POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Unbridled, Neoliberalism, Limited Government
Document Summary
Question: how should free people govern themselves? (autonomous self-rule) Constant says freedom is the freedom from constraint, not the freedom to do things. Participatory, humans should take part in ruling and being ruled. Not simply you had to do it but that you wanted to. What it meant to be a citizen meant to participate. As a citizen you did not have people representing you, people were directly involved in public life. Constant saw that the ancients did not view public not private liberty freedom meant not to be dominated. Freedom of community as a whole collection notion, not an individual one. Canada is not free in the sense that we have a representative government, foreign rule (britain), dominated by american, people are not directly involved legislation. Dependent upon a class of people who didn"t engage in commerce or even work. Big decisions were decisions on war at that time.