Critique of Rousseau’s Social Contract, part 16
I did not expect Book 4 to start with a bunch of weird contradictions, but it did. This week we’re covering the first three chapters of that Book.
Full show notes here.
Rousseau has again backed himself into a corner, with weird definitional arguments modifying his concept of the general will, musings about dying States that ignore his previous insistence that States expropriate so much from their people that they leave them destitute and defenseless, distressingly circular arguments, and standards that are impossible to measure.
He manages to bring up a few interesting caveats, and abandons them without exploration.
He even obfuscates things with a brain-dead reading of Montesquieu.
This video is available on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.
Return to the Table of Contents for this series.
Intro quote from this article by Hans-Hermann Hoppe:
https://mises.org/power-market/ego-maniacal-writers-failed-attempt-guilt-association
Intro music by Music for Video, courtesy Pixabay:
https://pixabay.com/users/music_for_video-22579021/