"People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society."
"The political body, therefore, is also a moral being which has a will; and this general will, which tends always to the conservation and well-being of the whole and of each part of it ... is, for all members of the state ... the rule of what is just or unjust."
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Source: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Christopher Betts (2008). “Discourse on Political Economy and The Social Contract”, p.7, Oxford University Press
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