Youthfulness and Legislation: Rousseau on the Constituent Moment

Abstract

In Of the Social Contract, Rousseau argued that, for successful political founding, the social spirit that is the product of the institutions must precede over the institutions. Scholars have interpreted Rousseau’s constituent moment as an unsolvable paradox that haunts modern constitutional theory. This article seeks to challenge this view by taking seriously Rousseau’s claim that only a young nation can receive laws. By reconstructing youthfulness as a necessary pre-institutional condition for legislation, I argue that successful constituent moments can be identified within Rousseau’s works, attention to which shows that his position is not paradoxical. Youthfulness nonetheless hinges on a tension between the innocence of a community that shares a robust social bond, and the maturity evident in its dangerous desire for prosperity. Youthfulness is therefore a moment of crisis and opportunity that calls for legislation to resolve this tension. Rousseau illustrates two youthful moments – natural youth and restored youth – both in the general human history set out in the Discourse on Inequality and in his analysis of the particular cases of Corsica and Poland. By emphasizing youthfulness, this article calls for greater attention to Rousseau’s political sociology, which cannot be separated from his principles of political right.

Introduction

In Of the Social Contract, Book I, Chapter 6, Rousseau depicts a constituent moment where a group of individuals consent to relinquish their particular identities and obtain a common identity by becoming citizens of a state. ¹ In doing so, individuals form a strong political union ‘under the supreme guidance of the general will’ (SC, I-6, 20/OC 3: 361). How is this transition from individuals to citizens possible? How did Rousseau think that a well-ordered state could be brought into being? This article investigates Rousseau’s constituent moment and attempts to answer these questions.

Bonnie Honig famously turned to Rousseau in identifying the constituent moment as ‘the paradox of political founding’ that haunts modern democratic theory (Honig 2007, 4). The paradox lies in Rousseau’s statement that, in founding a republic, ‘the social spirit that must be the work of institutions would have to precede over the institutions themselves’ (SC, II-7, 44/OC 3: 383). This is a chicken and egg problem, as Honig argues ‘[i]n order for there to be a people well-formed enough for good law-making, there must be good law for how else will the people be well-formed?’ (Honig 2007, 3). A people with social spirit must consciously acknowledge the common good of the community to sustain the general will. Yet since the common good is revealed and presented only through the law of a state, the paradox remains of how a people can be enlightened into the social spirit necessary for establishing a well-ordered republic when there is not already law and a political regime in place. For Honig, Rousseau’s introduction of the lawgiver only exacerbates this dilemma, for the lawgiver’s task of endowing people with the social spirit seems less a solution and more an impossible mission that requires changing human nature. The lawgiver’s role signifies the insurmountable gap between formal constitutionalism and realist political founding.

Honig contends that this paradox is a problem not only of Rousseau interpretation, but extends to modern liberal constitutional theory in general. Many who have turned to Rousseau to draw inspiration for modern liberal democracies have, perhaps usurpingly, sought to sidestep this problem by either interpreting the lawgiver as a thought experiment (Rawls 2007, 236; Cohen 2010, 131–176), or seeking to distinguish Rousseau’s “freedom model” of rational constitutionalism from his “cultural model” that involves the lawgiver’s persuasion (Stilz 2009, 135–36). Yet the question of the constituent moment that Honig highlights remains critical: if democratic theory considers only the abstract principles of political legitimacy but fails to account for the social preconditions of political founding, then the question of whether those principles can guide political practice is cast into doubt.

In this article, I examine Rousseau’s discussion ‘Of the people’ in Book II of SC to shed new light on the question of the constituent moment. In describing the lawgiver’s task, Rousseau’s term ‘denaturing’ might seem to suggest that a lawgiver creates the social spirit solely by using his superhuman qualities to transform human nature. But once we turn to ‘Of the people’, we find that Rousseau’s lawgiver ‘does not begin by drafting laws good in themselves’ and must ‘first examine whether the people for which he intends them is capable of supporting them’. (SC, II-8, 45–46/OC 3: 384–385). In other words, a lawgiver does not create the social spirit ex nihilo. Instead, there must be certain nascent conditions in a pre-political community, which a lawgiver then crystallises into a stable form of social spirit via legislation. I argue that youthfulness is the most important condition. By attending to the concept of youthfulness, we can see that the constituent moment is not necessarily a paradoxical circle between law and moeurs, but a question of identifying the youthful timings when a nation is ready to be transformed into a well-ordered polity via legislation.

From the perspective of my argument in this article, much of the existing literature that analyses ‘Of the people’ and addresses the constituent moment is either too general or too narrow. On the ‘general’ side, some commentators turn to ‘Of the people’ to highlight Rousseau’s ‘maxims of politics’, which concern practical reforms under given conditions, as opposed to the abstract ‘principles of political right’ (Masters 1968, 369–80; O’Hagan 1999, 92–111; Hanley 2008, 219–34). Whilst this body of scholarship helps to explain the practical aspects of Rousseau’s theory, it has not focused on the constituent moment in any detail. Some acknowledge the importance of political founding without further investigation, suggesting that ‘Rousseau does not have a detailed theory of timing for peoples comparable to the psychological theory of individual’s development in Emile’ (O’Hagan 1999, 93; see also Bertram 2003, 143–44; Williams 2014, 131–35). As I hope to show, however, we can find clues from across Rousseau’s works to construct a more precise understanding of the constituent moment. On the ‘narrow’ side, interpreters focussing on Rousseau’s proposals for Corsica and Poland often cite ‘Of the people’ and discuss the suitable timings for legislation. But they draw on this part of SC only to understand the specific cases of Corsica and Poland and are less concerned with outlining a broader theory of legislative timings (Hill 2017; Schaeffer 2012). The most recent study of the constituent moment is Antong Liu’s essay on youthfulness and Rousseau’s anti-pluralist realism (Liu, 2021). Liu highlights youthfulness as the key condition for successful legislation. For Liu, a nation’s youthfulness is an unsophisticated national bond – what I call ‘innocence’ in this article. I seek to extend Liu’s analysis, for although he is right to draw attention to innocence, which serves as the pre-institutional basis for the social spirit, there is another crucial point in Rousseau’s account of youthfulness: a youthful nation must also possess ‘maturity’, understood as a growing desire for prosperity that threatens a nation’s ‘innocence’ and requires regulation through laws. As I shall argue, youthfulness signifies a tension between innocence and maturity whereby a nation can no longer stay in a primitive stage. It is this tension that necessitates a lawgiver’s intervention through a constituent moment. By reconstructing the ‘maturity’ dimension, I argue that the conditions for successful founding are more demanding than Liu suggests.

