General Will and Progress

I've been reading the Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau and I am unsure of a stipulation he asserts or assumes as part of the social mentality being that we human beings actually care about the general will. I mean, sure we make up the general will but what comes first to humans as individuals?

It seems to me that the general will is really just this superficial term that has no actual structure, its just a defining... which is ofcourse what his supposition of the "social contract" is as well.

Now regardless of the general will's flimsy potential to truly mean anything, it can be simply characterized as the will of the people and the people's will as Rousseau states cannot be corrupted, only uninformed and misguided. It's like the pupil as a part of the eye. It's not structural to the eye, but it is an important concept to use to understand society as much as the social contract is. So I am wondering how misguided, however 'good' the interests of the general will inevitably are, is the sovereign? Is the sovereign going in the right direction?

First, let's pretend that North American society is a democracy. Now, all individual self interests are inevitably good to the individuals that posit them; just as all general self interests are inevitably good to the general will that posits them. However, based on this, how is it possible for the sovereign to do good then? That would mean all of the interests of the general will must not conflict with each other for them all to be considered good, which means that in establishing a democracy, I'd consider that a sign of weakness. Democracy becomes this form of artificial agreement that as long as conceptualized as 'good' to the average individual's mind, it can inhibit those individual self interests that conflict with the actions taken by the sovereign, and democracy in this way, is mutual with the mindset that the populace no longer has to think, that technology will do it for them, or the government will take care of the maintanence and demands and imports and all that. No longer does the sovereign have to be informed.

Whoever it was who made that thread on libertarian municipalism, I see that form of sovereign to be of virtue to the general will, quite simply because it makes me think of living in these quaint villages, which I find favourable. But as far as I've read into the Social Contract, I'm not quite sure I favor progress or virtue or "the right direction" to be correlated to the best means of having the general will. Anyways my questions are:

1. Since the general will cannot be 100% good, which social system can go the closest to that... one that isn't hypothetical like anarchy.
   
2. Does 'good' necessarily mean the right direction, or progress for the people?