Social contracts and the greater good
The fight for "the greater good" can send well-meaning urbanists to dark places.
There’s a big difference between “the greater good” and general prosperity or social wellbeing of a population. It’s easy to conflate these in the context of urbanism because land use and transportation policies impact more than a single person or household at a time.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a philosopher, writer, and political theorist. He’s known for his influential book, The Social Contract, which argued for a social contract based on individual consent and the general will. Rousseau thought the general will, representing the public good, is inherently right. He distinguishes it from the will of all, because he’s afraid of all individuals having self interests that oppose the general will. He worried the greater good would get clouded when people do what’s best for themselves or their households. That led to ideas like forcing land owners to give up their property so it could be used by everyone.
Some of Rousseau’s work laid the foundation for early 20th century progressive thought that society “needs” elites to tell the masses what’s good for them. The Soviet Union might be the most vicious application of governing for the greater good. History sounds hyperbolic, but it’s useful to keep in mind how many roads to hell are paved with greater good intentions.
I don’t buy Rousseau’s view of an engineered greater good. I say all the time that things get better in the end, and I think history shows that societies improve as an indirect consequence of individuals pursuing voluntary exchange of ideas, services, and products. It leads to competition, and competition drives innovation, which benefits society as a whole. It’s true whether you’re talking about soap, refrigeration, the printing press, or batteries.
The top-down approach to delivering the greater good was explained by influential journalist Walter Lippmann in many articles and books, and deployed at an incredible scale by the father of public relations, Edward Bernays.
I’ve been slogging through a ton of old essays, letters, and books that cover various aspects of community engagement, outreach, and consensus. Modern planners and engineers are expected to deliver a winning public involvement process without realizing how deep and challenging this stuff gets. We know psychology is complicated, but we (as an industry) act like it’s easy peasy.
At the end of this post are three excerpts from Rousseau’s The Social Contract, translated and published in English in 1920:
The First Societies. Rousseau describes families as the original societies, based on need, not authority. Kids become independent when they no longer need parental care. He then makes the claim that governments are like families, providing to populations based on need.
Whether the General Will is Fallible. The "general will" aims for everyone's good. His ideal is that it’s expressed through laws everyone consents to, and that everyone participates honestly and directly.
Voting. Rousseau says citizens consent to all laws, even those they don't like, because they benefit from the overall rule of law. He proposed that the best voting methods depend on the context, as a way to keep people from the urge to vote for their self-interest over the group.
Voting is a double-edged sword. In the US, we’ve been trained to associate the words voting and democracy as inherently righteous in any context. It’s like the old jokes about a Sunday School teacher asking a question (any question), and a little kid answers “Jesus.” “More voting” and “more democracy” are always the correct answers.
I post a lot about this on X/Twitter in light of seemingly innocuous efforts, like a proposed bike lane or property rezoning. The majority votes all the time against a homeowner’s request to build a granny flat. The majority races to vote against traffic calming projects. (I have ideas about how to navigate when a vote should even be offered for infrastructure projects, but I’m not under any delusion that most people would agree and adopt the ideas.)
This stuff is complicated! Still, it’s worth wrestling with the ideas. If you’re up for a reading challenge, here are the three passages from Rousseau. Keep in mind he was writing in the 1700s, when intellectuals were hotly debating the role of government. I strongly disagree with some of Rousseau’s positions on human nature, social structures, and private property, but there’s a lot I can learn from his ability to think through and analyze the trade-offs of a given worldview.
Reading old material is worth it, because what begins as an academically rigorous exercise can result in a clear and persuasive proposal for zoning abolition. (Or some similarly righteous take.) 😉
Reading new material is also rewarding, otherwise Urbanism Speakeasy wouldn’t exist. For a fun take on the horrors of “the greater good,” I recommend this article by Sean Malone. I don’t know if you’ll adore the movie Hot Fuzz the way I do, but Malone’s article is still worth your time.
