SOCIAL CONTRACT AND CAPITAL: ROUSSEAU, MARX

REVOLUTION AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

Eric Engle

Abstract: Marx supposedly represents a radical break from liberal individualist property
oriented thinking. In fact, Marx represents an integration of the best points of a variety of
liberal individualists, notably Locke and Rousseau, but also to a lesser extent Aristotle and
even Plato. Marx is an extension of, not a break from, mainstream thinkers in Western
political and economic thought: all Marx‘s main ideas can be traced to one canonical scholar
or another. Understanding analytical tools common to both Liberalism and Marxism
contextualizes their divergences and allows one to better understand both the successes and
failures of Marxism as a critique in practice of liberal state theory.

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 2
ROUSSEAU: PRECURSOR OF MARX? ................................................................................ 3
I. Convergences: ......................................................................................................................... 3
A. The State ............................................................................................................................ 3
1. Progress and the Revolution ........................................................................................... 3
2. The Origin of the State in the family.............................................................................. 4
3. The General Interest ....................................................................................................... 4
4. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat ................................................................................. 5
B. Property ............................................................................................................................. 6
1. The Origins of Property.................................................................................................. 6
2. The Effects of Property .................................................................................................. 9
a. Inequality .................................................................................................................... 9
b. Use Value ................................................................................................................. 10
c. Greed and the Withering of the State ....................................................................... 10
C. Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 11
D. Religion ........................................................................................................................... 11
II. Divergences ......................................................................................................................... 12
A. Community and Property ................................................................................................ 12
B. Marx‘s Analysis:.............................................................................................................. 12
1. The State ....................................................................................................................... 12
2. Class Struggle ............................................................................................................... 13
3. Dialectics ...................................................................................................................... 13
C. Rousseau‘s Analysis: ....................................................................................................... 14
1. The State of Nature ...................................................................................................... 14
2. The Social Contract ...................................................................................................... 15
3. Modernity ..................................................................................................................... 18
4. The Aristocracy (Aristotle) .......................................................................................... 19
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 20

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1268564

INTRODUCTION

One sees inscribed in the work of Rousseau a complex of ideas that have developed at the
centre of modernity. Progress, Revolution, Nationalism. Rousseau influences contemporary
thought directly through the social contract theory, which is still used to justify and
legitimate state action and indirectly through his influence on Marx. Karl Marx took up and
developed several of Rousseau‘s ideas and by influencing the discourse of "modernity". This
tends to show (confirmed elsewhere) that Marx‘s work was a synthesis of liberal scholars:
Rousseau, Locke, Aristotle, Hegel, Ricardo and Smith, Malthus and even ancient scholars
such as Plato, and Heraclites. I argue that Marx‘s work was distorted due to an abuse of the
concept of proletarian dictatorship, a concept Marx inherited from Rousseau which Marxism
would have been better without. In this sense an orthodox Marxist would call me a revisionist
but it is difficult to ignore the fact that the supposedly temporary dictatorship of the
proletariat inevitably extended itself and ultimately led to capitalist restoration overtly in the
USSR and covertly in China.

This article will compare Marx and Rousseau to show how Marx‘s ideas are mostly
extensions of Rousseau's work or the work of other liberal western theorists. Marx innovated
just about nowhere but did compare and synthesize all the leading scholars into a powerful
theory. Liberalism errs when it ignores Marx or sees Marx as anathema. I also here present a
brief comparison of some surprising similarities between Rousseau and Aristotle on
aristocracy and (so-called) natural inequality..

Obviously, this comparison will have certain limits. Marx and Rousseau are similar in some
respects but very different in others. But at worst this study has the merit of providing
usefulness historical analysis of the development of political thought.

One could raise as an objection to this comparison the idea that post-modernity has already
surpassed modernity. That circularity, relativism, reversibility, deconstruction and symbolic
exchange have replaced progress, universal narrative, utopianism, objectivity and commerce
as the basis of reality. I doubt it. If we are in the post-modern, its contents are not yet
defined. Post modernism rejects grand narratives, the possibility of progress, and sees truth
and/or morality as relative. But, because post-modernism is still only defined negatively, as a

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1268564

rejection of certain of modernity‘s tenets, modernity will continue to influence the post-
modern until the post-modern becomes fully defined. Comparing Roussea and Marx could
however have implications for post-modernism. They are considered briefly in the
conclusion.

ROUSSEAU: PRECURSOR OF MARX?

