Jean Jacques Rousseau may be considered as the founder of this aspect of the criticism of democracy. He defines popular government as ‘the exercise of the general will,’ and draws from this the logical inference, ‘it can never be alienated, and the sovereign, which is simply a collective being, can be represented only by itself.’ Consequently, ‘at the moment when a people sets up representatives, it is no longer free, it no longer exists.’ A mass which delegates its sovereignty, that is to say transfers its sovereignty to the hands of a few individuals, abdicates its sovereign functions. For
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