Key Arguments

• Rousseau reduces the many implied clauses to a single fundamental one: "These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one—the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community;" making total alienation the essence of the pact.
• He argues that absolute self-giving equalizes conditions and removes incentives to oppression: "for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others."
• He claims that alienation "without reserve" yields the most complete possible union: "Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand;" suggesting that partial retention of rights would impair political unity.
• He warns that if individuals retained certain rights and remained their own judges in any domain, they would insist on being judges in all, thereby reviving the state of nature and making the association either ineffective or tyrannical: "for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical."
• He introduces a key paradox: "Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody;" because no particular person becomes his master, what is ceded to the whole is not possessed by any individual.
• Rousseau emphasizes reciprocity and compensation: "and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has." Thus total alienation is presented as both formally equal and materially advantageous.
• He concludes that, once non-essential elements are stripped away, the compact reduces to this structure, highlighting that partial, Lockean-style reservations are incompatible with his conception of a true association.

Source Quotes

The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised, until, on the violation of the social compact, each regains his original rights and resumes his natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour of which he renounced it. These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one—the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others. Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.

These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one—the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others. Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical. Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.

Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical. Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has. If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms— “Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”

Key Concepts

• These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one—the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community;
• as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.
• Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand:
• for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.
• Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.

Context

Central portion of Chapter VI, where Rousseau explicates the substantive content of the social compact and justifies why it must involve total, equal, and reciprocal alienation to the community.