The Social Contract is Broken
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Warned of the Dangers of Inequality
Mar 26, 2009
“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” This is the opening sentence of “The Social Contract,” published by the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1762. He saw the society of his time to be filled with inequalities and most of them related to material gain and the ownership of property. The free enterprise economy grew, he believed, at the expense of civic virtues associated with the common good.
The developing industrial society led to a growing division of labour. Rousseau said this created a society in which powerful merchants and property-owners dominated the common people.
Elites Didn’t Listen
The International World History Project says Rousseau’s ideas “deeply affected French thinking, and…became one of the chief forces that brought on the French Revolution about 30 years later.”
By 1788, the extravagance and arrogance of the ruling elites brought the French people to the point where they withdrew their consent to be governed by the aristocracy. Through lavish spending and foolish wars, King Louis XVI drained France’s treasury. The masses, which were heavily taxed to pay for reckless lifestyle of the king and his wife Marie Antoinette, had had enough.
The Revolution began in 1789 and it ended badly for the ruling classes. Had they read Rousseau and taking his ideas to heart, they might have kept their heads.
Same Ingredients for Revolution Exist Today
Fast forward 220 years. The ruling elites in the United States and elsewhere have behaved with extravagance and arrogance. The middle class has been taxed heavily to pay for irresponsible wars. And, national treasuries have been drained.
Just as Marie Antoinette became a focal point for French anger, Dennis Koslowski, the former CEO of Tyco became the poster child for excess. As the CBS News program 60 Minutes reported on July 27, 2007, Koslowski spent “$30 million to build a mansion in Florida, plus acquiring homes in Nantucket and Colorado. And for $16 million, he bought a vintage yacht, “Endeavour.’ ” He is now prisoner 05A4820, convicted of 22 counts of grand larceny, conspiracy, and securities fraud, serving a sentence of eight to 25 years.
Margaret Wente writing in The Globe and Mail on March 24, 2009 points out a couple of other egregious examples: “Richard Fuld, of the now-defunct Lehmann Bros., collected a total of $354 million in the five years before his company went bust. Countrywide Financial’s Angelo Mozilo, king of the subprime mortgages, made $392 million.”
Workers Are Getting Angry
On March 26, 2009 CBC Radio’s The Current reported: “Over the last two weeks, three business leaders have been kidnapped and held against their will in France. The disputes have all been over layoffs. Some say it’s a sign of increased worker militancy and that we may see more of it as the global economic crisis deepens.”
The Irish Times reported on March 14, 2009 on one incident in France that is now being called “bossknapping.” Serge Foucher is the chief executive officer of Sony France. The Times said that he “and two local plant officials were held in a meeting room in a videotape factory at Pontonx-sur-l’Adour, in the Landes region of southwest France.”
In December 2008, the plant’s 311 employees had been told their factory was going to be closed. “Mr. Foucher dropped by to say a last farewell on Thursday afternoon,” wrote Lara Marlowe of The Irish Times, “and was detained by workers objecting to the severance package they’d been offered. They blocked access to the plant with branches and tree trunks, and 20 gendarmes surrounded the site.” The executives were released after 24 hours.
Meanwhile in Scotland, a bank executive’s home has been vandalized. Sir Fred Goodwin has been blamed for mismanaging the Royal Bank of Scotland into near bankruptcy. He resigned from the bank in October 2008 and received an annual pension of $1.2 million a year. Outrage has ensued.
On March 26, 2009, Stephen Wright reported for the MailOnline that, “Security will be stepped up around fat-cat bankers...
“A statement claiming to be from the group responsible for damage at his (Goodwin’s) £3million ($5.4 million) mansion warned of further attacks, saying: ‘This is just the beginning.’
“The threat sparked fears of a terror campaign against those blamed for the collapse in the financial system.”
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