What’s it got to do with the price of bread? Condorcet and Grouchy on freedom and unreasonable laws in commerce
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885118782391 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
E J P T
European Journal of Political Theory
2018, Vol. 17(4) 432–448
What’s it got to do with the
! The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
price of bread? Condorcet
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1474885118782391
and Grouchy on freedom
journals.sagepub.com/home/ept
and unreasonable laws
in commerce
Sandrine Berge`s
Bilkent University, Turkey
Abstract
Istva´n Hont identified a point in the history of political thought at which republicanism
and commercialism became separated. According to Hont, Emmanuel Sieye`s proposed
that a monarchical republic should be formed. By contrast the Jacobins, in favour of a
republic led by the people, rejected not only Sieye`s’s political proposal, but also the
economic ideology that went with it. Sieye`s was in favour of a commercial republic; the
Jacobins were not. This was, according to Hont, a defining moment in the history of
political thought. In this article, I offer a different analysis of that particular moment in
the history of the commercial republic, one that instead of focusing on Sieye`s and the
Jacobins, looks at the thought of Girondins philosophers Nicolas de Condorcet and
Sophie de Grouchy. I argue that their arguments provide sound models for a commer-
cial republic, reconciling late 18th century republican ideals in which virtue was central,
with the need for a flourishing and internationally active market economy.
Keywords
Condorcet, De Grouchy, French Revolution, history of political thought, Istvan Hont,
Jacobins, Sieye`s
French revolutionary republicans
In Jealousy of Trade, Istva´n Hont (2005) identified a point in the history of political
thought at which republicanism and commercialism became separated. Emmanuel
Sieye`s, the cleric who was the prime mover behind the creation of the Assemble´e
constituante of 1789 and the drafting of the ensuing Constitution, proposed that a
monarchical republic should be formed. The Jacobins, in favour of a republic led
Corresponding author:
Sandrine Berge`s, Department of philosophy, Bilkent University, Bilkent, Ankara 06800, Turkey.
Email: berges@bilkent.edu.tr
Berge`s
433
by the people, rejected not only Sieye`s’s political proposal but also the economic
ideology that went with it. Sieye`s was in favour of a commercial republic; the
Jacobins were not. This was, according to Hont, a defining moment in the history
of political thought.
In this article, I wish to offer a different analysis of that particular moment in the
history of the commercial republic, one that instead of focusing on Sieye`s and the
Jacobins, looks at the thought of Girondins philosophers Nicolas de Condorcet
and Sophie de Grouchy. I shall argue that their arguments provide sound models
for a commercial republic, reconciling late 18th century republican ideals, in which
virtue was central, to the needs for a flourishing and internationally active market
economy.
As Hont makes clear in Jealousy of Trade (Hont, 2005: 8, 23, 29) and in Politics
in Commercial Society (Hont, 2015: 44, 70, 76, 89), republican theories have under-
gone many transformations since their Roman and Athenian manifestations. From
Machiavelli’s strong emphasis on war and trade, to the creation of Italian
Renaissance republics which had little to do with democracy (Hont, 2015: 83;
Hont, 2005: 9), to Montesquieu’s emphasis on the rule of law and his view that
a republic was not necessarily tied to one form of government but could in principle
be a monarchy (Hont, 2005: 33, 134; Hont, 2015: 44), to Rousseau’s rural repub-
licanism, to the sort of republicanism that emphasizes liberty and freedom from
domination, such as that of Condorcet and Paine. Even during the period I am here
concerned with – the French Revolution – Hont (2005: 134) notes that there was
much disagreement as to what kind of theory republicanism was supposed to be – a
concern for the public good, or a form of government?
The two republican philosophers I am considering, Nicolas de Condorcet and
Sophie de Grouchy, have recently come under the scrutiny of contemporary pol-
itical philosophers. Condorcet’s political writings were brought into focus by a new
edited volume in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Lukes
and Urbinati, 2012). The editors of that volume highlight, but do not discuss,
Condorcet’s role in republican theory, claiming in particular that he defended a
view of freedom as non-domination, by which he meant dependence on any sort of
arbitrary power:
By a free man we mean one who is not subject in any of his private activities to the
arbitrary will of an individual, so that free is opposed to slavery or serfdom, depend-
ing on the nature of this subjection, and consequently, to any one who is subject to the
arbitrary will of a despot, a senate, or any other association of individuals.
