Social Contract Theory (Excerpt)

Author: Rousseau
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: This book is one of Rousseau's major works and one of the important classical documents in the history of world thought. Its theories primarily reflect the democratic ideas of the rising bourgeoisie. In response to the hierarchical privileges of the feudal system, the author proposed the battle cry 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 the property of free people freely agreeing. Once freedom is forcibly taken away, the people have the right to revolutionize and violently reclaim their freedom; state sovereignty resides with the people, and the best form of government is a democratic republic.