Page 147 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Unit 8: Jean Jacques Rousseau

8.10 Critique of Liberal Representative Government Notes

For Rousseau, contrary to a representative parliamentary government, a participatory democracy
was desirable, for it secured freedom, self-rule, equality and virtue. These were things that justified
restraints on the individual, for they would make him truly happy. And since no existing
government fulfilled all these criteria, none of them had an absolute claim to an individual’s
obedience. Salvation of the individual would be through politics and not through religion (Colletti
1969: 146). It was with the destruction of the present coercive society, and with the institution of
a free form of political and ethical community that salvation would be attained. Rousseau, like
Plato, believed in the primacy of politics.
Rousseau rejected the English parliamentary system of government, for it gave the people the
illusion of freedom whereas in reality the English people were free only during the time of elections.
Once representatives were elected, people lost their freedom:
Sovereignty cannot be represented, for the same reason that it cannot be alienated ...
the people’s deputies are not, and could not be, its representatives; they are merely its
agents; and they cannot decide anything faintly. And law which the people has not
ratified in person is void; it is not law at all. The English people believes itself to be
free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament;
as soon as the Members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing.
Rousseau firmly believed that freedom was a reality when people actually governed and took part
in the law-making process. It was when people exercised their freedom devoid of appetites that
they were truly their own masters. He therefore proposed direct participation in legislation, for
human will could not be represented. The contract enabled the citizens to be as free as the
individuals, for:
In giving himself to all, each person gives himself to no one. And since there is no
associate over whom he does not acquire the same right that he would grant others
over himself, he gains the equivalent of everything he loses, along with a greater
amount of force to preserve what he has.
The identification and submersion of the individual with the community was something that went
against the liberal argument which strictly defended the protection of an individual’s private
space, and over which the individual was the sovereign person. The fact that the individual had
rights was a kind of a protective shield through which the individual safeguarded his autonomy.
This implied that the individual had rights against the state, which could be invoked when the
state overstepped the limits of its authority.
Rousseau tried to grapple with the problem of devising public life in a manner that would secure
and protect the moral liberty of the individual. Liberty was obedience to self-prescribed laws. He
saw the need for democratic institutions to protect the true freedom of the individual. He rejected
representative institutions as these were based on the idea of “winners take it all”. He ruled out
competitiveness not only in economics but also in politics, for competitiveness killed cooperation
and fellow feeling. On the other hand, anarchy was unpleasant. Moral liberty could be secured
only in an association in which not only was the whole community defended and protected, but
also the individual member. He ruled out factions and organized interest groups, for they
undermined popular sovereignty and moral liberty. Law had to be made by fully-informed and
equal citizens. To a Lockeian liberal, Rousseau’s identification of liberty with the public domain
would seem illiberal, which was why many of Rousseau’s critics saw Rousseau’s “General Will”
inspiring twentieth-century totalitarian leaders like Hitler and Stalin. Rousseau rejected the Lockeian
liberal solution of instituting government for the protection of private property, for even though all
were treated equally it would only lead to formal equality. It was to the advantage of the rich, who
wished to protect their property from the poor. Rousseau derived a great deal of inspiration from
Locke, but differed significantly from his prescriptions of limited government and a minimal state.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 141