(Condorcet, in Schandeler and Cre´pel, 2004: 553–554)
Condorcet was also an early supporter of commercial republicanism, that is, he was
concerned not only with freedom as non-domination, but with allowing the (con-
trolled) growth of the market insofar as these were compatible. He developed these
ideas, together with his wife and collaborator, Sophie de Grouchy. Grouchy, a
philosopher in her own right, is known for her Letters on Sympathy (Bernier and
Dawson, 2014), a response to Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments which she
434
European Journal of Political Theory 17(4)
published at the same time as her translation of that text into French.1 We know
that she wrote more2– but are not aware of any other texts published in her name. I
have previously argued that some of the articles published in a paper edited by
Condorcet in the summer of 1792, Le Re´publicain, were either written or co-written
by Grouchy (Berge`s, 2015). In those texts, and also in Grouchy’s Letters, we find
the early development of a commercial republican theory.
It is not surprising that both Condorcet and Grouchy wrote about the place of
the market in the republic, as the debate as to whether republicans should take into
account economic factors was very much alive in France at the end of the 18th
century. While some revolutionary republican factions privileged a certain kind of
isolationism, others thought that the future of the French republic depended on
economic exchanges with the rest of the world. Condorcet and Grouchy were very
much part of the latter group and, in the writings I examine here, their joint belief
in a commercial republic is explored and defended through the republican concepts
of liberty as non-domination, the rule of law and the pervasive corrupting effect of
arbitrary power on people, states and institutions, but also on the economy of
a state.
In what follows I will make a case for the importance of paying attention to
Condorcet and Grouchy’s writings in debates about commercial republicanism, by
which I understand the view that a republic is not only compatible with a com-
mercial society, but that it will thrive best if free commerce is allowed, both intern-
ally and externally. In the next section I will offer a survey of 18th century
discussions of commercial societies and republicanism, emphasizing that the
debate progressed beyond Sieye`s’s disagreement with Paine, which is central to
Hont’s analysis.
In the third section I will introduce and discuss Condorcet’s arguments for
republican commercialism, arguing that for him non-domination is a condition
of freedom in markets as in individuals. I will show how both his and Grouchy’s
political writings about the revolution in Le Re´publicain develop this view further,
arguing that arbitrary power has a financial as well as a moral cost. In the fourth
section, I will show that in Letter VII of her Letters on Sympathy, Grouchy devel-
ops a republican account of laws that is designed to free the economy at the same
time as it re-establishes justice. I conclude, in the fifth section, that the Condorcet/
Grouchy account of commercial republicanism is valuable especially because it
derives its economic and political reforms from the same republican principles.
Is late 18th century commercial republicanism
a conflicted position?
Contemporary neo-republicanism has been accused of failing to address economic
concerns, and in particular of implicitly writing off the market as incompatible with
the sort of civic virtues that republicanism demands (Gaus, 2003; Laborde and
Maynor, 2008: 20–21). This is a criticism that leading republican philosophers have
been keen to defend themselves against, arguing that republicanism treats eco-
nomic concerns and the market exactly as it does other areas of life: by making
Berge`s
435
sure that it does not interfere with the values of political equality and freedom
from domination (Dagger, 2006; Pettit, 2006, 2013). This entails that the market
must be regulated, but not necessarily in a manner that makes it ‘unfree’. On the
contrary, contemporary republicans value the market for its utility, i.e. because it
promotes independence via private property and therefore diminishes the power of
the richer classes to dominate the poorer ones. Philip Pettit, for instance, has
argued that:
It will appeal, in particular, for the way it can respect people’s undominated standing
in relation to one another, allowing them to exchange things on a noncoercive basis.
Indeed, it may also strengthen this standing, reinforcing it as a result of facilitating its
exercise and recognition. (Pettit, 2006: 147)
But although a market-based economy means that people’s choices are less
restricted, and that they are not...
To continue reading
Request your trial