y Europe. This will drastically limit the size of a society, as well as the area it may cover. A country such as Canada could never be ruled without some form of representative democracy, but since Rousseau feels that these powers are inalienable, we could therefore never enter into such a social contract. A second issue of contention arises when Rousseau’s logic is carefully examined. He begins his essay by stating that man is by his very nature a selfish being, concerned only with his own preservation. He goes on from here to place man in such a society, free from inequalities, in which he must place his fellow citizen’s wills on an equal level with his own. Rousseau feels man will subject himself to such a society because selfishly he will see that it is to his own advantage to do so, as it will guarantee his own preservation. Rousseau mentions the most basic form of a society as being the family, yet even a family has its obvious inequalities. Perhaps if man was coming from the state of nature as described by Hobbes he would see this advantage, however with the state of nature as described by Rousseau, this "advantage" would not be abundantly obvious. In a world in which man’s life is described as free, healthy, honest and happy why would he feel the need to join a society under such a social contract? Rousseau solves this by expressing that morals could be developed only in an environment in which people related to and interacted with each other. After he has already established that man in a state of nature is simple, ignorant, crude, unsophisticated and "more animal than human", where would man all of a sudden acquire the insight to realize that his life should be more fulfilling? Granted even the most primitive tribes in Africa and elsewhere subject themselves to societies, yet this is clearly for the preservation of each member, not for moral growth. These primitive societies also come with their own hierarchy...
