1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:09,060 Well, now, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to modern college and this afternoon's inaugural George Russo lecture, 2 00:00:09,060 --> 00:00:14,070 which has been organised by the college in collaboration with the Voltaire Institute, 3 00:00:14,070 --> 00:00:18,660 and we're very pleased that this is the inaugural George Russo lecture, 4 00:00:18,660 --> 00:00:26,250 and many of you will know that this series has been endowed by Professor George Russo, 5 00:00:26,250 --> 00:00:30,120 who is known to many of you and well-known to members of the college. 6 00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:39,720 Just to give you some idea of how George Russo's academic career led to this distinguished high point in kicking off this lecture series, 7 00:00:39,720 --> 00:00:44,850 George began his academic career by studying at Amherst and Princeton. 8 00:00:44,850 --> 00:00:50,760 He was on a faculty member for a number of years at Harvard before spending many years at UCLA. 9 00:00:50,760 --> 00:00:58,200 And for many of us, actually, we first came to know George when he came to Melvin College as a visiting fellow in 1993, 10 00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:07,890 and he spent a year here as a visiting fellow and also gave the weekly lecture that year before moving on to the Regents Chair in English Literature, 11 00:01:07,890 --> 00:01:18,030 University of Aberdeen. My own recollection of George in that time in 1993 1994 was not just for his distinction as a cultural historian, 12 00:01:18,030 --> 00:01:22,470 but also for his extremely distinguished piano playing. 13 00:01:22,470 --> 00:01:28,290 I think the only time I've seen the antique shuffle so full for piano recitals as it was 14 00:01:28,290 --> 00:01:33,510 then was on an occasion when Busby more appeared one day to give an impromptu recital. 15 00:01:33,510 --> 00:01:42,220 But George impressed us with his own quite incredible knowledge of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, I think. 16 00:01:42,220 --> 00:01:48,420 And another thing Right after his tenure of the richest professorship in Aberdeen, 17 00:01:48,420 --> 00:01:54,630 George came back to Oxford, partly as co-director of the Institute for the History of Childhood, 18 00:01:54,630 --> 00:01:59,310 and he's had a very long and fruitful collaboration with our distinguished historians 19 00:01:59,310 --> 00:02:04,380 that than my own field in the sciences is completely different from that. 20 00:02:04,380 --> 00:02:09,400 But one of the things that is a hallmark of George's interest is just how interdisciplinary they are. 21 00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:13,890 He's it's barely adequate to describe him as a historian of the 18th century. 22 00:02:13,890 --> 00:02:23,670 His interests span cultural intellectual history, the history of childhood history of gender, and also the history of science and medicine. 23 00:02:23,670 --> 00:02:26,100 And he's written prolifically on these themes. 24 00:02:26,100 --> 00:02:33,720 So it's really a great honour to have George here for this to be the first lecture in what will become an annual series. 25 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:48,300 And I'm now going to hand over to Harvey, who will say a few words by way of specifically introducing today's distinguished speaker. 26 00:02:48,300 --> 00:02:55,920 Well, I I can only add to my gratitude to George for handling this series of lecture, 27 00:02:55,920 --> 00:03:01,830 which will be dedicated to enlightened studies from a very interdisciplinary perspective. 28 00:03:01,830 --> 00:03:10,230 And yeah, we would now like to introduce our speaker who kindly agreed to inaugurate this series. 29 00:03:10,230 --> 00:03:15,360 Done. Austin is professor of French literature and history at Stanford University in California. 30 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:27,420 Is an expert on 18th century France with very interdisciplinary interests as well, so this is quite suitable for a George Russell lecture. 31 00:03:27,420 --> 00:03:35,610 His research expertise ranges from literature, history and political thought all the way to digital humanities. 32 00:03:35,610 --> 00:03:44,520 He has just published a book about 18th century discussions of natural rights, human rights and entitled On the Spirit of Rights, 33 00:03:44,520 --> 00:03:52,440 which was the subject of a fascinating afternoon colloquium just right now here at modelling. 34 00:03:52,440 --> 00:04:02,280 And in the previous decade, he published The Terror of Natural Rights 2009 and the Enlightenment Genealogy in 2010, 35 00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:15,030 which explored how the narrative of Enlightenment of the Enlightenment emerged in French academic circles around the early 18th century. 36 00:04:15,030 --> 00:04:23,530 Gun is also the editor of six different volumes of essays, including two published by our own Voltaire Foundation here, 37 00:04:23,530 --> 00:04:31,200 the Oxford University studies in the Enlightenment series. The first one was called the Super Enlightenment 2010. 38 00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:39,270 You can't really beat that title, and there is the forthcoming volume called Networks of Enlightenment, 39 00:04:39,270 --> 00:04:48,390 which is due to be published, I think, at the end of 2019 or no, and some or maybe beginning of next year. 40 00:04:48,390 --> 00:04:57,690 So Dan's talk today, the first George Rousseau lecture at Modern College is entitled Liberty is Equality. 41 00:04:57,690 --> 00:05:12,260 Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Roman Constitutionalism Done. Well, thank you. 42 00:05:12,260 --> 00:05:20,120 Obviously, introduction, it's a great honour to have been invited to give the inaugural George lecture. 43 00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:30,200 I'm really delighted to be here, thanks also to Nicholas Cronk in the room with the Voltaire Foundation for coordinating this. 44 00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:39,210 I will be speaking about a different research note, but we'll try to emulate Professor as well, 45 00:05:39,210 --> 00:05:45,800 well-regarded along an interdisciplinary approach in my own methods, in my own remarks. 46 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:55,940 So we'll start with a touch of benevolence here, which is that this is the very first time I will be presenting this research. 47 00:05:55,940 --> 00:06:05,690 So it's very new and I will may come to regret the decision that the that make US president. 48 00:06:05,690 --> 00:06:14,660 But this is a project that was inspired by Benjamin Strongman's recent book Price to Constitutionalism, 49 00:06:14,660 --> 00:06:18,530 which goes back to mostly about Roman political thought, 50 00:06:18,530 --> 00:06:28,670 but has this insightful argument that we spent too too long thinking about classical republicanism as this sort of 51 00:06:28,670 --> 00:06:36,350 monolithic thing that exists and that really what we ought to be doing is this aggregated classical political parties, 52 00:06:36,350 --> 00:06:43,250 which is really political thought and and studying the various trajectories of specific ideas. 