THE FIRST SOCIETIES (Book I, Chapter II)
The most ancient of all societies, and the only one that is natural is the family: and even so the children remain attached to the father only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved. The children, released from the obedience they owed to the father, and the father, released from the care he owed his children, return equally to independence. If they remain united, they continue so no longer naturally, but voluntarily; and the family itself is then maintained only by convention.
This common liberty results from the nature of man. His first law is to provide for his own preservation, his first cares are those which he owes to himself; and, as soon as he reaches years of discretion, he is the sole judge of the proper means of preserving himself, and consequently becomes his own master.
The family then may be called the first model of political societies: the ruler corresponds to the father, and the people to the children; and all, being born free and equal, alienate their liberty only for their own advantage. The whole difference is that, in the family, the love of the father for his children repays him for the care he takes of them, while, in the State, the pleasure of commanding takes the place of the love which the chief cannot have for the peoples under him.
Grotius denies that all human power is established in favour of the governed, and quotes slavery as an example. His usual method of reasoning is constantly to establish right by fact. It would be possible to employ a more logical method, but none could be more favourable to tyrants.
It is then, according to Grotius, doubtful whether the human race belongs to a hundred men, or that hundred men to the human race: and, throughout his book, he seems to incline to the former alternative, which is also the view of Hobbes. On this showing, the human species is divided into so many herds of cattle, each with its ruler, who keeps guard over them for the purpose of devouring them.
As a shepherd is of a nature superior to that of his flock, the shepherds of men, i.e. their rulers, are of a nature superior to that of the peoples under them. Thus, Philo tells us, the Emperor Caligula reasoned, concluding equally well either that kings were gods, or that men were beasts.
The reasoning of Caligula agrees with that of Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle, before any of them, had said that men are by no means equal naturally, but that some are born for slavery, and others for dominion.
Aristotle was right; but he took the effect for the cause. Nothing can be more certain than that every man born in slavery is born for slavery. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition. If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition.
I have said nothing of King Adam, or Emperor Noah, father of the three great monarchs who shared out the universe, like the children of Saturn, whom some scholars have recognised in them. I trust to getting due thanks for my moderation; for, being a direct descendant of one of these princes, perhaps of the eldest branch, how do I know that a verification of titles might not leave me the legitimate king of the human race? In any case, there can be no doubt that Adam was sovereign of the world, as Robinson Crusoe was of his island, as long as he was its only inhabitant; and this empire had the advantage that the monarch, safe on his throne, had no rebellions, wars, or conspirators to fear.
WHETHER THE GENERAL WILL IS FALLIBLE (Book II, Chapter III)
It follows from what has gone before that the general will is always right and tends to the public advantage; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people are always equally correct. Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on such occasions only does it seem to will what is bad.
There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter considers only the common interest, while the former takes private interest into account, and is no more than a sum of particular wills: but take away from these same wills the pluses and minuses that cancel one another,[1] and the general will remains as the sum of the differences.
If, when the people, being furnished with adequate information, held its deliberations, the citizens had no communication one with another, the grand total of the small differences would always give the general will, and the decision would always be good. But when factions arise, and partial associations are formed at the expense of the great association, the will of each of these associations becomes general in relation to its members, while it remains particular in relation to the State: it may then be said that there are no longer as many votes as there are men, but only as many as there are associations. The differences become less numerous and give a less general result. Lastly, when one of these associations is so great as to prevail over all the rest, the result is no longer a sum of small differences, but a single difference; in this case there is no longer a general will, and the opinion which prevails is purely particular.
It is therefore essential, if the general will is to be able to express itself, that there should be no partial society within the State, and that each citizen should think only his own thoughts:[2] which was indeed the sublime and unique system established by the great Lycurgus. But if there are partial societies, it is best to have as many as possible and to prevent them from being unequal, as was done by Solon, Numa and Servius. These precautions are the only ones that can guarantee that the general will shall be always enlightened, and that the people shall in no way deceive itself.
