The social contract helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in europe especially in france the social contract argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate rousseau asserts that only the people who are sovereign have that all powerful right. The social contract jean jacques rousseau 13the right of the strongest ovoluntarily and the family itself is then maintained only by agreement this common liberty is an upshot of the nature of man his first law is to provide for his own preservation his first. The social contract was written by jean jacques rousseau and published in 1762