nform to the general will means forcing the individual to be free. Rousseau also sees the social contract as involving a trade-off that benefits the individual. He says that the individual gives up certain things when agreeing to the social contract but receives much more than he surrenders He believed that once individuals came together to form a social order, what was formed was a new entity with a common life and a common will. This is the general will, and it always tends to preserve the existence and welfare of the whole. The general will is something intangible but powerful. It becomes the motivating force for the preservation of social values.
The idea of the social contract holds that political society rests ultimately on a voluntary agreement whereby people in a state of nature agree to give up some of the freedom they enjoy in that state as a way of assuring their security and other advantages in a social structure under law.
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