Book 2, Chapter 11 — The Various Systems of Legislation

The greatest good of all consists in two things: liberty and equality. Liberty, because every particular dependence removes force from the body of the state; equality, because liberty cannot exist without it. The definitions are careful. Liberty in the civil sense has been defined already: obedience to self-given law. Equality does not mean identical power or wealth — that would be both impossible and unnecessary. It means power never great enough for violence independent of law, and wealth distributed within a range where no one can buy another and no one must sell himself. Between the extremes, moderation on both sides — the great moderating their holdings and position, the common sort moderating their greed.

Rousseau acknowledges that equality is perpetually undermined by the force of circumstances — the strong tend to accumulate, the weak to fall. This is precisely why the force of legislation must always tend toward equality: it is fighting a structural tendency of social life, and will lose ground the moment it stops pushing back. This is not idealism; it is a realistic analysis of what law must do simply to maintain what the compact promised.

The chapter's final movement is particularist: general aims must be shaped to local conditions. Barren soil requires industry and trade; fertile plains require agriculture; coastlines suggest commerce and navigation; rocky shores suggest self-sufficiency in small communities. The legislator does not impose a universal template but reads the circumstances and works with them. The catalog of ancient peoples — each with its characteristic legislative object — is not nostalgic but instructive: good constitutions are grown in specific soils, and the legislator's art is knowing which soil you have.