Why Does Rousseau Think That Participatory Democracy

Today, politics have a huge influence in this world. So who helped developed the basis of all these politics? Their names are John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Baron de Montesquieu. These three men had their own ideals of how a government should be ran and had much respect from the colonists. Without Locke, Rousseau, or Montesquieu, people today would not be as advanced in government.

In his writing he states that he believes that people consent to be governed meaning that the government should work for all the people and not the select few with money and land. Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that people should have a vote on every issue because the government was meant to serve them. Even though Jean-Jacques Rousseau was mainly writing directing his writings to French government originally, his authorship for certain influenced the American

Topic #1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau makes the provocative claim that the transfer of sovereignty involves in the election of representatives signifies a loss of freedom: "The instant a people chooses representatives, it is no longer free." (On the Social Contract, p.103) Do you agree with Rousseau?

2007, pp. 57)

The notion of government is a very simple one for Rousseau, he takes all of the legislative power away from it, leaving it only executive power. He defines it explicitly as, “an intermediate body established between the subjects and sovereign for their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and with the maintenance of liberty both civil and political.”(60) The sovereign power of the people still prevails through the general will, though, meaning Rousseau created a government that delegates powers that can be withdrawn by the people at any time. With these terms defined, we can now move on to the question of what Rousseau meant by his maxim on representative governments.

Rousseau wanted the state to be a legitimate democracy, a society that united together the people in freedom, equality and civic devotion. Rousseau believed that an individual fulfils his moral potential not in isolation but as part of a community where all members are committed to helping each other. This belief led Rousseau to ancient Greek society for which he felt a great admiration. He believed the Greeks lived in 'organic communities', cities where the citizens set aside personal interests in order to attain the common good. Rousseau's ideal state was one of a smaller size but one where the citizens were welded together in the spirit of 'fraternity'. People would therefore have the opportunity to get know each other, resulting in an enthusiastic contribution to all public affairs. Such a political environment produces free and committed citizens. In contrast, the large modern day states are ruled by an absolute monarch, creating 'servile subjects', which Rousseau despised.8

Illaid, Book 2, line 338-339)

Over the course of history this idea of freedom has been developed and defined by many famous political and philosophical thinkers. Many of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas are acknowledged in the “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” and more notably the “The Social Contract”. John Stuart Mill’s major points originate from a book called “On Liberty”. All of these works are still read today and taught in schools around the world. In particular, their ideas on freedom and liberty have drawn a considerable amount of attention. For instance, Rousseau is well known for his idea of “forcing citizens to be free”, while Mill claims that freedom can be found in “pursing our own good in our own way”. Therefore, it is evident that fundamental differences occur between Rousseau’s and Mill’s ideas on liberty and freedom. Rousseau’s rejects this classical liberal idea of freedom of the individual, and instead argues that the highest quality of freedom is achieved through a social contract where collective decisions represent the law and people have a duty to the state, while Mill sees freedom as not being constrained by the government (freedom from laws) and pursuing one’s own good as long as it does no harm to others.

Eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced many French revolutionaries with his ideas. In the time of the Enlightenment, people believed that humankind could progress and improve through the use of reason and science. One of them was French artist Jacques-Louis David, who was official artist to the French revolution (p158, Blk 3). Just as Rousseau had used his publications to reflect on his ideas, David had used art as a media to reflect the ideas and values of the society in the eighteenth century. In this essay, we will be examining the influence of Rousseau’s views on the relationship between the state and the individual in David’s painting “The Oath of the Horatii”.

When Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote his Social Contract, the idea of liberty and freedom were not new theories. Many political thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes had already evolved with their own clarification of liberty and freedom of mankind, and in fact John Locke had already publicized his views and ideas on the social contract as well. In Rousseau’s case, what he did was to transform the ideas incorporated by such substantial words, and present us to another method to the social contract dilemma. What would bring man to leave the state of nature, and enter into a structured civil society? Liberals believes that this was the assurance of protection - liberty to them implied being free from destruction and harm towards one’s property. Rousseau’s concept of freedom was entirely different from that of traditional liberals. According to Rousseau, liberty is meant to voice out your opinion, and participation as human being. “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man” (Wootton, 454).

The purpose which Rousseau ostensibly gives his social contract is to free man from the illegitimate chains to which existing governments have shackled him. If this is his aim, then it follows that he should be most concerned with the preservation of freedom in political society, initially so that savage man might be lured out of nature and into society in the first place, and afterwards so that Rousseau’s framework for this society will prevent the present tyranny from reasserting itself. Indeed, in his definition of purpose for man’s initial union into society, he claims that, despite his membership in an association to which he must necessarily have some sort of obligation if the

Rousseau clearly promotes totalitarianism in The Social Contract, and hints at it in a few passages from his Second Discourse. He desperately attempts to lay down a form of government that eliminates any chance for the people to be victims. Rousseau specifically shows us the faults in the other types of government and tries to prevent them in his ideas. He wants to create a political situation where people have as much sovereignty as possible.

     We might react to these arguments with serious reservations, and indeed, Rousseau has been accused of endorsing totalitarianism. We live in an age where individual rights are considered vitally important, and it is insulting to think that we are just small parts of a greater whole. Rather than make freedom possible, it would seem to us that Rousseau's system revokes freedom.

Rousseau is theorizing from the concept of the general will, which promotes individuals to become conscious citizens who actively participate as a community to form policies for a governing structure. The general will advocates for a commitment to generality, a common interest that will unite all citizens for the benefit of all. Rousseau states, “each one of us puts into the community his person and all his powers under the supreme direction of the general will; and as a body, we incorporate every member as an indivisible part of the whole” (Rousseau 61). The general will is an expression of the law that is superior to an individual’s

Rousseau describes democracy as a form of government that “has never existed and never will” ; yet twenty-six countries in the world are considered to be full democracies. How can this be possible? Rousseau’s concept of democracy supports the most fundamental and basic premise of democracy – one in which all citizens directly participate. While his idea of democracy cannot be considered an effective indictment of what passes for democracy today, it is not Rousseau’s account which is flawed but that in modern society is would be practically impossible to achieve this idea of democracy.