I. Convergences:

A. The State

1. Progress and the Revolution

I would like to start this study by considering the myth of revolution. This myth is found in
almost all countries in the west, limited monarchies, republics and socialist countries. It
presents a thesis something like the following:

“The revolutions of 1776, 1789, 1848 and 1917 are evidence of the successful struggle for
human rights and mark historical progress of the whole society.”

The reasons for the mythical character of revolution are several - revolution can justify or be
justified by any political idea. The idea of revolution is not monopolized by the left.
Revolution also embodies the idea of cyclical recurrence, which links generations, both
living and dead. Further, revolution gives at least the hope of the possibility of realizing
dreams, of escaping one‘s lot in life... the desire for progress, justice. The myth of the
revolution can motivate and legitimize the regime (in peacetime) or serve in its defense (in
wartime). This explains the broad appeal of the concept, which finds expression especially
clearly in Rousseau, Locke and Marx.

Rousseau and Marx proposed a vision of a society radically different from those which
existed before and so inspired revolutions throughout of the world. So I want to place
Rousseau and Marx side by side and compare them to understand how their ideas influence
revolutions in practice and the concept of revolution in theory.

3
It is very clear that for Marx and Rousseau alike there is a right to rebel. Marx even
privileges revolutions, saying that "revolutions are the locomotives of history."1 This is the
clearest example of Rousseau‘s influence on Marx. Both are firmly anchored in modernity
and believe in the possibility and desirability of progress, because of the cyclicity of
progress. For post-modernity in contrast cyclicity dooms the world to futility and evacuates
progress of any real content. Post-modernism is wrong there; where it sees a wheel
dialectical materialism sees a spiral – cyclicity, coupled with forward and upward movement
to ever more organized states.

But if revolutions are the engine of history, what is their nature and source? We find the
answer to that question in a study on the origins of the state.

2. The Origin of the State in the family

For Rousseau, Marx and Aristotle the family remains the original source of social
organization, including political organization. Thus there is a certain inevitability of the
political for all three. According to Rousseau: ―The oldest of all societies and the only natural
one is the family.‖2; "The family is therefore the first model of political societies; the chief is
the image of the father, the people are the image of children, and all are born equal only
alienating their liberty for [their own] convenience."3 Here, Rousseau and Aristotle agree as
does Marx: ―The further we go back in history, the more the individual and the individual as
producer become part of a larger set, the family first and then by nature the extended family
and so on to the tribe, later, then in turn communities arising from the various structures born
from the clash and fusion of tribes.‖4 Human life also originates socially: ―At the point of
origin he [man] appears as a generic being, a tribal being, a herd animal‖5

3. The General Interest

1
Karl Marx, ―Die Klassenkampf in Frankreich‖ en Karl Marx, Morceaux Choisis.Nizan et Duret (eds.) Paris,
allimard, (1934) page 159.
2
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, P.19.http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/go?contrat1
3
ibid, page 20
4
Marx, Grundrisse, Editions Sociales, p. 12.
5
Marx, Sur les Sociétés Précapitalistes, à 53 Editions Sociales Maurice Godelier, ed. Paris 1973

4
If the origin of the State is the family, its power should, according to Marx and Rousseau, be
exercised for the majority: The famous formula of Rousseau of ―the general will‖ finds its
echo in Marx: "It is only in the name of the general rights of society that a class society can
claim general supremacy."6

4. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Another parallel between Marx and Rousseau is that each believes that at certain times in
history dictatorship is necessary. When Marx refers to the idea of dictatorship, he intends the
idea of a temporary provisional government, after the roman model. This idea is also found
in Rousseau, who takes into account the possibility of the need from time to time in the life
of a state of a period of dictatorship to react to unforeseeable crises. Thus he says on that
point:
"The inflexibility of laws, which prevents them from folding into
[current] events, may in some cases render them nocive, and cause the
state to collapse in crisis. Order and the slow pace of forms require a
space of time that circumstances sometimes refuse. A thousand cases
may arise for which the legislature has not in any way foreseen, and it
is a very necessary foresight to sense that one cannot foresee
everything.
One should not therefore want to strengthen political institutions to the
point of refusing the power to suspend their effect. Sparta itself to let
its laws [at times] go dormant.
But it is only the greatest dangers which could compel altering public
order and one must never stop the sacred power of laws except when it
is a matter of the salvation of the fatherland. In those rare, manifest
cases one provides for public security by a particular act which places
the burden on the most worthy. This commission may be given in two
ways, depending on the species of danger.‖ 7

To remedy this, it suffices that one augment the activity of

government, that one concentrates it in one or two of its members.
Thus it is not the authority of laws that one alters but only their form
of administration. But if the risk is such that the apparatus of laws be
an obstacle to guarantee them, then one appoints a supreme chief who
would silence all laws and suspend momentarily the sovereign
authority; in such a case the general is not questionable, and it is
obvious that the first intention of the people is that the State should not
perish. In this way the suspension of the legislative authority abolishes

6
Karl Marx, Morceaux Choisis, Paris, Gallimard, 1934. P. Nizan et J Duret (eds.) P 166.
7
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf p. 136.

