The book theorizes about how to establish legitimate authority in a political community, that is, one compatible with individual freedom, in the face of the problems of commercial society, which Rousseau had already identified in his Discourse on Inequality (1755).

The epigraph of the work is "foederis aequas / dicamus leges" ("Let us set equal terms for the truce") (Virgil, Aeneid XI.321–22).

Transferring rights to an authority involved renunciation of freedom and transformed the natural equality of men into subjection.

For Rousseau, collective self-rule would increase freedom if the people to whom laws applied were also the ones prescribing them.

[2]: 83  In light of the relation between population size and governmental structure, Rousseau argues that like his native Geneva, small city-states are the form of the nation in which freedom can best flourish.

Upon publication, the distribution of The Social Contract in France was prohibited, and Rousseau fled the country to avoid imprisonment.

[2]: 99  However, it was primarily Rousseau's chapter on civil religion, rather than his ideas on liberty and sovereignty, that caused the controversy.

20:44) The French philosopher Voltaire used his publications to criticise and mock Rousseau, but also to defend free expression.

'"[5][6] The work was also banned in Paris[7] and was forbidden by the Church being listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

[a] The work received a refutation called The Confusion of the Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau by the Jesuit Alfonso Muzzarelli in Italy in 1794.

[8] The influence of Rousseau on Maximilien Robespierre from his diary during the Estates General of 1789: Divine man!

When I was young you brought me to appreciate the true dignity of my nature and to reflect on the great principles which govern the social order .

[9]Thomas Carlyle assessed its impact:and now has not Jean Jacques promulgated his new Evangel of a Contrat Social; explaining the whole mystery of Government, and how it is contracted and bargained for,—to universal satisfaction?

for passionate Faith in this Gospel according to Jean Jacques is a further step in the business; and betokens much.He advised: "In such prophesied Lubberland, of Happiness, Benevolence, and Vice cured of its deformity, trust not, my friends!

Is not Cant the materia prima of the Devil; from which all falsehoods, imbecilities, abominations body themselves; from which no true thing can come?