from The Social Contract
1762
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still
remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it
legitimate? That question I think I can answer.
The Right of the Strongest
The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into
right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which, though to all seeming meant
ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principle. But are we never to have an explanation
of this phrase? Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield
to force is an act of necessity, not of will - at the most, an act of prudence. In what sense can it be
a duty?
Suppose for a moment that this so-called "right" exists. I maintain that the sole result is a mass of
inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the effect changes with the cause: every force
that is greater than the first succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey with
impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and, the strongest being always in the right, the only thing
that matters is to act so as to become the strongest. But what kind of right is that which perishes
when force fails? If we must obey perforce, there is no need to obey because we ought; and if we
are not forced to obey, we are under no obligation to do so. Clearly, the word "right" adds nothing to
force: in this connection, it means absolutely nothing.
Obey the powers that be. If this means yield to force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I can
answer for its never being violated. All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness:
does that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises me at the edge of a
wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion; but, even if I could withhold it, am I in
conscience bound to give it up? For certainly the pistol he holds is also a power.
Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate
powers. In that case, my original question recurs.
The Social Contract
The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect
with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in
which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before.
This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution.
There is but one law which, from its nature, needs unanimous consent. This is the social compact;
for civil association is the most voluntary of all acts. Every man being born free and his own
master, no-one, under any pretext whatsoever, can make any man subject without his consent. To
decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a man.
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