5
 nothing, the judge who silences it cannot make it talk, he dominates
without the ability to represent; he can do all, except make law."8

The fact that Rousseau was not averse to the idea of a dictatorship is also clear in the
following passage: "a dictator in some cases could defend public freedom without ever being
able to injure it.. ...the shackles of Rome were not forged in Rome itself but in her armies"9

The only important limitation of the dictatorship, which is also the reason it is so dangerous
and open to abuse, is its temporality.
"As for the rest, in whatever way this important commission is
conferred, it is important to set the duration to a very short term that
can never be extended; in the crises which make its establishment
necessary the State is very soon destroyed or saved and once past the
pressing need the dictature becomes a, useless tyranny. In Rome
dictators served only for six months, and most abdicated before their
term. If the term had been longer, perhaps they would have been
tempted to extend it further, as did the decemvirs ... The dictator had
just the time needed to fulfill the need for which he had been elected,
he had no means by which to dream of other projects. "10

If we reconsider the idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat as a temporary stage needed to

abolish the states to build communism, we better understand the idea of Marx on that point.

B. Property

1. The Origins of Property

For Marx, the state is the police agent of the proprietors and thus one must consider the
origins of property when examining the state because property and the state are inextricably
linked. Here Marx and Rousseau differ slightly: For Marx, property is necessary and good at
a certain stage of society. But Rousseau seems close to the proverb of Proudhon, that
property is theft. This is because Rousseau rightly sees that the origins of much property is in
theft, fraud and conquest. Thereto Rousseau said:
"The first who, having enclosed a piece of land, dared to say: This is
mine, and found people simple enough to believe it was the real

8
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf p. 137.
9
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtfp. 138.
10
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtfp. 138-139.

6
 founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, that
miseries and horrors would have saved the point that the human race,
pulling up the fence or filling in the pit, had shouted to his fellows:
Beware of this impostor! You are lost if you forget that fruits belong to
all and the earth to no one!" [10]11

The way to resolve this conflict for Rousseau as Marx is to place all goods in common by
means of the social contract. From that follow the consequences, that the state may
expropriate (the power of eminent domain) and that it has the capacity, as an aspect of
sovereignty, to escheat property where there are no heirs of a deceased person

So we see in this the great distinction between Rousseau and Marx as compared to Locke and
Hobbes. For Hobbes and Locke, the raison d'être of the state is to protect the private property
of citizens. Marx grants that this is the origin of the State but disputes that it is the legitimate
purpose of social organization. In contrast, for Rousseau the community of property is
insured by the State. Marx instead thinks collectivization will eventually result in the
dissolution of the State. Marx and Rousseau have thus adopted opposite prescriptions to
obtain the same objectives.

As for his analysis of the property, like Marx, Rousseau sees property as a function of
historical development. So, "this idea of property, depending on many previous ideas which
could only have been born successively, did not form suddenly in the human spirit. It
required much human progress, much industry and enlightenment, to transmit and augment it
from age to age, before arriving at this last term of the state of nature. "12

Conceptually Marx continues this analysis, adding the idea that property and its relations are
a function of the mode of production, an idea which had not yet appeared in Rousseau,
except perhaps in embryonic form.

In addition to the synthesis of the historical development of "ownership", Rousseau analyses

property in a given epoch, as capital or property (land), or consumer goods (fruits) - although
in the end he puts all property into common disposition. This distinction was adopted by the
former USSR. But, in contrast, Soviet law maintained the private nature of consumer goods,

11
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf p. 231.
12
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf p. 232.

7
putting only capital goods (inputs) into common disposition. One could thus note that the
liberal democracies have adopted the theory of Rousseau of a theoretical community of
property, albeit with a duty of compensation for exercise of the eminent domain. Another
distinction: the nationalizations in France and England compensated the expropriated, unlike
in the USSR – which upon capitalist restoration found itself obliged to compensate the
expropriated of the Tsarist regime.

Finally Marx‘s formula was a bit different – ―from each according to his abilities, to each
according to his needs‖ implying a redistributive ideal which to me seems difficult to achieve
and requires a level of social evolution that is intolerant of greed. In short, Marx, like the
Calvinists wanted to legislate a moral frugality.