VOTING (Book IV, Chapter II)
It may be seen, from the last chapter, that the way in which general business is managed may give a clear enough indication of the actual state of morals and the health of the body politic. The more concert reigns in the assemblies, that is, the nearer opinion approaches unanimity, the greater is the dominance of the general will. On the other hand, long debates, dissensions and tumult proclaim the ascendancy of particular interests and the decline of the State.
This seems less clear when two or more orders enter into the constitution, as patricians and plebeians did at Rome; for quarrels between these two orders often disturbed the comitia, even in the best days of the Republic. But the exception is rather apparent than real; for then, through the defect that is inherent in the body politic, there were, so to speak, two States in one, and what is not true of the two together is true of either separately. Indeed, even in the most stormy times, the plebiscita of the people, when the Senate did not interfere with them, always went through quietly and by large majorities. The citizens having but one interest, the people had but a single will.
At the other extremity of the circle, unanimity recurs; this is the case when the citizens, having fallen into servitude, have lost both liberty and will. Fear and flattery then change votes into acclamation; deliberation ceases, and only worship or malediction is left. Such was the vile manner in which the senate expressed its views under the Emperors. It did so sometimes with absurd precautions. Tacitus observes that, under Otho, the senators, while they heaped curses on Vitellius, contrived at the same time to make a deafening noise, in order that, should he ever become their master, he might not know what each of them had said.
On these various considerations depend the rules by which the methods of counting votes and comparing opinions should be regulated, according as the general will is more or less easy to discover, and the State more or less in its decline.
There is but one law which, from its nature, needs unanimous consent. This is the social compact; for civil association is the most voluntary of all acts. Every man being born free and his own master, no-one, under any pretext whatsoever, can make any man subject without his consent. To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a man.
If then there are opponents when the social compact is made, their opposition does not invalidate the contract, but merely prevents them from being included in it. They are foreigners among citizens. When the State is instituted, residence constitutes consent; to dwell within its territory is to submit to the Sovereign.
Apart from this primitive contract, the vote of the majority always binds all the rest. This follows from the contract itself. But it is asked how a man can be both free and forced to conform to wills that are not his own. How are the opponents at once free and subject to laws they have not agreed to?
I retort that the question is wrongly put. The citizen gives his consent to all the laws, including those which are passed in spite of his opposition, and even those which punish him when he dares to break any of them. The constant will of all the members of the State is the general will; by virtue of it they are citizens and free. When in the popular assembly a law is proposed, what the people is asked is not exactly whether it approves or rejects the proposal, but whether it is in conformity with the general will, which is their will. Each man, in giving his vote, states his opinion on that point; and the general will is found by counting votes. When therefore the opinion that is contrary to my own prevails, this proves neither more nor less than that I was mistaken, and that what I thought to be the general will was not so. If my particular opinion had carried the day I should have achieved the opposite of what was my will and it is in that case that I should not have been free.
This presupposes, indeed, that all the qualities of the general will still reside in the majority: when they cease to do so, whatever side a man may take, liberty is no longer possible.
In my earlier demonstration of how particular wills are substituted for the general will in public deliberation, I have adequately pointed out the practicable methods of avoiding this abuse; and I shall have more to say of them later on. I have also given the principles for determining the proportional number of votes for declaring that will. A difference of one vote destroys equality; a single opponent destroys unanimity; but between equality and unanimity, there are several grades of unequal division, at each of which this proportion may be fixed in accordance with the condition and the needs of the body politic.
There are two general rules that may serve to regulate this relation. First, the more grave and important the questions discussed, the nearer should the opinion that is to prevail approach unanimity. Secondly, the more the matter in hand calls for speed, the smaller the prescribed difference in the numbers of votes may be allowed to become: where an instant decision has to be reached, a majority of one vote should be enough. The first of these two rules seems more in harmony with the laws, and the second with practical affairs. In any case, it is the combination of them that gives the best proportions for determining the majority necessary.