53 00:06:43,250 --> 00:06:51,890 And that's really what I want to do in my talk tonight, and I'll be focussing on this concept of legal equality. 54 00:06:51,890 --> 00:07:02,220 And what also spurred me to look at me with equality was this observation that it plays a very important central role even in the research, 55 00:07:02,220 --> 00:07:09,080 political thought and in particularly in the way he defines liberty. 56 00:07:09,080 --> 00:07:14,570 And what was the what. 57 00:07:14,570 --> 00:07:19,340 What made me curious about this story ends up coming up with a very different 58 00:07:19,340 --> 00:07:26,120 defence for what is often referred to as Republican or neo Roman liberty, 59 00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:32,600 a different kind of way of justifying how we can guarantee this than most current scholars working on. 60 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:35,720 You're going to have to think about it. 61 00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:45,350 Well, let me first say a word about what they think. So this is a concept that is closely associated with Quentin Skinner and so had it in particular. 62 00:07:45,350 --> 00:07:58,850 And they they identified this what Skinner called the third class of the Liberty as being more than simply the lack of interference to do something. 63 00:07:58,850 --> 00:08:05,840 So I might have the liberty to go through the street and go to the market and come back. 64 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:11,210 There would be no one interfering with with that. But their point is, look, I'm a Roman slave. 65 00:08:11,210 --> 00:08:17,240 I might have to go out and do the job for the forum, and no one is interfering with me. 66 00:08:17,240 --> 00:08:24,350 However, I am a slave, and therefore I do have a master who at any point could interfere with me. 67 00:08:24,350 --> 00:08:37,220 And so there still are not really free clusters of risk of domination, which therefore impedes my freedom. 68 00:08:37,220 --> 00:08:41,810 So it's really the key definition here is what is freedom is non domination. 69 00:08:41,810 --> 00:08:47,750 How does that differ from, let's say, as I Berlin defined just as as pure negative liberty. 70 00:08:47,750 --> 00:08:59,600 Now, Rousseau fits very nicely into this concept of Republican freedom, and the fact here observed it. 71 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:06,500 It did take some of the Anglophone writer a while to admit Rousseau into this pantheon. 72 00:09:06,500 --> 00:09:15,380 He had originally put into Rousseau with a full populist, 73 00:09:15,380 --> 00:09:24,980 and he has since come around to the position that Rousseau did keep faith with the Republican conception of freedom as non domination, 74 00:09:24,980 --> 00:09:31,520 and anything to done was also here has really produced, I think, to date, 75 00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:40,880 the most rigorous defence of Rousseau as a theorist of Republican liberty, arguing that it was for him the most important political value. 76 00:09:40,880 --> 00:09:46,130 So my goal tonight isn't to challenge his place as a theorist of Republican liberty, 77 00:09:46,130 --> 00:09:53,090 but rather to point out that he guarantees Republican liberty in a somewhat surprising way. 78 00:09:53,090 --> 00:09:57,110 So for most theorists, the Republican liberty. 79 00:09:57,110 --> 00:10:06,980 The way in which we can be guaranteed not to be subject to domination is through active participation in the legislative process. 80 00:10:06,980 --> 00:10:11,780 So here's a quote from. Forgive me before liberalism. 81 00:10:11,780 --> 00:10:17,690 But it's really if you have an equal right in the purchase of participation in the making of the law. 82 00:10:17,690 --> 00:10:22,790 That is what guarantees that you will not become dominated by another pet. 83 00:10:22,790 --> 00:10:29,630 It has a very similar view. You have to be a franchise member of the committee. 84 00:10:29,630 --> 00:10:33,530 Sorry, a voting community, and it's all about love. 85 00:10:33,530 --> 00:10:43,370 You could say that this is an argument that a few say no the you have to be yourself, the laws that you live by. 86 00:10:43,370 --> 00:10:52,160 And I'll call this the democratic solution to the problem of guaranteeing freedom is not domination. 87 00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:56,510 And what I want to show tonight is that Rousseau gives us a different solution 88 00:10:56,510 --> 00:11:02,600 to this one that does not rest on having an equal rights in the making of laws. 89 00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:13,160 And instead, he repeatedly insists that the way to guarantee freedom outside of the nation is for no one to be above the law or conversely, 90 00:11:13,160 --> 00:11:20,540 for everyone to be equally subject to the same law. And therefore, I call this the equality solution. 91 00:11:20,540 --> 00:11:28,700 Now, it's a little murky because I don't want to suggest that Rousseau overtly rejects a democratic solution. 92 00:11:28,700 --> 00:11:34,610 But I do feel that the equality solution plays a much bigger role in his political thought, 93 00:11:34,610 --> 00:11:42,500 and that there are moments when it does kind of overshadow and even replace the democratic solution. 94 00:11:42,500 --> 00:11:49,760 But generally, I am would. I would not suggest that this is a complete alternative. 95 00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:58,670 They are very they are further complementary. What I will will try to do, though, is show that this is an idea that does not come out of nowhere, 96 00:11:58,670 --> 00:12:07,520 but actually that he is getting this idea from rather than political theorist Louis Cicero particular. 97 00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:17,540 And and that the way it is perhaps most helpful to think about Rousseau through this lens, wrote Constitutional. 98 00:12:17,540 --> 00:12:24,830 And others like John McCormick involved in the arena have also been pushing this line of argument. 99 00:12:24,830 --> 00:12:29,750 So I'm going to start with one of the Russo's sort of more minor works in political thought. 100 00:12:29,750 --> 00:12:33,260 The dedication to the second discourse, 101 00:12:33,260 --> 00:12:43,670 which many have quipped is actually better suited as a dedication for the project and the idea of these days later. 102 00:12:43,670 --> 00:12:55,400 So I start off this. This tax is dedicated to the Republican leader, and you started off by having his bail hearing argument say, Well, 103 00:12:55,400 --> 00:13:01,610 if I were to choose where I want to live in order to be free in conditions I am to, 104 00:13:01,610 --> 00:13:08,990 one of the conditions is indeed that he would live in a democratic government that is well tempered. 105 00:13:08,990 --> 00:13:15,410 And I think that's a really key point here of what does it mean to have a well tempered democratic government? 106 00:13:15,410 --> 00:13:21,980 I'll get back to that a bit later. But the point is it's not just a pure democratic government. 