Seeing that for Marx property is a function of different modes of production (hunter-gatherer,
primitive agriculture, nomadic, feudal, industrial) property developed in the following
manner:
"The first form of property is owned by the tribe. It is this rudimentary
stage of production, where a nation thrives on hunting and fishing,
raising livestock, or at best, agriculture. In this last case, a large
amount of uncultivated land is required. At this stage, the division of
labor is still very poorly developed and is merely a greater extension of
the natural division offered by the family. The social structure is
limited by this fact to an extension of the family: heads of the
patriarchal tribe, below them members of the tribe and finally slaves.
Slavery, latent in the family, develops but gradually with population
growth and needs, and also with the expansion of external relations of
war as well as of barter.

The second form of ownership is communal property and state

property which one saw in antiquity and which arises above all from a
combination of several tribes in one city, by contract or by conquest, in
which slavery continues. In addition to communal ownership, private
property, movable and later immovable, is already developing.

... With the development of private property, we see the first relations
which we find in modern private property ... On the one hand,
concentration of private property ... on the other hand, a corresponding
… transformation of small plebeian farmers into a proletariat…

The third form of property is feudal"13

13
Marx, L'Idéologie Allemande, Editions Sociales Maurice Godelier, ed. Paris 1973. 1° section P 147-149.

8
2. The Effects of Property

a. Inequality

The reason for which Rousseau is hostile to property is that it sees as a source of inequality
and injustice.
"If we follow the progress of inequality in these different revolutions,
we find that the establishment of law and property rights was the first
term, the institutions of the judiciary the second, and the third and last
was the change from legitimate power to arbitrary power; in such a
waay that the status of rich and of poor was authorized by the first era,
that of powerful and weak by the second and that of master and slave
by the third, which is the last degree of inequality, and the term to
which all the others finally lead, until new revolutions dissolve the
government, or bring it closer to a legitimate institution. "[13]14

This idea of unjust inequality in Marx appears as the idea of alienation. The well known
thesis of Marx is that the sale of his work renders the worker at the same time a slave to his
boss and alienated to his work. But this concept had a different meaning earlier in Rousseau.
For Rousseau, alienation of the worker‘s freedom concerned legal rather than functional
slavery. "To alienate is to give or sell. A man who makes himself a slave of another does not
give himself, he sells himself, for at least his subsistence."15 So, for Rousseau, complete
alienation of freedom was incompatible with the idea of humanity itself. "Abandoning his
freedom is giving up its quality of man, the rights of humanity, even his duties. There is no
possible compensation for anyone who renounces all this… it is a vain and contradictory
convention to state on the one hand an absolute authority and the other a boundless
obedience. "16 That is conclusory reasoning. If one can sell part of their labor why not all of it
at once? The best argument is that although functionally equivalent to slaves, employees
have, at least in principle, the possibility to escape - which was not the case for genuine
slaves - though indentured servants would. So Rousseau‘s idea is defensible but was
presented incompletely and can still be criticized by the example of indentured servants. In
all events, Marx extends Rousseau‘s idea of alienation beyond its original bounds and places
it on more realistic footing thereby. Nineteenth century working conditions justified the
alarmist nature of Marx, but in our day opportunities to prevent abusive working conditions
via mandatory social insurance and labor law are more evidence that the problem of labor as

14
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf, p. 258
15
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, p. 23. http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/go?contrat1
16
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/go?contrat1 p. 24.

9
functionally equivalent to slavery no longer exists in the first world. It is a very different
story in the third world, where sweatshops, child labor, undercompensation and permanent
debt are the norm. There, labor is still exploited, paid less than its value.

b. Use Value

Marx and Rousseau each applied the concept of use value to indicate that the most useful
property would also be the cheapest. For Smith this act would be the justification of
capitalism itself. But for Rousseau, it indicated that the small farmer was destined for
poverty.
"It is easy to see that by its nature agriculture must be the least
lucrative of all the arts, because its product, being the most
indispensable for all men, must have a price proportionate to the
abilities of the poorest. From the same principle one can draw the rule
that the arts are lucrative inversely to their usefulness and that the most
needed must finally become most neglected.
From this one sees that one must think of the real advantages of
industry and the real effect resulting from its progress.
These are the essential causes of all the poverty that finally precipitate
to the most admired nations. As industry and the arts grow and
flourish, the farmer, despised, burdened with taxes necessary to
maintain the luxury [of others] and sentenced to spend his life between
work and hunger, abandoned his fields to go look in cities for the
bread that he must carry."17

This concern for the well being of the peasants and workers is of course one of Marxisms‘s
central tenets.

c. Greed and the Withering of the State

For Smith, self interest drives the economy to the best possible outcomes for all. Rousseau
and Marx would disagree. The problem for Rousseau is that greed leads to inequality and
poverty:
"Luxury, impossible to prevent in men greedy for their own
convenience and the consideration of others, soon completes the evil
that society had begun; and under the pretext to support the poor which
it could not do it impoverishes the rest and sooner or later depopulates
the state‖.

