Can we benefit from a modern society?

Rousseau argues that the natural state occurred before we were corrupted by politics. Human society is not part of this natural state but is one which is made so we can work cooperatively in a system and therefore we must accepts some constraints in order. Although we lose the ability to release our inhibitions and feel the rain on our skin we expand our civil liberty which allows us to have reason and gain a more moral  character, We stop acting like animals and contribute intellectually in a society. We act as rational being, and keep to moral law.

Rousseau believed that we should think for the greater of the state and not think to pursue just our own personal interest. This can be seen in today society where the rich interest may be to cut tax and the poor need more social programs that would help them. However the ideal state the rich would want to provide social programs for the poor. The poor on the other hand would support taxes cuts to help stimulate the economy.

In a civil society there needs to be laws that are universally acceptable that work for the greater good for its citizens, a good society will make good people and a bad society makes  people become bad,  who break these laws are not working to make was a believer in the death penalty as he believed that criminal will corrupt a healthy civil society, and although he supported the idea of pardons, he argued that these people will hinder the civil society and will thus impact the general will and hence the individual will.

I found it interesting when Rousseau spoke about the climate influence the type of governance that should prevail. In the hotter climates in the south such as parts of Africa there should be monarchies because there are greater surplus the land is more futile so the people are more spread out where as in the colder climates in the north lets say Denmark Norway with the colder climates should have democracy as there will be less land and less people spread out. In order for the best civil society to work he argues that it need to be small enough to govern. An ideal size would of course be Geneva which luckily is where Rousseau grew up. So I have some questions for you: would the ideal society designed by Rousseau hold up in the present day and if so where? Is there a perfect area in which it would? It seems to me that the suggestion of this difference in governance to hotter climates to colder is a sort of elitist view, that the countries that are best suited to a democratic civil society would be in the north.