Rousseau and Revolution

100 Rousseau and Revolution
struggles’ (Marx and Engels, 1848). Consequently, the existence of a general
will is claimed to be but an illusion or, more precisely, ideology. That is
to say, the purpose of invocating such a will is to disguise the will of the ruling
class. As Marx and Engels put it, the ruling class always ‘represent[s] its
interest as the common interest of all the members of society’ (Marx and
Engels, 1845).
A slightly different left-wing critique of Rousseau is made by the French
philosopher Jacques Rancière. According to Rancière, the problem with
Rousseau, as well as with contractualism in general, is that he begins by
initially breaking down the people into individuals, which, in one go, exorcizes
the class war of which politics exists (Rancière, 1998, 79).
On the face of it, such a critique could be considered Marxian. The difference
is, however, that while Marx and Engels stress the result of the
social contract, the general will, as opposed to the reality of class struggle,
Rancière denounces the presupposition of this contract, that is, the existence
of independent individuals, free to enter into a contract. Moreover,
Rancière now claims that, although this presupposition too functions as a
veil over class struggle, it also contains an emancipatory potential. In fact,
the presupposition of individual freedom can be used as a tool against
repression:
[With the concept of the social contract], freedom has become peculiar
to individuals as such and [ . . . ] the fable of alienation will give rise to the
question of knowing whether and under what conditions individuals may
alienate this freedom completely – in a word, it will give rise to the right
of the individual as nonright of the state, the entitlement of anyone at all to
question the state or to serve as proof of its infi delity to its own principle.
(Ibid., 79)
The ‘fable of alienation’ inherent in contractualism is certainly conservating,
but it also opens up the question concerning the conditions of the
legitimacy of this very alienation. As to Rousseau, his defi nition of these
conditions is clear and radical. True, he demands, as mentioned, that the
alienation must be total, but the condition therefore is a total recovery of
the alienated rights. The individual can only give up his rights and liberty
in so far as he recovers them all in the community. Thus, the goal of the
social contract is ‘to fi nd a form of association [ . . . ] by means of which
each, uniting with all, nevertheless obey only himself and remain as free as
before’ (Rousseau, 1997e, 49–50).