property, for property resulted from ideas, foreseen wants, knowledge, industry, which were not intrinsically natural but implied in language, thought and society. Selfishness, taste, regard for the opinion of others, the arts, war, slavery, vice, conjugal and paternal affection all exist in men only as they are sociable beings who live together in larger or smaller groups.
From Rousseau’s point of view, the individual’s rights and liberties have no existence at all except as they are already members of the group. Rousseau’s whole argument depended upon the face that a community of citizens is unique and coequal with its members; they neither make it nor have rights against it. It is an association not an aggregation. A moral and collective personality symbolizes society: “A community has a corporate personality or moi commun, the organic analogy for a social group, the doctrine that the general will of the corporate self sets the moral standards valued for its members, and the implied reduction of government to a mere agen
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