L'échange et la loi : le statut de la rationalité économique chez Rousseau

The economic thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau has often been reduced to some pieces on money, inequalities, luxury and autarky. Compared to contemporary writings of Quesnay, Smith or Hume, it has been considered being as backward for a long time. However Jean Mathiot has shown that, far from being backward-oriented, Rousseau's economic thought can been seen as a significant step of political philosophy in its relation with political economy. According to him, the modernity of Rousseau's economic thought paradoxically reveals itself in his politically most achieved, but economically most refined book, the Social Contract. Our paper is following the same idea, except on one major point which concerns the status of the economic rationality. The ambition of this article is actually to show, through the example of the economic exchange, that the relation between politics and economics cannot be reduced to a hegemony of the political rationality. The economic rationality appears, on the contrary, constituent of the legitimate civil state including in its most negative expression, I mean autarky.