What then of Rousseau’s key claim that freedom and authority are reconciled in his ideal republic through obedience to the general will? This claim finds notorious and deliberately paradoxical expression in Book 1 chapter 7 of The Social Contract, where Rousseau writes of citizens being “forced to be free” when they are constrained to obey the general will. The opening words of The Social Contract themselves refer to freedom, with the famous saying that “Man is born free, but is everywhere in ch