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'Man is born free, yet everywhere he in chains.' The famous opening of Rousseau's On the Social Contract has resonated across the centuries. In his seminal work, Rousseau argues that all government is fundamentally flawed, and that modern society is based on a system that fosters inequality and servitude. This new edition of On the Social Contract is a revised and updated version of the classic Cole translation presented in modern English.
Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject Politics - Political Theory and the History of Ideas Journal, grade: 1 - (A-), University of Wyoming (Department of Political Science), course: Recent Political Thought, language: English, abstract: “Man is born free and, and everywhere he is in chains. One believes himself the other’s master, and yet is more a slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can it make legitimate? I believe I can solve this.”1 Regarding this quoted statement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Of the Social Contract or Principles of Political Right (in the following referred to as the Social Contract) of 1762 tries to explain and solve the problems of the society Rousseau lived in with the idea of a somewhat direct democracy and a radical popular sovereignty. Accordingly, the author’s theory is the counterpart to the early liberal Montesquieuian model of a state with a binding constitution, but also to the later classical liberal theories of democracy of John Stuart Mill. In general, Rousseau is known as a representative of the concept of direct democracy and as an intercessor of the identity of governors and the governed. Moreover, he pledged for the inseparability of popular sovereignty. 2 Taking this into consideration, Rousseau’s Social Contract – although censored and prohibited in his own time – remains a key source of democratic belief and is one of the classics of political theory. His theories were viewed so controversially that they were even publicly burned. So, the Social Contract and Emile or on Education (1762) became victims of the flames.3 This was, because basically, the Social Contract argues, that “the first and the most important consequences of the principles established so far is that the general will [volonté générale] alone can direct the forces of the state according to the end of its institution, which is the common good.”4 1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, edited and translated by Victor Gourevitch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), 1997, Book I, p. 41. 2 Manfred G. Schmidt: Demokratietheorien. Eine Einführung, 2. Auflage, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1997, pp. 23-24. 3 Merle L. Perkins: Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the Individual and Society, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1974, p. 239. 4 Rousseau: The Social Contract, Book II, p. 57.
In The Social Contract, Rousseau wrote one of the most influential studies ever made. It is as relevant today as when it was first published more than 250 years ago. Political society, Rousseau argued, required each individual to submit their personal desires to the 'general will'. At the same time, there was no 'divine right' of the monarchy to allow them to act as they pleased. Therefore, there must be a social contract between governor and governed - the only truly legitimate form of government. Rousseau's ideas influenced both the French and American Revolutions and created the foundations of the liberal democratic societies we live in today.
The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is presented in two volumes, together forming the most comprehensive anthology of Rousseau's political writings in English. Volume II contains the later writings such as The Social Contract and a selection of Rousseau's letters on important aspects of his thought. The Social Contract has become Rousseau's most famous single work, but on publication was condemned by both the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities in France and Geneva. Rousseau fled and it is during this period that he wrote some of his autobiographical works as well as political essays such as On the Government of Poland. This 1997 volume, like its predecessor, contains a comprehensive introduction, chronology and guide to further reading, and will enable students to obtain a full understanding of the writings of one of the world's greatest thinkers.
Inspired by ancient Greek city states, Rousseau searched for a way which states of his day could be equally representative Holding men in wretched subservience, feudalism–alongside religion–was a powerful force in the eighteenth century. Self-serving monarchic social systems, which collectively reduced common people to servitude, were now attacked by Enlightenment philosophers, of whom Rouseau was a leading light. His masterpiece, The Social Contract, profoundly influenced the subsequent development of society and remains provocative in a modern age of continuing widespread vested interest. This is the most comprehensive paperback edition available, with introduction, notes, index and chronology of Rousseau's life and times.
Censored in its own time, the Social Contract (1762) remains a key source of democratic belief and is one of the classics of political theory. This new translation is fully annotated and indexed. The volume also contains the opening chapter of the manuscript version of the Contract, together with the long article on Political Economy, a work traditionally between the Contract and Rousseau's earlier masterpiece, the Discourse on Inequality.