Key Arguments

• Rousseau insists that, without an enforcement mechanism, the social contract would lack efficacy: "In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest," presenting the coercive clause as implicit but necessary.
• He specifies the content of this tacit undertaking: "that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body," making compulsory obedience to the general will a built‑in feature of the pact.
• He formulates his famous paradox that such compulsion is actually a form of freedom: "This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free;" suggesting that genuine freedom lies in adherence to the general will, not in license to follow private impulses.
• He explains the positive function of this condition: "for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence," so that subjection to the impersonal general will protects individuals from domination by particular persons or factions.
• Rousseau characterizes this coercive condition as central to his theory of political functioning: "In this lies the key to the working of the political machine;" indicating that without it the whole system of civil law would fail.
• Finally, he argues that only this clause renders civil undertakings legitimate; without compulsion to the general will, such undertakings would be morally indefensible: "this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical," implying that a state that did not constrain particular wills in the name of the general will would either collapse or devolve into sheer oppression.

Source Quotes

The continuance of such an injustice could not but prove the undoing of the body politic. In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence.

In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical,

This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical,

Key Concepts

• In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body.
• This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free;
• for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence.
• In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical,

Context

Concluding sentences of Chapter VII’s passage, where Rousseau confronts the problem of individual defection and introduces the doctrine of being 'forced to be free' as the essential, though controversial, mechanism that preserves freedom while ensuring obedience to the general will.