Rousseau indicates two general timings when a nation becomes suitable for receiving laws: natural youth, which arises spontaneously, and restored youth, where the youthfulness is revived by revolutions. To understand why youthfulness provides an alternative understanding to the paradox of political founding, it needs to be demonstrated how these two youthful timings constitute favourable circumstances for successful legislation and how a lawgiver can give legislative advice accordingly. Whilst Rousseau himself did not develop a full theory of constituent moments, this article seeks to reconstruct his argument concerning the two youthful moments both from a general perspective, by examining Rousseau’s SD, and from a particular perspective by looking at Rousseau’s constitutional proposals for Corsica and Poland.

Youthfulness and the Constituent Moment in SC

The Lawgiver and Pre-Institutional Conditions

In Book II, Chapter 7 of SC, Rousseau raises the fundamental difficulty of the founding moment, namely how the transition from particular individuals to virtuous citizens is actually possible:

It is hard for any individual, appreciating no other plan of government than that relating to his particular interest, to discern the advantages he is to draw from the constant privations that good laws impose. For a nascent people to be able to appreciate healthy maxims of political thought and follow the fundamental rules of raison d’Etat, effect would have to succeed in becoming cause; the social spirit that must be the work of institutions would have to preside over the institutions themselves. (SC, II-7, 44/OC 3: 383)

The particular interest of individuals obstructs their transformation into citizens. To achieve a successful political founding, a social spirit that motivates individuals to be good citizens must exist. Yet the social spirit is necessarily ‘the work of institutions’, for it is only via political institutions that individuals are enlightened and realize their common identity as citizens of a state bound by a common interest. How is it possible, then, in this constituent moment, that the social spirit can be produced when there is no institution to produce it?

Rousseau introduces the lawgiver to tackle this difficulty. The lawgiver has the power to ‘persuade without convincing’, by which he changes human nature and transforms a disparate multitude into a political unity (SC, II-7, 43–44/OC 3: 382–383). This way of solving the paradox, however, places all the emphasis on the lawgiver’s superhuman qualities and suggests that there is no pre-institutional source of the social spirit, which is instead created ex nihilo. As Honig argues, instead of solving the chicken and egg problem between law and moeurs, the lawgiver ‘actually works to mark the problem’ (Honig 2007, 5). Interpreters have proposed different ways to make sense of the lawgiver’s role, with some arguing that it reflects the utopian, totalitarian or merely hypothetical character of Rousseau’s political theory. ² None of these interpretations, however, examine the materials with which the lawgiver works.

A closer look at Chapter 7 reveals that a lawgiver must attend closely to the particular conditions of the nation for which he will propose law. For example Rousseau argues that a lawgiver must ‘live all the passions of men’ so that he can understand their pre-existing affections and thereby ‘discover the best social rules for Nations’ (SC, II-7, p. 42/OC 3: 381). Moreover, the lawgiver’s approach – the infamous ‘persuade without convincing’ – not only signifies his prophetic power, but also indicates his adaptation to a nation’s particular conditions in legislation. One aspect of the distinction between persuading and convincing is that persuading is ‘inherently local, tied to circumstance and context, to rationally irrelevant factors’, whilst convincing means rational demonstration by appealing to universal human reason (Bertram 2003, 138; also see Kelly 1987, 321). To persuade without convincing, a lawgiver must inspect a nation’s conditions and adjust his method accordingly. At the beginning of Chapter 8, Rousseau clearly illustrates that the lawgiver’s task is shaped by the nascent conditions of a nation:

Just as the architect, before erecting a great building, observes and plumbs the ground to see if it can bear the weight, so the wise founder of institutions does not begin by drafting laws good in themselves, but first examines whether the people for which he intends them is capable of supporting them. (SC, II-8, 45–46/OC 3: 384–385)

Like an architect who can erect a great building only on solid foundations, the lawgiver can create a social spirit only in nations with suitable conditions. This analogy is revealing for it indicates that the social spirit in the constituent moment is not created ex nihilo. There must be certain nascent conditions in a pre-political community that the lawgiver can then turn into the proper social spirit. Read in this way, Rousseau’s introduction of the lawgiver signifies not the founding paradox between law and moeurs, but instead raises two specific questions concerning the constituent moment: (1) what are the suitable preconditions for successful legislation? (2) How does a lawgiver develop these conditions into a proper social spirit via legislation? Answering these questions is the path to dissolving the paradox of the constituent moment. There is no chicken and egg problem when it comes to law and moeurs: as we shall see, Rousseau’s answer is that moeurs come first and the lawgiver must consolidate these into a social spirit through laws. To address the first question – the suitable preconditions for legislation – we need to turn to Rousseau’s discussion ‘Of the people’ in Chapters 8–10.

