Revolution and the Republic
Page 29
to enjoy free and just government they needed to choose an economic system based
upon agriculture and the arts necessary for life. If they did so, Rousseau speculated,
‘Luxury and indigence will sensibly disappear together, and the Citizens cured of
the frivolous tastes opulence fosters and of the vices associated with poverty, will
place their cares and their glory in serving the fatherland well, and find their
happiness in their duties.’82 Eliminating all luxury, Rousseau conceded, was an
extremely difficult undertaking and it could not be rooted out solely through
sumptuary laws. It had to be extinguished from men’s hearts and this could only
be done through the acquisition of healthier and nobler tastes. Thus every young
Pole was to be subject to a civic education, his eyes firmly fixed upon the fatherland
and his body acquainted with regular physical exercise. The intention would be to
accustom each child ‘to rule, to equality, to fraternity, to competitions, to living
under the eyes of their fellow citizens and to seeking public approbation’.83
In summary, Rousseau provided a comprehensive indictment of a society based
upon inequality and one where the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury had replaced a
simple life lived according to the dictates of virtue. We had lost our innocence and
our morals. We were slaves to vice. The poor grovelled in their misery whilst the
idle rich were honoured for their possession of superfluous opulence. In our fellow
human beings we saw only competitors and ‘everyone pretends to be working for
the profit or reputation of the rest, while only seeking to raise his own above theirs
and at their expense’.84
To his own satisfaction at least, Rousseau had proved that this had not been so in
our original state. Selfishness had not always been the engine of human behaviour.
Love of oneself (amour de soi) had been replaced by self-love (amour propre) and it
had been out of this transformation that had merged the activity of commerce. It
was only in modern, commercial societies that calculations of self-interest drove and
determined the actions of individuals.85
We catch a glimpse of the importance attached by Rousseau to the argument
against commerce and luxury if we consider his response to the writings of the now
little-known Jean-François Melon. In 1734 Melon published his Essai politique sur
le commerce.86 At the time it achieved a level of notoriety for the simple reason that,
81 ‘Considerations on the Government of Poland and on its Projected Reform’, ibid. 177–269.
Rousseau also sketches out a response to this corruption of society in his constitution for Corsica.
Corsica was to remain a predominantly agrarian society where barter would replace money as a form of
exchange and where commercial activity and international trade would be kept to a minimum. There
would be no division of labour.
82 Ibid. 229.
83 Ibid. 191.
84 ‘Preface to “Narcissus”’, in Rousseau, Discourses, 100.
85 See Pierre Force, Self-Interest Before Adam Smith: A Genealogy of Economic Science (Cambridge,
2003), 34–47.
86 Publ. originally in 1734, references are to the edn. in Osnabrück, 1966. Born in Tulle in 1675
Melon occupied a variety of governmental functions, acting as secretary to the financier John Law. He
died in 1738.
134
Sovereignty, Social Contract, and Luxury
in addition to an advocacy of a set of mercantilist measures, it contained a chapter
unambiguously praising the benefits of the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury.87
According to Melon, if commerce could be defined as ‘the exchange of the
superfluous for what is necessary’,88 then luxury was ‘an extraordinary sumptuous-
ness which flows from wealth and the security provided by government’. Yet,
luxury could be given no precise meaning, because desires were ‘relative to time
and persons’. Furthermore, Melon disputed the claim that luxury encouraged
immorality, contending that it had certain moral benefits: most notably, it was
the ‘destroyer of sloth and idleness’. Melon was also eager to point out the futility of
seeking to regulate luxury out of existence. With Rousseau’s Geneva clearly in
mind, he commented that such a society more resembled ‘a community of recluses
than a society of free men’. He similarly disputed the efficacy of sumptuary laws,
believing them fundamentally flawed in both design and intention. Crucially, such
laws disregarded the human motive of emulation.
From this followed a key claim and one that brought Melon’s argument close to
that of Bernard Mandeville’s renowned The Fable of the Bees of 1714. ‘What does it
matter to a state’, Melon asked, ‘if through foolish vanity an individual is ruined by
vying with the retinue of a neighbour?’ Ruin was a punishment well-deserved, but
the only outcomes of a legislator seeking to prevent such behaviour would be to
reduce the workers to ‘dangerous idleness’, ‘restrict liberty’, and take away a motive
for industry. Why, he went on, should extravagant expenditure be damned? What
concern was it of ours if someone paid an excessive price for frivolous objects?
Unspent, this money would remain ‘dead to society’. Used in the pursuit of luxury,
it paid the gardener, fed and clothed his children, and encouraged him to work with
an eye to a better future. Given away as charity to beggars, that same money would
only encourage their debauchery. On this view, therefore, the pursuit of luxury
produced benefits for society as a whole and contributed to the well-being of the
State.