107 00:13:21,980 --> 00:13:29,060 So that's the first point. If you want to live in a free state, there does have to be this well tempered democratic government. 108 00:13:29,060 --> 00:13:36,770 But when it comes to defining the freedom, you moved away from this democratic solution instead. 109 00:13:36,770 --> 00:13:41,090 You're right, I would have chosen to live and die free that day. 110 00:13:41,090 --> 00:13:48,590 So subject to the laws that neither I nor anyone else could throw off their horrible yoke. 111 00:13:48,590 --> 00:13:56,990 And what's noticeable about this claim is that he's not saying anything about the source of the laws doesn't say who gets to make the laws. 112 00:13:56,990 --> 00:14:01,460 He's only saying something about who is subject to the rules. 113 00:14:01,460 --> 00:14:09,860 And you could argue that while the evidence you hear about why certain laws were said, you wanted a democratic government, 114 00:14:09,860 --> 00:14:18,860 but I don't believe that is sufficient cause, and I think we need to take seriously this idea that there are two separate requirements for freedom. 115 00:14:18,860 --> 00:14:28,280 One is that there's some kind of, well, no democracy, but also a legal regime where no one is above the law. 116 00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:35,520 And later on in the in the dedication, it's very clear that mere democracy is insufficient. 117 00:14:35,520 --> 00:14:42,950 Since he writes, I would not allow anyone to see this claim that they were above the law for, 118 00:14:42,950 --> 00:14:51,390 regardless of whether it's constitution and one person who is not subject to the law and everyone else is at their mercy. 119 00:14:51,390 --> 00:14:54,650 So there are two important ideas in the idea here. 120 00:14:54,650 --> 00:15:02,630 The first is that populists are using these here because it's regardless of the piece at the Constitution. 121 00:15:02,630 --> 00:15:09,220 So even in a democracy, there could be individuals who are above the law and indeed many of our own. 122 00:15:09,220 --> 00:15:18,420 And today, with legal impunity for a certain chief executives who cannot in fact be indicted, 123 00:15:18,420 --> 00:15:24,210 according to certain Justice Department, so he has a point. 124 00:15:24,210 --> 00:15:29,790 But I also want to draw attention to this phrase, perhaps in the later Presidio, 125 00:15:29,790 --> 00:15:36,600 who does too good a lot because I think this very clearly echoes an important passage 126 00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:42,930 in the room and digest which he would have known because it's super famous passage. 127 00:15:42,930 --> 00:15:48,210 This concept that the prince is not bound by the laws. 128 00:15:48,210 --> 00:15:55,200 This was central to early modern constitutional thinking, especially monarchic thinking, 129 00:15:55,200 --> 00:16:01,770 because the idea was, well, how could the king change the law if you found the body? 130 00:16:01,770 --> 00:16:10,260 So you mean, and it doesn't stop the fact that you need someone who is not bound by the law so that they can be changed where necessary? 131 00:16:10,260 --> 00:16:16,230 There was a more sort of absolutist version of that argument, which you find, say in Filmer, 132 00:16:16,230 --> 00:16:27,570 where the king is not only not bound by laws but is completely free to do whatever whatever he wants to do, what he please. 133 00:16:27,570 --> 00:16:37,320 This, too, is sort of an interpretation of a passage in that address that whatever pleases the press has the force of the law. 134 00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:41,550 But I think what's what's important here is that Rousseau is taking. 135 00:16:41,550 --> 00:16:49,830 So of course, this comes from the digest. Imperial codification of Roman law done under Justinian and Rousseau is to say, Well, 136 00:16:49,830 --> 00:16:56,310 if you want a republic, you have to reverse this imperial concept and nobody can be above the law. 137 00:16:56,310 --> 00:17:04,140 Instead, you need to have legal equality. So that's the first point. 138 00:17:04,140 --> 00:17:09,120 But moreover, it's very interesting how throughout the rededication, 139 00:17:09,120 --> 00:17:19,590 Rousseau repeatedly conceptualised as the very in a way that is distinct from a colony or democratic legislation. 140 00:17:19,590 --> 00:17:23,640 And this is a really important passage. Sorry for that long rule. 141 00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:30,330 This is the longest climb ever seen. I'll just read you a translation. If your French is rusty. 142 00:17:30,330 --> 00:17:32,460 So it goes. Even the Roman people. 143 00:17:32,460 --> 00:17:41,040 That model of all free peoples was not prepared to govern itself after overthrowing the targets to the last days of Rome. 144 00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:52,500 At first, they were no longer needed to build the sagacity so that little by little period customers did really salutary their liberty, their souls. 145 00:17:52,500 --> 00:17:59,790 They by read more austerity that made them into the most respectable of peoples. 146 00:17:59,790 --> 00:18:09,090 Now what's striking here is that you're saying that they were already breathing the salutary air of liberty before they would govern themselves. 147 00:18:09,090 --> 00:18:15,900 And this is, of course, under a Republican, but they are not living apart because they are. 148 00:18:15,900 --> 00:18:26,610 These are others. So this already gives us something very important in the Roman law, namely one more room in political file. 149 00:18:26,610 --> 00:18:35,820 That freedom is less defined in terms of participation in law making than it is in the universal obedience to the law. 150 00:18:35,820 --> 00:18:48,120 And we'll see more examples of that later. And I think this is important because it changes how we define freedom in a republic and 151 00:18:48,120 --> 00:18:54,780 means that more people can be considered free even if they are not necessarily in French. 152 00:18:54,780 --> 00:19:09,180 So another example comes from also from the dedication concerns women to Rousseau has this interesting passage in the occasion where he refers to the 153 00:19:09,180 --> 00:19:23,310 situation so giving value or political will to the female citizens of Geneva and says that they are the guarantors of political liberty in Geneva. 154 00:19:23,310 --> 00:19:31,680 It is. So that actually comes a little bit earlier. I didn't give you that quote here, he explains why they guarantee liberty. 155 00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:36,360 And it is because they preserve by their loving, innocent rule, 156 00:19:36,360 --> 00:19:44,400 as well as by their inspiration, a love of the laws in the sea and harmony for all citizens. 157 00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:51,390 This is a simple thing guaranteed the free flow of the law is, I think, 158 00:19:51,390 --> 00:20:02,580 borrowed from Morticia and the idea too small the opening of the spirit of the laws where this is how he defines political virtue. 