17
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf p. 197.

10
 Luxury is a cure far worse than the disease it purports to cure, or
rather, it is itself the worst of all evils in any state large or small that
might be, and which, to feed crowds of valets and the poor it has
made, overwhelms and ruins the farmer and citizen. Similar to these
winds burning at noon, covering the green grass with voracious insects
who deprive subsistence to useful animals and bear hunger and death
in all the places where they make themselves felt.

From society and luxury it engenders are born liberal arts and
engineering, commerce, letters, and all those disutilities which make
industry flower and enrich States. The reason for this withering is very
simple. "18

The withering that Rousseau is talking about is the decline of one particular State, by
corruption due to decadence and misallocation of resources, problems Marx also took up and
directly addressed. But Rousseau sees the state as the solution for these problems, whereas
for Marx the state is the embodiment of them. So Marx calls for abolition of the State as a
social organization because of its inherent violence which is linked directly to the institution
of private property. Because withering of the state is a Marxist keyword its use by Rousseau
deserves mentioning. It is clear that Rousseau considered the idea of a true communism but
did not take it up and meant something different by the term withering than did Marx.

C. Analysis

Marxism as materialist ideology emphasizes the practical foundation and strength as verifier
of theory.19That may also be the case for Rousseau but Rousseau does not, as far as I have
seen, discuss materialism versus idealism.

D. Religion

Rousseau is sceptical about Christianity, at least, and proposes, like Plato, a universal
religious myth – deism - to hold his state together.20 His opposition to Christianity is a

18
Id.
19
"La question de savoir si la pensée humaine peut atteindre une vérité objective n'est pas une
question théorique, mais une question pratique. C'est dans la ‗praxis‘ que l'homme doit
démontrer la vérité, c'est à dire la réalité, la puissance, la précision de sa pensée." Marx,
Thèses sur Feurbach, II P. 50, Die Deutsche Ideologie. Riazanov, Marx Engels Archiv
Francfort p. 533. Karl Marx, Morceaux Choisis, Paris, Gallimard, (1934) P. Nizan et J Duret
(eds.)
11
prescursor to both Marx and Nietzsche. Marx regards religion as a giant hypocritical lie and
presents an atheistic theory without however any mythmaking.

II. Divergences

A. Community and Property

"Should we destroy societies, destroy yours and mine, and return to live in forests with
bears? [Such is the ] consequence of my opponents [reasoning], which I would love to
prevent as much as to shame them by reaching it."21

It is clear that Rousseau was not a Communist. Was this due to practical reasons? Every
social act is conditioned by its time. In his age, Rousseau was very radical - even here,
because he asked the question which implies the possibility of an affirmative answer. A
clever ploy against a tyranny is to measure ones blows and fight only when and where
victory is certain. To carefully select each of battle and win every engagement. Thus,
eventually, a people is freed. But they must not try to liberate themselves when victory is not
possible. Otherwise it would be a bloody and unnecessary waste of force.

The main ideas in Marx that are quite different from Rousseau seem to be the result of the
influence of Heraclites, Aristotle and Hegel on Marx. They could be summarized under the
following headings: class struggle, dialectical materialism, suprastructure (relations of
production) and infrastructure (base; forces of production). Marx appears to ignore
Rousseau‘s social contract and state of nature because they are not empirical facts.

B. Marx’s Analysis:

1. The State

Although the origins of the state and justifications of state acts is very similar between Marx
and Rousseau, we have already remarked that for Marx the State is the mechanism of social
domination of the dominant class, which contrasts sharply with the vision of Rousseau sees

20
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf, p. 141-149.
21
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf p. 198.

12
the state. For Marx the state is the problem; for Rousseau it is the solution. Rousseau sees the
state, almost in a Hegelian, way, as the purpose of man.

