Discourse on Political Economy

This professional translation delivers scholarly depth with amplifying materials. This Reader's Edition includes an illuminating afterword tracing Rousseau's intellectual relationship with Diderot, Voltaire and his reception by Nietzsche, revealing the fascinating dialogue between the period's most influential minds. A comprehensive timeline connects the major events of Rousseau's life with world events, an glossary of Enlightenment terminology frames Rousseau's debates in the intellectual milieu of his day, and a detailed index provides an authoritative guide to his complete writings.

Rousseau argues that true political authority is not a natural extension of paternal power but arises by social convention for the public good. He contrasts the “great family” of the state with a private household, noting that whereas a father’s rule is “established by nature,” civil authority is “purely arbitrary” and can “be founded only on conventions, and the Magistrate can have no authority … except by virtue of the laws”. In other words, legitimate government depends on consent and law (not birthright), and its sole purpose is to secure citizens’ welfare. Rousseau insists that the public treasury exists only “to keep the individuals in peace and plenty” rather than to enrich a prince. This reversal – all private property predates the state, and the state exists to protect it – underscores his rejection of Filmer’s patriarchal theory. Indeed, Rousseau explicitly seeks to “overturn Filmer’s odious system” of divine or paternal monarchy, insisting that rulers are bound by no higher right than the laws they have enacted for the common benefit.

Central to Rousseau’s argument is the concept of the general will as the foundation of just law and collective rule. He portrays the body politic as a moral being with its own will, “which tends always to the preservation and welfare of the whole and of every part, and is the source of the laws". Thus law itself becomes the “salutary organ of the will of all” (the citizens), securing liberty and equality by binding everyone only to rules they have consented to. Rousseau proclaims that the “most general will is always the most just” – indeed “the voice of the people is in fact the voice of God” – because it embodies the common interest over factional desires. He emphasizes that government’s first duty is to discover and “follow in everything the general will”; when rulers obey only this collective will, each citizen obeys only himself inasmuch as he has willed the law. Importantly, Rousseau argues, the general will protects individual rights by subordinating private passions to the welfare of all. In short, legitimate authority comes from the common consent of citizens aiming at the common good (a core Enlightenment ideal), and the role of government is to translate that general will into law and administration – preserving freedom through shared self‑governance rather than arbitrary rule