God Arises
The Challenge of The Qur’an
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should be left to the General Will, which can be
determined by plebiscite. So, in effect, government
by the people becomes government by a few elected
individuals. People may be free to vote as they
please, but after they have voted, they are once
again subjected to the rule of a select group.
Rousseau explained this by saying: To follow one’s
impulse is slavery, but to obey the self-prescribed
law is liberty.’
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Clearly, this leaves much unanswered. Seeing how
easily democratic systems deteriorated into elective
monarchies, people were not satisfied with
Rousseau’s explanation. Once they had secured
people’s votes, democratically elected rulers began
to assume the same role as monarchs had before
them.
All political philosophers have been caught up in
contradictions of this nature. And there appears no
way out of the impasse. In theory, all of them
cherish the ideal of human equality. Yet human
equality, in the true sense, is forthcoming neither in
monarchies nor in democracies. If the one is a
dynastic monarchy, the other is an elective