For Marx the purpose of the state is dominance of one class by another.
"The bourgeois state is nothing other than mutual insurance of
the bourgeois class against …the exploited class, insurance,
which must become increasingly costly and more autonomous in
front of bourgeois society, because 'lowering of the exploited
class becomes ever more difficult "22 ; "The state and the
organization of society are not, from the political point of view,
two separate things. The State is the organization of society.23

2. Class Struggle

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in
a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a
revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending
classes.”24

If the state is the field of battle, the combatants are the social classes. In an Aristotelian
tripartite tradition Marx sees classes as, roughly, aristocrats, bourgeois and the proletariat.
Although class is a main tool of Marx, the idea of class and class struggle is only marginal in
the thought of Rousseau.

3. Dialectics

Rousseau does not as far as I can see describe or use dialectics. Marx was influenced by
Heraclites, Aristotle and Hegel on the use of the dialectical method. For Marx, a materialist,
matter determines mind and not the other way around. But through the conflict of opposing
theses (thesis and antithesis) a new reality emerges (synthesis). In the following paragraph
commentary that explains the progression from thesis to antithesis resulting in synthesis is
marked inline [thusly].
―In the social production of their lives men enter into relations that are
specific, necessary and independent of their will ... The totality of
these relations of production forms the economic structure of society,
the real basis [the productive forces, i.e. productive labor and inputs]
22
Ibid
23
Karl Marx, Morceaux Choisis, Paris, Gallimard, 1934 P. Nizan et J Duret (eds.) P 163.
24
Karl Marx, Morceaux Choisis, Paris, Gallimard, 1934 P. Nizan et J Duret (eds.) p. 154, Kapital I 689.

13
 from which rises a legal and political superstructure [the ideological
justifications for the form of social organization, the rationalizations of
the productive base] ... The mode of production of material life
conditions the social, political and intellectual life-process generally.
[I.e. Marx is a materialist]

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on

the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.
[I.e. Marx is a materialist, not an epistemological idealist – matter
makes mind, not the other way around] At a certain degree of
development the material forces of production of society come into
conflict with existing relations of production or, in what is nothing
other than its juridical expression with relations of property within the
sytem to which they had been bound. [conflicting theses] From forms
of development of productive forces, these relationships become
barriers to these forces. Thus an era of social revolution starts. "25 [out
of conflict between opposing these a new third synthesis of the correct
aspects of each opposition emerges by shedding the incorrect aspects
of both opposites and integrating the resulting data into an integral
whole]

Like Heraclites, Marx believes the only constant is change: ―There is a continual movement
of growth in the productive forces, of destruction in social relations, of formation in ideas;
there is nothing immutable but the abstraction of the movement—mors immortalis.‖26
Rousseau in contrast does not seem to have a worked out position on the static-or-dynamic
debate about the nature of reality. Rousseau is not thinking dialectically. Dialectics seem to
be wholly absent from his work.

C. Rousseau’s Analysis:

1. The State of Nature

Like Locke and Hobbes, Rousseau postulated the existence of a ―state of nature‖ that is a
situation of primitive society wherein no state or government existed. There are many
problems with this idea of a state of nature. The state of nature is ambiguous. Any
phenomena can be called natural, simply by the fact that it exists. One could try to
distinguish between things that can exist and things which must exist, things which are
inalterable and things which are alterable. But even this attempt test to escape the circularity
of the idea of a state of nature does not manage to change the problem with the idea of a
fundamental human nature and/or nature of the universe. This ambiguity and materialism
justifies Marx‘s decision of not to use the idea of a state of nature – that idea is intellectually
weak, a myth, and is not a historical reality and is used to manipulate people. Unlike Marx,

25
Karl Marx, Morceaux Choisis, Paris, Gallimard, 1934 P. Nizan et J Duret (eds.), p. 86.
26
KARL MARX, THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY 119 (H. Quelch trans., 1920)
Karl Marx, Morceaux Choisis, Paris, Gallimard, 1934 P. Nizan et J Duret (eds.) P 105.

14
Rousseau was forced to consider unreal situations because his world was still too influenced
by Christianity. This is why the contemporary social contract theorists are out to lunch: they
are arguing from or for a theory of the state that was developed to meet the block in
conceptualization forced on science by faith. That block is long gone, but the defenders of
the social contract unscientifically persist in maintaining an untenable position.

The state of nature is the foundation of Rousseau‘s state. Rousseau's first law of the state of
nature is self-preservation27 However, force does not determine right for Rousseau. "Force is
a physical power, I do not see what point morals may result from its effects. To submit to
force is an act of necessity, not will, it is at best an act of prudence."28 The logical
conclusion: "We agree that force is not Right, and that one is only obliged to obey legitimate
powers."29

So, when a prince gains power by force, he is in danger unless he legitimizes his physical
power by a moral power: "The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master,
unless he transforms force into right and obedience end duty."30 This implies that for
Rousseau, there is a natural law and natural justice and they are related to each other. Marx
does not take up natural law except as he rejects the idea of epistemological dualism
(philosophical idealism, e.g. neo-platonism). I argue elsewhere a consistent theory of natural
law to materialism is possible and not inconsistent with Marx‘s theories.