Youthfulness and Youthful Timings

One of the key preconditions for successful legislation is timing, which Rousseau addresses in Chapter 8. He draws a parallel between the progress of a nation and the upbringing of an individual, arguing that ‘most peoples like most men’ can be educated ‘only in their youth’ (SC, II-8, 46/OC 3: 385). A nation’s youth is then identified – much like that of an individual – as in contrast to two excesses: old age and childhood. On the one hand, Rousseau argues that youthfulness entails a level of docility that exists only when the nation has not grown too old – that is its customs have not yet become too rigid and sophisticated. Nations turn ‘incorrigible as they grow older’, for ‘[o]nce customs are established and prejudices take root’, the people ‘cannot even endure its ills being touched in order to destroy them’ (SC, II-8, 46/OC 3: 385). We can name this quality as innocence. On the other hand, Rousseau also notes that innocence alone does not constitute a youthful stage, because ‘[y]outh is not childhood’. ‘For Nations, as for men’, youth is also a time ‘of maturity, that must be awaited before subjecting them to laws’ (SC, II-8, 46–47/OC 3: 385–386). A nation’s youth is thus a stage that combines both innocence and maturity. To understand why this is the optimal stage for legislation, we need to reconstruct Rousseau’s argument about innocence and maturity throughout his discussion ‘Of the people’.

Regarding ‘innocence’, Rousseau supplies a more positive definition than merely ‘not being too old’. Summarizing ‘which people is fit to be given laws’ near the end of Chapter 10, he refers back to ‘innocence’ by arguing that a suitable nation has ‘no well-rooted customs or superstitions’. Whilst the nation should be ‘already bound by some link of origin, interest or convention’, it must not yet have ‘borne the real yoke of laws’. The nation must combine both ‘the simplicity of nature’ and ‘the docility of a new people’ (SC, II-10, 51–52/OC 3: 390). In this sense, innocence not only entails the absence of sophisticated customs, but more importantly a nascent social bond that holds people together in simplistic harmony before being subject to the ‘yoke of laws’. As Rousseau illustrates, in an innocent nation ‘each of [its] members can be known by all’, and ‘you are not forced to load a man with a burden greater than a man can carry’ (SC, II-10, 51/OC 3: 390).

Whereas in a well-ordered polity moeurs come from established laws which are sanctioned by a social compact and bind people to citizenship through a series of civic duties, innocence is only ‘some link of origin, interest or convention’ that forms an instinctive bond among community members. In a nascent society where laws are not yet established, a member can nevertheless have an instinct – based on his daily social interaction and cooperation with others – that his personal well-being is closely connected to the common interest of the community. This innocent instinct serves as primordial moeurs, which, though not as strong as the ones in an established state, provide the basic framework for individuals to identify themselves as belonging to a larger community, whilst not to the point of rigid ‘yoke of laws’ that prevents any plasticity. It is here we see how innocence breaks the vicious circle between law and moeurs by providing a docile and pre-institutional social spirit for a lawgiver to operate with.

Nevertheless, an innocent nation may not necessarily require legislation. A nascent bond is sufficient to maintain order so long as a nation remains in its primitive simplicity. To be youthful, a nation must develop to a point of ‘maturity’ where the needs of its people begin to surpass what can be supplied in the primitive condition. It is at this point that legislation is required. Explaining why Russia is not yet ready for legislation, Rousseau indicates that maturity means a nation has progressed beyond its barbarous state and become ‘ripe for civilisation’ (SC, II-8, 47/OC 3: 386). He later explains that a mature nation is one that has satisfied its primitive need for self-defence and self-sufficiency, and which has become eager for greater prosperity: such nations have ‘the resistance of an ancient people’ and ‘can be sufficient unto itself’, whilst incorporating ‘the needs of society’ (SC, II-10, 51–52/OC 3: 391). These needs are no longer simple desires but complex social passions – particularly an inflamed amour-propre preoccupied with social and economic status, which I shall discuss later – that cannot be satisfied by necessities alone. It is the advent of the desire for prosperity that marks a nation’s maturity and calls for the founding of civil society. The desire for prosperity, however, is closely associated with dependence and inequality, which threaten to destroy a nation’s innocence. It is at this point of youth that a lawgiver must intervene – when mature needs emerge and innocence is not yet corrupt – to guide the nation’s developmental desire whilst crystallizing the nascent bonds of attachment into sustainable moeurs through legislation. Without innocence, legislation would not be possible. Without maturity, legislation would not be necessary.

A nation’s maturity becomes clearer if we compare it to Rousseau’s description of an individual’s maturity. As Rousseau suggests, ‘[s]ociety must be studied by means of men, and men by means of society’ (E, 389/OC 4: 524). In Emile, it is not until Emile starts to mature that the tutor begins his moral education. Moral education is necessary at this stage for Emile begins to ‘sense his moral being’ and ‘has need of a companion’ (E, 364/OC 4: 493). He desires enrichment from social relationship as his ‘love of self turns into amour-propre’ and his social passions begin to arise (E, 389/OC 4: 523). This is a critical moment that ‘although rather short, has far-reaching influences’ (E, 361/OC 4: 489), from which Emile either becomes ‘cruel and malignant’ if innocence and maturity are not coordinated well, or ‘humane and gentle’ if these two inclinations are artfully combined (E, 389/OC 4: 523). It is at this ‘moment of crisis’ that ‘ordinary educations end’ and moral education must begin (E, 361–362/OC 4: 489–490).

Similar to the case of an individual, if a nation’s innocence and maturity signifies a youthful timing suitable for legislation, it also signifies a moment of crisis, since the development of maturity threatens the earlier innocence. Interpreters often emphasize the ‘innocence’ dimension of youthfulness without paying much attention to ‘maturity’ (Hill 2017, 474; Liu 2021, 7–8). ³ As we shall see, this is important because Rousseau’s description of a nation’s childhood is not the same as its youthfulness: the former is a state of innocence, but not maturity. It is the tension between innocence and maturity that gives rise to the problem of political founding.