159 00:20:02,580 --> 00:20:08,740 That political virtue is probably you accept love laws of the country, but it's quite fascinating. 160 00:20:08,740 --> 00:20:18,940 The results apply if the winner in the second discourse and and not dispute had in fact also claimed that in republics, 161 00:20:18,940 --> 00:20:26,320 women are free according to the laws of our laws, allow great either morals, keep them captive. 162 00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:31,750 But I think that this is there's something interesting here in how these authors 163 00:20:31,750 --> 00:20:36,910 consider that women can be free even if they are not participating in voting. 164 00:20:36,910 --> 00:20:41,270 And I did find a passage in Libya that you have a similar after. 165 00:20:41,270 --> 00:20:48,910 This is where Coriolanus, his mother, comes to berate him for making war on his own country and says, 166 00:20:48,910 --> 00:20:54,100 You know, if I if I had not given birth to you, I would have died. Libra, you were a patriot. 167 00:20:54,100 --> 00:21:01,420 I would have died free in a free land. So it definitely there seems to be a conception of liberty that is available 168 00:21:01,420 --> 00:21:07,720 to women who clearly are not able to participate in the legislative process. 169 00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:14,110 And I think Russo is picking up on that here now. 170 00:21:14,110 --> 00:21:22,750 It could be objective and you it is operating kind of for a week and that maybe the dissident Republican liberty, after all, 171 00:21:22,750 --> 00:21:28,000 maybe this is closer to Hobbs critique of Republican Liberty, 172 00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:37,270 but we're Hobbs had argued that freedom is the same whether you're in a monarchy or we're part of the government. 173 00:21:37,270 --> 00:21:44,620 I think it is important to remember that this is only possible in certain kinds of states that only in these well-tempered democracies. 174 00:21:44,620 --> 00:21:49,840 So it's definitely not the Hobbesian position that anyone who follows the law. 175 00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:53,560 It has the same degree of freedom. 176 00:21:53,560 --> 00:22:06,040 So I want next to say a few words about where this idea comes from and and why it might play such an important role in Russia's thinking. 177 00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:11,770 And this is what takes me back to the Roman sources for this. 178 00:22:11,770 --> 00:22:21,370 So when Sarah Palin put forward his ideas about the past year or so, he had the other way around. 179 00:22:21,370 --> 00:22:27,090 Oh yeah, Skinner, like any other Republican that they do. 180 00:22:27,090 --> 00:22:37,220 Traces back to certain passages in especially the digestive definition of a free man played at the centre of the closed passage. 181 00:22:37,220 --> 00:22:45,470 Really? But they're really focuses on the recovery of this in the early modern times, mostly beginning with Machiavelli. 182 00:22:45,470 --> 00:22:53,110 Now, more recently, classicists have gone back to Roman sources and looked for the original links as well. 183 00:22:53,110 --> 00:23:04,760 Maybe, maybe this was not just new, and maybe this is really how the Romans thought about it as well, sort of balancing arena of the public. 184 00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:12,910 I said yes. In fact, Roman politicians quote shared the idea of liberty as a state characterised by the absence of a condition of domination, 185 00:23:12,910 --> 00:23:26,940 the very much in dialogue with with Skinner and Pettit and Judge Atkins also in his in his book on Roman Fort Architecture The Romans. 186 00:23:26,940 --> 00:23:31,180 Liberty is fundamentally understood the absence of slavery. 187 00:23:31,180 --> 00:23:41,290 But at this point, something else, which is that there was also this tight connexion to equality in the Roman reflections on liberty. 188 00:23:41,290 --> 00:23:47,920 So he reminded us about this famous passage, which which many refer to. 189 00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:57,640 This is after the twins are exposed to the beginning of the early Roman Republic and the there is a 190 00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:08,140 conspiracy that occurs with some of the young patrician to rise to the target as friends of the princes. 191 00:24:08,140 --> 00:24:12,940 And this is Libby who is voicing their complaints, 192 00:24:12,940 --> 00:24:19,660 and the complaint is that all are now equal before the law and the law allows 193 00:24:19,660 --> 00:24:25,330 actually right here and not just read the sword of the law is the thing that can, 194 00:24:25,330 --> 00:24:31,300 and you cannot catch the ear of the law like you could with the king. 195 00:24:31,300 --> 00:24:42,170 So here again, freedom is not indexed to autonomy, but rather to this equality, having all laws be the same for everyone. 196 00:24:42,170 --> 00:24:48,730 So the problem isn't that they are not interested in making the law, but they have to follow the same Panopto. 197 00:24:48,730 --> 00:24:58,750 Everybody else is now in the monarchy, and this is a theme that comes back repeatedly in Libya's history. 198 00:24:58,750 --> 00:25:02,560 So, for instance, during the second secession of the Pleiades, 199 00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:09,370 the castle of the various operations are set the committees, the Pleiades, not the secret. 200 00:25:09,370 --> 00:25:15,910 Seven years ago. And their argument is that, well, rather than seeking retribution, killing them, 201 00:25:15,910 --> 00:25:23,050 you should just enjoy living in a state under equal laws, and that is enough for for liberty. 202 00:25:23,050 --> 00:25:32,360 One of these two seven years appears by this crisis who tried to force Virginia to marry him. 203 00:25:32,360 --> 00:25:40,490 He's confronted in the forum and his answer is, Well, look, I resigned the council in order to give you equal love for all. 204 00:25:40,490 --> 00:25:50,320 And actually, I offended the patricians. And then, you know, just give one more example from a much later in the history. 205 00:25:50,320 --> 00:26:01,270 This is where you are, and this is a huge state divide and rule whether we should teach the hero of the second even worse. 206 00:26:01,270 --> 00:26:08,600 And so they well, you know, it is good in a republic that even the most powerful people should have to defend themselves. 207 00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:15,720 And this is this inequality of freedom that comes back. 208 00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:26,730 So in almost all of these examples, we see this similar trend, which is that liberty is really about forcing the powerful to obey the law. 209 00:26:26,730 --> 00:26:37,470 And I think that's a really fundamental idea which we kind of lost track of in a lot of the histories of non domination. 210 00:26:37,470 --> 00:26:42,150 Even Judge Atkins ends up concluding that in Leviticus, 211 00:26:42,150 --> 00:26:52,530 the quote anyone who attacks equal liberty generally means equality before the law, rather than the people put it over the division. 