"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains."

[Chris]

"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains." is the epitome of the ideology called individualism. It comes from Rousseau's 1762 The Social Contract. This thread will examine the link between the two individualism and social contract, which is, simply put, that once you assume individualism you must posit social contract to account for the social nature of the individual.

Troll trap alert: Attempts to change the topic to squabbles just to claim winning! will be dismissed.

First, Rousseau shows us that there is a way to break the chains – from within, a somewhat positive view of individualism and social contract.

...Written in 1762, The Social Contract picks up where his Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men left off, defining natural man as being free and happy and living in the forest. Rousseau explains how man went from this state of autonomy to the modern condition, dominated by inequality, dependency, violence and unhappiness. There were positive aspects to this process too, he admits, including the creation of families, the discovery of tools and technology, and the building of cities and social organisations. Unfortunately, this also gives way to what Rousseau called the "right of the strongest", where a reign of inequality destroys man's original state of happiness and freedom. Humanity becomes alienated, and the Discourse on Inequality ends unhappily in general war.

The Social Contract is an attempt to find a solution to this problem. For Rousseau, because of man's "perfectibility", the passage from a natural state to a social one is both an accident and necessary. Unlike animals, men are programmed to create and progress from one condition to the next. Rousseau discovers a way men can associate themselves with each other while maintaining their own individual freedom inside a social and political organisation. He calls that concept the "general will". Simply put, it is a form of association in which an individual alienates himself completely to the general will, and therefore regains his freedom in a political form....

Several problems with that theory. One, anthropology (i.e., Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest) tells us what Aristotle claimed, man is and always has been a social animal. Man has never been born free as an individual without society. Two, Rousseau proposes there to go from man's natural state--"he creation of families, the discovery of tools and technology, and the building of cities and social organisations"--to an artificial one, the state as defined by social contract. In short, he proposes tearing down the social order that had always existed and creating a new artificla one based on abstraction and imagination. Three, I will merely touch on the fact that Marx, too, sought to perfect society in the individual.

But let us turn to other criticisms, from Rousseau’s Collectivism:

“It would be difficult to find anywhere in the history of politics a more powerful and potentially revolutionary doctrine than Rousseau’s theory of the General Will. Power is freedom and freedom is power,” Robert Nisbet argued in his magnum opus, 1953’s Quest for Community.

True freedom consists in the willing subordination of the individual to the whole of the State. If this is not forthcoming, compulsion is necessary; but this merely means that the individual “will be forced to be free.” There is no necessity, once the right State is created, for carving out autonomous spheres of right and liberty for individuals and associations. Because the individual is himself a member of the larger association, despotism is impossible. By accepting the power of the State one is but participating in the General Will. Not without reason has the theory of the General Will been called a theory of permanent revolution.

In private correspondence, Nisbet took his own views even further, claiming Rousseau to have been “the real demon in the modern mind” and “the most malevolent genius of the whole modern era.” Had Rousseau not existed, the famous sociologist continued, there would have been no Lenin, no Stalin, and no Hitler.

...Conservative criticism of Rousseau, though, began over two centuries ago, with Edmund Burke’s public attack on him in 1791, correctly identifying him as the touchstone of the French Revolution.

Every body knows that there is a great dispute amongst their leaders, which of them is the best resemblance to Rousseau. In truth, they all resemble him. His blood they transfuse into their minds and into their manners. Him they study; him they meditate; him they turn over in all the time they can spare from the laborious mischief of the day, or the debauches of the night. Rousseau is their canon of holy writ; in his life he is their canon of Polycletus; he is their standard figure of perfection. To this man and this writer, as a pattern to authors and to Frenchmen, the founderies of Paris are now running for statues, with the kettles of their poor and the bells of their churches.

...While Burke’s attacks on Rousseau might seem excessively personal—and, to some degree, they most certainly were—Rousseau’s political philosophy, to be sure, mimicked his own failures as a father and as a person, while also calling upon the work of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Bizarrely, Rousseau combined the authoritarianism of Hobbes with the libertarianism of Locke, thus only freeing man from his own follies and transferring all responsibilities to the collective....

Note well that both the old natural social order and the new artifical one can be called collectives. The former, however, is organic, while the latter mechanical or technical.

