Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2022

Rousseau’s Challenge to Liberalism: Examining ‘Total Alienation’ as a ‘Beneficial Exchange’

Rousseau aux prises avec le libéralisme : une étude de l'aliénation totale comme échange bénéfique

Rousseau às voltas com o liberalismo. Um estudo da alienação total como troca vantajosa

Résumé

Rousseau, far from being uninformed in economic matters, was an avid reader of most philosophers who contributed to the birth of political economy in the second half of the 18th century. From Bernard de Mandeville to David Hume, including Jean-François Melon, Montesquieu, and authors like François Quesnay, Du Pont de Nemours, Nicolas Baudeau, and Le Mercier de la Rivière, Rousseau contrasts his theory of political obligation with theories of spontaneous (as in the theorists of commercial society) or natural (as in physiocracy) harmony of interests. That is, he rejects the idea, inspired by reflections on physiological models of modernity combined with the then-emerging notion of ‘market’, that the public interest could be the involuntary or natural result of selfish passions. Criticizing or anticipating the problems produced by this discourse, Rousseau unifies the thought of such philosophers under the label of ‘modern authors’, against which his system intends to stand. However, this influence was not limited to producing a refusal or a critical dimension against the philosophical foundations of this emerging field that the physiocrats would call ‘new science’. Indeed, it is possible to identify how, between 1750 and 1770 (that is, from at least the Discourse on the Sciences and Arts to the Considerations on the Government of Poland), Rousseau gradually incorporates into his writings certain expressions originating from the political economy of his time. In this sense, the term ‘exchange’ is more than illustrative: it is, in fact, an essential concept for the Rousseauian philosophical system, to the point that we read in the third book of Emile that ‘there is no society without exchange’. The presentation will seek to show how the notion of ‘advantageous exchange’, introduced in The Social Contract, emerges as a conscious subversion of the then-prevailing commercial logic, proving to be a more suitable expression to represent the change brought about by the pact, in a formulation that adequately replaces the notion of ‘total alienation’.

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hal-04667160 , version 1 (13-11-2024)

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Thiago Vargas. Rousseau às voltas com o liberalismo. Um estudo da alienação total como troca vantajosa. EDUFBA. Respeito à liberdade e à vida. Pensar justiça e direitos a partir de Rousseau, 2022, 978-65-5630-380-2. ⟨hal-04667160⟩
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