The social contract is an emblematic book in the history of Western political thought, a book that promotes revolutions? The one of 1789? and of revolutionaries? from Robespierre to Simón Bolívar and Fidel Castro ?, a work against the current that praises, in the context of the Europe of absolute monarchies, the direct democracy of the republics of antiquity in which the people, gathered in assembly , legislated. The text, frequently misunderstood, far from embodying the great principles of modern democracy, as has been said, denies them, both of the representative system implanted in England as a result of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and of individual rights or the division of powers sponsored by Locke and Montesquieu. Heir to the republicanism of Machiavelli, Rousseau submits the individual to the community where each individual gives up part of their independence and submits i...read more