Critique of Rousseau’s Social Contract, part 14
This week we’re cramming in four chapters, looking at Book 3, Chapters 12-15. Chapters 12, 13, and 14 are all about “How the Sovereign Authority Maintains Itself,” organized much the same way as the three “The People” chapters back in Book 2. However, those three chapters, even all together, are very short and it’s a little surprising to me that Rousseau decided to split them up.
Full show notes here.
In any case, those first three chapters make a few strange and rather self-destructive claims about the need to frequently assemble the whole people. One of the problems with his totalitarian framework is that it assumes more input from the people makes things better, when in fact a frequent assembly of a mob with the power to enact any law by simple majority will mean many laws written in the heat of the moment, and constant changes to how people will have to do business.
It also means people will spend a lot more time thinking about how to rule others, as opposed to being productive and paying attention to the interpersonal connections that are important to them (the voluntary ones)! Even worse, it gives the worst people plenty of opportunities to skim off the top.
Rousseau makes some vague statements about how States should not extend much further than a city, but he doesn’t put any weight behind it, making it a vague recommendation rather than a meaningful rule or argument.
Finally, Rousseau makes some bizarre statements about profit and representation, mis-characterizing both of them and ending up caught in his own web of words. His collection of odd definitions and his inability to write clearly lead to him using “law” in multiple meanings, “strong” in the vaguest sense, and to find commercial “profit” abhorrent while encouraging parasites to gain by government action. He even forgets his old Legislator concept and I try to salvage things, but it’s still extremely confusing.
This video is available on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.
Return to the Table of Contents for this series.
Intro quote by Frederic Bastiat, from the 1874 Stirling translation
https://mises.org/mises-daily/law-stirling-translation-1874
Intro music by INPLUSMUSIC, courtesy Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/users/lnplusmusic-47631836/
Thumbnail image uses a photo by Nicole Bomar, courtesy Unsplash
https://unsplash.com/@nicolebomar