212 00:26:52,530 --> 00:27:00,390 And Cicero has pretty much the same idea. He also pairs liberties with a turn of events can tough. 213 00:27:00,390 --> 00:27:06,330 He writes that inequality is the most essential property of justice and the features, 214 00:27:06,330 --> 00:27:14,250 and it is what defines life for a free people having equal rights before laws. 215 00:27:14,250 --> 00:27:18,870 This is also a focus of the recovery that obviously we should remember. 216 00:27:18,870 --> 00:27:27,300 So far, it's only the former rediscovered low quality fall in the 19th century. 217 00:27:27,300 --> 00:27:34,650 But again, Scipio, who Cicero, its mouthpiece in this defines liberty again in terms of equality, 218 00:27:34,650 --> 00:27:41,400 if it is not the same for all Acra est, it is not liberty. 219 00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:49,500 And I want to hear her point on what kind of equality are we talking about because of this is very good. 220 00:27:49,500 --> 00:27:54,000 This is not social inequality. There is nothing about material equality. 221 00:27:54,000 --> 00:28:04,290 In fact, Scipio even writes that the problem with democracies is that they create inequality that is itself inequitable. 222 00:28:04,290 --> 00:28:13,260 And so and this is not really political in the sense of we would understand there is this interesting middle ground in 223 00:28:13,260 --> 00:28:22,770 which I think it kind of comes close to Russo's idea of a well-tempered democracy where Cicero has this also famous line, 224 00:28:22,770 --> 00:28:26,730 which actually does get picked up in the guts of Rousseau, probably didn't know it, 225 00:28:26,730 --> 00:28:35,010 that the rest of the car should be addressed properly, that the Republic should be the property of the people. 226 00:28:35,010 --> 00:28:37,860 And it doesn't mean that in a democracy, the rule that out. 227 00:28:37,860 --> 00:28:46,890 But in some way, the people still have to have a kind of sovereignty so that it can remain a free state. 228 00:28:46,890 --> 00:29:01,060 But it is only in the Free State that to skip this, that we will have the legal right and the equality of legal rights will be found. 229 00:29:01,060 --> 00:29:12,150 You got one last side on this. You got the idea. But but he's constantly correcting freedom that the equality of equal rights. 230 00:29:12,150 --> 00:29:22,020 So for both movie and Cicero, the greatest threat to a republic seems not so much to come from a new king, but from. 231 00:29:22,020 --> 00:29:33,570 Well, there are two great threats to revolve. One of them can come from the individual powerful ubermensch who try to be a part of the monarchy. 232 00:29:33,570 --> 00:29:42,270 But there is legal representation, which comes from the powerful, no longer being yoked to the laws. 233 00:29:42,270 --> 00:29:50,340 And I think that this is a I've been teaching a class on the floor of the Republic for the future, 234 00:29:50,340 --> 00:29:55,440 and it's exciting how much of foreign key politics is about this problem and what 235 00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,760 to do with these damn elite families and just go about doing whatever they want. 236 00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:05,850 Berkeley people are mad with impunity. And so it seems like this is sort of a specific challenge. 237 00:30:05,850 --> 00:30:09,870 The challenge that they're syndicates throws down the Socrates of the Republic. 238 00:30:09,870 --> 00:30:23,850 Well, why is it my right is haunting all of these worries about about liberty and its connexion to inequality? 239 00:30:23,850 --> 00:30:33,270 So the Romans have two ways of dealing with how do you create a sea that would retain equal rights for all? 240 00:30:33,270 --> 00:30:39,360 They did have some rights provisions to use our contemporary language that would guarantee 241 00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:44,820 that everybody had the same equal rights to the most famous images of the year, 242 00:30:44,820 --> 00:30:52,370 which was the right to appeal that something is passed by and any official who could appeal it to a popular tribunal. 243 00:30:52,370 --> 00:30:57,300 And this is what actually makes Cicero in trouble when he's console. 244 00:30:57,300 --> 00:31:02,340 But they also have legal provisions that prevented new laws from introducing inequalities, 245 00:31:02,340 --> 00:31:09,540 the most famous being the law that's in the twelve tables that prevents bills of attainder. 246 00:31:09,540 --> 00:31:14,690 So privilege I was probably involved in was a law that targeted a specific. 247 00:31:14,690 --> 00:31:20,270 The individual which were not allowed, according to the law. 248 00:31:20,270 --> 00:31:25,430 So the basic idea here is that the laws are to the General Hospital, 249 00:31:25,430 --> 00:31:36,140 and I will use that to the Segway back to reserve this time to the social contract where we will find that same idea. 250 00:31:36,140 --> 00:31:45,170 So I do think that it's in the social contract that Russo works out many of the more theoretical problems with this idea of like, 251 00:31:45,170 --> 00:31:55,400 how can you really guarantee free of you and your father? And how can you do that without also relying on for democratic rule? 252 00:31:55,400 --> 00:32:00,530 And Russo also adds this additional question, which is, I think, 253 00:32:00,530 --> 00:32:05,780 at the heart of the social contract, how do we get the idea of liberty in the first place? 254 00:32:05,780 --> 00:32:09,040 Why should we? Why should we want these equal rights? 255 00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:18,890 Where does that come from? And then finally, this issue of how can you do it with our full democracy? 256 00:32:18,890 --> 00:32:25,250 How is it possible to maintain Republican liberty, if not everybody is voting? 257 00:32:25,250 --> 00:32:32,300 So those are the the three questions that I will be looking at in the social contract. 258 00:32:32,300 --> 00:32:43,890 So. When Russia thinks about liberty, he does so in a kind of anthropological perspective of, 259 00:32:43,890 --> 00:32:52,080 well, how do we if we want to become free, how do we first even discover the law? 260 00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:58,410 If you believe that freedom is dependent on equal rights in us, follow existing laws. 261 00:32:58,410 --> 00:33:05,490 That does mean that you have to have an understanding of the law before you. 262 00:33:05,490 --> 00:33:10,020 This was a problem that, again, you already find in Roman law. 263 00:33:10,020 --> 00:33:20,250 This idea that the law, how do you make the law something that everybody feels they should obey and the right to be a wonderful the new law? 264 00:33:20,250 --> 00:33:29,230 His story has drawn a very interesting parallel between this concern and roadmap to what recovery period is a little period. 265 00:33:29,230 --> 00:33:37,740 So where we are committed to follow the law on what grounds that it needs the normative sense. 266 00:33:37,740 --> 00:33:45,060 And he points in particular to Hans Kelson and Hermann Kontorovich, who I don't think was related to Ernst. 