Summary Of Rousseau's The Social Contract

When one thinks about the major historical documents that have shaped a country or a religion throughout history such as The United States Constitution or The Ten Commandments, an impersonal image of (In this case) words on paper or words on a stone tablet pops into mind. The reader rarely takes the time to analyze the rigorous process behind the creation of the laws and rules that encompass their everyday lives, be it in the United States or in any other country in the world. The creation and execution of laws are two individual processes that ultimately come together as they are being indoctrinated into a singular society, country or state. In Rousseau’s The Social Contract, he contrasts both aspects of law-making and law-executing, more
commonly known as the Legislator and the Lawgiver: Through defining the role of political theory in politics and through similar and different ideologies with Machiavelli’s modern political theories, Rousseau explains the reasoning behind the separation of power between a Legislator and a Lawgiver.

What is a law and what is a legislator?
In chapter six of Rousseau’s The Social Contract, he states that laws are impartial when it comes to the subjects or objects they are representing, laws are “general and considers subjects en masse and actions in the abstract, never a particular person or action.” Though, laws may seem like they are targeted towards a specific group within a society, they are created in a way so that biases like these do not affect the populace negatively or seem exclusive.
Chapter seven explains the qualifications needed to be an exemplar legislator. Rousseau states that in order for a society to be run successfully, the legislator should not have any power over man and the lawgiver should not have any power over the law: “the legislator is the engineer who invents the machine, the prince merely the mechanic who sets it up and makes it go.” Furthermore, a legislator should be one that can express man’s passions and needs in the laws without actually experiencing any of them because man does not really know what is best for him until he is told, through this the society will continue to grow
successfully:
“He must, in a word, take away from man his own resources and give him instead new ones alien to him, and incapable of being made use of without the help of other men…if each citizen is nothing and can do nothing without the rest, and the resources acquired by the whole are equal or superior to the aggregate of the resources of all the individuals, it may be said that the legislation is at the highest possible point of perfection.”
Lastly, one of the major instruments given to the legislator is divine enlightenment. Rousseau states that a legislator is needed in order to avoid personal biases to affect the drafting of laws, he notes that an ideal legislator should show to have acquired godly insight to draft the laws that will therefore subject the citizens to them and to instill the fear of the divine onto the citizens. Machiavelli in The Prince also makes a note of how religion and divine enlightenment has served as a crucial instrument in the governance of a state.

Rousseau’s political theories/ideologies in politics
Most of Rousseau’s political ideologies in his writings have been influenced by his own upbringing: “He was no statesman, no scholar, no philosopher; and he glorified in the fact.” Rousseau was more set on the idea of revolutionizing the concept of power within a society, government and state. He never really introduced new ideologies and theories he just expounded on existing ideas. His birthplace was also a major influence on his work, being a “citizen of Geneva” which is a Swiss city-state that enhanced on his idea of a popular government. From this, his idea that the constitution is made by the sovereign people and the government must conform its acts to this supreme law. Meaning that the laws are made by the citizens and for the citizens. Rousseau emphasizes on three main themes throughout The Social Contract: The separation of powers between nature and political society (between man and the government), liberty and the love for the state.
In the section of sovereignty and law, Rousseau states that though there exists a separation between these two concepts, they are bound together by the community as a whole; that one is needed to reinforce the other, this argument takes the reader back to the legislator/lawgiver argument that even though the legislator is the drafter, the founding father of the laws the lawgiver is ultimately the one that will lead the state to success or to failure. He makes note that even if the legislator is given the power to be the creator, he must answer to his political office in order to prevent the inception of extreme ideologies and measures such as dictatorship and tyranny tendencies within the
legislator.
Liberty and the love for the state plays an important role in the lifespan of the state. Rousseau states that a citizen of a state must be stripped of anything – morals, ideologies, etc. – that can hinder his performance and his devotion to the state and only by giving himself to the state will the citizen understand and indulge in the liberties it provides and by become a proactive member in the society. After all, the community depends on each other for survival.

Similarities and differences in Machiavelli’s modern political theories
Rousseau shares some similarities with most modern political philosophers, in this case with Machiavelli. Both thinkers believe that society is progressive through the deeds and professions that the individuals in society possess. In this case, the legislator and the lawgiver or the legislator and the prince. Both professions are individual and can continue to develop as so, they can remain different but ultimately as society changes and advances so will they: Machiavelli metaphorically represents opportunity, success and failure in the form of the character of the prince and his ability to metamorphose with the new ideologies and methodologies of the era. Modernity is fickle in the sense that it is constantly changing aspect, modernity in respect to political theory too is a rapidly (and yet not so rapidly) changing entity. One of the differences between both thinkers is that Machiavelli hovers over the idea of selfishness, appearance and cunningness. That a prince should express all of these factors when addressing his subjects or his state. In contrast to this ideology, Rousseau recognizes the roles of authority/authoritative figures but does not (entirely) share Machiavelli’s values on the deceptive nature a prince must adopt in order to properly reign over his state, when speaking of inequality within man he gives of man’s natural state (as I previously stated) and his actions before being sort of “corrupted” and “misguided” by the biases and notions of a developing society.

Conclusion
In conclusion, Rousseau’s The Social Contract, he contrasts both aspects of law-making and law-executing, more commonly known as the Legislator and the Lawgiver: Through defining the role of political theory in politics and through similar and different ideologies with Machiavelli’s modern political theories, Rousseau explains the reasoning behind the separation of power between a Legislator and a Lawgiver. He explicitly states the qualities needed for a successful legislator and lawgiver and provides the reader hints through his ideologies of the similarities and differences between other modern thinkers such as Machiavelli.