Thesis:
Rousseau suggests that Sovereignty is an expression of a will of all the people but not of the one person or a group of people, so it cannot be alienated under any condition. At the same time he admits that the power to exert this people’s will may be passed on, but never the will itself.
Reasons:
The will of one person or a group of people can hardly coincide with the general will. At least it cannot be this way for a long time. As a result, the will of one person or a group of people turns out to be against the will of all the people.
Sovereignty is an inborn right of the people. It is an integral feature of the people who live in a state. Therefore, from the very moment when people’s will becomes the will of one person or a group of people, Sovereignty appears to be alienated and a state stops existing.
Analysis:
Theoretically Rousseau has a point. A real sovereign state should be based on exertion of people’s will, which is not to be alienated. Practically though, it is next to impossible to find a person or a group of people who would represent the people’s will only. Once a person gains the power, he or she tries to use it for their own good, to a greater or lesser extent. Thus, Rousseau describes a kind of a perfect sovereign state, which in modern world ruled by money seems to be just Utopia.
Rousseau Passage
I hold then that Sovereignty, being nothing less than the exercise of the general will, can never be alienated, and that the Sovereign, who is no less than a collective being, cannot be represented except by himself: the power indeed may be transmitted, but not the will.
In reality, if it is not impossible for a particular will to agree on some point with the general will, it is at least impossible for the agreement to be lasting and constant; for the particular will tends, by its very nature, to partiality, while the general will tends to equality. It is even more impossible to have any guarantee of this agreement; for even if it should always exist, it would be the effect not of art, but of chance. The Sovereign may indeed say: "I now will actually what this man wills, or at least what he says he wills"; but it cannot say: "What he wills tomorrow, I too shall will" because it is absurd for the will to bind itself for the future, nor is it incumbent on any will to consent to anything that is not for the good of the being who wills. If then the people promises simply to obey, by that very act it dissolves itself and loses what makes it a people; the moment a master exists, there is no longer a Sovereign, and from that moment the body politic has ceased to …