Who wrote about the importance of basing government on the general will.

A. Voltaire

B. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

C. Mary Wollstonecraft

D. Baron de Montesquieu

The right answer is letter B

Rousseau understands the general will as the will of the body politic that arbitrarily assumes itself as interpreter of the will of the people, inasmuch as Rousseau regards civil society as a person and with attributes of a personality - such as Hobbes - which includes attribute of the will. According to Rousseau, civil society is not (or should not be) a set of organized individuals, but rather a collective person.

According to Rousseau, what interferes with the expression of the general will is the existence of "subordinate associations" - that is, communities of civil society - within the State. According to Rousseau, each of them wants to have their general will, which may be opposed to that of the community as a Whole.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau