A Discourse on Political Economy

Summary

A Discourse on Political Economy is Rousseau's article 'Économie (Morale et Politique)', written for the fifth volume of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie (1755). Rousseau uses 'economy' in its older sense of household management extended to the state: the subject is public administration and finance, not the study of markets. He opens by separating the state from the family. A father's authority rests on nature and his natural affection guides him; a ruler's authority rests only on convention and law, and his natural inclinations are precisely what corrupt him. Against Filmer's Patriarcha he concludes that the rules of the household cannot govern the commonwealth. He then distinguishes sovereignty, which makes law, from government, which executes it, and introduces the idea that will organize his later Social Contract: the body politic is a moral being with a general will, which always tends to the preservation of the whole and of each part and is the rule of justice for its members. Partial associations within the state have wills of their own, general for their members but particular toward the whole, and a man may be a good priest or soldier and a bad citizen. From this Rousseau derives three rules of legitimate government. First, follow the general will in everything; this requires government by law, which alone makes men free while subject, and rulers who obey the laws they enforce. Mild, respected law accomplishes more than harsh penalties, and the true statesman prevents crimes rather than punishing them. Second, bring particular wills into conformity with the general will, which is to establish the reign of virtue. Rousseau argues that patriotism is the most effective school of virtue, that the state owes protection to every member and may never sacrifice an innocent man for the many, that government must prevent extreme inequality of fortune, and that citizens must be formed from childhood through public education, as in Crete, Sparta and ancient Persia. Third, provide for public needs. Here he defends property as the most sacred right of citizenship, prefers a public domain to taxation, warns that the need for ever greater revenue is a symptom of disorder, and praises Geneva's public granaries. Taxes are lawful only by the people's consent; they should spare those who have only necessities, fall heavily on superfluities and luxuries, and avoid burdening the farmer. The essay is compact and sometimes contradictory, but it sets out in plain form the tension between liberty and the formation of citizens that runs through all of Rousseau's political writing.

Top Lessons

• Why a king is not a father

  Rousseau's opening argument denies that political rule can be modelled on paternal rule: a father sees his household directly and loves his children by nature, while a ruler sees through others' eyes and has interests opposed to his subjects'. The father may follow his heart; the magistrate who follows his becomes a traitor. Students can weigh this against older traditions, biblical and classical, that describe good kings as fathers of their people.

• The general will and the partial group

  Rousseau's first sketch of the general will includes a sharp observation: every association, from a guild to a religious order, has a will that is general for its members and particular toward the state. A man can be loyal, brave and devout within his group and still harm the commonwealth. The idea is powerful and also open to abuse, since it can be used to treat every lesser loyalty as a rival to the state.

• Law that makes free and law that is merely feared

  Rousseau argues that law, not a master's will, is what allows obedience without servitude, that rulers who exempt themselves destroy it, and that the first of all laws is to respect the laws. Harsh penalties, he notes, are a sign of weak law, and the best statesman prevents crimes by forming citizens who love the laws. The argument links political order to the moral formation of those who live under it.

• Forming citizens: education and its limits

  In the second rule Rousseau proposes public education, in common and under honoured magistrates, so that children learn early to identify themselves with their country. He admits that a man without passions would be a bad citizen but argues that loves must be directed. Readers should notice how far this claim reaches: it places the state above fathers in the upbringing of children, a position his own Emile, written later for private education, does not repeat.

• Taxing superfluity, sparing necessity

  Rousseau's tax principles are concrete: consent of the people, proportion to property, no tax on mere necessities, heavy duties on luxuries, and caution about taxes on land and corn that fall on the farmer. He grounds them in an account of how social advantages already favour the rich, and in the conviction that preventing poverty is better than relieving it. His proposals can be compared with those of Smith two decades later.

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Medical Lens

The essay is not about medicine, but it uses the physiology of its day as a political model: the body politic has a head, brain and nerves, a stomach for agriculture and commerce, and public revenue as blood circulated by the heart of a prudent administration, an image that reflects the post-Harvey circulation of the blood. In the section on finance Rousseau argues that heavy taxes on land and corn impoverish farmers and can leave people to die of hunger even while grain is cheap, and he praises Geneva's public granaries as protection against scarcity. These passages are useful for the history of famine policy and of organic metaphors for the state, not for clinical medicine.

• Opening section, after the distinction of sovereignty and government

  Extended comparison of the body politic to a living human body, with revenue as blood and a 'reciprocal sensibility' of parts whose loss means death or dissolution.

• Third rule (public needs)

  Geneva's public granaries as a reserve in bad years; the argument that provision for subsistence should keep labour necessary but never useless.

• Third rule (taxes on land and corn)

  Argument that taxes on corn paid by the cultivator depopulate the country and can cause death by hunger despite low grain prices; image of veins without arteries.