The problem of political founding, on this account, should not be understood in terms of Honig’s paradox between law and moeurs that only a miracle can solve. The problem is better understood in terms of mediating the tension between the development of prosperity and the pre-existing social bonds that can be addressed only during a nation’s youth. This tension, unlike Honig’s paradox, is one that can potentially be solved, and the key to doing so is less the superhuman qualities of a lawgiver and more identifying the precise timing when legislation will do more good than harm. This is not a chicken and egg problem, but a question of ensuring that legislation takes places neither too early nor too late, so that the nation does not become forever trapped in barbarous childhood nor decline into the incorrigible degeneracy of old age. To be sure, there are other important preconditions for successful legislation, such as climate and population, but I have focused on youthfulness because it remains Rousseau’s most important criterion for legislation in ‘Of the people’. As he contends, the critical issue that ‘makes success so rare is the impossibility of finding the simplicity of nature combined with the needs of society’, which clearly refers to the combination of innocence and maturity that characterizes a nation’s youth (SC, II-10, 52/OC 3: 391). Identifying youthfulness as the most important condition for legislation brings us to the second question I proposed earlier: How does a lawgiver resolve the tension between innocence and maturity via legislation?

For Rousseau, there are two general times of youthfulness: natural youth and restored youth. Natural youth occurs in the original development of a nation. This timing, however, is hard to anticipate as the progress of human society varies under different circumstances: ‘One people is susceptible to discipline at its birth, another is not after ten centuries’ (SC, II-8, 47/OC 3: 385). Historically, humans have often misjudged the timing and unconsciously taken the wrong path. Restored youth, by contrast, can occur following the revolutions that overthrow a despotic regime: ‘just as some illnesses throw men’s minds into turmoil and strip them of all memory of the past’, a revolution can clear the ground for an old regime and ‘recovers the vigour of youth’ (SC, II-8, 46/OC 3: 384). Youthfulness can thus be regained even if natural youth has already passed. Nevertheless, Rousseau concedes that ‘these events are rare’ (SC, II-8, 46/OC 3: 384). As we shall see later, the contingencies aroused by revolution offer some possibilities but do not guarantee successfully restoring youthfulness.

Although Rousseau identifies natural youth and restored youth as two general constituent timings, he does not develop them into a full theory of successful political founding in SC, and we need to turn to his other works to see how these ideas play out more fully. In what follows, I reconstruct Rousseau’s argument about these two timings from a general perspective and a particular perspective. At the general level, Rousseau indicates the existence of these two youthful moments in his narrative of human history in SD. At the particular level, the cases of Corsica and Poland are specific examples of what legislative advice a lawgiver can give to nations in natural youth and in restored youth, respectively.

Natural Youth and Restored Youth in General Human History

Natural Youth as an Early Agricultural-Metallurgical Stage

This section illustrates the two youthful moments from a general perspective by looking at Rousseau’s general human history in SD. To be sure, Rousseau did not explicitly point out the proper timings for successful legislation in SD. On the contrary, he depicts the signing of a fraudulent social contract which took place at the wrong timing and only benefited the rich. Nevertheless, with the definition of youthfulness and the two youthful moments set out in SC, we can see why this social contract was unsuccessful and situate the potentially appropriate constituent moments in his general human history. ⁴

Let us first consider natural youth. Rousseau’s historical narrative can be roughly divided into three stages: (1) the state of nature; (2) the nascent society based on hunting; (3) the society of agriculture and metallurgy. It has been argued that the second stage, which constitutes the most durable and happiest age, represents the natural youth of a nation (Hill 2017, 479–81; Liu 2021, 6–8). I contend that this is not the case. Rousseau describes this stage not as the youth of a nation/people, but as the ‘youth of the world’ (SD, 48/OC 3: 171, emphasis added). The youth of the world is arguably different from the youth of a nation/people, as Rousseau uses the former only in SD to describe an early stage in human history and the latter in SC to discuss a suitable timing for a specific nation to receive legislation. More to the point, even if the nascent society possesses the quality of innocence, it is immature as there is no emerging desire for prosperity. In what follows, I shall explain why the youth of the world cannot be a constituent moment, and the natural youth that combines innocence with maturity arises only in the early stage of an agricultural-metallurgic society.

Compared to the agricultural-metallurgical society, the nascent society relies on hunting for life’s necessities – a simple and self-sufficient system that generates no surplus for increasing prosperity (SD, 48–49/OC 3: 170–172). Human psychology at this stage is mild as well: amour-propre, a competitive self-love that seeks superiority over others, remains in its less harmful form, as a simple desire to excel in festival activities (SD, 47–48/OC 3: 170–171). It is also constrained by pitié, a repugnance in seeing one’s own species being harmed, and amour de soi, a natural form of self-love that focuses on bodily preservation. For Rousseau, this nascent stage preserves a ‘golden mean’ and maintains ‘the happiest and most durable epoch’, where there is no innate desire for greater prosperity (SD, 48/OC 3: 171). The youth of the world, therefore, should not be seen as a stage of maturity that necessitates legislation.

To locate the timing of natural youth, one has to examine the agricultural-metallurgical society. Rousseau stated in SC that the necessity for legislation occurs only when there are ‘obstacles’ where ‘[t]he primitive state can then no longer subsist’ (SC, I-6, 19/OC 3: 360). The primitive state, I suggest, refers to all stages before the advent of political laws and institutions, which comprises both the original state of nature and nascent society. The obstacles are therefore not those which push humans into society, but those which pushes nascent society into the need for laws. These obstacles come into play only after a nation’s mature desire for prosperity is aroused by the invention of agriculture and metallurgy. On the one hand, agriculture gives birth to the right of landed property, which stimulates the desire for accumulation and territorial expansion (SD, 50–51/OC 3: 172–173). This new situation necessarily calls for legislation to protect property, with Rousseau famously calling the first land occupier ‘the true founder of civil society’ (SD, 43/OC 3: 164). On the other hand, agriculture and metallurgy enable the division of labour and create two interdependent economic sectors that incessantly grow and stimulate each other (SD, 50/OC 3: 172). Nevertheless, there is a dangerous tendency in this development that must be regulated at early stage: the growth of the two sectors is naturally imbalanced as industry responds to the desires for luxury and promotes commerce, which generates more income than agricultural products. This imbalanced growth can intensify social division, eventually turning amour-propre into an insatiable ambition for economic advantage and social status, which, ‘stifling natural pity and the as yet weak voice of justice, made man avaricious, ambitious, and evil’ (SD, 52/OC 3: 174). ⁵ If left unattended, all these elements will damage a nation’s innocent bond and leads to a state of war. When the situation reaches this stage, a nation’s mature desire for prosperity has already grown into rigid and incorrigible customs characterized by severe inequality and inflamed amour-propre. Even if people realise that political institutions are necessary to stop conflict, legislation under these conditions only yields corrupt regimes that exploit the poor and benefit the rich.

