France is a beautiful country, rich in history, glorious in food and art. My wife and I have travelled there several times. Many Americans seem to desire French emulation, (even more than those desiring emulation of Communist China). But France is an enigma for me, having long suspected France as a source of bad governing ideas. Recent debates on equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcomes led me to focus on the term "Egalite" enshrined in the French coat of arms above, referring to equality of outcomes. Here is a list of some people who have lived and studied in France.
Here is a little more about them (and something about their beliefs regarding private property and ruling by the use of force); starting with Jean Jacques Rousseau a Swiss philosopher (no private property, no traditions or customs, elites to determine the "General Will, enactment by banishment or force if persuasion doesn’t work); Robespierre a French lawyer, leader of the 1789 Revolution and exponent of Desmoulin's phrase "Liberty, Egalite, Fraternity" (use of force); Babeuf a French writer (no private property, force); Buonarroti (co-conspirator with Babeuf and author, see below); Blanqui French political activist (force).
Others spending time in France include Marx (one party, no private property, force); Bakunin and Kropotkin Russian anarchists (no parties, no private property); Ho Chi Minh Vietnamese communist leader studied in France; Lenin (one party, no private property, force); Deng Xiaoping Chinese communist Leader studied in France; Pol Pot Cambodian Leader lived in France (force); Ruhollah Khomeini lived in France for a short time before establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran (force).
To read a revealing French Revolutionist’s history of the period, try Buonarroti's "History of Babeuf's Conspiracy For Equality". Written in French by an Italian, translated to English by an Irishman and published in London, 1836.
In a George Will column (Bozeman Daily Chronicle 04/21/22) titled, "Unsettled governance, political loathing, ..." he notes 14 French Constitutions since 1789. Regarding "Liberty, Egalite, Fraternity", Will says "Many of the French are opposed to [Liberty] if it diminishes [Egalite], which makes [Fraternity] elusive." Migration without assimilation makes fraternity elusive as well.
There is no reason to emulate the French, except perhaps in cooking and use of nuclear power. Tens of millions of people have died at the hands of those influenced by Rousseau. Alexei Navalny is the latest. Following a career in manufacturing quality assurance and the study of root causes, I conclude that for more than 200 years, the influential utopian Rousseau has been a root cause of bad government, chaos, misery, and death. Our utopian Democratic party is prone to many of Rousseau’s ideas. A conservative, I believe in private property not in the use of force.
Victor Davis Hanson has carried this further back in history to Roman and Greek times, but I stop with France and Rousseau. Thomas Sowell’s, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, Basic Books 2007 is also a treatise well worth reading, with focus on UK authors Adam Smith (tradeoffs) vs. William Godwin (utopia).
And it was a blessing to the newborn American republic that our founders were sufficiently ballasted by English legal, political and social traditions to keep themselves from getting swept away by French utopian radicalism and its murderous consequences. Adams and Hamilton understood this right away, and even Jefferson eventually said no to the French radicalism.
And it was a blessing to the newborn American republic that our founders were sufficiently ballasted by English legal, political and social traditions to keep themselves from getting swept away by French utopian radicalism and its murderous consequences. Adams and Hamilton understood this right away, and even Jefferson eventually said no to the French radicalism.