Rousseau’s Social Contract, part 7
Rousseau spends three chapters talking about the people, and it’s full of weird assertions and odd points that call into question the value of Rousseau’s book as a work of political philosophy.
Full show notes here.
Basically, one of the reasons, if not the main reason, why people like Locke wrote these kinds of treatises is to try to convince people that systems better than simple “might makes right” could possibly exist, and how they might be organized.
Rousseau, while using lots of terminology gleaned from classical liberals of his time, argues that his framework is only applicable to… Corsica?
One other top-level point: I noticed that Rousseau likes to start his recent chapters with something vague and uncontroversial, then move into his own arguments that have very little, if any, to do with the starting uncontroversial point! Another rhetorical trick, designed to weaken your defenses against his strange framework.
This video is available on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.
Return to the Table of Contents for this series.
Reference Links:
Patrick Henry’s June 5, 1788 Speech
https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1786-1800/the-anti-federalist-papers/speech-of-patrick-henry-(june-5-1788).php
Mises, “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth”
https://mises.org/library/book/economic-calculation-socialist-commonwealth
Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society”
https://mises.org/mises-daily/use-knowledge-society
James Boswell’s “An Account of Corsica” (Optional)
https://archive.org/details/anaccountcorsic01boswgoog/page/n2/mode/2up
Intro quote by Ben Franklin (see records from Saturday, June 2)
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/elliot-the-debates-on-the-adoption-of-the-federal-constitution-vol-5
Intro music by Amaksi, courtesy Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/users/amaksi-28332361/