There is, however, the possibility for a successful constituent moment in the early stage of agricultural-metallurgical society, where legislation can avoid the serious inequality generated from development and therefore preserves. Though Rousseau does not identify this timing explicitly, he indicates that the tendency of inequality can be avoided at an early stage: ‘Things in this state could have remained equal if talents had been equal, and if, for example the use of iron and the consumption of foodstuffs had always been exactly balanced’ (SD, 51/OC 3: 173). Given that he does not think human talents and food-metal consumption can be naturally balanced, political institutions are required to create artificial equality and maintain the balance between different sectors of the economy. If legislation can ensure balanced growth and promote a self-sufficient form of agrarian life, the society has a chance to prosper whilst maintaining its healthy social bond.

Compared to the hunting era, this specific juncture more plausibly combines the conditions of innocence and maturity together, which signifies a youthful stage. On the one hand, the social bond from the hunting era is still persevered, as inequality is not yet severe and amour-propre not yet ferocious. On the other hand, it is distinguished from the previous stage as there is already an emerging desire for prosperity because agriculture and metallurgy have been invented. As we shall see later, Rousseau’s description of the socio-economic primitiveness in Corsica is a particular example of this timing of natural youth.

Revolution and Restored Youth

The time of natural youth has clearly passed for most European states of Rousseau’s day. There is, however, the restored youth following a revolution, which occurs at the last stage of the history recounted in the SD, following the worst form of inequality where a tyrant rules over the rest by violence. Rousseau provocatively suggested several times in SD that a revolution may revive youthfulness for a corrupted state. He argues that remedies ‘could never repair the vices of the Constitution’ as ‘it began badly’, and ‘it would have been necessary to begin by clearing the area and setting aside all the materials…in order to raise a good Edifice afterward’ (SD, 56/OC 3: 180). In one fragment to SD he writes that the ‘last degree of inequality’ will persist ‘until new revolutions dissolve the Government altogether, or bring it closer to its legitimate institutions’ (SD, 100, not included in OC). But what is the exact function of revolution? Does a revolution always have the effect of restoring a nation’s youthfulness? ⁶

Some Marxist commentators have argued that it does. On this interpretation, Rousseau’s history is interpreted as a dialectic progress whereby the constituent moment takes place as a universal revolution at the last stage. Frederick Engels, for example argues that, through revolution, ‘inequality once more changes into equality; not, however, into the former naïve equality of speechless primitive men, but into the higher equality of the social contract. The oppressors are oppressed. It is the negation of the negation’ (Engels 1987, 130). He regards Rousseau’s historical narrative as a double negation: the corrupted social state negates the innocent bond in the nascent society, and revolution shall negate the corrupted social state as it erases the contrived inequality, which makes way for a robust new social bond. In this way, Engels suggests that Rousseau foreshadows Karl Marx in anticipating universal revolution as a means of emancipation.

The Marxist reading hinges on the idea of dialectic progress and attributes a role too strong for revolution. A closer look at Rousseau’s last stage reveals that revolution is never a promising means of restoring youthfulness. Revolution is not an extraordinary event that marks a new beginning, but a common phenomenon characterising inegalitarian regimes:

Here everything is brought back to the sole Law of the stronger… and whatever the outcome of these short and frequent revolutions may be, no one can complain of another’s injustice, but only of his own imprudence or his misfortune. (SD, 65/OC 3: 191)

In this state, everything is temporarily maintained by mere force. Revolution and oppression appear alternately, constituting the two sides of the general instability. Both the ruling party and the revolting party are equally corrupted, submitting solely to the law of the stronger. Contrary to the Marxist assumption, there is no guaranteed progressiveness in Rousseau’s understanding of revolution. A revolution against a tyrant is likely to put another in its place. ⁷ Recall his argument in ‘Of the people’: even if a revolution has a cleansing effect, ‘the reason for which’ is not to be found in revolution itself, but ‘always to be found in the particular constitution of the exceptional state’ (SC, II-8, 46/OC 3: 385). Revolution is not directly connected with the restoration of a nation’s youthfulness. Moreover, a state that has become too corrupted cannot be restored to its youth as ferocious passions have destroyed the social bond and collapsing the ruling force is likely to dissolve the society entirely rather than rebuilding a new social bond: ‘as soon as fetters are broken’, a nation ‘falls in fragments and no longer exists’ (SC, II-8, 46/OC 3: 385). In such a state, Rousseau mourns, a master is usually needed more than a liberator.

Nevertheless, this does not rule out the chance for the restoration of youthfulness after a revolution. Even if revolution usually entails chaos and new oppression, there remains the possibility that, in some cases, sweeping out old elements does make way for a new social bond. Rousseau may not wish for a universal redemption, but he does have hope for some specific nations in specific circumstances. ⁸ The limitedness of revolution’s cleansing effect also suggests that, even if youthfulness is somehow restored after a sudden revolution, the structural corruption that has long plagued the nation could still pose a threat. Revolution can produce the momentum for political virtues, especially when the people unite to fight off an oppressive force, but it is unlikely to terminate the human desires for prosperity, which is susceptible to corruption. In a corrupt regime suddenly disrupted by revolution, these desires could return quickly and potentially erode the revolutionary vigour. The restored youthfulness therefore cannot escape the tension between innocence and maturity. A lawgiver must provide timely legislation to crystalise the revolutionary momentum. As we shall see in Rousseau’s proposals for Poland, maintaining restored youthfulness entails institutionalising the youthful passion in order to suppress corrupt passions, which is notably different from the case of natural youth.

