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On the Social Contract or Principles of Political Rights Rousseau, (1762/1847), written in 1762, articulated his romantic vision of the new world order by the symbol of peasants democratically passing their laws in nature under an oak tree. Understanding that it was too late to recapture the basic human goodness of the past and return to nature, Rousseau believed that peasants were psychologically the most connected to the earth and the natural descendants for a new sociopolitical world order. This was because they had not yet been educated into corrupt modern behaviors and would not be easily duped into policies that were not in their best interest.