Human beings are by nature free, yet in existing social conditions they live in pervasive relations of domination and slavery.
By Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from Du contrat social
Key Arguments
- Rousseau contrasts natural condition and social reality in the stark formula: "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains," indicating an original freedom now contradicted by social bondage.
- He notes that even those who believe themselves dominant are in fact unfree: "One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they," suggesting that structures of domination enslave rulers as well as subjects.
Source Quotes
CHAPTER I: subject of the first book 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.
CHAPTER I: subject of the first book 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?
Key Concepts
- 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.
Context
Programmatic opening of Book I, Chapter I, where Rousseau introduces the fundamental problem his political theory must explain and resolve.