Benjamin Constant: Soulful Theorist of Commercial Society

Abstract

Abstract Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) is the most important French liberal that most casual liberals have never heard of. Everyone knows something about Montesquieu because checks and balances and the separation of powers are household terms. Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution are both established classics. But Constant is largely terra incognita even for those with a university degree—to their loss.