WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Rousseau distinguished the general will from the particular and often contradictory wills of individuals and groups. In Du Contrat social (1762; The Social Contract), Rousseau argued that freedom and authority are not contradictory, since legitimate laws are founded on the general will of the citizens.

Detailed explanation-2: -Rousseau argued that the general will of the people could not be decided by elected representatives. He believed in a direct democracy in which everyone voted to express the general will and to make the laws of the land. Rousseau had in mind a democracy on a small scale, a city-state like his native Geneva.

Detailed explanation-3: -In political philosophy, the general will (French: volonté générale) is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Social Contract, with its famous opening sentence ‘Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains’, stated instead that people could only experience true freedom if they lived in a civil society that ensured the rights and well-being of its citizens.

Detailed explanation-5: -The general will is the source of law and is willed by each and every citizen. In obeying the law each citizen is thus subject to his or her own will, and consequently, according to Rousseau, remains free.