The Social Contract (Penguin Books for Philosophy) - Softcover

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140442014 ISBN 13: 9780140442014

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1968

"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains"

These are the famous opening words of a treatise that has not ceased to stir vigorous debate since its first publication in 1762. Rejecting the view that anyone has a natural right to wield authority over others, Rousseau argues instead for a pact, or 'social contract', that should exist between all the citizens of a state and that should be the source of sovereign power. From this fundamental premise, he goes on to consider issues of liberty and law, freedom and justice, arriving at a view of society that has seemed to some a blueprint for totalitarianism, to others a declaration of democratic principles.

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From the Publisher:

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From the Back Cover:

Holding men in wretched subservience, feudalism --- alongside religion --- was a powerful force in the eighteenth century. Self-serving monarchic social systems, which collectively reduced common people to servitude, were now attacked by Enlightenment philosophers, of whom Rousseau was a leading light. His masterpiece, The Social Contract, profoundly influenced the subsequent development of society and remains provocative in a modern age of continuing widespread vested interest.

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1968
• ISBN 10: 0140442014
• ISBN 13: 9780140442014
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192