IN
Greece, all that the people had to do, it did for itself; it was
constantly assembled in the public square. The Greeks lived in a
mild climate; they had no natural greed; slaves did their work for
them; their great concern was with liberty. Lacking the same
advantages, how can you preserve the same rights? Your severer
climates add to your needs; for half the year your public squares
are uninhabitable; the flatness of your languages unfits them for
being heard in the open air; you sacrifice more for profit than for
liberty, and fear slavery less than poverty. (...)
As for you, modern peoples, you have no slaves, but you are
slaves yourselves; you pay for their liberty with your own. It is in
vain that you boast of this preference; I find in it more cowardice
than humanity.
I do not mean by all this that it is necessary to have slaves,
or that the right of slavery is legitimate: I am merely giving the reasons why
modern peoples, believing themselves to be free, have representatives, while
ancient peoples had none. In any case, the moment a people allows itself to be
represented, it is no longer free: it no longer exists.
Rousseau, To be represented is slavery
