Rousseau v. Burke: Political, Social, and Economic Transformations

April 2008

Rousseau v Burke: Political, Social, and Economic Transformations

            Jean Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke did not agree on most, if any, political ideas.  They both articulate their positions to their fullest abilities.  They both see the French and American revolutions come to pass, even if their consequences were not seen.  They come from different backgrounds and as such had a different initial view point of the world.  Rousseau advocated radical political, social, and economic transformations of societies when it is believed that newer intuitions can do the respective job better; however, Burke argues that this is never desirable.

Rousseau was a man of many trades and is often called the founding father of the French Revolution.  He believed in uprooting old traditions and institutions for newer and better ones.  Rousseau went through many personal changes in his life that affected his political theory.  For instance, he was raised Catholic, became a protestant, and then dies anti-religious.  His writings reflect his confusion on the Christian way of life.

            Burke often wrote in response to Rousseau’s radical writings.  He was a Christian and believed that throwing off old traditions and institutions was essentially destroying society.  He was a complex man.  He supported the American Revolution (it was valid) and condemned the French Revolution (it was illegitimate).  At one point Burke even goes so far as to address Rousseau personally in his writing calling him things such as a “founder of the philosophy of vanity” (Burke 512).  He goes on to critique Rousseau and his vain philosophy, predicting that it would bring about, Napoleon type of a person (O’Neill).

Human nature for Rousseau and Burke are very different.  The way they view human nature is the building block for the way that they view the world that they lived in.  Rousseau believed that people in the State of Nature (before civil society) were naturally good and individualistic (Rousseau 60).  That people did not interact with each other much and as such do not have a set of morals or a sense of virtue.  They instead have a self concern in which they take care of themselves and if they see one of their own species in peril they help them out as well, to preserve the species, called “amour de soi” (Rousseau 73).  People, however, have the desire to better their situation which leads to “amour proper” (Rousseau 79).  “Amor proper” comes about when people begin to rely on each other because they divide labor etc (Rousseau 79).  This creates the self love and the judging/valuing of oneself to only those around you and what they have, not as an individual, but as a member of society, which encourages “zero-sum gains” (O’Neill).  This collection of accidents in time is how Rousseau views history.  He believes that because all of these things are accidents that they can be rectified and erased completely without any consequence.

            Burke calls this “intellectual vanity” and completely disagrees with Rousseau (O’Neill).  He believes that human nature is innately evil.  He does not believe that there is a movement from “amour de soi” to “amour proper” (Rousseau 73 and 79).  He also thinks that history should be honored because it is a collection of small incremental changes in society that have answered the problems of society.  Burke believes that history is the greatest inheritance that a generation can receive (Burke 428).  If one were to try to dramatically and quickly change the institutions and writings of the past then the future would be chaotic.

            These basic assumptions lead to what Rousseau and Burke believed a social contract truly was.  For Rousseau, the first time a person enclosed land and called it their own was the founder of civil society (Rousseau 84).  With this society came the social contract.  The rich were the first to encourage it in order to secure what they had obtained in the State of Nature (Rousseau 98).  The poorer people would go along with it to ensure that when (not if, for they did not think that way) they were rich they would have the proper protection as well (O’Neill).

            Rousseau also states that so long as there is a social contract that universal suffrage is necessary.  He believes that everyone needs a voice in order to make the general will work.  If any person forfeits their voice then they are a slave to the others that have and are not free (Rousseau 192).  There is also something called “particular will” (Rousseau 194).  This is an individual want/need that can be voiced, but the general will is the voice of the collective and what they believe is best for society, not necessarily the individual.  In this way a collection of “particular wills” and the “general will” can differ and only the “general will” should prevail (Rousseau 203).  Rousseau believes that the individual has no rights and that all men should have a relatively equal property base.

            Burke, on the other hand, believed that a social contract is one that the people of a given society have with their past.  If one were to destroy historical inheritance then they would effectively destroy civilization (O’Neill).  Burke believes that there should be inequality in property because he believed in a “true natural aristocracy” and that nobility and religion play large roles in society (Burke 495).  He says that the lower the socio-economic classes looked up to and loved the nobles (Burke 447-448).  They wanted to be like them and wanted to have the luxuries that they had.  Burke also believed that only some people should participate in politics, unless, their history wanted universal suffrage.  He thought that only those that could have time to give to it could participate, which would eliminate all of the lower working classes.  He also thought it was absurd to think that all people had the mental capacities to participate in politics and it, like any other science, needed adequate attention and “requires experience” in the field in order to participate in it (Burke 443).

            While the nobles provided the beauty of the civilization, religion provided the fear.  It was the fear of God that kept the citizenry in check.  This is because Burke ties government to God by saying that God granted the government the fundamental authority to rule and supporting an official state church (Burke 437 and 453).  He also believes that this is a way to keep society from drastic changes because it would be questioning the government and thus God, himself.  Instead, it keeps society changing slowly through incremental changes.

            Rousseau thinks that religion, especially Christianity, is a horrible institution because it does not help the state.  He believes that the state should use religion to its advantage or that it should be gotten rid of all together (Rousseau 305).  He thinks that the legislature should put words in God’s mouth to fundamentally alter society and to provide some legitimacy for their actions (O’Neill).  This is, I believe, a reflection of Rousseau’s personal journey through religion.

            As one can see Rousseau and Burke have very different views on if a society’s political, social, and economic institutions should radically change and why and why not.  Rousseau obviously believes that society’s political, social, and economic institutions can and should be radically changed if the institutions from the past are no longer desired.  Burke, however, believes that prescription and prejudice of the past should not be altered except incrementally because it is what creates civilization.

            I feel that Burke creates a better argument.  I feel that Rousseau misunderstands many things and it is reflected in his theory.  For example, the way he views Christendom is a distorted version of it.  Nor does he go into detail about how people are supposed to put aside particular wills (even though it is what made them come out of the State of Nature) and only voice the general will.  Also, in his State of Nature people are individualistic and have no family (Rousseau 65).  So, where does the child mature into the adult?  An infant can not take care of itself.  This is evident even in the wild where even the most hostile of mammals nourish their young or they eat them.

            I feel that Burke does not have as many loop holes in his theory and that his ideas of the person and history are valid and have good documentation.  The only thing that I can think of that I really had a problem with was that the lower the class the more the people loved the nobles.  Where in France the lower classes captured Marie Antoinette and her husband and beheaded them.  This is not love or admiration but quite the opposite.  Thus, one can say that both Rousseau and Burke had their theoretical problems but in my opinion Burke did a better job of asserting his case.