Key Arguments

• Rousseau explicitly links his circulation principle to regime types: "It follows that, the more the distance between people and government increases, the more burdensome tribute becomes: thus, in a democracy, the people bears the least charge; in an aristocracy, a greater charge; and, in monarchy, the weight becomes heaviest."
• He then draws the matching of regimes to wealth: "Monarchy therefore suits only wealthy nations; aristocracy, States of middling size and wealth; and democracy, States that are small and poor," directly classifying forms of government by the economic capacity of the country.
• He argues that in free states "everything is used for the public advantage," implying a tight and beneficent circulation between public contributions and public benefit.
• By contrast, in monarchical states "the public forces and those of individuals are affected by each other, and either increases as the other grows weak," indicating a zero-sum relation in which the strengthening of royal power drains the people.
• He adds that "instead of governing subjects to make them happy, despotism makes them wretched in order to govern them," highlighting the extreme case where the fiscal and coercive burdens are deliberately maximized to sustain rule.

Source Quotes

On the contrary, however little the people gives, if that little does not return to it, it is soon exhausted by giving continually: the State is then never rich, and the people is always a people of beggars. It follows that, the more the distance between people and government increases, the more burdensome tribute becomes: thus, in a democracy, the people bears the least charge; in an aristocracy, a greater charge; and, in monarchy, the weight becomes heaviest. Monarchy therefore suits only wealthy nations; aristocracy, States of middling size and wealth; and democracy, States that are small and poor.

It follows that, the more the distance between people and government increases, the more burdensome tribute becomes: thus, in a democracy, the people bears the least charge; in an aristocracy, a greater charge; and, in monarchy, the weight becomes heaviest. Monarchy therefore suits only wealthy nations; aristocracy, States of middling size and wealth; and democracy, States that are small and poor. In fact, the more we reflect, the more we find the difference between free and monarchical States to be this: in the former, everything is used for the public advantage; in the latter, the public forces and those of individuals are affected by each other, and either increases as the other grows weak; finally, instead of governing subjects to make them happy, despotism makes them wretched in order to govern them.

Monarchy therefore suits only wealthy nations; aristocracy, States of middling size and wealth; and democracy, States that are small and poor. In fact, the more we reflect, the more we find the difference between free and monarchical States to be this: in the former, everything is used for the public advantage; in the latter, the public forces and those of individuals are affected by each other, and either increases as the other grows weak; finally, instead of governing subjects to make them happy, despotism makes them wretched in order to govern them. We find then, in every climate, natural causes according to which the form of government which it requires can be assigned, and we can even say what sort of inhabitants it should have.

Key Concepts

• thus, in a democracy, the people bears the least charge; in an aristocracy, a greater charge; and, in monarchy, the weight becomes heaviest.
• Monarchy therefore suits only wealthy nations; aristocracy, States of middling size and wealth; and democracy, States that are small and poor.
• in the former, everything is used for the public advantage; in the latter, the public forces and those of individuals are affected by each other, and either increases as the other grows weak;
• finally, instead of governing subjects to make them happy, despotism makes them wretched in order to govern them.

Context

Transition in Book III, Chapter VIII from abstract principles about surplus and circulation to concrete comparative judgments about democracy, aristocracy, monarchy, and their fit with national wealth and size.