I simply use it to enter
into relations with my neighbours. But at the same time this contract
is the regulator of my liberty. In fulfilling a duty that I have freely
laid upon myself when signing the contract, I render justice to the
rights of others. It is thus that "absolute" liberty becomes
"commensurate with order." Apply this conception of the contract to the
"political constitution" and you have "Anarchy."

"The idea of the contract excludes that of government. What
characterises the contract, reciprocal convention, is that by virtue of
this convention the liberty and well-being of man are increased, while
by the institution of authority both are necessarily decreased....
Contract is thus essentially synallagmatic; it lays upon the contracting
parties no other obligation than that which results from their personal
promise of reciprocal pledges; it is subject to no external authority;
it alone lays down a law common to both parties, and it can be carried
out only through their own initiative. If the contract is already this
in its most general acceptation and in its daily practice, what will the
social contract be--that contract which is meant to bind together all
the members of a nation by the same interest? The social contract is the
supreme act by which every citizen pledges to society his love, his
intellect, his labour, his service, his products, his possessions, in
exchange for the affection, the ideas, the labour, products, service,
and possessions of his fellows; the measure of right for each one being
always determined by the extent of his own contribution, and the amount
recoverable being in accordance with what has been given.... The social
contract must be freely discussed, individually consented to, signed
_manu propria_, by all who participate in it. If its discussion were
prevented, curtailed or burked; if consent to it were filched; if the
signature were given to a blank document in pure confidence, without a
reading of the articles and their preliminary explanation; or even if,
like the military oath, it were all predetermined and enforced, then the
social contract would be nothing but a conspiracy against the liberty
and well-being of the most ignorant, the most weak, and most numerous
individuals, a systematic spoliation, against which every means of
resistance or even of reprisal might become a right and a duty.... The
social contract is of the essence of the reciprocal contract; not only
does