Rousseau: The Right of the Strongest

"To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts." (Book 1:4)

Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract. Trans. G.D.H. Cole 1782. Rendered into HTML and texts by Jon Roland of the Constitution society. http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm

In the first book of The Social Contract Rousseau vehemently attacks the idea that slavery can be justified. He criticizes Hobbes especially, but includes Aristotle, Grotius and the Roman emperor Caligula in his invective, according to whom some people were born for slavery, and others were simply not. "Nonsense" exclaims Rousseau. People are born free and equal and the only arguments in favour of slavery are circular. 

Generally, the right to enslave a person, according to Grotius, stems from his right to kill that person. In which case slavery is justified because it is beneficial to both parties. The slave buys back his life with a lifetime of servitude -but, Rousseau insists, where does this right to kill a person originate? It is derived from the idea that lies at the heart of the matter: the right of the strongest. However, force, according to Rousseau, cannot be linked to right, or duty, or politics. If force is added to the equation the entire dimension of morality is lost. There is no morality in an action that follows a command. In this respect Hobbes' Leviathan is not a political ruler, but a despot; and equally there is no virtue in Locke's civilised citizenry, because it also comes about by force -the supreme executioner who keeps everyone on the straight and narrow. Politics to Rousseau is a question of determining what people ought to do, what is ethically correct, not just for oneself, but for everyone. 

If the right of the strongest is void, because it is not a right at all, what could possibly bind a slave to his master? A slave gets nothing in return for his labour, not even peace or tranquility, because there is no certitude in serving a person who has absolute power over you. Moreover, even if his master is benevolent and kind, there is nothing in the world that could match the sacrifice that the slave makes; his liberty is that what makes him human. In conclusion, there are no reasonable grounds for slavery. Rousseau will have to come up with other conditions, conditions that don't rely on force, if he is to bind his people and transform them from a mass into a polity.