The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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The Social Contract outlines Rousseau’s views on political justice, explaining how a just and legitimate state is to be founded, organized and administered. Rousseau sets forth, in his characteristically brazen and iconoclastic manner, the case for direct democracy, while simultaneously casting every other form of government as illegitimate and tantamount to slavery. Often hailed as a revolutionary document which sparked the French Revolution, The Social Contract serves both to inculcate dissatisfaction with actually-existing governments and to allow its readers to envision and desire a radically different form of political and social organization. (Summary by Eric Jonas)

Recent Episodes

  • 1-01 – Subject of the First Book

    10 months ago
  • 1-04 – Slavery

    10 months ago
  • 3-01 – Government in General

    10 months ago
  • 3-06 – Monarchy

    10 months ago
  • 3-08 – That every form of government is not fit for every country

    10 months ago
  • 3-16 – That the Institution of the Government is not a contract

    10 months ago
  • 4-04 – The Roman Comitia

    10 months ago
  • 4-08 – Civil Religion

    10 months ago