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    The Social Contract
    The Social Contract
    The Social Contract
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Social Contract

    Written by Jean Jacques Rousseau

    Narrated by Neville Jason

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    In The Social Contract, Rousseau explores the concept of freedom and the political structures that may enable people to acquire it. He argues that the sovereign power of a state lies not in any one ruler, but in the will of the general population. Rousseau argues that the ideal state would be a direct democracy where executive decision-making is carried out by citizens who meet in assembly, as they would in the ancient city-state of Athens. The thoughts contained in the work were instrumental to the advent of the American Revolution and became sacred to those leading the French Revolution. With traces of Aristotle and echoes of Plato’s Republic, The Social Contract is an exhilarating look at society and the definition of democracy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateApr 15, 2015
    ISBN9781843799030
    Author

    Jean Jacques Rousseau

    Jean Jacques Rousseau was a writer, composer, and philosopher that is widely recognized for his contributions to political philosophy. His most known writings are Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract.

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    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      The Social Contract is Jean-Jacques Rousseau's seminal work. He takes on the question of the state, government, and man's desire to be free under these conditions. Although Rousseau speaks quite too favorably of Rome and Sparta when justifying his main points, he nevertheless provides a provocative case for the use of the State, it's laws, and it's authority. However his flaws lie in his assurance of top-down government, and lack of faith in true democracy. He accuses direct democracy as incredibly paralyzing, and inefficient, which is true when applied in the context of mercantile, pre-modern conditions. “You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.”

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      The Social Contract was another surprising book. Rousseau advocates a society based on the "General Will" of the people. The "general will" is actually the sovereign in a society--not a king. Each person has a social pact with others in their society. The pact is to submit to the "general will." The general will should always reign supreme--for the good of the people--and is indestructible. So, individualism is definitely out. The people do not have a social contract with their government, only with one another. The government just expresses the general will of the people. He doesn't like representative governments. So how do you find out the general will? You meet in assemblies. Christianity is against his social pact because Christians would love God more than their society. He thought there should be more public service and less private (personal) business. It was interesting to read this in view of the French Revolution, and possibly the influence this had on future revolutions. Population should be spread equally, there should not be any really wealthy or really poor people....luxury is out as it is not compatible with the general will. You need to control equality with legislation. Monarchy was blasted in this book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Still relevant today… a classic…I will order hardcopy to keep
    • 5/5
      Very concise and captivating. It is remarkable how much of it still pertains and even seems to have been predicted. One can easily see how the framers of the US Constitution relied on this work. "Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we much conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men.""I shall end this chapter and this book by remarking on a fact on which the whole social system should rest: i.e., that, instead of destroying natural inequality, the fundamental compact substitutes, for such physical inequality as nature may have set up between men, an equality that is moral and legitimate, and that men, why may be unequal in strength or intelligence, become every one equal by convention and legal right."
    • 5/5
      Great Reading of a Great Book. Since it is a translation from French, it would be good it the translation were listed so I could get the correct translation to follow along.
    • 3/5
      Important enlightenment literature, but you can see all the places that are proto-communist. I can't really agree with his support of an "Enlightened Minority" required to direct societal affairs. Read Locke instead ;D
    • 2/5
      I read this in high school for my philosophical debate class/competions. This is really going to show my geek slip, but I enjoyed all 3 social contract theories. This one probably the least, he was a little radical by my way of thinking. Maybe too much wacky tobacky, or whatever was dipped into waaaaaay back when.
    • 5/5
      The predecessor to Karl Marx and Kapital. To understand Marxism, Rosseau and his ideas are practically a prerequisite, his concepts of collectivism, and distrust of representative democracy, and his declaration that "Man is free, yet everywhere he is in chains". For hardcore political scientists: read this to understand the ideological underpinnings of the architects of the French Revolution, the Jacobins, then read Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" to see a critique of Rosseauean ideology and what it did to France.