matters will never be done according to the required level (Rousseau & Cole, 2008). He challenged and questioned the modern states and provoked people to think and ponder upon the negative roles of the civil states that are not satisfying their basic needs and exploiting their emotions in order to increase their span of power. He dismissed the modern democratic process and democracy as a system of governance. These thoughts surfaced primarily in his masterpiece named as “social contract” (Rousseau & Cole, 2008). There is a very famous quote by him whom he wrote in his book the social contract which depicts the overall span of ideas he is trying to argue in his book and the reason why he is rejecting democracy as a system of governance. He says that man is “born free, but in chains everywhere”. He affirms that the man should be free in order to fulfill his basic needs. He rejects the system of democracy because he thinks that the citizens of the moderns states are bound in many chains for example the overwhelming taxes, the increasing prices of utility bills, the travel expenditures and the hike in the prices of day to day items. He says that these prices are not changed at random rather these are manipulated by the unseen hands apparently and the throttling forces of these manipulations are of very high magnitude (Inston, 2010). Rousseau always said that the states are using the laws to exploit the low level citizens who are not enjoying a good status in the society. As he said in his book the social contract “In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions are not useful for those who do not possess anything, from which it follows that the social state is useful to people only when all with rich status and a lot of wealth” (Rousseau & Cole, 2008). Rousseau suggests that the legitimate and true leadership can come forward only as a result of the social contract between the citizens and the top hierarchical leadership for the collective good. The success of the society can never be ensured as a result of voting because there is a massive pre-poll rigging and post poll rigging. He dismisses the democratic system in the “social contract” because the leaders make negative use of the feelings of the general masses in order to get the vote before elections and after the success in elections; they leave the people because they have no vested interests with them anymore. He comes out to be an ardent supporter to cease the maneuvering of the political policies and gives an alternative in the form of social contract. In order to uphold the sanctity of the social contract and cease the mishandling of the pact that is virtually signed by the citizens of a locality in a collective way, Rousseau suggests “penalty of death” for those who do not abide by the values and demands of the social contract and violate them (Rousseau & Cole, 2008). This penalty may seem to be barbaric and but this is the most practical approach in the modern world in order to ensure the following of some protocols and values otherwise the social contract will have no sanctity and legitimacy (Miller, 1984). Rousseau suggests aristocratic form of government as the most stable system to run the societies because he thinks that the absolute authority gives a clear direction to run the state matters whereas in the democracy, everything seems to be going in a very vague fashion. The leader has not an absolute authority rather the authoritative maters are divided into multiple hierarchical and there is no clear chain of command following which the excessive steps can be taken in order to ensure the proper system of governance and conformation with the state policies. Jean-Jacques Rousseau appears to dismiss the general form of government in the democratic sense but the direct democracy is favored by him in his books. He says that the emergent democratic system says that there will be a general will and laws will be made by the representatives of the people (Gaus, 1997). In reality this approach is not practical according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau because the representatives might not truly represent the general masses and there can be many loop holes in the system of elections. He is strong supporter of the fact that that every person will have his own opinion and “direct democracy” will be implemented having the will of all in the dynamics of the system so that no entity can be misrepresented. He argued the importance of public-spirited voting in case the particular voting is not possible. The democratic system according to him is not practical because the modern states are making many limitations on the needs and requirements of the people. The modern states do not pay any significant heed to the general masses especially those who have a very low pay scale and poor (Rousseau & Cole, 2008). He always condemns the political parties and thus the democratic system is automatically condemned in this approach because the democratic system runs on the basis of partisanship and every party says that they can run the existing system in a better way so they ask for the votes from the general masses. Rousseau says in his book “the social contract” that the political parties do not pay any heed to change the dynamics and machinery of the system in order to sort out the real problems which are playing a key role in the system. If these parties start working to change the system then their vested interests will never be satisfied thus they work day and night to increase the vote bank of their parties. The democratic system of governance lacks the spirit of social welfare