Liberty in the Social Contract is achieved not by the stability or continuity of the laws but by what Jean Starobinski describes as the political contextualization of la transparence: the ability or inability of a community to free itself from the arbitrary preferences of its members politically. In a legitimate state it is the possibility of this transparency, specifically, that gives substance to liberty to the extent that what individuals prefer is not guided by any capricious wants or desires but by the rationalized will of the community as a whole. Each prefers the good of all without preferring the good of each during the consideration of his or her own private interests. Fundamentally different from other expressions of dependency in society, it is by way of the reciprocity and coercive nature of the laws, according to Rousseau, that this relationship is universalized and elevated into something other than an alternative form of l'obstacle. It is owing to the laws that liberty is no longer arbitrary but grounded in justice.

Asking “what is a law after all?” in reply to this question the philosopher emphasizes the generality of the popular vote as a means to achieving la transparence. When “an entire people enacts something concerning the entire people, it considers only itself” and “the subject matter of the enactment is general like the will that enacts. It is this act that I call a law” (CS, II:vi, 153/379).