2. The Social Contract

In addition to the idea of a so-called state of nature, Rousseau uses another tool of Locke and
Hobbes - the social contract. Essentially this doctrine holds that the powers must be based on
the consent of the governed, at least in their formation, and preferably in their execution. For
Rousseau, the social contract is the inevitable response to the state of nature:
"I suppose men reached the point where the obstacles to their
conservation in the state of nature prevailed by their resilience over the
strengths that each individual can use to sustain themselves in this
state. So this primitive situation could not continue, and mankind
would have perished unless it changed its way of being. "31

27
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, p 20. http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/go?contrat1
28
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, p 22. http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/go?contrat1
29
Id.
30
Id.
31
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, p 28. http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/go?contrat1
15
That is, Rousseau, like Aristotle and Locke, recognizes that social life is inevitably
necessary. What he seeks then is not so much as to justify or legitimate a revolutionary
republic but rather ―To find a form of association that defends and protects with all the
collective strength the person and property of each partner, and which, uniting all,
nevertheless leaves each free to obey only themselves and remains as free as before.‖32 His
solution to that problem is the social contract. Marx‘s solution is the eventual dissolution of
the state into a communal anarchy resulting from prosperity unleashed by industrialization
and channelled most productively by socialism.

Rousseau‘s social contract is of course a totally unrealistic myth. Essentially he is arguing for
"the total alienation of each associate of all his rights to the entire community‖33 which of
course sets the stage for the tyranny Rousseau argues in favour of the prototype of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, which ran so disastrously due to the problem of succession in
each instance we observe. Ths loss of rights creates somehow (how?) a form of collective
body: "Each of us together brings his person and his power under the supreme direction of
the general will, and we receive each member into this body [politic] as an indivisible part of
the whole"34 - which is of course an echo of Hobbe‘s artificial man and has however no
parallel in Marx, fortunately, since it is a myth.
"It follows from the foregoing that the general will is always right and
always tends to public utility, but it does not follow that the
deliberations of the people always have the same rectitude. One
always wants his own good, but we do not always see [what] it [is].
One can never corrupt the people, but often it is wrong, and it is only
then that it appears to desire that which is bad.

There is often a difference between the will of all and the general will;
that [the general will] only looks at the common interest, the other
looks to the private interest and is nothing but a sum of individual
wills. "35

Of course, the general will became the basis of the Red Terror in Revolutionary France,
which explains why materialism is better than mythmaking. Just as Rousseau assumed the
general will was always right, with disastrous results, so Marxists assumed the proletariat
were also inevitably correct which is simply not true, no one, no group is infallible. Just as
Rousseau needed a national assembly to interpret the general will and split the state between

32
Id.
33
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, p 29.
34
Id.
35
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, 42

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the people and the government ("We have here two very distinct legal entities, namely the
government and the sovereign, and consequently two general wills, one compared to all
citizens, the other only for members of the administration.")36 so did Marx need a vanguard
party to guide the proletariat and interpret its will because he too split the society between the
people and its party. In each case however the disconnect between reality and the theory
resulted in abuse, distortion

Rousseau raises the problem of inequality of the parties forming the contract:
"I give you all my good, provided that you give me all you care to."37
and tries to solve this problem as follows:
"There is but one contract in the State, is one of the association, and that one only excludes
any other."38
Which does not logically follow, all the more so since the social contract is a myth. Such
machinations are absent in the work of Marx due to materialism.

We saw that for Rousseau the family is the basic unit of society, and is even the basic model
of social policies. So, the resulting state is patriarchal, first because women were consciously
and overtly disenfranchised and unequal and second because the state springs from and is
modelled after the family. However, Rousseau tries to limit the authority of the state by
pointing that adult children – and the citizens is an adult – only owes respect, but not
obedience.39 The problem is however that the analogy doesn‘t really hold up to scrutiny
because states, unlike parents, do continue to command their subjects, even as adults.

