Rousseau Property Quotes & Sayings

In his Social Contract, Rousseau noted the obvious, that Law is a very good thing for men with property and a very bad thing for men without property. — Saul D. Alinsky

Throughout the world what remains of the vast public spaces are now only the stuff of legends: Robin Hood's forest, the Great Plains of the Amerindians, the steppes of the nomadic tribes, and so forth ... Rousseau said that the first person who wanted a piece of nature as his or her own exclusive possession and transformed it into the transcendent form of private property was the one who invented evil. Good, on the contrary, is what is common. — Antonio Negri

It should be remembered that the foundation of the social contract is property; and its first condition, that every one should be maintained in the peaceful possession of what belongs to him. — Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses. If we are to avoid mistake in weighing one against the other, we must clearly distinguish natural liberty, which is bounded only by the strength of the individual, from civil liberty, which is limited by the general will; and possession, which is merely the effect of force or the right of the first occupier, from property, which can be founded only on a positive title. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Government originated in the attempt to find a form of association that defends and protects the person and property of each with the common force of all. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau