Charles de Montesqieu
(*1689 near Bordeaux + 1755 Paris)
Montesqiueu is one of the most influential and renowned representatives of the enlightenment in France. Based on his broad interest in history, philosophy, law and politics, he pursues a remarkable career as judge, politician, novelist and po-litical thinker. An accom-plished scholar of ancient political history, he writes on “The Grandeur and Deca-dence of the Romans” (1734) while travelling extensively through Europe to study the different political develop-ments. After staying for two years in England and as an admirer of John Locke and the British constitution, he writes his famous treatise „The Spirit of the Laws“, widely discussed all over Europe after being published in 1748, in which he elabo-rates what he is most famous for today, his theories about the separation of powers in a viable and free polity. With-out containing and balancing legislative, executive and judiciary powers there is no freedom and no protection against abuse of power. This basic principle of liberal democracy has eventually be-come mainstream all over the civilised world, though des-potism has survived all too well.
Especially interesting in a liberal view is Montesquieu's emphasis on political lib-erty. Many see his „Spirit of the Laws“ as genuine starting point of political liberalism and underline his direct in-fluence on the principle of checks and balances in the American constitution. Jef-ferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, Hamilton and Madison were all very familiar with and in-spired by Montesquieu's theo-ries.
Seeing without illusion that political power tends to be abused by the power holders, Montesquieu argues convinc-ingly for the reduction of arbitrary decision making and an extension of the rule of law — not only for the per-sonal safety and benefit of the citizens, but as a deci-sive benefit and competitive advantage of the state as well.
In the first eight books of „The Spirit of the Laws“, Montesquieu develops his the-ory of governments, defining and contrasting the democ-ratic republic and the aris-tocratic republic with monar-chy and despotism. The theory of political liberty is de-veloped in book 11, promoting liberty for the citizens as the right to do what they want within the limits of what the laws allow. Here, Montesquieu sounds particu-larly modern in defining the limits of personal freedom at the point where it may in-fringe upon the freedoms of others.
Montesquieu was also a fore-runner in political economy by studying the differences in economic development of nations in Europe and Asia and by highlighting the ne-cessity of competition in a free market for determining the right price for a mer-chandise.
Literature
| Aron, Raymond | Main Currents of Sociological Thought, Doubleday, NY, 1968 |
| Berlin, Isaiah | Mon-tesquieu, Hogarth Press, London, 1990 |
| Richter, Melvin | The Political Theory of Montes-quieu, Cambridge University Press, 1977 |
Website
| The Spirit of the Laws, Text in English | |
| Société Montesquieu etc. in French |
Text provided by Wolfgang Sachsen