Conference paper
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU – FRÈRE ENNEMI OF POLITICAL LIBERALISM
Dragutin Lalović
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Is Rousseau unquestionably an enemy of political liberalism, as per the famous
irrevocable judgment of I. Berlin? In other words, is he a representative
of radical (even “totalitarian”) democracy, an apologist of popular sovereignty
and a vicious plebeian “friend of the people” (of so-called “positive
freedom”), who overlooks the importance of negative freedom of individuums
and the separation of powers? Are Rousseau as republican political theorist
on the one hand and political liberalism on the other advocates not only of
different, but opposite perceptions of political freedom? The first part of the
paper recalls the fact that Rousseau’s political theory is shaped in a deliberate
and complete opposition with regard to the physiocratic economic liberalism,
which reduces freedom to its economic and legal aspects, and the modern
man to a bourgeois. In this Rousseau is very close to Tocqueville, who questions
the physiocratic doctrine from the standpoint of political liberalism. The
second part provides a concise presentation and evaluation of the critique of
Rousseau’s political doctrine (of political freedom and popular sovereignty)
from the standpoint of B. Constant’s classic political liberalism. In the third,
final and most important part, the author shows that an adequate comparison
of Rousseau’s doctrine with the liberal political doctrine must carefully distinguish
between the conceptual clusters reflecting affinity (the people and the
separation of powers) and the ones reflecting opposition (the people, the law,
the general will and the citoyen). On the basis of this distinction, Rousseau
turns out to be both frere and ennemi – i.e. frere ennemi – of political liberalism,
but not of economic liberism as well.
Keywords
political freedom; political liberalism; economic liberism; physiocracy; people; law; general will; separation of powers; Rousseau; Tocqueville; Constant
Hrčak ID:
97870
URI
Publication date:
14.2.2013.
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