“ If the people has no share in the government, the nobility is itself the people. ”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762). copy citation
| Author | Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
|---|---|
| Source | The Social Contract |
| Topic | nobility government |
| Date | 1762 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | Of the Social Contract, or Principles of Political Law, Book IV |
| Note | Translated by George Douglas Howard Cole |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Social_Contract/Book_IV |
Context
“The instance of the election of the Doge of Venice confirms, instead of destroying, this distinction; the mixed form suits a mixed government. For it is an error to take the government of Venice for a real aristocracy. If the people has no share in the government, the nobility is itself the people. A host of poor Barnabotes never gets near any magistracy, and its nobility consists merely in the empty title of Excellency, and in the right to sit in the Great Council. As this Great Council is as numerous as our General Council at Geneva, its illustrious members have no more privileges than our plain citizens.”
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