according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He says in the social contract that democracy is not suitable for the large and densely populated states because the elected people and magistrates may give the inculcated power to the minority of the people and the majority will be overrun by the scarce population. There is no check and balance in the democratic system and the system will not cease any corruption both in the moral and economic sense. Similarly, He says that for the moderate level areas, the aristocratic system of government is good whereas for the very large areas ad states, the monarchy is the most appropriate system of governance. The reason he gave for this argument is the fact that with the increasing diversity of the population, it becomes extremely difficult for the governments and the authorities to take everyone on board. Rousseau rejects the democratic system as a mean of governance because he think that the system of democracy cannot withhold the requirements of the people and because its main spirit is to take every individual on board, there are many vulnerabilities as a result of this factor. Rousseau said in his book “the social contract that “the greatest enemies of freedom and rights are extremely rich and those who are extremely poor because the first class is willing to buy everything without any bargain and the former one is willing to sell everything irrespective of the quality” (Rousseau & Cole, 2008). He asserts in the book that in the modern democratic systems like of England and the United States, the people who are in charge of the political corridors are giving preferences to their own lives and private matters whereas the civil state should focus on the public matters instead of giving preference to the private matters. If the public matters are good and sound, then the private matters of all the citizens will be in line with the collective requirements of the people living in the society. He argues that signing some financial deals for the representatives is not the mere responsibility of the people rather they should also shrink their demands in the perspective of money in order to contribute effectively in the state matters (Rousseau & Cole, 2008). There are two rules which are given by Rousseau in his book “social contract. First he says that if the people are obeying the laws of the state then they are obeying themselves because they sent the representatives and authoritative magistrates in the upper houses in order to make laws that will fulfill the needs of the citizens. The citizens should not feel harmed or left out when obeying the law of the lands if the laws are truly within the limits and not exploiting the basic needs of the people. The second rule of the thumb given by him is that in order to make a legitimate policy, there should be no binding of particular dependence. That means that if the leader has to make some choice in the public interest and there are some scarce populations that are objecting the resolution of such laws then the leaders should not wait for them to agree rather the decision should be made (Rousseau & Cole, 2008). This is the thing which is absent from the modern democracy which makes in impractical form of governance in the modern world. The leaders will not make any courageous decision due to the fear of losing the authority and this process will bring a great harm to the collective societies. The democratic system also does not ensure to change the system from the scratch as all the parties taking part in the system will try to run the existing machinery and enjoy the privileges of the system even if they incur the fact that the system of governance is exploitative. Similarly, the price hikes problem is also of a very grave magnitude as there is a need to take every representative on board in order to deplete the prices of day to day articles whereas in the aristocratic form of government, the rules will simply take the decision for the public interest and the good policy will be constituted without any wait and delay. This system will ensure that whenever there is a need to take bold step, the rulers takes it irrespective of the contextual backgrounds of the situations and the consequential terms. The Social contract theory legitimizes the rights of rulers and authorities on the citizens as well. The author of the book argues that if someone is living under the umbrella of the government then it is to be taken for granted that He has signed some kind of social contract to which he has to abide by in order to enjoy the fulfillment of the needs. The will give each citizen a sense of responsibility while living in the society and he will take care of his surroundings and ensure the law abiding environments because he will know the fact that every good taking place around him is for his own good and every bad that is taking place in the country will somehow cast the detrimental effects on him and his generations directly or indirectly. This sense of responsibility is not very exigently available in the democratic system of governance (Rousseau & Cole, 2008). References Top of Form Gaus, G. (1997). Does democracy reveal the voice of the people? Four takes on Rousseau. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 75(2), 141-162. Hendel, C. W. (1934). Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Moralist (Vol. 96). Bobbs-Merrill. Inston, K. (2010). Rousseau and Radical Democracy. Continuum. Miller, J. (1984). Rousseau: Dreamer of Democracy. Hackett Publishing. Rousseau, J.-J., & Cole, G. D. H. (2008). The social contract. New York, N.Y: Cosimo Clasics. 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