267 00:33:45,060 --> 00:33:51,810 And it's interesting to compare Rizzo's answer to these 20th century jurists, 268 00:33:51,810 --> 00:34:00,270 because both counsel and conformists agree that you can only grow a little more activity outside of the legal system. 269 00:34:00,270 --> 00:34:12,180 So President Bush, in his first year of Rule of Law, found a law that all other laws will revert back to and contribute. 270 00:34:12,180 --> 00:34:21,720 Ultimately, the law depends on some kind of external naturalistic moral principle in order to derive its authority. 271 00:34:21,720 --> 00:34:31,410 Rousseau develops this really fascinating, rational argument that manages the ground legal normative within the law itself, 272 00:34:31,410 --> 00:34:37,890 and he does it on the basis of the argument that it comes from the equality of all before the law. 273 00:34:37,890 --> 00:34:47,650 So I'm going to unpack all of that for you now. So Rousseau is in agreement with with us that we don't really have just that. 274 00:34:47,650 --> 00:34:58,410 They do look like justice in the state of nature and and therefore he's rejecting the available argument of the law in law, 275 00:34:58,410 --> 00:35:06,750 which is that you are actually making a kind of a judicial overall as as a contract where you have natural law, 276 00:35:06,750 --> 00:35:12,300 but written on the subject because Hobbes will say that once you enter into civil society and you have a Leviathan, 277 00:35:12,300 --> 00:35:19,020 that in fact natural law does apply and can become a source of Norman tivity. 278 00:35:19,020 --> 00:35:25,440 Whereas for Rousseau, he almost thought was really in the middle of this and say, 279 00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:32,910 you have no legal relativity to the lawfulness of the law or I was in the same boat as a blue state. 280 00:35:32,910 --> 00:35:42,390 And then they happened to join, and they're made possible by this transformative experience of legal equality. 281 00:35:42,390 --> 00:35:49,770 Indeed, it is the equal terms of the social contract that are what make this all begin. 282 00:35:49,770 --> 00:35:55,380 It's everybody gives themselves entirely. The condition is equal for all. 283 00:35:55,380 --> 00:36:00,210 That is how we enter into a society that is status created. 284 00:36:00,210 --> 00:36:08,250 And this is also our law and our law and liberty come about. 285 00:36:08,250 --> 00:36:18,300 And it's the very moment that life with Cicero is only with the equality task of equality and rights that we can become a free people. 286 00:36:18,300 --> 00:36:27,810 And he says so as much here or all systems must enjoy such an equality that they all enjoy the same rights. 287 00:36:27,810 --> 00:36:32,460 So it's in this recognition that by joining a social contract, 288 00:36:32,460 --> 00:36:41,650 we are all doing it on equal terms and we will therefore all have the same rights that justice and law comes up for. 289 00:36:41,650 --> 00:36:53,130 The very foundation of your activity comes from the fact that we are agreeing to this sort of shared system of equal rights. 290 00:36:53,130 --> 00:36:58,080 So it is the equality of rights and the notion of justice that is produced. 291 00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:06,420 So there was no idea of justice until we experienced this idea that, well, it's going to be the same for all. 292 00:37:06,420 --> 00:37:16,830 So equality is this structural feature that gives the law its force and makes it something we ought to obey in the first place. 293 00:37:16,830 --> 00:37:24,540 And it's quite fascinating how there's nothing to be optimistic about, you know, the results are very. 294 00:37:24,540 --> 00:37:34,820 But he's not relying even on his own arguments about the natural principles that we have to say in nature and for self-preservation. 295 00:37:34,820 --> 00:37:43,520 Or pity? This is a completely different way of going about the foundation of a legal norm activity. 296 00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:50,720 You could even say legal equality. I should mention this is also how we acquire freedom. 297 00:37:50,720 --> 00:38:00,770 It's only once we have recognised this law that we all share that we can then be free because it's only a piece of the law that gives us through it. 298 00:38:00,770 --> 00:38:07,100 So we go. The party played a huge role in this is supporting the creation of the state, 299 00:38:07,100 --> 00:38:13,460 the concept of lawfulness in itself and the source of liberty all at once. 300 00:38:13,460 --> 00:38:19,710 So I think this is the beginning of understanding why it's so important for research and why it can, 301 00:38:19,710 --> 00:38:27,650 you know, replace or at least nudge over democratic legislation. 302 00:38:27,650 --> 00:38:36,800 Now this does raise a question of where these laws come from and what is this law, even if we're all chipping in equal? 303 00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:40,010 So many scholars will read this. 304 00:38:40,010 --> 00:38:50,120 This line that the law that we have given ourselves as saying last time you give yourself the laws and therefore you are being autonomous. 305 00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:55,250 But I think there's an important difference here between making the laws for ourselves 306 00:38:55,250 --> 00:39:00,680 and simply choosing to accept laws that might come from a completely different source. 307 00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:06,720 And we know that in the case of the first laws that created a social they created, 308 00:39:06,720 --> 00:39:10,130 little say, you know, we come from somewhere else because there's a culture. 309 00:39:10,130 --> 00:39:16,610 They come from the Legislature and we are therefore not making the laws for ourselves. 310 00:39:16,610 --> 00:39:25,190 And indeed, it would be in the rules of logic impossible for us to give ourselves our first laws because we don't yet have the concept of law. 311 00:39:25,190 --> 00:39:32,070 We only get it by pooling all of our [INAUDIBLE] together, equally accepting the law at the same time. 312 00:39:32,070 --> 00:39:36,920 And I think that's the meaning of that famous line, which is God's laws, 313 00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:41,960 because he kind of does have that the chicken and egg problem that it solves by 314 00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:52,280 this sort of divine legislator figure who was able to see the importance of logic. 315 00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:57,320 So I want to get to sort of, I think, the most contentious point in a minute, 316 00:39:57,320 --> 00:40:05,540 which is what happens afterwards once you enter into political society and what happens to the future legislative process. 317 00:40:05,540 --> 00:40:11,060 But I just want to make two points about why I think it is. 318 00:40:11,060 --> 00:40:21,740 It would be surprising if Russo made legislation or the participation in legislation to be central to the defence of Liberty. 