The Social Contract (社会契约论)
Jean Jacques Rousseau (让?雅克?卢梭)
The Social Contract
《社会契约论》(1782)的发表对18世纪的世界思想产生了巨大影响，为法国资产阶级民主革命和美国独立战争提供了理论根据。这本书说明了国家是人民根据契约而产生的，国家主权在人民。如果人民的自由、主权被强力剥夺了，人民有权用革命暴力夺回失去的自由。此书还论述了国家的政体。卢梭认为最好的政体是民主共和国。书中提出人是生而自由的。要结束束缚在人们身上的沉重枷锁，重新获得已经丧失的自然赋予人们的自由和平等，只有通过相互订立契约的方法，建立民主国家制度。契约的宗旨是要寻找出一种结合的形式，使它能以全体共同的力量来维护和保障每个结合者的人身和财富。
Jean Jacques Rousseau
让? 雅克?卢梭（1712—1778）是18世纪法国启蒙运动最卓越的思想家，资产阶级激进民主主义者。他的政治思想反映广大资产阶级利益。在政治思想方面，他的主要著作是《论人类不平等的起源和基础》（1755）和《社会契约论》（1782）。卢梭政治思想的中心是平等思想。论述人类不平等的起源及方式和克服不平等现象，是卢梭政治思想的重要内容。他认为人类不平等的发展过程经历了三个阶段：随着私有制的出现，产生了财富占有的不平等阶段、政治上的不平等阶段和暴君统治下的不平等阶段。用社会契约说明国家的起源和本质是18世纪流行的学说。卢梭是这一学说的杰出代表。社会契约学说是卢梭政治思想的重要内容。关于政府的形式问题，卢梭按照掌握国家权力人数的多少，把政体分为君主制、贵族制和民主制。卢梭是一位著名的
资产阶级政治思想家，在西方政治思想史上占有十分重要的地位。他的激进民主主义理论，不但批判了封建专制主义，而且也批判了16世纪以来早期资产阶级思想家们强化王权的专制主义理论，对西方民主思想的发展作出重要贡献。他的学说，起了巨大的启蒙作用，不但直接推动了法国资产阶级革命，对美国资产阶级革命，也起到了积极的影响。
Chapter 8
That All Forms of Government do not Suit All Countries
Freedom is not a fruit of every climate, and it is not therefore within the capacity of every people. The more one reflects on this doctrine of Montesquieu, the more one is conscious of its truth. And the more often it is challenged, the more opportunities are given to establish it with new evidence.
In every government in the world, the public person consumes but does not produce anything. Whence does it obtain the substance it consumes? From the labour of its members. It is the surplus of private production which furnishes public subsistence. From this it follows that the civil state can subsist only if men's work yields more than they themselves need.
But this surplus is not the same in every country of the world. In some it is substantial, in others middling, in some nil, in others a deficit. The proportion depends on the fertility of the climate, on the kind of labour which the soil requires, on the nature of its products, on the strength of the inhabitants, and on the degree of consumption that is necessary for them, and on various other factors which go to make up the whole proportion.
In addition, all governments do not have the same nature; some are more voracious than others; and their differences are based on this next principle—that the further public contributions are from their source, the more burdensome they are. This burden should not be measured by the quantity of the contributions exacted, but by the distance they have to go to return to the hands from which they come; when this circulation is rapid and well established, it does not matter whether much or little is paid; the people will always be rich and finances will flourish. Correspondingly, however little the people gives, when that little does not return to it, it soon exhausts itself in continuous payments; the state is never rich and the people is always penurious.
This demonstrates that the greater the distance between the people and the government, the more onerous the taxes become; so that in a democracy the people is least burdened, in an aristocracy more burdened, and in a monarchy it bears the greatest weight of all. Monarchy is thus suited only to opulent nations, aristocracy to those of moderate wealth and size, and democracy to small and poor countries.
Indeed, the more one reflects, the more one recognizes that in this matter there are differences between free states and monarchies: in the former everything is used for the common advantage, while in the latter, private power and public power are competitive, and the one is increased only by weakening the other. As for despotism, instead of governing the subjects in order to make them happy, it makes them miserable in order to govern them.
Thus in every climate there are natural factors on the basis of which one can determine the form of government which that climate necessitates; and we can even say what sort of inhabitants each must have.
Mean and sterile places, where the product does not repay the labour, must remain uncultivated and deserted, or peopled only by savages. Places which yield only the bare necessities of men's lives must be inhabited by barbarous peoples, since no political society is possible. Places where the surplus of product over labour is moderate are suited to free peoples. Places where an abundant and fertile soil gives a lavish return for little labour will want monarchical government, so that the luxury of the prince may consume the surplus of the product of the subjects—for it is better that this surplus should be absorbed by the government than dissipated by private persons. There are exceptions, I know, but these exceptions themselves confirm the rule, in that sooner or later they produce revolutions which put things back into the order of nature.
We must always distinguish general laws from particular causes which can modify their effect. If all the South were covered with republics and all the North with despotic states, it would still be true that, in terms of climate, despotism suits hot countries, barbarism cold countries, and that a good polity suits temperate regions. I realize that this general rule may be admitted and its application disputed; it could be argued that there are very fertile cold countries and very barren southern ones. But this is a difficulty only for those who fail to see the thing in all its ramifications.
One must, as I have already said, consider the factors of production, strength, consumption and so on.
Suppose there are two equal territories, one yielding five units, the other ten. If the inhabitants of the former consume four and those of the latter nine, the surplus of the one will be one-fifth and of the other one-tenth. The ratio of these two surpluses will then be the inverse of that of their products, so that the territory yielding five units will show a surplus double that of the territory yielding ten.
But there is no question of a double product, and I do not believe anyone could venture to equate the fertility of a cold country with that of a hot country. But let us assume such equality; let us, for example, equate England and Sicily, Poland and Egypt. Farther south there will be Africa and India; farther north, there will be nothing. What differences in agricultural technique will be needed to achieve this equality of product? In Sicily, it is enough simply to scratch the soil, while in England, how much effort is needed to work it! But where more hands are required to obtain the same product, the surplus is necessarily less.
Note a further point, that the same number of men consume much less in hot countries. The climate requires a man to be abstemious to keep fit—and Europeans who try to live in hot countries as they live at home die of dysentry and stomach disorders. “We,” says Chardin, “are carnivorous beasts, wolves, compared to the Asians. Some attribute the abstemiousness of the Persians to the fact that their country is less cultivated; but I, on the contrary, believe that their country is less rich in commodities because the inhabitants need less. If their frugality［he continues］