<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The Social Contract outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism . Published in 1762, it became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the Western tradition . It developed some of the ideas mentioned in an earlier work, the article Économie Politique (Discourse on Political Economy), featured in Diderot's Encyclopédie . The treatise begins with the dramatic opening lines, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains . Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they ." </P> <P> Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation . As society developed, the division of labor and private property required the human race to adopt institutions of law . In the degenerate phase of society, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while also becoming increasingly dependent on them . This double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom . </P>

One of rousseau's important writing on political philosophy