This study will examine the concepts of equality held by Locke and Rousseau in relation to liberty as expressed in theories of democracy. The study will also consider whether these concepts throw light on the behaviors described in JeanFrancois Steiner's Treblinka and in the participatory workplace as envisioned by Carole Pateman in Participation and Democratic Theory.
There is no doubt that Rousseau favors a government which is based on democracy, equality and liberty. However, in endorsing such qualities, he warns that not every society is capable of sustaining them. Rousseau writes, in this context, that
I would have wanted to be born in a country where the sovereign and the people could have but one and the same interest, so that all the movements of the machine always tended only to the common happiness. Since this could not have taken place unless the people and the sovereign were one and the same person, it follows that I would have wished to be born under a democratic government, wisely tempered. I would have wanted to live and die free . . . I would not have wanted to dwell in a newly constituted republic, however good its laws may be for liberty is like . . . those full-bodied wines which are appropriate for nourishing and strengthening robust constitutions that are used to them, but which overpower, ruin and intoxicate the weak and delicate who are not suited for them (Rousseau, 1987, pp. 27-27).
Rousseau is declaring his love for a society based on equality, democracy, and liberty, but he is also warning that such qualities are strong medicine, and that it is not every society which is capable of sustaining itself on such medicine. The new or otherwise weak society simply is not ready for such liberty and equality, says Rousseau, and the likely result of instituting such qualities in a society not ready for them is chaos and disaster.
Rousseau differs with Locke with respect to the state of nature and...