The political Association in Rousseau

pact of the rich and social contract

Abstract

The genealogy of the civil state proposed by Rousseau has some critical moments. Perhaps the most crucial of them comes forth when the state of nature degenerates into a state of war. At this point, according to the Genevan himself, humanity must radically change its configuration, otherwise it would perish. The required transformation is precisely the emergence of the political. For this reason, Rousseau thoroughly addresses the issue of political association. The structure of said association, its fundaments, ends, and implications are scrutinized both in the Discourse on inequality and in the Social contract. The main goal of this article is to juxtapose the different conventions which give birth to the body politic in Rousseau’s view. Their contraposition will have the additional purpose of refuting a major interpretative trend, spurred by Victor Goldschmidt, according to which both associative artifices conceived by Rousseau would be valid, despite their idiosyncrasies.