General Will points to the good of the common where the will of the individual has to be adjusted to fit the collective will. The concept has been praised by many totalitarian rulers who used Rousseau's idea to justify their atrocities. Overall, the concept fits well with the collectivism methodology that was predominantly used by the French in the 18th century (see Montesquieu).
Rousseau sees the move out of the state of nature into civil society as the way for humans to be able to flourish under the need for self-preservation and property rights. The goal of the social contract is to ensure the "good of all" which can be observed through one main mechanism: the general will.
Laws and the lawmaker are a huge concern to Rousseau who sees the laws of a country as a powerful lever to ensure the perpetuation of society and the prosperity of the people living in it.
Rousseau is remembered as a colorful character in history but what is certain is that he was hailed as a genius given his various contributions in weakly linked fields (eg. political philosophy, poetry, opera).
The first book looks at the move away from the State of Nature to the Civil Society, a move from natural rights to political rights. The second book investigates the meaning of the Sovereign and the way it should be constructed.
Role of society
Rousseau points to society as having two key functions: to preserve the sacred natural right and act as the foundation for other rights.
First society
The first society was the family where the children would give up various rights to ensure their self-preservation until they grew up and no longer needed the family to fulfill this central role. The relation between the child and the father is similar to that of a ruler and its people (albeit with a few significant differences).
The ruler-ruled dynamic
Rousseau, in contrast to thinkers such as Hobbes and Aristotle, did not believe that the relationship between the ruler and the ruled is a natural one (eg. Aristotle's natural slavery argument) but one based on force.
"force made the first slaves, their cowardice perpetuated them"
Power as means of control and its shortfalls
Rousseau sees force as an unsustainable means of control because it's dependent on you being the strongest person in the state forever. The conclusion that he draws is that "force does not make right, and that one is obliged to obey only legitimate power."