Melon was neither the first nor the last to write about the subject of luxury.89
The word ‘luxe’ entered the French language in 1606 as the synonym for ‘super-
fluity’. In 1694, the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française tied its meaning to that of
‘excess’, with an implied note of moral condemnation.90 At this time, criticism
of luxury largely focused upon the lavish expenditure of the court at Versailles, as
was testified by Fénelon’s abidingly popular text Les Aventures de Télémaque, with
its praise of simplicity, labour, and the virtues of agriculture.91 Kings, Fénelon
contended, might be poisoned by excessive authority but luxury empoisoned an
entire nation and, as such, it was ‘almost incurable’. Yet, by the mid-century,
87 Ibid. 742–9.
88 Ibid. 709. See Michael Cardy, ‘Le “Nécessaire” et le “superflu”’, Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth
Century (Oxford, 1982), ccv. 183–90.
89 See Christopher J. Berry, The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation
(Cambridge, 1994), 126–76, and Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger (eds.), Luxury in the Eighteenth
Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods (Houndmills, 2003).
90 Philippe Perrot, Le Luxe: Une richesse entre faste et confort XVIIIe––XIXe siècle (1995), 34 n. 2.
91 François de Fénelon, Telemachus (Cambridge, 1994).
Sovereignty, Social Contract, and Luxury
135
censure had extended beyond the aristocratic culture of the court to embrace a
series of broader concerns relating to the activity of consumption itself and its
impact upon the whole fabric of French
society. The increase in commercial
prosperity was associated with a growing materialism that brought with it a series
of ills, not the least of which was taken to be a confusion of ranks.92 Moreover, the
scale and intensity of the debate was quite astonishing. Daniel Roche has estimated
that, in France alone, between 1736 and 1786 over 100 texts were published that
dealt with the issue of luxury.93
Montesquieu, for example, rejected the argument against luxury in letter 106 of
his Lettres persanes and he returned to the theme at some length in De l’Esprit des
lois, devoting much of book 7 to the examination of sumptuary laws in republics
and monarchies and book 20 to the relationship of laws to commerce.94 Diderot
also took up the theme of luxury, most notably in his Observations sur le Nakaz.95
Here, however, the stress fell upon the benefits that accrued from the expenditure
of the rich man. ‘He makes his nation worth visiting for foreigners; he provides a
livelihood for a large numbers of citizens who are consumers and who give a price to
the fruits of the earth’, Diderot wrote. Nevertheless, Diderot, like Montesquieu,
also drew a distinction between good and bad luxury. If the latter united the vices of
opulence and poverty, the former produced the flourishing of the sciences and
prosperity for all. He also rejected the key claim of the physiocratic school that
economies such as those of England which derived their wealth from trade,
manufacturing, and the production of luxury goods rested upon unstable and
‘sterile’ foundations. As Diderot commented, ‘the principle of the physiocrats,
carried to excess, would condemn a nation to being no more than peasants’.96
Nevertheless, and as indicated by Rousseau himself, it was Melon who brought
the subject of luxury to the fore. This is explained in part by the fact that when
Voltaire published his controversial poem Le Mondain, he attached to his reply to
his critics a letter written by Melon to the Comtesse de Verrue.97 The Comtesse de
Verrue was there cited by Melon as an example of the wisdom of his doctrine that
luxury was necessary for the circulation of money and the maintenance of industry.
Further controversy arose because Voltaire openly indicated his preference for the
modern world over a Garden of Eden characterized by physical austerity. The rich,
Voltaire argued, were born to spend their money and the poor were there to receive
92 Sarah Maza, The Myth of the French Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the Social Imaginary, 1750–1850
(Cambridge, Mass., 2003), 55.
93 Roche, Histoire des choses banales (1997), 88.
94 Montesquieu, Persian Letters (Harmondsworth, 1973), 193–6. See Catherine Larrère,
‘Montesquieu on Economics and Commerce’, in David W. Carrithers, Michael A. Mosher, and
Paul A. Rahe (eds.), Montesquieu’s Science of Politics (Lanham, Md., 2001), 335–74, and Roger
Boesche, ‘Fearing Monarchs and Merchants: Montesquieu’s Two Theories of Despotism’, Western
Political Quarterly, 44 (1990), 741–61.
95 Diderot, Political Writings (Cambridge, 1992), 124–5, 130–1.
96 Ibid. 125.
97 See Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (Oxford, 2003), xvi. 273–313. See Ellen Ross, ‘Mandeville,
Melon and Voltaire: The Origins of the Luxury Controversy in France’, Studies in Voltaire and the
Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1976), clv. 1897–1912.
