Rousseau's "The Social Contract"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Rousseau's concept of the General Will presented in "The Social Contract": The General Will is the primary tool of the Sovereign that will either make the Social Contract valid or not. The paper defines the General Will as a collective form of consent of the people to let others govern them. The author feels that the General Will is beneficial in that it takes into account the welfare of all the people.

From the Paper:

"In proposing the social contract, Rousseau mentions that each person in the state will have to give a part of their rights to the leader or government, in which the people entrusts, to help them run the state. For Rousseau, the General Will is the combined force of the people that enables a leader or a government the right to govern and recognize their powers to exercise and come up with vital decisions concerning the welfare of the people and the state. Thus, because of the entrustment of the will of the people to a leader or to a government, Rousseau then describes that the General Will "is always right and tends to the public advantage; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people are always equally correct." "

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