Natural Youth and Restored Youth in Particular Cases

Corsica: Youthfulness in Primitiveness

Rousseau’s legislative pieces for Corsica and Poland can be seen as particular illustrations of the two general constituent moments in SD. In both cases, Rousseau was invited to propose reforms for the states in question, yet this does not detract from taking his arguments there seriously. If anything, the invitations provided Rousseau with an opportunity to apply the more general arguments he had outlined in his earlier work to specific cases. He regarded both Corsica and Poland as youthful nations that were faced by a critical moment of political founding: Corsica, an underdeveloped island newly liberated from the rule of Genoa, remains ‘full of vigour’ and ‘can yield to a government that will keep it vigorous and healthy’ (Corsica, 192/OC 3: 902). Poland, under constant threat of foreign invasion, still shows ‘all the fire of youth’ that could provide the basis for an independent and unified new regime (Poland, 246/OC 3: 954). Whereas Corsica’s conditions resemble natural youth, Poland more resembles the stage of restored youth. A close analysis of both cases reveals how a lawgiver can realistically mitigate the tension between innocence and maturity via legislation, which is essential to understanding Rousseau’s constituent moment.

Although Corsica’s independence comes from a revolution against its former ruler Genoa, it is still in a primitive state and therefore its youthfulness closely resembles the stage of natural youth in SD: a robust cohesion that comes from its underdeveloped socio-economic status and a growing desire for agricultural and industrial flourishing. As Rousseau proclaims, ‘the Corsicans have not yet adopted the vices of other nations, but they have already adopted their prejudices’ that must be combated via legislation (Corsica, 192/OC 3: 902). This description corresponds to the definition of natural youth and scholars have noticed the similarity (Hill 2017, 475–86). What I want to stress here, however, is that this youthful state is the consequence of Genoa’s rule and the revolution against it.

Genoa’s rule of Corsica was exploitative. It suppressed commercial and industrial growth, established tax-collecting institutions, and cancelled Corsican nobles. All these efforts made Corsica into a ‘state of depopulation and devastation’ (Corsica, 192/OC 3: 902). Ironically, however, Genoa’s efforts not only failed to reinforce its tyranny, but preserved the primitive social bond of Corsica in the following respects: (1) Suppressing industry and commerce restrained Corsica in an isolated position and halted the export of staples, which lay the foundation for a self-sufficient agricultural economy. Luxury and inequality were also prevented and corrupt European customs were not introduced. (2) The communes (pievi) Genoa established for tax-collecting provided the institutional basis for ‘democracy in an entire people that cannot assemble all at once in a single place’, whilst granting the countryside an equal status as urban regions (Corsica, 198/OC 3: 908). (3) Destroying the feudal nobility, on the one hand, eliminated ‘the great fiefs’ that entailed land ownership and personal dependence, which promoted social and political equality. On the other hand, it forged national cohesion as it strengthened a common Corsican national identity (Corsica, 198–199/OC 3: 908–909). In general, Genoa’s rule halted the natural progress of Corsica and made it stay in a primitive socio-economic status, which accidently helped to preserve a robust national bond among its people. Once Corsica was liberated, these characteristics constituted Corsica’s innocence.

Notwithstanding these advantages, Rousseau contends that liberation from Genoa also entails the advent of maturity, as Corsican people’s suppressed desire for prosperity was awakened. They now have the aspiration to rebuild their nation to become a political and economic power. This aspiration, however, is combined with prejudices and potentially undermines the nation’s innocence: (1) Corsica wishes to ally with powerful neighbours for strength and security. However, ‘[a]lliance, treaties, the pledged word of men’ only ‘bind the weak to the strong, but never binds the strong to the weak’, such an act might not give Corsica security, and instead re-establish subordination (Corsica, 193/OC 3: 903). (2) Having economic potential, Corsica seeks to flourish in commerce and industry. Rousseau fears that such an endeavour will introduce inequality and luxury, which will eventually corrupt its simplistic moeurs (Corsica, 196/OC 3: 906). The potential crisis forecast by Corsica’s maturity is amplified by both external and internal circumstances: Externally, Corsica faces ‘the twofold danger of the Genoese and the Barbary pirates’, who can easily crush its ‘infant navy’ along with its freedom (Corsica, 192/OC 3: 902). The nation’s abundant resources also attract unfriendly attention, making the island a ‘continual object of greed for the great powers and jealousy for the lesser’ (Corsica, 193/OC 3: 903). Internally, political unity dies down when Genoa’s oppression is absent, as ‘when the danger that has united them recedes, the factions that it wards off will be reborn’ (Corsica, 193/OC 3: 903). These considerations all suggest that the youthfulness entailed from Corsica’s emancipation not only brings about opportunity – as in Corsica’s innocence, but also about crises – as in Corsica’s maturity. For Rousseau, the legislative task in Corsica’s political founding is to curb the dangerous tendency in its desire for prosperity: to ‘take steps not to degenerate’, ‘to know how to remain’ in a youthful state (Corsica, 192–193/OC 3: 902–903).

To transform Corsica’s innocence into stable moeurs and direct its mature desire for development, Rousseau designs an agrarian economy to make Corsica rich and powerful – not in the conventional sense, but in the sense of a robust and self-sufficient community. It consists of two aspects: (1) To abolish the use of money and minimise commerce and industry; (2) To build a self-sufficient agricultural sector across the whole nation.

