Social Contract Theory

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (France)
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2003-03-14
Features: The "Social Contract," translated by the renowned scholar and translator Professor He Zhaowu of Tsinghua University, is currently the best translation of Rousseau's works. This book is not only one of the most important classical documents in the history of world thought but also had a significant impact on China's old bourgeois democratic revolution. The book advocates the slogan of "inalienable rights," believing that the sovereignty of the state lies with the people, and that the people deprived of freedom have the right to revolution. If we are to evaluate the top one hundred classics that have influenced human history, Rousseau's "Social Contract" will undoubtedly be on the list; if we limit the evaluation to only ten such classics, "Social Contract" will still not be excluded. In the revolutionary era, the bourgeoisie of various countries regarded it as a gospel, and the ideas of inalienable rights continue to profoundly influence the world today. This book is one of Rousseau's main works and one of the important classical documents in the history of world thought. Its theory reflects the democratic ideas of the rising bourgeoisie. In response to the hierarchical privileges of the feudal system, Rousseau proposed a fighting slogan for freedom and demanded the establishment of a bourgeois democratic republic. The central idea of this book is: humans are born equal and free, and the state can only be a product of free people's free agreements. Once freedom is forcibly deprived, the people have the right to revolution to violently reclaim their freedom; the sovereignty of the state lies with the people, and the best form of government is a democratic republic. This short essay is a summary of a long work that I once overestimated my ability to undertake and later gave up. As for the parts that have already been written and can be adopted, this article is the most important, and I believe it is not unworthy of being presented to the public. The rest of the parts no longer exist.