The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns by Constant

The modern idea of liberty has to do with the enjoyment of life subject to law whereas the ancient idea of liberty only allowed the exercise of freedom in public affairs whereas the idea of individual freedom in the private sphere was not prevalent. Hence, the ancients never thought of the representative governments that exist in the world today. Ancients did not hold the value of individual rights dear as the moderns. In the world of the ancients there was a constant struggle over one another leading people to war whereas in the world today commerce has replaced war and people look at peace as the uniform tendency. However, the fact that wars still happen in the world today suggests that Constant’s theory is not absolute and commerce has not completely replaced war. There are 4 marked differences in the modern society, first of all the countries are larger than the ancient societies hence the political importance of each individual is less. Secondly, slavery has been abolished hence people have to work for themselves rather than have slaves. Thirdly, commerce is a constant struggle as opposed to war, which has periods of inactivity. Finally, commerce inspires individual independence.

            Amongst the ancient societies Athens is the closest to the modern ones because it valued individual freedom and practiced commerce. However, Athens had a slave population and their territory was restricted. The meaning of liberty for them was also different then the modern idea. The difference is that the modern idea requires safeguard for private pleasures whereas the ancients wanted political rights for sharing the social power. According to Constant, Rousseau fails to spot the difference in between these two notions of liberty whereas Montesquieu does not. The social laws should not infringe on individual interests but in essence the limit of social laws is not defined and certain governments do formulate laws which affect interests of individuals, which in themselves are also not compatible. This can be compared to Athens, where society had complete authority over its members. We can see from the revival of censorship in modern society and the fact that the societies govern the education, hence how to develop the minds of the individual that there is a certain amount of control that society exercises over the individual. However, we can not dismiss the truth of individual liberty and political liberty in the modern society as being superfluous the guarantee and the safeguard of private interests is an essential value of the modern society and if it is infringed upon the people have the freedom to protest against it.