For Rousseau, money is a ‘relative token’ that produces only relative wealth for partisan groups but not absolute prosperity for all. A country ‘is neither richer nor poorer for having more or less money’ (Corsica, 211/OC 3: 921). Beyond that, money contributes to the luxury and inequality that is destructive of moeurs: ‘wherever money is a prime necessity’, the nation ‘plunge into more lucrative occupations’ (Corsica, 210/OC 3: 920). High profits create an affluent class who ‘place their money in landed property, which others cultivate for them’. The result is that a unified nation is ‘divided between wealthy idlers who own the land and wretched peasants who starve whilst cultivating it’ (Corsica, 210/OC 3: 920). Consequently, Rousseau thinks that abolishing money and trade can avoid social division, preserving simplicity and equality, which preserves Corsica’s innocence. It can also satisfy the nation’s aspiration for development by boosting population growth, which marks the tangible and authentic wealth of a nation (Corsica, 194/OC 3: 904).

Beyond abolishing money, Rousseau also argues that Corsica must establish a self-sufficient agrarian economy that inspires an austere lifestyle, which crystallises its youthfulness. In this economy, ‘everyone will strive to have all the things that are necessary to him in kind and through his own farming, rather than through barter’ (Corsica, 215/OC 3: 924). Agriculture should not be market-oriented or a preparation for the industrial sector. Instead, it is a practice that directs human desires for flourishing in a self-reliant and non-corruptive form. In defining this unique trait, Rousseau operates with the distinction between abundance and opulence. Whilst opulence refers to futile luxuries that generate reliance and inequality, abundance refers to the tangible enrichment produced from farming. ⁹ A citizen must learn by agricultural practice to embrace abundance rather than opulence, thereby accommodating the nation’s mature desires. In an ideal agricultural economy, ‘Surplus foodstuffs, being neither an object of commerce nor converted into money, will be cultivated only in proportion to the need people have for necessities’ (Corsica, 215/OC 3: 924). Rousseau wants the Corsican people to be uninterested in the growth of their particular wealth and only concerned with securing the necessities of the whole nation. In this way, Corsica will not grow rich in money, but grow rich in men, which, on Rousseau’s view, is the true source of a state’s power and prosperity.

In general, Rousseau’s agrarian economy protects the nation’s innocence by suppressing inequality and luxury; it guides the desire of prosperity that characterises maturity away from corruption by promoting agricultural abundance over commercial opulence. The plan also fends off Corsica’s external and internal threats by making it a self-reliant society that has no interest in seeking other’s aid nor attracts foreign greed with its money-less condition. ¹⁰ In this respect, Rousseau’s advice for Corsica exemplifies his statement in SD about how things ‘could have remained equal’ in an early stage of agricultural society through institutional means (SD, 51/OC 3: 173).

Poland: Youthfulness in Patriotic Love

The case of Poland is different. Unlike Corsica, where youthfulness comes from its primitive status that resembles natural youth, Rousseau’s Poland falls short of many criteria that constitute a nation suitable for legislation. Instead, its miraculous youthful state comes from a patriotic love, which is stimulated by the immediate hostility from its external enemies.

For Rousseau, Poland was an over-sized confederation that was ‘bizarrely constituted’: ‘A large corpus formed out of a large number of dead members and a small number of disunited members’ that holds no cohesion as the member states were ‘almost independent from one another’ and ‘far from having a common aim, destroy each other’ (Poland, 246/OC 3: 954). Internationally, Poland was in a very difficult geopolitical position and was constantly frustrated by powerful neighbours in its effort to independence. Yet Rousseau believes that Poland can be given law as it still exhibited ‘the fire of youth’:

…Poland, this depopulated, devastated, oppressed region, open to its aggressors, in the midst of its misfortunes and its anarchy, still shows all the fire of youth. She dares to demand a government and laws, as if she has only just been born. She is in fetters, and discusses the means to keep herself free; she senses within herself the strength which that of tyranny cannot subjugate. (Poland, 246/OC 3: 954)

The mere fact that Poland as a nation still survived under the siege of hostile powers shows that it still retains a youthful strength that contains both innocence and maturity. This youthful strength, Rousseau argues, comes from the nation’s strong patriotic love, which was ‘slumbering in a lethargic repose’ when the country was in peace, became active in the face of upheavals – ‘the storm’ of foreign invasions (Poland, 247/OC 3: 955).

A large country cannot usually retain its innocence and normally either leads to complete despotism or complete disorder. Poland, on the contrary, managed to preserve its innocence in a crumbling state: ‘it is miraculous that the vast extent of Poland has not a hundred times already caused the government to be converted into despotism, caused the souls of the Poles to degenerate, and corrupted the mass of the nation’ (Poland, 263/OC 3: 971). The reason lies exactly in Poles’ patriotic love: ‘in the midst of that anarchy which is hateful to you that were formed patriotic souls which safeguarded you from the yoke’ (Poland, 247/OC 3: 954). Despite Poland’s ill-formed body, unfavourable for defending its cohesion, the patriotic love of its citizens manages to form a robust and resilient national bond.

As with Corsica, however, this patriotic love also entails an aspiration for national prestige and prosperity, which is characteristic of a nation’s maturity. This aspiration is dangerous as it can transform into ambition for despotism. In the struggle against external threats, the Polish patriots will ‘feel the weight of fatigue’ and ‘would like to combine the peace of despotism with the sweets of liberty’ (Poland, 247/OC 3: 955). For Rousseau, patriotic love is, in essence, an extension of amour-propre whereby one’s own country is compared against others. ¹¹ This amour-propre, healthy as it promotes cohesion within a nation’s border, can become aggressive and destructive when facing outsiders. In combating foreign powers, patriotic amour-propre, which is the source of Poland’s youthful vigour, may transform into xenophobia, a sense of insecurity for more power, and finally ambition for empire. A youthful vigour can thus degenerate into a corrupted temperament that usurps the law domestically and seeks domination internationally, if left unattended.

