Fearing Monarchs and Merchants: Montesquieu's Two Theories of Despotism

lthough he did not invent the word despotism, Montesquieu more than any other author established it in that lexicon of political and politicized words--words such as capitalism, socialism, individualism, and bureaucracyinvented in the last three centuries in response either to specific political necessities or to more general political goals. In this case, the opponents of Louis XIV's arbitrary uses of power apparently invented the French word despotisme in the 1690s. The root of this word is, of course, Greek in origin, and in ancient Greek usage, a despot (despdtis) was technically a master who ruled in a household over those who were slaves or servants by nature. Aristotle, however, the noun despot and the adjective despotic (despotikos) had political connotations, because such despotic rule was in a sense appropriate not only toward most servants and slaves within a household but toward all, such as who were unable to be free. For barbarians, wrote Aristotle, being more servile in character than Hellenes, and Asiatics than Europeans, do not rebel against a despotic government (Politics 1285al9-21). On occasion, Aristotle even used the words despotic and tyrannical interchangeably, but, when discussing the misuse of political power, Aristotle most often focused his attention on analyzing the political phenomenon of tyranny (tyrannus). The French word despotique first emerged when the pamphleteers for the Fronde attacked Cardinal Mazarin who was ruling in Louis XIV's name, but by the end of the seventeenth century, writers and again especially pamphleteers, were using such phrases as monarchie despotique, pouvoir despotique, puissance despotique, and gouvernement despotique in their protests against the extension of royal power. Although in 1704 Pierre Bayle apparently became the first writer of distinction to use the word despotisme, the word had been coined in the 1690s. And now an old and altered Greek

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