Du Contrat Social, Principes du droit politique - Jean-Jacques Rousseau's

Salam...

Alhamdulillah, Im done reading Rousseau's book on social contract. For those who question or want the constituition to be reconstruct should read this book. I managed to wrote the review and some my observation on the book...
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau's most important work is The Social Contract, which coined the basis for a legitimate political order based on the social contract that is formed by the society from state of nature to civil society and state. The book was published in 1762, where it became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the social contract theory. The book begins with the dramatic opening lines, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks he the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they." Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation.

As society developed, division of labor and private property required the human to adopt institutions of law. Men lives in isolation and fear of conflict, but due to the motivation of self improvement, development of society to govern their rights that they possess men gave up the rights and liberty in order to form government.

The pressure threatens both men survival and freedom for Rousseau, made the poeple came and joins together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural right and individual liberty. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because it is the roles of government as an intermediate body set up between the subject and the sovereign, to secure the mutual understanding, to execute the law and to maintain liberty.

Rousseau also argues that sovereignty should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between sovereignty and government. The government is charged with implementing and enforcing the general will and is composed of a smaller group of citizens, known as magistrates. Rousseau was bitterly opposed to the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty through a representative assembly. Rather, they should make the laws directly.



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SAIFULLAH ZULKIFLI

8.07 am, 20 Sept 2008
Akmal's House