This patriotic love constitutes the innocence and maturity of Poland and renders it suitable for legislation despite all its defects. A lawgiver’s legislation must therefore consolidate and regulate this patriotic love. As Rousseau contends, ‘the law’ for Poland must ‘holds sway over the hearts of citizens’ so as to establish a solid constitution (Poland, 247/OC 3: 955). The emphasis on holding sway of the human passions here involves not simply reinforcing the patriotic love, but also preventing it from becoming destructive. ¹² For Rousseau, the goal can be achieved by promoting a defensive patriotism via cultural symbols, localised religions and public competitions. This form of patriotism suppresses the patriotic amour-propre as hostility against foreign nations and instead highlights a less aggressive form of sentimental attachment towards one’s homeland. It also directs the competitive part of amour-propre to public competition between citizens, which promotes political virtues and prevents it from becoming an ambition to dominate other nations.

Rousseau invokes the practice of the antique polity for his argument: wise lawgivers such as Moses and Lycurgus mobilised cultural elements to shape and reinforce patriotic aspiration into a non-expansive and non-destructive form: they used ‘games that kept citizens frequently gathered together’, exercises ‘that along with their vigour and strength used to increase their pride and self-esteem’, and finally, spectacles that ‘would engage their hearts, inflame them with lively emulation, and attach them strongly to the fatherland’ (Poland, 250/OC 3: 958). A citizen’s patriotic amour-propre in these events does not express itself as a sense of insecurity or desire for expansion, but as a proud feeling of the particular identity of his own country. It seeks distinction rather than superiority over other nations. Military conquest is therefore not necessarily the goal of this sentiment. By eulogising liberty and the republican tradition of Poland, patriotic amour-propre seeks to defend rather than invade. It cherishes its own liberty and detests the prestige of empire, endorsing the view that ‘whosoever seeks to be free must not seek to be a conqueror’ (Poland, 305/OC 3:1013). Public events such as rituals and gatherings can build up companionship and nourish the transparent, innocent bond among citizens. Rousseau insists that legislation should promote games such as horse-riding and knightly tournaments at every level of citizens’ lives. Even children are not allowed ‘to play separately at their whim’; they should play ‘all together and in public, so that there is always a common aim to which all aspire and which stimulates competition and emulation’ (Poland, 260/OC 3:968). Generally, Rousseau hoped that legislation can mitigate the inner tension between innocence and maturity in Polish patriotic love, so that it will both satisfy the mature desire for prestige whilst retaining the innocent national bond, which, combined together, reinforces Poland’s youthful strength.

The cases of Poland and Corsica illustrate the differences between natural youth and restored youth and how the lawgiver’s legislation varies, respectively. Corsicans remain in a primitive status and are free from chaotic passions and sophisticated customs. The lawgiver’s legislation therefore focuses on the economic basis to avoid the advent of violent passions. In Poland, where customs and passions were already rooted, the lawgiver’s method is to pit patriotic passion against other passions. The legislation therefore focuses not on suppressing passions, but on institutionalising the positive passion against malicious passions. Where the legislation required to preserve natural youth is largely a matter of precaution; when it comes to restored youth, legislation must preserve youthfulness via intensive struggle to combat the corrupt passions.

Conclusion

For Honig, Rousseau is the very first political philosopher who identifies the question of political founding as the chicken and egg paradox between law and moeurs, which entails profound implications for political theory as it ‘is alive at every moment of political life and not just at the origins of a regime’ (Honig 2007, 3). However, by reconstructing Rousseau’s political sociology of a nation’s youthfulness throughout his works, we can shed light on a different aspect of Rousseau’s thought that supplements his philosophical argument in SC and challenges the ‘paradox’ reading with a more realist ‘tension’ reading. Whilst it is true that a well-ordered polity requires a capable lawgiver, the lawgiver’s role is not as mystical as Rousseau first implies in SC, as becomes clear once we turn to his analysis of youthfulness and the specific legislative cases of Corsica and Poland.

Liu’s study on youthfulness, in this vein, importantly emphasizes a nation’s innocence as the essential condition for successful legislation and identifies Rousseau as an ‘anti-pluralist realist’. I hope to have developed this interpretation further by showing that youthfulness comprises both innocence and maturity. Both aspects need to be considered to understand the realist constraints Rousseau placed on successful legislation. Once we incorporate maturity into the picture, we can see that the dangerous tendency to corruption already exists within a nation’s youthfulness. Indeed, Rousseau is generally suspicious of human politics and believes that social men are already in a post-lapsarian state characterized by the potential for conflict and corruption. As Rousseau famously told Mirabeau, he writes not for ‘the people of Utopia’, but for ‘the children of Adam’ (LM, 270). The tension between innocence and maturity that characterises youthfulness, however, is not an irresolvable paradox, as Honig suggests. For Rousseau, there remained as chance to ‘draw from the malady itself the remedy that should cure it’ (GM, 148/OC 3: 288). Youthfulness is a state of tension, but not one without potential remedy, as his proposals for Corsica and Poland show.

Reading youthfulness as a tension between innocence and maturity therefore indicates a different way of framing what Rousseau perceives as the real challenge of the constituent moment: successful legislation is difficult not because there is no pre-institutional source for the social spirit, but because a nation’s youthfulness is hard to preserve due to the underlying tension between maturity and innocence. A nation’s robust social bond is usually incompatible with its growing desire for better conditions. The more a nation wants greater power and prosperity, the more it wants to transcend its primitive status and establish political society. The more it attempts to transcend its primitive status, the more it is likely to become corrupt in the process. This tension is the most pressing obstacle that Rousseau’s lawgiver must address at the moment of political founding.

The emphasis I have placed on youthfulness in political founding also suggests, more generally, that we cannot understand Rousseau’s political vision without attending to his political sociology. Contemporary political theorists who draw on Rousseau too often detach his principles of political right from his sociological analysis, thereby sometimes portraying him as a precursor of liberal constitutionalism (Rawls 2007, 241; Stilz 2009, 27–56; Cohen 2010). Yet once we integrate his political sociology into this picture, we find that Rousseau is better situated within the tradition of the science of the legislator, a way of political theorising which combines general principles with particular circumstances, philosophy with history, and theoretical wisdom with practical prudence. ¹³