{"id":864,"date":"2025-07-09T17:09:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T23:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=864"},"modified":"2025-07-09T17:09:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T23:09:37","slug":"law-in-service-of-plunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=864","title":{"rendered":"Law in Service of Plunder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Rousseau&#8217;s <em>Social Contract<\/em>, part 6<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<iframe id=\"odysee-iframe\" style=\"width:100%; aspect-ratio:16 \/ 9;\" src=\"https:\/\/odysee.com\/%24\/embed\/%40MarginalNonHermit%3A3%2Frousseau-pt-6%3A6?r=8gvoByECHNgc2BfQ5o91oxf89bpi1Ui4\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This week we&#8217;re covering Book 2, Chapter 6: Law, and Chapter 7: The Legislator. Rousseau&#8217;s peculiar definition of Law comes more into play, and the dangerous ideas he has about what makes &#8220;perfect&#8221; legislation raises its ugly and tyrannical head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Full show notes <a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/part-6.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Basically, Rousseau thinks that a State must make public so much of the nation&#8217;s wealth as to make any group of individuals (to include the whole people!) helpless against it. That means plenty of opportunities for grift and corruption, and a people cowed into dependence and helplessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Then, Rousseau explains what makes a good Legislator, completely ignores his earlier statement that he&#8217;s looking at man &#8220;as he is,&#8221; and makes up a bunch of unattainable criteria that tend to make any practical State into a cesspool of public choice theory problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I also note that Rousseau is getting more wordy here, seemingly in an attempt to obfuscate and fluff up the things he&#8217;s calling arguments. It&#8217;s\u2026 pretty bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This video is available on <a href=\"https:\/\/odysee.com\/@MarginalNonHermit:3\/rousseau-pt-6:6\">Odysee<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/cjtxGtPGzic\">YouTube<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bitchute.com\/video\/r7oCrWNlSUjA\/\">BitChute<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?page_id=769\">Return to the table of contents for this guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Reference Links:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">My coverage of Locke&#8217;s Second Treatise, Chs. 9 &amp; 10, use of term &#8220;commonwealth&#8221;<br><a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=676\">https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=676<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">My coverage of Kropotkin&#8217;s Conquest of Bread, Ch. 12, people thrown out of communes<br><a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=754\">https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=754<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">My coverage of Locke&#8217;s Second Treatise, Chs. 12 &amp; 13, separation of powers<br><a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=680\">https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=680<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Volume 1 of William Warburton of Gloucester&#8217;s works<br><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/worksofrightreve01warb_0\/page\/128\/mode\/2up\">https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/worksofrightreve01warb_0\/page\/128\/mode\/2up<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Intro quote by Frederic Bastiat, from The Law:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/library\/book\/law\">https:\/\/mises.org\/library\/book\/law<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Intro music by Dvir Silver, courtesy Pixabay:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/sonican-38947841\/\">https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/sonican-38947841\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Thumbnail image by Sigmund, courtesy Unsplash:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@sigmund\">https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@sigmund<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rousseau&#8217;s Social Contract, part 6 This week we&#8217;re covering Book 2, Chapter 6: Law, and Chapter 7: The Legislator. Rousseau&#8217;s peculiar definition of Law comes more into play, and the dangerous ideas he has about what makes &#8220;perfect&#8221; legislation raises its ugly and tyrannical head. Full show notes here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,4,2],"tags":[246,86,269,60,19,85,236,72,270,199,202],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy","category-political","category-video-link","tag-critique","tag-freedom","tag-jean-jacques-rousseau","tag-libertarian","tag-liberty","tag-philosophy","tag-political-philosophy","tag-politics","tag-social-contract","tag-study-guide","tag-voluntaryism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marginalnonhermit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/thumb-1.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}