La France Insoumise and the Political Economy of Rousseau

• In Event: Seeking New Directions in Contemporary Thought

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relevance of the Political Economy of Rousseau to understanding the far left populist movement, La France Insoumise. With the growing dissatisfaction with the neo-liberal democratic model, not only in the United States, but in many other nations, there is increasing movement to alternatives, most notably right-wing populism. However, there are continuing developments in left-wing populist movements in a number of countries, including the United States (Bernie Sanders) and France (La France Insoumise). La France Insoumise is attempting to create a broad citizen participation movement as well as contesting elections at all levels. I argue that this group shares a number of policy positions with the philosophy of Rousseau. Rousseau developed his theory of political economy in order to provide a structure that would allow human beings to live in harmony with their nature, reconciling amour de soi, freedom and compassion.The policies and rhetoric of La France Insoumise appear to share this perspective, and in particular, their positions on the environment, reflect Rousseau's analysis of the connection between the domination of man and the domination of nature. It is also noteworthy that Rousseau's political economy has been cited as a "third way" between capitalism and socialism and La France Insoumise is moving away from the traditional "producerist" socialist model in search of an alternative for moving toward greater economic equality.

Author

• Melisse Pinto, VERMONT STATE UNIVERSITY