Robespierre: liberal

Benjamin Constant established the liberal tradition by constructing it in opposition to Robespierre whose fiercely egalitarian politics constituted a violation of the rights of individual property. The discourse of Robespierre on liberty, therefore, is misleading: it constitutes a specious reasoning, confusing the liberty of the Ancients where the individual and his property are subordinate to the collectivity, with that of the Moderns where the individual property owner can flourish. Simultaneous interpretations, particularly in the Marxist tradition, underscore the essentially opportunistic dimension of the socialism of Robespierre. He should first be considered as a partisan of liberal economics, a defender of property and the bourgeois revolution. In addition to these dominant interpretations opposing liberty and equality, other readings emphasize the liberal egalitarianism of Robespierre.