Social Contract - Rousseau

(This only covers books One and Two.)

Rousseau starts out with a bang:

MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.

And he continues:

As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away. But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions.

Locke, obviously, would disagree.  Rousseau argues (and I agree with him) that mere force, on it's own, isn't enough to create rights.  He suggests that the best way to secure rights and liberty for everyone is through the Social Contract.  The clauses of this contract are perfect, and Rousseau says that the 'slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective'.  He reduces these clauses to one:

...the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.

So everyone has the same burden and there is perfect equality of rights.  He continues:

At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life and its will.

Which seems, today, like an incredible amount of wishful thinking.  Maybe it didn't so much in the 1760s.  A bit later he says:

The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked.

Again, Locke would disagree.  I'll admit that when I first read this, I found it to be preposterous and I still can't shake that.  Just how much civilizing does civilization do?  There is some civil effect on people, of course.  The compulsion to obey the law is so strong that for most people it is nearly a reflex.  But this reflex isn't trustworthy.
Is it fair to point out that Rousseau had a huge influence on people that would, some twenty years later, start the Reign of Terror?  They undoubtedly thought their actions were moral.  They also thought they were bring about remarkable changes.  And what an awful time to live through!
I don't know if it's fair to blame Rousseau for this or not.  But we should keep it in mind while we read him.