Now those you still enamored of individualism and social contract should read some of Rousseau from his Social Contract. Keep in mind that the social contract is supposed to be liberating.

"In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that 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; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimizes civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses."

The Social Contract, Book 1, Section 7

"What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses. If we are to avoid mistake in weighing one against the other, we must clearly distinguish natural liberty, which is bounded only by the strength of the individual, from civil liberty, which is limited by the general will; and possession, which is merely the effect of force or the right of the first occupier, from property, which can be founded only on a positive title."

The Social Contract, Book 1, Section 8

"The State, in relation to its members, is master of all their goods by the social contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all rights."

The Social Contract, Book 1, Section 9

"If the State is a moral person whose life is in the union of its members, and if the most important of its cares is the care for its own preservation, it must have a universal and compelling force, in order to move and dispose each part as may be most advantageous to the whole. As nature gives each man absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body politic absolute power over all its members also; and it is this power which, under the direction of the general will, bears, as I have said, the name of Sovereignty."

The Social Contract, Book 2, Section 4


Is this not a recipe for totalitarianism?

"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains." "This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free..."

[Refugee]

A bit heavy at this time of evening Chris, but what you have to remember is that these people were classical theorists who tried to make sense of a changing world from the agricultural to the industrial using philosophy. In their era it was quite possible to have a form of anarchism and the idea of individual freedom, but it makes no sense to populations of millions.

The idea of individual freedom is an impossibility, whether that be an allegiance to the strongest, or a tribal chief, or nowadays a country. Society precedes the individual and we are born into conformity. Those who previously didn’t conform were exiled from the ‘tribe’ or killed.

Marx like Bukharin also believed in an anarchist type of society, but where he differed is that he believed the state would eventually wither away. It didn’t. In that context there is no civil liberty and we are all constrained not only by the power of the state, but the values of those it represents.

[Captdon]

Man will always place himself in chains. It is the only way to survive.

[Chris]

A bit heavy at this time of evening Chris, but what you have to remember is that these people were classical theorists who tried to make sense of a changing world from the agricultural to the industrial using philosophy. In their era it was quite possible to have a form of anarchism and the idea of individual freedom, but it makes no sense to populations of millions.

The idea of individual freedom is an impossibility, whether that be an allegiance to the strongest, or a tribal chief, or nowadays a country. Society precedes the individual and we are born into conformity. Those who previously didn’t conform were exiled from the ‘tribe’ or killed.

Marx like Bukharin also believed in an anarchist type of society, but where he differed is that he believed the state would eventually wither away. It didn’t. In that context there is no civil liberty and we are all constrained not only by the power of the state, but the values of those it represents.

It is a heavy topic, one that a few around here treat lightly in their belief in social contract theory.

That is true, Marx did believe that. Initially, he believed the workers would rebel and transform society, but he grew impatient and decided the avant garde had to lead the charge, create a dictatorship of the proletariate tht would guide society to a stateless system. Problem is once power is established no one ever wants to give it up, only increase it.

[Chris]

Man will always place himself in chains. It is the only way to survive.

If those chains are family, religion, community and other groups of shared values, then those chains are not really chains at all. When those chains are the state, alone, liberty is lost.

[Refugee]

It is a heavy topic, one that a few around here treat lightly in their belief in social contract theory.

That is true, Marx did believe that. Initially, he believed the workers would rebel and transform society, but he grew impatient and decided the avant garde had to lead the charge, create a dictatorship of the proletariate tht would guide society to a stateless system. Problem is once power is established no one ever wants to give it up, only increase it.

Yep, we are pack animals and everyone wants to be top dog. The top dog always ensures his nest is the best feathered. A dictatorship of the financially elite, or a dictatorship led by those who become the financially elite, it never changes.

Some sort of social contract is needed though to provide cohesion and consensus, but that also clashes with individuality and so we’re left with a freedom of sorts, but within a framework devised by others. Rules and regulations; we don’t like them but without them we get chaos and anarchy. Call it values and culture, but we do need something to abide by.

[Chris]

Yep, we are pack animals and everyone wants to be top dog. The top dog always ensures his nest is the best feathered. A dictatorship of the financially elite, or a dictatorship led by those who become the financially elite, it never changes.

