Rousseau argued people are born free, yet civilization puts them in chains

In his 1762 work, Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued legitimate political authority comes only from a 'social contract' in which individuals submit to the collective 'general will' of the people, rather than to a monarch's divine right. The book's opening line, 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,' became one of the most quoted sentences in political philosophy.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract — 1762
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