I have read a lot about Free Society during the past year and also dotted down some of my notes in Steemit posts. I am still a big fan of Free Society.

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You can view my previous articles on Free Society below:

A Free Society - How strong is the case?
Free Society and implementing a free economy
Free Society enables greater equality
Free Society and the rules of law and justice
Free Society - A summary of my leanings

Disclaimer: I am not a politician nor a specialist on governments. I am however an individual which loves reading when I get a chance. I might be a very boring person for reading this book, but in my defense the writer has the same surname than me so I was wondering what he wrote way back in 1762 :)

I am currently reading an old publication The social contract - Jean-Jacques Rousseau published in 1762 One of the things that I picked up from this book, is that either the guy was brilliant and could see the future, or not much has changed over the past 300 odd years.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau makes a very interesting comment in his book when he writes the following:

Liberty isn’t a fruit of every climate, so it isn’t within the reach of every people. The more you think about this principle that Montesquieu laid down, the more you feel its truth; and the more you fight it, the more evidence you find in its favour. In all the governments in the world the public person consumes without producing. Then where does it get the stuff it consumes? From the labour of its members. The public’s necessities are supplied out of the individuals’ surpluses. It follows that the civil state can survive only so long as men’s labour brings them a return greater than their needs.

The amount of this excess isn’t the same in all countries. In some it is considerable, in others middling, in yet others nil, in some even negative. This ·earned:
needed· ratio depends on the fertility of the climate, on the kind of work the land demands, on the nature of its products, on the strength of its inhabitants, on how much or little they need to consume, and on other factors that also contribute to the over-all ratio.

Democracy is not for all countries

My opinion on Free society remains the same … and that is that I am all for a free society in the event that we evolve into this type of society. I think it will be very difficult to enforce it by just deciding to implement it. I believe that the world has evolved to the point where in most cases democracy might work but not in all countries.

A few more points from the book:

On the other side ·of the ratio·, governments aren’t all of the same nature: some are less voracious than others, and the differences between them are based on this second principle, that the further the public contributions are from their source, the more burdensome they are. That burden shouldn’t be measured by the amount of money involved, but by the distance it has to travel in order to get back to those who paid it. When the circulation is fast and secure, it doesn’t matter whether the amount is small or large; the populace is always rich and finances are always in good shape. In the opposite situation, however little the people gives, if that little doesn’t get back to it then it is constantly giving, and before long it is exhausted; and in that case the state is never rich and the populace is always a beggar.

It follows that the greater the distance between people and government the more burdensome the taxes are: the people carry the lightest burden in a democracy, a heavier one in an aristocracy, and the heaviest in a monarchy. Thus, monarchy suits only wealthy nations, aristocracy suits ones of middling size and wealth, and democracy suits states that are small and poor

Some things has changed in the past 300 years

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The world population is growing very fast. There are more and more people on our planet every day. Must we not adapt these changes in the form of new government structures?

Do you believe the human race have the ability to evolve into a Free society?

References :
The social contract - Jean-Jacques Rousseau published in 1762

Happy Steeming!

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