Some sort of social contract is needed though to provide cohesion and consensus, but that also clashes with individuality and so we’re left with a freedom of sorts, but within a framework devised by others. Rules and regulations; we don’t like them but without them we get chaos and anarchy. Call it values and culture, but we do need something to abide by.

Actually, by nature, we are quite egalitarian. Hunter-gatherers are, and even when they became sedentary largely retain equality. Eskimoes, to this day, are. Even tribes. It's not until tribes form alliances and concentrate in cities that you see a shift where leaders, rules, dictators emerge. --I'm following Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest here. And yet, even unto the late Middle Ages society was organized pretty much bottom-up, family, religion, guild, college, where the state might come to arrest someone but the church or guild gave him sanctuary. It's not really until the Enlightenment and these men like Hobbes and Rousseau, with their grand abstractions, conceived of a top-down state with nothing between it and the individual. And yet anarchy does exist, in regions as vast a Zomia for instance that are not chaotic at all, see James C. Scott's The Art of Not Being Governed.

[Refugee]

Actually, by nature, we are quite egalitarian. Hunter-gatherers are, and even when they became sedentary largely retain equality. Eskimoes, to this day, are. Even tribes. It's not until tribes form alliances and concentrate in cities that you see a shift where leaders, rules, dictators emerge. --I'm following Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest here. And yet, even unto the late Middle Ages society was organized pretty much bottom-up, family, religion, guild, college, where the state might come to arrest someone but the church or guild gave him sanctuary. It's not really until the Enlightenment and these men like Hobbes and Rousseau, with their grand abstractions, conceived of a top-down state with nothing between it and the individual. And yet anarchy does exist, in regions as vast a Zomia for instance that are not chaotic at all, see James C. Scott's The Art of Not Being Governed.

We’re egalitarian only because we abide by the rules protected by a very thin layer of civilization. In hurricane Katrina a few years ago within three days as society ground to a halt, people very quickly reverted to the law of the jungle. Once transport, electricity and the law grind to a halt, chaos quickly follows and the timeline is around three days. Small communities can survive, but even they will have communal laws.

In the Middle-Ages the monarchy ruled as divinely appointed, in conjunction with the Church and although society at the bottom level was still pretty much ruled by family values, it was organized in a way acceptable to the hierarchy of nobles and land owners. What we have today between the state and the individual are laws, habeas Corpus for example and due process.

‘And yet anarchy does exist, in regions as vast a Zomia for instance that are not chaotic at all …’?

[Chris]

We’re egalitarian only because we abide by the rules protected by a very thin layer of civilization. In hurricane Katrina a few years ago within three days as society ground to a halt, people very quickly reverted to the law of the jungle. Once transport, electricity and the law grind to a halt, chaos quickly follows and the timeline is around three days. Small communities can survive, but even they will have communal laws.

In the Middle-Ages the monarchy ruled as divinely appointed, in conjunction with the Church and although society at the bottom level was still pretty much ruled by family values, it was organized in a way acceptable to the hierarchy of nobles and land owners. What we have today between the state and the individual are laws, habeas Corpus for example and due process.

‘And yet anarchy does exist, in regions as vast a Zomia for instance that are not chaotic at all …’?

We were egalitarian, I should have said, and were until we concentrated populations in cities and power in governments.

Katrina is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. In ancient times people would have self-regulated and helped each other. In modern time, sans that social order, replaced by the social contract, when the state collapses, the people have no social order to fall back on. The old law of the jungle sustained people without even a government, the new law of the jungle does not.

But in the Middle Ages, the top, middle and low levels of society were mutually interdependent. If the kings failed the people they resisted and rebelled, and eventually the nobility replaced the kings. See, for instance, Fritz Kern's Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages about The Divine Right of Kings and the Right of Resistance in the Early Middle Ages.

Zomia, Land Without State is a review of Scott's book and informative about the anarchy there.

[Dr. Who]

Unless and/or until our population contracts, which is highly unlikely for the foreseeable future, large populations will be the rule, not the exception, and society will continue to adapt to that reality. No amount of philosophy will change the need to impose the rule of law upon the random dynamics of large populations. If we ever see the day where our every material want and need can be produced literally out of thin air, then we will enter an entirely new human dynamic where material needs and wants will no longer be a factor in human behavior.