2 - Political Economy and Individual Liberty

Summary

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on Political Economy has been largely neglected, and the little attention it has received has been widely disparate. This chapter argues that the primary and unifying aim of the third Discourse is to define the best form of government for safeguarding individual or negative liberty. It also argues that the thread that connects the seemingly disparate elements of the text is a commitment to defining the institutions and policies that might best guarantee the preservation of property rights with a minimum degree of government infringement. Most crucially, even in defending the individual right to property possession, Rousseau is consistently critical of the pursuit of property, and especially the pursuit of superfluities or luxuries. He insists throughout the third Discourse that the primary task of popular and legitimate government is to make virtue reign.