Rousseau held that unbridled self-interest produces self-enslavement and domination, not freedom.

Evidence

Indeed for Rousseau, we are free, sovereign, and self-legislating only when we join with others to set the terms by which we live together. Those who remain slaves to instinct or to individual interest forsake both freedom and humanness as they surrender this sovereignty over themselves. For Rousseau, humans are the only creatures capable of generating complex orders of domination from their needs, of enslaving themselves by giving free rein to homo oeconomicus, by letting it overtake their personalities, social relations, and politics: this is the essence of Rousseau’s critique of emerging liberalism. Thus, for Rousseau the deliberate and fierce cultivation of homo politicus (and it is most definitely not homo juridicus or homo legalis) is the only antidote to this peril. Homo politicus—understood as self-sovereign through collective sovereignty — must literally subdue the creature of self-interest and self-absorption. Otherwise, we not only fall into egoism, narcissism, and superficiality, but are dominated by the social relations and regimes generated by unbridled interest. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 188

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes Rousseau’s homo politicus (self-sovereignty through collective sovereignty) sharply from homo juridicus/legalis and homo oeconomicus — a key concept in Brown’s genealogy.
• XREF: connects to: A liberty that stays only an attitude becomes self-imprisoning mimicry, not freedom. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 493; Freedom that withdraws into self-interest denies its own nature; Choosing oneself as the supreme end produces slavery, not freedom — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1834

Broader Connections

• Choosing oneself as the supreme end produces slavery, not freedom #corroborates (0.88) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1834
• Freedom that withdraws into self-interest denies its own nature #corroborates (0.85)
• A liberty that stays only an attitude becomes self-imprisoning mimicry, not freedom. #corroborates (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 493