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the state, instead of the citizens, establish commerce.
The legislators should supply arts instead of luxuries;
they should satisfy needs instead of desires.
A Frightful Idea
Those who are subject to vulgar infatuation may exclaim:
“Montesquieu has said this! So it’s magnificent! It’s sublime!” As
for me, I have the courage of my own opinion. I say: What! You
have the nerve to call that fine? It is frightful! It is abominable!
These random selections from the writings of Montesquieu
show that he considers persons, liberties, property—mankind
itself—to be nothing but materials for legislators to exercise
their wisdom upon.
The Leader of the Democrats
Now let us examine Rousseau on this subject. This writer
on public affairs is the supreme authority of the democrats. And
although he bases the social structure upon the will of the peo-
ple, he has, to a greater extent than anyone else, completely
accepted the theory of the total inertness of mankind in the
presence of the legislators:
If it is true that a great prince is rare, then is it not
true that a great legislator is even more rare? The
prince has only to follow the pattern that the legislator
creates. The legislator is the mechanic who invents the
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machine; the prince is merely the workman who sets it
in motion.
And what part do persons play in all this? They are merely
the machine that is set in motion. In fact, are they not merely
considered to be the raw material of which the machine is
made? 
Thus the same relationship exists between the legislator
and the prince as exists between the agricultural expert and the
farmer; and the relationship between the prince and his subjects
is the same as that between the farmer and his land. How high
above mankind, then, has this writer on public affairs been
placed? Rousseau rules over legislators themselves, and teaches
them their trade in these imperious terms:
Would you give stability to the state? Then bring
the extremes as closely together as possible. Tolerate
neither wealthy persons nor beggars.
If the soil is poor or barren, or the country too
small for its inhabitants, then turn to industry and arts,
and trade these products for the foods that you need.
. . . On a fertile soil—if you are short of inhabitants—
devote all your attention to agriculture, because this
multiplies people; banish the arts, because they only
serve to depopulate the nation. . . . 
If you have extensive and accessible coast lines,
then cover the sea with merchant ships; you will have a
brilliant but short existence. If your seas wash only
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inaccessible cliffs, let the people be barbarous and eat
fish; they will live more quietly—perhaps better—and,
most certainly, they will live more happily.
In short, and in addition to the maxims that are
common to all, every people has its own particular cir-
cumstances. And this fact in itself will cause legislation
appropriate to the circumstances.
This is the reason why the Hebrews formerly—
and, more recently, the Arabs—had religion as their
principle objective. The objective of the Athenians
was literature; of Carthage and Tyre, commerce; of
Rhodes, naval affairs; of Sparta, war; and of Rome,
virtue. The author of The  Spirit of Laws has shown by
what art the legislator should direct his institutions
toward each of these objectives. . . . But suppose that
the legislator mistakes his proper objective, and acts
on a principle different from that indicated by the
nature of things? Suppose that the selected principle
sometimes creates slavery, and sometimes liberty;
sometimes wealth, and sometimes population; some-
times peace, and sometimes conquest? This confusion
of objective will slowly enfeeble the law and impair the
constitution. The state will be subjected to ceaseless
agitations until it is destroyed or changed, and invinci-
ble nature regains her empire.
But if nature is sufficiently invincible to regain its empire,
why does not Rousseau admit that it did not need the legislator
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to gain it in the first place? Why does he not see that men, by
obeying their own instincts, would turn to farming on fertile soil,
and to commerce on an extensive and easily accessible coast,
without the interference of a Lycurgus or a Solon or a Rousseau
who might easily be mistaken.
Socialists Want Forced Conformity
Be that as it may, Rousseau invests the creators, organizers,
directors, legislators, and controllers of society with a terrible
responsibility.  He is, therefore, most exacting with them:
He who would dare to undertake the political
creation of a people ought to believe that he can, in a
manner of speaking, transform human nature; trans-
form each individual—who, by himself, is a solitary
and perfect whole—into a mere part of a greater
whole from which the individual will henceforth
receive his life and being. Thus the person who would
undertake the political creation of a people should
believe in his ability to alter man’s constitution; to
strengthen it; to substitute for the physical and inde-
pendent existence received from nature, an existence
which is partial and moral.* In short, the would-be
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*Translator’s note: According to Rousseau, the existence of social man is
partial in the sense that he is henceforth merely a part of society. Knowing him-
self as such—-and thinking and feeling from the point of view of the whole—
he thereby becomes moral.
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