Premodern republicanism restricted freedom to propertied males only

Evidence

The density of the ideal of freedom as non-domination would not have been a problem for premodern republican thought, since it went without saying among premoderns that the state could aspire to realize the ideal only for a small elite of males: the property-holding, and indeed mainstream, males who made up the citizenry. Harrington (1992: 269) was quite clear on the point: ‘The man that cannot live upon his own must be a servant; but he that can live upon his own may be a freeman.’ But the density of the ideal of non-domination must have seemed to represent a problem, as it came to be a more and more general assumption in the eighteenth century—the century of Enlightenment—that human beings are equal and should be equally well served by their social and political institutions. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 255

Categorization

• XREF: Economic independence as prerequisite for civic freedom echoes the reader’s interest in what enables people to become free participants — connects to solidarity literature on material preconditions for civic capacity.