319 00:40:21,740 --> 00:40:28,760 The first is that instead of emphasising the law and the Equal Rights Commission and Law Centre law, 320 00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:39,800 instead of emphasising that as a senator to to be a free, he instead puts massive limits on what what counts as good law. 321 00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:43,630 And so he's constricted rather than reinforcing law. 322 00:40:43,630 --> 00:40:52,700 Maybe we see this in particular in how he thinks about what makes a law valid. 323 00:40:52,700 --> 00:41:04,490 So when he talks about the general will and how it must recognise what our good laws, we see that if the law is no longer general, 324 00:41:04,490 --> 00:41:13,400 then it is actually nullifying the very principle that had created lawfulness in the beginning. 325 00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:21,290 And that's a thought. So we're losing the force of the law of if its object does not matter to everyone. 326 00:41:21,290 --> 00:41:24,950 The law cannot have a particularity or an individual. 327 00:41:24,950 --> 00:41:29,210 So you are back to the Roman precept against your religion. 328 00:41:29,210 --> 00:41:39,020 If the law is targeting particular people, then that becomes one of the greatest sources of the greatest risk to the public. 329 00:41:39,020 --> 00:41:41,760 And again, how would you remedy that? 330 00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:51,360 Well, you always go back towards equality so that not your particular will tend naturally towards preferences and the general will towards equality. 331 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:59,870 So it remains the sort of central concept in how to ensure that the laws are not 332 00:41:59,870 --> 00:42:08,300 destroying the freedom that that are only possible if we have legal equality. 333 00:42:08,300 --> 00:42:15,950 So this leads me to my third and sort of final point about liberty, equality in lawmaking and the social contract. 334 00:42:15,950 --> 00:42:24,560 And I think it is the most contentious one. So we now have a political state. 335 00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:29,540 We gain the knowledge of what laws we have. 336 00:42:29,540 --> 00:42:34,190 People write as well as us who goes to the. 337 00:42:34,190 --> 00:42:43,610 What could it be that, yeah, that's sort of the origin story in which Russo has legal equality to do all of this magical stuff. 338 00:42:43,610 --> 00:42:50,990 But then if the movie for freedom actually becomes related to our access, 339 00:42:50,990 --> 00:42:58,940 it is in our and we as sovereign clarity declaring the law every, every so often. 340 00:42:58,940 --> 00:43:11,990 So there are two, at least two, possibly more two general camps on how to be Russo on the law making once the process has already begun. 341 00:43:11,990 --> 00:43:17,660 So some and I put Joshua Cohen and I think anyone is in this camp, but she can. 342 00:43:17,660 --> 00:43:25,940 She can tell me if I'm wrong. Reid Russo is defending really the democratic solution to this, that if you want to be free, 343 00:43:25,940 --> 00:43:32,630 then the people have to actively participate in making laws for themselves. 344 00:43:32,630 --> 00:43:38,630 The other half, which include college through freelance operators in Nigeria. 345 00:43:38,630 --> 00:43:42,950 Also read more for this Rover Lands and say well, 346 00:43:42,950 --> 00:43:50,930 if the legislative process and the social contract looks a lot like the legislative process that the were true, it wasn't a Democrat. 347 00:43:50,930 --> 00:43:59,030 So there were there were votes and the people had a role to play, but it wasn't anything like we would think of in terms of law making. 348 00:43:59,030 --> 00:44:07,820 The people were excluded from law lawmaking it. So I am going to throw my chips in with with that with that camp, 349 00:44:07,820 --> 00:44:14,490 although I'm not going to draw so much on these parallels between the Roman legislative process. 350 00:44:14,490 --> 00:44:17,900 And so it's a good lesson. Very well done. 351 00:44:17,900 --> 00:44:27,230 But I don't think I want to sort of gather internal evidence from Russo's own staff about why I don't think it makes sense to 352 00:44:27,230 --> 00:44:40,940 look to good for the legislative powers of citizens as a very free up and said that it is more about this legal equality. 353 00:44:40,940 --> 00:44:51,590 So what is this internal evidence? But we just saw that for Russo, the goal of lawmaking is to always tend towards equality in general. 354 00:44:51,590 --> 00:45:02,720 So I think that there is room there for, say, if you want that, but you cannot just have a small group of petitions, decide the law. 355 00:45:02,720 --> 00:45:09,470 And here I would agree with the Democratic camp. There's a kind of a critical mass question that you need to. 356 00:45:09,470 --> 00:45:13,760 The thing has to be the property of the people. It has to be addressed properly. 357 00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:20,690 Otherwise, it's no longer a free state. But do you need all this? 358 00:45:20,690 --> 00:45:29,990 Do you need every all the people to be participating in the legislative process for all the people to be free now? 359 00:45:29,990 --> 00:45:34,280 It's interesting how in Russo, every time you add somebody else going to vote, 360 00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:38,990 you're kind of inserting more problems because each of us in order to vote, 361 00:45:38,990 --> 00:45:48,080 we have to raise all the leverage distinguish between, you know, a particular role as I think our senior citizens are here. 362 00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:59,240 So I'm going to vote this one. And then the vote is just to confirm that I made a minimal tabulation of the popular vote. 363 00:45:59,240 --> 00:46:02,990 But every time you ask somebody else, there's one more person wakes you up the some, 364 00:46:02,990 --> 00:46:07,250 which, you know, ultimately we're all supposed to see that they exist. 365 00:46:07,250 --> 00:46:18,710 And so it's not a kind of Madisonian or, you know, modern democratic idea that, well, you need to we the red states and forces that are wrong. 366 00:46:18,710 --> 00:46:22,100 It's a much more Cicerone interview, really, 367 00:46:22,100 --> 00:46:31,940 that you know you're supposed to always be carrying for the good of the entire rest public and not just for one particular interest. 368 00:46:31,940 --> 00:46:41,360 So that's one reason why, on its own terms, you should be able to do this, even if not everybody is actively participating in the vote. 369 00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,390 You should be able to preserve liberty that way. 370 00:46:44,390 --> 00:46:52,350 And by extension, maybe you're a woman and you don't have the right to vote anyway in this, but you could feel proud of yourself. 371 00:46:52,350 --> 00:46:58,640 Three. I should say I'm not endorsing this. You reconstruct his argument, 372 00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:09,830 but let me give a few rapid fire reasons why I think race does not make sense of the five trillion in reserves for energy policy. 