Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains
This opening sentence of Rousseau’s famous ‘Social Contract’ is a proclamation of individual freedom and a fiery denunciation of the tyranny of kingship and customs. This magical formula caught the imagination of French people groaning under the yoke of feudalism and the misrule of the French Emperor. It paved the way for the French Revolution. It resounded throughout Europe and ushered in a new era in human history. But it does not contain the whole truth. It exaggerates the importance of the individual freedom and under-rates the value of institutions. It contains as much, if not more, error as the equally famous declaration of Marx calling upon the workers of the world to unite and throw off the wicked Capitalistic system: for when the proletarian revolution comes they have nothing but their chains to lose. History proves that man is neither born free nor can he live without chains. He is born with the chains of heredity and lives in the chains of environment. He can loosen some of them but he cannot break them all. Neither the French nor the Russian Revolution could make him free. He may be sick of the old chains and break them. But he immediately starts forging new and stronger chains. Russell makes a very ironical remark about the French Revolutionaries. “They killed the kings and beheaded the priests but found that the Emperors were better.’ Similarly, the proletarians united and threw off the corrupt regime of the Czar. But they get the ‘Big Brother’ (to use the term used by George Orwell to describe Stalin)-the totalitarian Dictator. As long as there is man, there will be institutions, customs and rules, their forms and names may change. Institutions and rules, customs and kings are made to facilitate his business of life. But in course of time they lose utility and vitality and become obstructive and deadweights. Then it becomes necessary for a Rousseau or Marx to proclaim the freedom of man and to reassert his natural naked dignity in absolute terms only to bring out its importance.
