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Book 1, Introduction
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Social Contract, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Human Freedom and Society
Sovereignty, Citizenship, and Direct Democracy
Government and the Separation of Powers
National Longevity and Moral Virtue
Summary
Analysis
“Man was born free,” Rousseau begins, “and he is everywhere in chains.” But the powerful are “greater slaves” than those over whom they rule. Rousseau does not know why this condition came about, but he thinks he can figure out how to make it “legitimate.”
Rousseau’s famous opening line points out the wide gap between the radical potential of a legitimately organized society, which is capable of helping people realize their fullest human potential, and the reality that societies mostly serve to further existing concentrations of wealth, property, and power by denying rights and self-determination to the majority.
Themes
In theory, Rousseau continues, people should simply seek freedom by resisting anyone who rules over them—but society, which is the “basis for all other rights,” requires that people agree to let others rule over them. His goal in this Book 1s to figure out what people must actually agree to.
There appears to be a contradiction between people’s inherent, self-interested desire for freedom and their willingness to live in a society that restricts their freedom. However, Rousseau is about to explain why society can actually increase people’s freedom.
Themes
