Entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia. October 17, 2007.

But when the social bond begins to be relaxed and the state weakened, when private interests being to make themselves felt and small associations to exercise influence on the state, the common interest is injuriously affected and finds adversaries; unanimity no longer reigns in the voting; the general will is no longer the will of all; opposition and disputes arise, and the best counsel does not pass uncontested.

Lastly, when the state, on the verge of ruin, no longer subsists except in a vain and illusory form, when the social bond is broken in all hearts, when the basest interest shelters itself impudently under the sacred name of the public welfare, the general will becomes dumb; all, under the guidance of secret motives, no more express their opinions as citizens than if the state had never existed; and, under the name of laws, they deceitfully pass unjust decrees which have only private interest as their end.

Does it follow from this that the general will is destroyed or corrupted? No; it is always constant, unalterable, and pure; but it is subordinated to others which get the better of it. Each detaching his own interest from the common interest, sees clearly that he cannot completely separate it; but his share in the injury done to the state appears to him as nothing in comparison with the exclusive advantage which he aims at appropriating to himself.

Excerpted from The Social Contract: Or, Principles of Political Right, by John-Jacques Rousseau. Published by Wordsworth Editions Limited, Hertforshire, England, 1998.