Tradition

The Institut Constant de Rebecque reflects the richness of intellectual life in Switzerland, particularly in the Lake Geneva region. The Institut perpetuates the tradition of an important group of thinkers who have profoundly influenced the philosophy of liberty since the end of the 18th century, beginning with Lausanne-born Benjamin Constant, one of the most brilliant, determined and prolific philosophers.

In advance of his time, Benjamin Constant sees the protection of individual liberty as the State’s sole task. For Constant, the State has no specific abstract existence, but must be considered merely as a particular form of human association; an abstract conception of the State being a sure way to pave the road for totalitarianism. By drawing a separation between political freedom and individual liberty, Constant questions the right of voting majorities to impose their will to the detriment of minorities’ individual rights and foresees the coercive dangers of collective political action. He fights for freedom of thought and its corollaries: economic freedom, religious freedom, freedom of opinion and freedom of speech. A defender of small political entities and a critic of taxation, Benjamin Constant can be seen as a forerunner of current debates on tax competition. A rational pacifist, he recognizes that freedom and trade are more efficient means of acquiring property than violence. The energy, the intelligence and the courage with which he defends freedom of the press make him a hero for the students of his time.

Linked to Constant’s heritage is Germaine Necker, the future Madame de Staël and heir of the banker Jacques Necker, a second-generation Geneva native with an exceptional career. Starting as a volunteer apprentice at 15, he spends twenty intense years honorably making a fortune in finance. His reputation leads Louis XVI to appoint him Finance minister. Suspicious of the State’s intervention in a society which he already regards as complex, Jacques Necker tries, two hundred years before the Laffer Curve, to reduce deficits by lowering taxes, rationalizing the administration and resisting the arbitrary demands of special interests, including those of Marie-Antoinette. Dismissed three days before the taking over of the Bastille, he retires to Switzerland with his daughter in his castle of Coppet. The great banker’s wealth allows this Lake Geneva oasis to evolve, with Madame de Staël’s impetus, to a place of intellectual exchange and production, where German, English, French and Italian cultures seeking liberty interact – an early form of a think tank devoted to the study of the many facets of freedom. At one time, Coppet is even the only center of opposition to Napoleon’s imperialism. Germaine acts as a catalyst in the life and work of Benjamin Constant, whom she introduces to political thought and action.

At that time the political and intellectual world appears to be turning towards the principles of liberty. The minimal State seems at hand. And yet, in 1848, Switzerland excepted, Europe changes its course radically, wrongly blaming the “human costs” of the Industrial Revolution on the growth of capitalism rather than on the agony of feudalism, a mistake that reaches its peak in the 20th century’s socialist catastrophes. (In a similar fashion, liberalizations are today accused of causing the crises that in fact result from the irresponsible management of States accustomed to impeding voluntary exchange and building up deficits at the expense of civil society.) The University of Lausanne shelters several precursors of modern market economics, such as Léon Walras or Vilfredo Pareto. Later, during the darkest hours, Geneva serves as a refuge for Europe’s intellectuals. William Rappard, illustrious cofounder of the Graduate Institute of International Studies, hosts the eminent economist Wilhelm Röpke, as well as the great Austrian thinker Ludwig von Mises, who writes in Geneva the original text of his magnum opus, Human Action.

And it is once again on the bank of Lake Geneva, near Vevey in 1947, that the defenders of freedom meet to think about ways out of collectivism. On the initiative of Friedrich August von Hayek (later to receive the Nobel prize), the greatest economists, philosophers and theorists – including Mises, Rappard and Röpke, of course, but also Milton Friedman, Karl Popper and George Stigler – found the Mont Pèlerin Society, which today brings together their intellectual heirs, building on their works to develop and extend the never-ending exploration of liberty and its implications.