36
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social, Chapitre 3.5 De l‘aristocratie.
37
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf p. 110.
38
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf p.110.
39
"As for the paternal authority from which many derive absolute government and society,
without considering the evidence to the contrary Locke and Sidney, just note that in the
world nothing is further from the spirit of fierce despotism than the sweetness of that
authority which looks more to the advantage of the one who obeys rather than to the
convenience of those who command,
By the law of nature's the father is master of the child only so long that his care is necessary, that beyond this
term they become equal and that the son, completely independent of his father owse only respect and not
obedience; because recognition is indeed a duty that must be made, but not a right that can exercise.‖
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf, p. 252-253.

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3. Modernity

Both Rousseau and Marx are firmly in modernity.

Rousseau work is a pre-inscription of modernist ideas in Marx such as the withering of a

state (which Marx transforms into the withering of states), alienation (which evolves from
Rousseau‘s sense of limited rights to a more or less permanent condition in Marx), the rise of
the property in history (which I see as a root of the idea of the forces of production in Marx)
and the idea of a temporally limited and dictatorship. All these ideas are developed further by
Marx and generally appear in Modernity only within Marxist discourse. Although Marxist
ideology is a theory of modernity, with a universal narrative of progress, the set of modern
ideologies is larger and also includes, for example, futurism, Fordism, fascism and socialism,
among others. One phenomenon of modernity was the trend towards totalising ideologies.
Two world wars were the result of these totalising ideologies. This explains why post-
modernism is a radical scepticism, especially toward universal narratives of liberation and
sees values as relativized. Perhaps also a sense of circularity (self reference) rendering
discourse not dialectical but meaningless is another mark of post-modernism. In all events,
PoMo is ill defined.

Apart from a root of the idea of forces and relations of production, we also find two other
roots of modernity in Rousseau. The idea of the semiotic meaning of wealth, which is the
foundation of a grammatology of production (Foucault; Baudrillard): "Before we had
invented the representative signs of wealth, it could hardly consist of other than land and
cattle, the only real goods that men could possess"40 And thus he started a semiological
discourse about the signs of wealth which has since linked Saussure,* Foucault* and
Baudrillard.*

Another root of modern thought in Rousseau - which appears elsewhere in Marx, is the idea
of progress. "Progress", the key idea of modernity itself, and its central uniting force, was
also the centre of his investigation of the origins of inequality. As Rousseau said:
"What is it precisely a matter of in this speech? To mark in the progress of things where right

40
Rousseau Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf , p.245.

18
becomes successor to violence, where nature became subject to the laws, to explain what
chain of wonders the strong resolved to serve the weak and the people to buy rest in an idea
at the cost of real happiness."41

We have already seen that Rousseau is at least as critical of the effects of the progress as
Marx. Which is surprising, frankly, because these effects – the destruction of rural life - were
logically linked to the new mode of production, but that was apparently impossible to see
when one was still too close to the event.

4. The Aristocracy (Aristotle)

The last point of the study is also interesting for its paradoxical character. Given that
Rousseau is egalitarian, it is surprising to see that under certain conditions he finds it possible
that an aristocracy can be just:
The first societies governed aristocratically. The heads of families
deliberated over of public affairs. The young people gave in to the
authority of experience without penalty. … The Indians of North
America govern themselves even today, and are very well governed.42

But as institutional inequality took on the natural inequality, wealth or

power became preferred… and the aristocracy became elective.
Finally, the power transmitted with the property of the father children
making patrician families gave hereditary government, and we saw
twenty year old senators.

There are three kinds of aristocracy; natural, elective, and hereditary. The first is suitable
only for simple peoples, and the third is the worst of all governments. The second is the best:
it is aristocracy, properly speaking. "43

"Aristotle before them had also said that men are in no way naturally equal, that some are
born for slavery and other for dominance.

Aristotle was right, but he took effect for the cause. Every man born in slavery is born for
slavery, nothing is more certain. The slaves lose everything in their irons, even the desire to
41
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf , p. 178.
42
Rousseau, Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtf , p. 82.
43
Rousseau Discours sur l‘Origine et les Fondements de l‘Inégalité parmi les Hommes
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/rousseau/jjr_ineg.rtfpage 83.

19
leave them. They love their servitude ... force made the first slaves, their cowardice has
perpetuated them to it. "[39] 44

This paradox shows that although there are many similar points between them, there are also
major differences between Marx and Rousseau.

Conclusion

There are numerous surprising parallels between Rousseau and Marx but there are also
serious divergences. We can find the source of these differences in the differing roles of
property in the work of these two thinkers and in their difference on the idea of natural
inequality. A common historical method and holistic perspective explains why these two
theorists of the state are often very similar and are more similar than different: their similar
methodology leads to similar results.

44
Rousseau, Du Pacte Social, p. 21. http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/go?contrat1

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