Three Different Classes in French Society - Essay Example

Sieyes and Rousseau compared and contrasted Relation between volonte commune and volonte generale Sieyes volonte commune and Rousseaus volonte generale compared and contrasted Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès Sieyès, in his seminal pamphlet, Quest-ce que le tiers état?, (What is third estate?), published in January 1789, gave radically new ideas about Nation and Representation. He distinguished three different classes in the French society: the “wealth producing” class, the class that circulated the wealth ("communicatrice") and the “political class” that was responsible for maintaining law and order that guaranteed unhindered production and a free market. The state thus was a politico-regulatory order that was a summation of property and liberty based on free trade in a society of workers who made their own decisions independent of any coercion or peer pressure. The nation therefore comprised of producers of value that included industrialists, traders, manual labourers (concept of knowledge workers was not known at that time) and administrative bureaucracy who together formed the Third Estate and truly represented the French nation. The nobility, as they did not add value to the production process, did not form a part of the French nation. This concept of nation based on production process obviously led to some form of division of labour and consequent specialisation that separated the governing class from those that were governed where only the experts administered the country while the rest carried on the process of production. Sieyès thought freedom to be a prerogative of the members of a nation to delegate the matters of administration and state affairs to only those that are best suited for it through a complex procedure of representation and control. Thereby, a large majority of the members of a state absolved themselves from directly running the affairs of the state which was run by their elected representatives who were strictly guided and controlled by volonté commune. Thus, though the general people did not seem to wield any power as that remained the prerogative of the political class, the ultimate power rested with the people who could exercise it anytime they felt that matters are going in a wrong direction. As a natural corollary, he felt that the ultimate power to ratify the constitution of a country rested on the elected members of the parliament as they have been chosen by the members of a state to run the state on their behalf. Volonté commune, according to Sieyès, was not a preordained metaphysical concept but one which gradually evolved through social mechanisms and interactions between different classes within a society and finally resulted in the creation of a ruling class that was always accountable to the general masses. (Sieyès, 1789) Jean-Jacques Rousseau Rousseau was one of the leading proponents of social contract who tried to reason that all forms of human society were the result of some form of social agreement or contract between the rulers and the ruled. As the alternative to such a contract would be an anarchic condition, whenever men gathered in substantial numbers they used their natural reason to form a society as they felt such a formation would be beneficial to all. Social contract theories thus tried to justify political authority as the outcome of rational reasoning and free consent of members of a society who realise that their self interest would be best served in doing so. Rousseau in Du contrat social, published in 1762, maintained that men in general were peace loving but could not be totally depended in matters of unbiased reasoning, morality and responsibility. Thus political authority should be passed to only those people or that government that is formed and guided by volonté générale (“general will”). The constant invocation of “general will” would, according to Rousseau, prevent the government from becoming autocratic or despotic. The central concept of “general will” as propounded by Rousseau was that citizens generally make political decisions keeping the greater common good in mind rather than their selfish personal or parochial interests. The republic created out of general will, according to Rousseau, never faltered on grounds of equality among citizens and each member was considered equal in the eyes of law and enjoyed similar freedom. However, each member also surrendered their individual wills in so far as they were in contradiction or contravention to the general will and each member wilfully accepted this curtailment of personal freedom for greater benefit of the society. Rousseau however, like Plato, felt that a majority of the people are stupid and needed some “lawgivers” to draw up the set of laws that would govern the society and these “lawgivers” must, if necessary, claim that these laws were the outcome of some form of divine inspiration, if only that would cause immediate acceptance of those statutes by the larger majority. (Rousseau, 1762) Volonte commune and volonte generale compared and contrasted Though both Rousseau and Sieyès talk of general will, the fundamental difference between them is that while Rousseau considers that most of the people are stupid and need the help and guidance of the more intelligent members of the society, Sieyès never makes any such differentiation and considers all members that add value to the production process as equal and thus should have equal say in the administrative affairs of the nation. This apparently seems to be a quantum improvement over Rousseau’s ideas but Sieyès leaves out the nobility from becoming citizens of a nation on the ground that this class does not add value to the production process. Thus, in some way or the other both the thinkers have left out some parts of the society from the decision making process. However, it has to be admitted that Sieyès’ ideas are more inclusive than that of Rousseau’s. (Cranston, 1968) Sieyès builds up his thesis primarily on the economic basis of production and considers men as products of socio-politico-economical churning of 18th century France while Rousseau’s thesis is based on abstract principles that are essentially based on peace loving nature of humans which, as history shows, is not always correct especially when men dealt with other communities and races. (Forsyth, 1987) Sieyès considered society as a sum total of liberty and property that prospered due to the presence of an enthusiastic working class and a vibrant free market and in this aspect he clearly moved away from Rousseau towards John Locke. The most important difference between Rousseau and Sieyès is possibly in the extent to which an individual has to subjugate his free will to the dictates of general will. While Rousseau advocates complete intrusion of society in personal lives of members when he talks about community spirit, Sieyès separates the ‘private’ from the ‘public’ as he distinguishes three types of interests of an individual – individual, corporate and common and states that only the last interest can be represented. Thus citizens need to entrust only a small sphere of their activities to the state while they can carry on their personal activities on their own. (MÁIZ, 1990) References Cranston, M. (1968). Introduction to the book. In J. J. Rousseau, Social Contract (pp. 9-42). Penguin Classics. Forsyth, M. (1987). Reason and Revolution: The Political Thought of the Abbé Sieyes. New York. MÁIZ, R. (1990). Nation and Representation: E.J. Siéyès and the Theory of the State of the French Revolution. Barcelona: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. Rousseau, J. J. (1762). Du contrat social, Book 1, Chapters 1 - 9. Sieyès, E. J. (1789). Quest-ce-que le Tiers Etat? Chapter 5. Paris. 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