The Social Contract

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

(1712-1778)

Contents

HOW TO READ THE TEXT

Glossary

BOOK 1

1. The subject of the first book

2. The first societies

3. The right of the strongest

4. Slavery

5. We must always go back to a first agreement

6. The social compact

7. The sovereign

8. The civil state

9. Real estate

BOOK 2

1. Sovereignty is inalienable

2. Sovereignty is indivisible

3. Can the general will be wrong?

4. The limits of the sovereign power

5. The right of life and death

6. The law

7. The law-maker

8. The people

9. The people (continued)

10. The people (further continued)

11. Differences among systems of legislation

12. Classifying laws

BOOK 3

1. Government in general

2. The source of the variety among forms of government

3. Classifying governments

4. Democracy

5. Aristocracy

6. Monarchy

7. Mixed governments

8. No one form of government suits all countries

9. The signs of a good government

10. How government is abused. Its tendency to degenerate

11. The death of the body politic

12. How the sovereign authority is maintained

13. How the sovereign authority is maintained (continued)

14. How the sovereign authority is maintained (continued)

15. Deputies or representatives

16. What establishes government isn’t a contract

17. What does establish government

18. How to protect the government from being taken over

BOOK 4

1. The general will is indestructible

2. Voting

3. Elections

4. The comitia in ancient Rome

5. Tribunes

6. Dictatorship

7. Censorship

8. Civic religion

9. Conclusion

© Jonathan Bennett 2017