A people that could be trusted never to misuse governmental power or its own independence would not need to be governed at all, underscoring both the moral ideal democracy presupposes and the reason such an ideal democracy is unrealizable.
By Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from Du contrat social
Key Arguments
- Rousseau states, 'A people that would never misuse governmental powers would never misuse independence; a people that would always govern well would not need to be governed,' linking impeccably virtuous exercise of power with the redundancy of government.
- This conditional formulation shows that democracy requires a people capable of always governing well and never misusing power—an unrealistically high moral standard—which supports his earlier claim that real democracy has never existed and never will.
- By suggesting that such a people 'would not need to be governed,' he reinforces his view that government exists as a remedy for human frailty and that perfect popular virtue would render political institutions superfluous.
Source Quotes
In such a case, the State being altered in substance, all reformation becomes impossible. A people that would never misuse governmental powers would never misuse independence; a people that would always govern well would not need to be governed. If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has been a real democracy, and there never will be.
Key Concepts
- A people that would never misuse governmental powers would never misuse independence; a people that would always govern well would not need to be governed.
Context
Transitional reflection in Book III, Chapter IV, connecting Rousseau’s analysis of democratic corruption and impossibility with an idealized picture of a morally perfect people for whom government would be unnecessary.