What is the relationship between freedom and equality in

Rousseau’s Social Contract?

Introduction

“The greatest good of all… consists in freedom and equality”

Rousseau’s problem: “to find a firm of association which will defend and protect
with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in
which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and
remain as free as before”

The Social Contract is his solution – by being both subject and sovereign he
satisfies the ‘reconciliation principle of authority’

Therefore his goal is to create a political system in which freedom is retained

To ensure freedom Rousseau makes several provisions for equality, both

political and economic

Freedom and inequality:

“To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of

humanity and even its duties. For he who renounces everything no indemnity is
possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all
liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.”

Achieved through acceptance of the Social Contract

Social Contract often excoriated for being inimical towards freedom of the
‘negative’ variety

“it becomes manifestly false to assert that individuals make any real
renunciation by the social contract… they have exchanged natural
independence for freedom”
“what man loses by the Social Contract is his natural liberty”

Rousseau posits an advancement of liberty from the inferior form obtained in

the state of nature where man is subject to his impulses and the strength of
others and his true inner will is veiled
Triumph of the spirit over natural elemental instinct

Concerned with equality because “the worst thing that can happen in human
relationships is to find oneself living at the mercy of another”
This is what he observed in the state of nature

Natural inequality – physical differences – leads to moral inequality – economic

inequality
Only way to guarantee independence was through equality

“It is precisely because the force of things tends always to destroy equality that
the force of legislation should always tend to maintain it”

Exchange of a natural freedom for civil, moral and political freedoms

Political equality:

His political equality is a product of his General Will, the cornerstone of his
Social Contract

Rousseau proposes strict political equality

In his state decisions will be made by direct popular sovereignty, reviving the
classical idea of a polis as a city-state – Athenian democracy
“every man is entitled to take part in making decisions which all are required to
obey.”

Social Contract does not distinguish between individuals

But political equality leads to a curtailment of liberty?

“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”
“the votes of the greatest number always bind the rest.”
Rights of minorities

But laws place disparate burdens on individuals

But nowhere does Rousseau mention women in The Social Contract (does in
Discourses on Inequality) – did he believe that they were subordinate beings
and not have the rights of citizens in his state?

But “aristocracy is the best form of government”

Economic equality:

Rousseau worried that freedom threatened by economic dependency, especially

through landlord-tenant relationships in a political association, and the
competition for resources in the state of nature

He acknowledged the right of the sovereign to abolish all property rights but
saw it more expedient to retain them and implement provisions to ensure no
great inequality
His system is in no way communist – if everything we did was for the benefit of
the state then we would no longer be free, equality should not take precedence
over liberty
With the Social Contract: “however unequal in strength and intelligence, men
become equal by covenant and by right”

“no citizen should be rich enough to be able to buy another, and none so poor
as to be constrained to sell himself”

In his ‘Discourses’ he asserts that property and material inequality are the root
cause of human misery and evil

Also concerned about economic equality for social cohesion purposes, to ensure
that everyone identified with the same common interest
“the social state is advantageous to men only if all have a certain amount, and
none too much”

Rousseau believed that rough economic equality was necessary so that the
burden of laws was felt more or less equally

But Levine: “the economic system that Rousseau though the just state requires
undermines the just state”.

What is gained by the Social Contract: “civil liberty and the proprietorship of all
he possesses”

‘The poor are no less free than the rich to dine at the Ritz… they just can’t
afford to do so”
Hayek – freedom as absence from coercion, Berlin freedom as non-interference
Economic inequality does not mean a lack of freedom, rather a lack of means
Lack of effective freedom through inequality not formal freedom?

Cohen – property rights a necessary condition for freedom

Conclusion

Gardinier: “The thesis that a man can be deemed unfree – even in cases where
he is subject neither to external obstacles nor to constrictive forms of economic
dependence… is a persuasive one”

“it can no longer be asked… how we can both be free and subject to laws, since
they are but registers of our wills”

“each giving himself to all gives himself to nobody”

Freedom is intrinsically important, equality is instrumentally important in

achieving this