373 00:47:09,830 --> 00:47:10,670 So first of all, 374 00:47:10,670 --> 00:47:20,300 there is the argument that actually you're not supposed to believe in the idea of this state of a well govern state need very few rules. 375 00:47:20,300 --> 00:47:24,080 And in a way, if you start to make laws, that's a really bad sign. 376 00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:29,450 It's a sign that you're starting to head more and more towards corruption. 377 00:47:29,450 --> 00:47:34,030 But this doesn't mean that law making could be a really minor feature. 378 00:47:34,030 --> 00:47:40,210 In your life as a citizen, because it is two years of passing you off, 379 00:47:40,210 --> 00:47:47,560 so it's hard to know how you become a lawmaker so central to the definition of liberty. 380 00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:52,510 Moreover, when you do make the law, it's a kind of objective thing. 381 00:47:52,510 --> 00:47:57,460 The first person who proposed the laws only says what everybody else already felt. 382 00:47:57,460 --> 00:48:00,080 The result is trivial warmed up. 383 00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:09,610 And of course, we need to realise after the fight office that we are subversive is always operating on the basis of consensus, 384 00:48:09,610 --> 00:48:19,120 which also makes it seem like in a modern way of defending liberty. Now this is, I think, the more we're getting to the more contentious part, 385 00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:24,670 which is that the citizens are really kept at arm's distance from the legislative process. 386 00:48:24,670 --> 00:48:29,040 So as I just mentioned, they don't do things right. 387 00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:32,530 He is to have them silently enter into a hall like this. 388 00:48:32,530 --> 00:48:41,860 There is a motion on the floor and the of the national conversation in the business is to think that all factions are created. 389 00:48:41,860 --> 00:48:52,840 So again, that's a you know, it's bizarre to think that your freedom is in this law making when you're not even really saying anything about it. 390 00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:58,510 But and oh, and then get better, which is that sometimes laws just happen. 391 00:48:58,510 --> 00:49:09,770 So if if your government passes a decree that the orders of the government chiefs, you know, sometimes they maybe they are a general rule. 392 00:49:09,770 --> 00:49:15,940 And as long as there's the free sovereign doesn't oppose them, then it's become the law. 393 00:49:15,940 --> 00:49:22,780 So you're not necessarily even making or partaking in the legislative process. 394 00:49:22,780 --> 00:49:27,970 In Russo's model. And then finally, there's I think, the biggest point, 395 00:49:27,970 --> 00:49:38,800 which is probably the most of which is that we've still got say in this sort of abbreviated way that, you know, I would have lots of more time. 396 00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:46,540 I had more reflections that the simple right to vote on the simple right to vote in every act of sovereignty, 397 00:49:46,540 --> 00:49:51,310 and no one can take away this right from citizens. But then here's the caveat. 398 00:49:51,310 --> 00:49:56,890 But I also have something to say on the right to give your opinion, to propose legislation, 399 00:49:56,890 --> 00:50:05,260 to divide and to discuss, and the government should always keep that only to its members. 400 00:50:05,260 --> 00:50:10,240 So basically, and this is a very, you know, thinking about it, 401 00:50:10,240 --> 00:50:19,780 only officials should have the right to propose legislation and the people just have the right to consult. 402 00:50:19,780 --> 00:50:24,820 But it's a very limited understanding of law making. 403 00:50:24,820 --> 00:50:30,910 And he does end by saying, you know, this is an important topic that I would have to discuss elsewhere. 404 00:50:30,910 --> 00:50:39,100 I'm not aware of another treaty where he does that. But I will note that already in the dedication with which I served, he made the same idea. 405 00:50:39,100 --> 00:50:48,460 He made the same point. I would have liked that to prevent a sort of self-interested projects that are poorly conceived of. 406 00:50:48,460 --> 00:50:55,780 Various recent referenda come to mind and dangerous the dangerous innovations that lost the Athenians. 407 00:50:55,780 --> 00:51:02,410 Each citizen would not have the power to propose new laws as they wished. 408 00:51:02,410 --> 00:51:06,700 I'll leave that there. All right. So I have a very short conclusion. 409 00:51:06,700 --> 00:51:18,580 And it is sort of about why I think this is important beyond the various arguments amongst research scholars. 410 00:51:18,580 --> 00:51:26,580 My hope in excavating the sort of equality solution to the problem of guaranteeing that we resolve 411 00:51:26,580 --> 00:51:33,190 issue issues that I think it can help us sort of rethink how our history of the literally. 412 00:51:33,190 --> 00:51:41,530 Mostly, we think of this as a story of human, archaic and Republican ideologies that really focus on things like despotism, 413 00:51:41,530 --> 00:51:45,460 Republican exclusive ism and political slavery. 414 00:51:45,460 --> 00:51:53,260 But to get back to something I mentioned earlier, your monarchy, you've got the elite right, the Republicans. 415 00:51:53,260 --> 00:52:03,760 And for many republics, whether it was the Roman Republic or the foreign to the Republic or, frankly, the Republic of Cuba at the time, 416 00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:16,060 so was really the very first university challenge, one of the only from the decline in Florence or the patrician family in Geneva. 417 00:52:16,060 --> 00:52:25,720 And this aristocratic oligarchy of danger tends to present itself very differently than the monarchy. 418 00:52:25,720 --> 00:52:34,190 It tends to be that these power military families don't want to obey the same laws. 419 00:52:34,190 --> 00:52:45,230 And to defend yourself against the threat of these elites and powerful families, it's not an issue of passing the laws. 420 00:52:45,230 --> 00:52:51,410 It's an issue of enforcing existing laws and making sure that everybody is following them. 421 00:52:51,410 --> 00:53:00,680 And that was the goal. I think that was the at least the gist of what you read out in the talk about equality of rights. 422 00:53:00,680 --> 00:53:09,240 It was very it before the Republicans tried to do what it raises as the powers of the policy and create ideas. 423 00:53:09,240 --> 00:53:18,800 You go to the office, the Bonfire of the Vanities, the standard bearer of justice who would literally carry the flag of morals to the front door of 424 00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:26,630 the misbehaving elite families in order to bring the law to them since they tried to escape it. 425 00:53:26,630 --> 00:53:37,190 And I think it's also as you saw, and hopefully I convince you of it was a central concern of reserves and maybe in our own plutocratic age, 426 00:53:37,190 --> 00:53:50,846 this is a history that we would do well to recover. Thank you.