The Social Contract · Chapter
X: The People (Continued) explained
Rousseau discusses the optimal relationship between a state's territory and its population, emphasizing that the land must suffice for the inhabitants and vice versa to avoid wars of defense or offense.
What happens
Rousseau discusses the optimal relationship between a state's territory and its population, emphasizing that the land must suffice for the inhabitants and vice versa to avoid wars of defense or offense. He notes the difficulty of establishing a fixed ratio due to variations in climate, fertility, and customs, and stresses that a legislator must anticipate future population growth. He also outlines the ideal conditions for a people to be fit for legislation, including unity, absence of deep-rooted customs, self-sufficiency, and a balance between ancient consistency and new docility. Rousseau identifies Corsica as a European country still capable of receiving good laws.
Themes in this chapter
The Role of the Legislator
Rousseau emphasizes the legislator's need to foresee future population and conditions, and distinguishes the work of a true legislator from that of a tyrant by the moment chosen for enacting laws.
Sovereignty and Government
The chapter discusses the ideal size and self-sufficiency of a state, which are foundational to the proper exercise of sovereignty.
Characters to notice
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Author and narrator, presenting his views on the ideal conditions for legislation and the relationship between territory and population.
Key passages
“The men make the State, and the territory sustains the men; the right relation therefore is that the land should suffice for the maintenance of the inhabitants, and that there should be as many inhabitants as the land can maintain.”
The state is composed of its people, and the land supports them; thus, the ideal balance is that the land provides enough for the people, and the population matches what the land can support.
Rousseau establishes the fundamental proportionality between population and territory for a state's strength.
“The legislator therefore should not go by what he sees, but by what he foresees; he should stop not so much at the state in which he actually finds the population, as at that to which it ought naturally to attain.”
The lawgiver must base decisions on future projections rather than current conditions, focusing on the population's natural growth rather than its present size.
Rousseau emphasizes the importance of foresight in legislation.
“What people, then, is a fit subject for legislation? One which, already bound by some unity of origin, interest, or convention, has never yet felt the real yoke of law; one that has neither customs nor superstitions deeply ingrained...”
A suitable people for new laws are those already united by common origin or interest but not yet oppressed by law, without deeply rooted customs or superstitions.
Rousseau lists the ideal characteristics of a people ready for a new constitution.