Critique of Rousseau’s Social Contract, part 8
These last two chapters of Book 2 are called “The Various Systems of Legislation” and “The Division of the Laws.”
Full show notes here.
What we learn from them is that Rousseau believes that the best goal for legislation is to advance some form of equality, specifically one that will maintain a huge bureaucracy ostensibly serving the massive redistribution systems moving wealth to the poor, and also kneecap any serious entrepreneurial efforts. According to Rousseau, the State should decide which industries are “best” at any given time, and we now understand that the State will usually be either wrong, myopic, or out of date, thanks to Mises and Hayek.
Then, Rousseau borrows mercantilistic policies from d’Argenson and advises serious skepticism of any foreign trade.
Finally, Rousseau tries to outline four different types of law in his framework, and the really terrifying result is that he believes good legislators will actively try to mold custom and morality for the good of the State, and argues for an unwritten constitution or, at least, one with so little solidity that it is essentially useless.
All in all, it’s a catastrophic pair of chapters, especially considering how short they are.
This video is available on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.
Return to the table of contents for this series.
References:
Previous episode for Book 1, Chs. 7-9 (definition of civil liberty)
https://marginalnonhermit.com/?p=847
Previous episode for Book 2, Chs. 6 & 7 (definition of law)
https://marginalnonhermit.com/?p=864
Ryan McMaken on absurd measures of poverty
https://mises.org/mises-wire/uns-absurd-measure-us-poverty
Lew Rockwell on Mises’s thoughts on Peace and Social Cooperation (Ricardo’s Law)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/ludwig-von-mises-peace-and-social-cooperation
Adam Smith, “The Wealth of Nations”
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.207956/
Previous episode for Book 2, Chs. 1-3 (indivisibility of the State)
https://marginalnonhermit.com/?p=854
Intro quote from Strictly Confidential
https://mises.org/library/book/strictly-confidential-private-volker-fund-memos-murray-n-rothbard?d7_alias_migrate=1
Intro music by Music for Video, courtesy Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/users/music_for_video-22579021/