Aristotle stresses much on the importance of man living communally in his description of a just state. He identifies the principle of justice, which calls for all citizens to participate in authority at whatever levels they are. Though he recognizes farmers as a group of free people who may be expected from participating in civic rights because they may not be able to know the true virtue as a result of their hard physical work. Aristotle points out that democracy is the ideal form of government; the only problem is that the poorest citizens might lack the practical wisdom of making the right decisions. Based on this observation he rules out democracy and instead points out monarchy as the best form of government. Monarchy can work best if the monarchs are smart enough and being that they are few in our societies they can unite to form oligarchy.
Jean Jacques Rousseau defined a social contract as a hypothetical construction of reason and not as historical facts as asserted by the other philosophers. He stated that before social contract existed life in the state of nature was a happy one, and there was equality among men. As time passed by the population of humankind increased, and it brought with it some challenges, thereby people had to change the way they satisfy their needs (Manzoor, 2013) . This triggered the rise of communal living, which brought about the division of labor and innovations.
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The division of labor created time for leisure which promoted envy competition and pride. The invention of private property led to greed and inequality in the community. For these vices and out of general will the citizens surrendered their rights to the community with the authority to protect their private properties. The general will became the backbone for organizing communities into one big state being governed by a single individual (Manzoor, 2013 ). The U.S is an excellent example of the manifestation of the general will.
References
Manzoor, L. (2013, April 4). (PDF) Summary of Social Contract Theory by Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261181816_Summary_of_Social_Contract_Theory_by_Hobbes_Locke_and_Rousseau
