The Social Contract · Chapter
How to Check the Usurpations of Government explained
Rousseau argues that government is not a contract but a law, and that rulers are merely officers of the people who can be appointed or dismissed at will.
What happens
Rousseau argues that government is not a contract but a law, and that rulers are merely officers of the people who can be appointed or dismissed at will. He warns against hereditary governments and the tendency of rulers to usurp sovereign authority, proposing periodic assemblies where the people can vote on whether to preserve the current form of government and its administrators. He emphasizes that no fundamental law, not even the social compact, is irrevocable.
Themes in this chapter
Sovereignty and Government
Rousseau distinguishes government as a mere law or commission, not a contract, and asserts that the sovereign people retain ultimate authority to change or abolish it.
Decline and Corruption of the State
The chapter warns that every government tends to usurp sovereign authority, leading to the corruption of the state.
The Role of the Legislator
Rousseau emphasizes that the institution of government is a law, not a contract, and that the people must maintain the power to revoke or alter it.
Characters to notice
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Author and narrator, presenting his political theory on government and sovereignty.
- Hugo Grotius
Cited for the idea that each individual can renounce membership in the State and recover natural liberty.
Key passages
“the institution of government is not a contract, but a law; that the depositaries of the executive power are not the people’s masters, but its officers; that it can set them up and pull them down when it likes”
Government is established by law, not by contract; those who hold executive power are servants of the people, not their masters, and the people can appoint or remove them at will.
Rousseau clarifies the subordinate and revocable nature of government authority.
“the established government should never be touched except when it comes to be incompatible with the public good; but the circumspection this involves is a maxim of policy and not a rule of right”
While changing the government is dangerous and should only be done when it harms the public good, this caution is a practical guideline, not a legal obligation.
Rousseau distinguishes between political prudence and the sovereign's absolute right to alter government.
“there is in the State no fundamental law that cannot be revoked, not excluding the social compact itself”
No law in the State is irrevocable, not even the social compact itself.
Rousseau asserts the ultimate sovereignty of the people to dissolve any political arrangement.