IHP 132 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Fixed Capital, Montesquieu
19 Dec 2016
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Rousseau: book 3, chapters 8-18 (good government and the abuse of government) Freedom is desirable, but (in agreement with montesquieu), is not possible in every environment. Growing population is a sign of prosperity (sign of good government: peace, culture, and other factors are nowhere near as important. The sovereign must meet (all citizens) in periodic assemblies in order to maintain sovereign power: a state should not be larger than a single town, so assembling the citizens should not be logistically difficult. All people have same value of opinion in these assemblies. At every assemble the people should vote as to whether the present government and magistrates should be kept in power. Assemblies pose a danger to the government so the government will often try to dissuade people from assembling. When citizens are too lazy or reticent to exercise their freedom the government may succeeding in undermining sovereign authority.
