was an
advocate for direct democracy. This is the only form of government that Rousseau believed would
give expression to humanity's innate freedom and autonomy that was enjoyed before the advent of
civilization. Rousseau famously stated, "Man is born free and everywhere he is in
chains." Unlike Aristotle, who classed humans as political animals by nature, Rousseau
believed that civilization was unnatural, an artificial construction formed by accident in the
struggle for survival. In his view, humans were once independent and self-sufficient. They lived
a nomadic lifestyle and interacted only to reproduce. But faced with nature's unforgiving wrath
(floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes), humans learned that they were better able to survive
through cooperation. Families began to form, and those families formed villages. Humans, now
living together for the first time, began to take note of each others differences. Out of social
interaction grew preferences for merit and beauty. The one who sang or danced the best, the
handsomest, the strongest, the most skillful, or the most eloquent came to be the most highly
regarded, and this was the first step at once toward inequality and vice, said Rousseau. Out of
these preferences grew a destructive and debasing self-love Rousseau called amour-propre. Still,
this was a good time in human history, and people enjoyed a general equality and
peace.
The real turning point in history for Rousseau was the introduction of
agriculture and metallurgy. These innovations entrenched inequality and exploitation and
introduced a political hierarchy that Rousseau believed denied humans basic freedoms. In order
to heal the wounds left by this revolutionary transition, Rousseau advocated for a new social
contract that would transcend the liberal property-based governments of his time and lead to an
enhanced form of freedom unmatched in human history. Rousseau's social contract was grounded in
his concept of the general will. The general will emerges when people start to think in terms of
the common good as opposed to thinking in terms of their enlightened self-interest. Rousseau
advocated for a new form of subjectivity in which people see their own well-being (and
individuality) as linked to the well-being of the political community at large. In order for the
general will to come into being, there must be direct, as opposed to representative, democracy,
because for Rousseau the "moment a people allows itself to be represented, it is no long
free: it no longer exists" (, Book 3, Chapter 15). For Rousseau, the
general will only emerges through full participationone person equals one
vote.
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