136
Sovereignty, Social Contract, and Luxury
it. Colbert and Solomon, both of whom ‘through luxury [had] enriched the state’,
rather than the classical heroes of Greece and Rome, were the objects of Voltaire’s
praise. Voltaire took up this theme on many subsequent occasions––his Diction-
naire philosophique, for example, contained an entry on luxury––and he continued
to refer favourably to Melon, citing him as ‘a man of sense, a good citizen and an
excellent philosopher’.98
It was however the Marquis de Saint-Lambert’s who, in a long essay for the
Encyclopédie, best set out the arguments both for and against luxury.99 Six were cited
in favour of luxury: luxury contributed to the growth of population; it enriched states;
it facilitated the circulation of money; it softened manners and spread the private
virtues; it was favourable to the advance of knowledge; and it increased the wealth
and happiness of citizens. Against this were the arguments that luxury encouraged the
decline of the ‘useful’ arts; it ruined the countryside; it led to depopulation; it
produced a confusion of social ranks; and it weakened our sense of honour and our
love of country. Saint-Lambert’s text endeavoured to show that all of these assertions
could be contradicted by the facts and thus that the effects of luxury––beneficial
or otherwise––were relative to the situation in which it was to be found. ‘In this
regard’, he wrote, ‘luxury is for peoples what it is for individuals; the multitude of
gratifications must be in keeping with the means to enjoy them.’100
Saint-Lambert was therefore clear in his own mind that the consequences of what
he termed ‘disordered luxury’ were truly deleterious. Extreme cupidity and the pursuit
of frivolous wealth induced a progressive decline. Subject to especial opprobrium were
those who performed no function in society and the nouveaux riches who quickly
became addicted to their idleness. In their desire to escape boredom they sought ever
more indulgent and extraordinary forms of gratification. Intriguingly, Saint-Lambert
here made reference to what he termed ‘mad emulation’.
However, Saint-Lambert also detailed the conditions in which luxury could be of
benefit to society as a whole. There would be no sudden fortunes. Extreme poverty
and extreme wealth would be rare. Luxury would not be detached from usefulness.
All classes would appreciate and enjoy the fine arts. Most importantly, ‘luxury and
the passions leading to it must be subordinated to a spirit of community and to the
goods of the community’.101 Governments, therefore, should not be indifferent to
the manner through which people acquired their wealth and the way they chose to
spend it. In particular, the well-being of one group of people could not be sacrificed
for the well-being of another. Accordingly, the first objective had to be to put
‘luxury back in order’. With the exception of controls on imported luxury goods,
Saint-Lambert stipulated, this would not entail new sumptuary laws, nor would it
require new agrarian laws or new divisions of property. It would be sufficient to
end privileges in manufacturing, make state finance less lucrative, and to punish
idleness. From this would follow the imperceptible increase and dispersion of both
98 See Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (Oxford, 2003), xvi. 273–313. See Ellen Ross, ‘Mandeville,
Melon and Voltaire: The Origins of the Luxury Controversy in France’, Studies in Voltaire and the
Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1976), clv. 276–81.
99 See Œuvres complètes de Diderot (1821), xvii. 235–77.
100 Ibid. 247.
101 Ibid. 250.
Sovereignty, Social Contract, and Luxury
137
wealth and luxury. As Saint-Lambert concluded, ‘I beg my readers to rid themselves
alike of the prejudic
es of Sparta and of Sybaris.’102
It is apparent from his text that Saint-Lambert was aware that the debate about
luxury now took a predictable and standard form.103 In particular Saint-Lambert
mirrored the wider concern (evident also in the writings of Helvétius and Condillac)
to distinguish between the good and bad uses of luxury and to specify that luxury
could not be divorced from considerations of social utility. There was, however, no
such measured response from Rousseau. In his ‘Last Reply’ to the criticisms directed
at his Discours sur les sciences et les arts he made the following comment:
It is true that up to now, luxury, although often prevalent, had at least at all times been
viewed as a fatal source of infinitely many evils. It was left for M. Melon to be the first
to publish the poisonous doctrine whose novelty brought him more followers than did
the soundness of his reasoning. I am not afraid to be alone in my century to fight these
odious maxims which only tend to destroy and to debase virtue, and to make for rich
people and wretches, that is to say for wicked people in either event.104
Moreover, as the century proceeded, there was no lessening in the argument
between the pro- and anti-luxury camps. Indeed, it would run right up to the
outbreak of the Revolution itself, providing the critics of luxury in particular with
powerful arguments with which to attack both the court and the leisured aristo-
cracy. Indeed, as John Shovlin has shown, these debates help explain why the
financial crisis that engulfed the monarchy played such an important role in
determining the origins of the Revolution itself.105
Here we might cite two texts by way of supporting evidence. Butel-Dumont’s
Théorie du luxe, ou traité dans lequel on entreprend d’établir que le luxe est un ressort
non seulement utile mais même indispensablement nécessaire à la prospérité des
Etats,106 and the Abbé Pluquet’s Traité philosophique et politique sur le luxe.107
Taking diametrically opposed views on the whole issue, the former was content to
define luxury in morally neutral terms as those things which were ‘superfluous’ and
not ‘strictly necessary’,108 whilst the latter denounced it as ‘the use of objects
producing agreeable sensations considered necessary by man, although by the