On whether America still exists

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s critique of representative governments in The Social Contract raises important questions about our own government. Clearly the United States allows representatives for groups of people in the law making process, so do we, as a nation, still exist? I think I can safely say without citations that we do, indeed, still exist. However, to leave the question answered like that would be naive and uneducational. For that reason, I will delve deeper into Rousseau’s arguments to decipher what he is driving at when he writes, “...as soon as a nation appoints representatives, it is no longer free; it no longer exists.”(101) Hopefully America will still exist in the end.

The key to Rousseau’s argument on representation is his notions of the general will, sovereignty, and on the role of the government. I will first go through these ideas, then I will demonstrate their importance in Rousseau’s assertion, and finally I plan to show what implications all of these have on the American “democracy.”

The first area that I will cover is the most abstract of Rousseau’s arguments and the most ambiguous in practice, that being the general will. The general will of the people refers to the sum of the differences of all opinions regarding the common interest. Accordingly, “...the general will is always right and always tends to the public advantage.”(31) By defining the general will to be the calculating of the social good, the standard of what is right, it becomes tautologically true that the general will is always right. With this limited notion of the general will, the next step is to introduce sovereignty.

Once the Social Contract is agreed to, an absolute power is given to the body politic and, “...it is the same power w...

... middle of paper ...

... based on the direct democracy that he demands for the general will.

Rousseau might possibly have realized that his theories would not work in practice. With Peter the Great he chastised him for, in essence, not being God, for Peter could not create out of nothing. He expects a lot out of people, and even more out of the government. He never does explain just how the general will can be decided upon. For Rousseau would not agree with majority rules, minority obeys, but one could hardly find a better system to do what he wants. So finally it seems that America does still exist, as does our democracy (with all of its representatives). Rousseau’s argument still exists, though, and is a heed of warning to those that do not take part in their government, for even in a country with 250 million people, whether we have a good government or a bad one always depends on us.