THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

In The Social Contract Rousseau (1712-1778) argues for the preservation ofindividual freedom in political society. An individual can only be freeunder the law, he says, by voluntarily embracing that law as his own.Hence, being free in society requires each of us to subjugate our desiresto the interests of all, the general will. Some have seen in this thepromise of a free and equal relationship between society and theindividual, while others have seen it as nothing less than a blueprint fortotalitarianism. The Social Contract is not only one of the great defencesof civil society, it is also unflinching in its study of the darker sideof political systems.