Recently, I read “The Science of Society,” in Richie Robertson’s opus, The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790. It was enlightening for a sociologist to be reminded that “the study of society required the concept of society.” From the French, société evoked a “network or system with an internal hierarchy, certainly, but not confined to any one political form.”

It’s easy to take it for granted today, but society was a novel concept like the polity or the economy. These would become hallmark categories of the social sciences by the turn of the 20th century. College students major in them and entire careers are built on these concepts.

Robertson draws on the baron de Montesquieu, French nobleman and lawyer and, by some accounts, the founder of political sociology. His Spirit of the Laws is less a treatise on law itself, and rather an explanation of how a country’s cultural and political “spirit” takes hold and how laws can and cannot change this. Montesquieu is perhaps better known for developing the notion of separation of powers into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. His idea would influence reforms in the French government as well as the Framers of the United States Constitution. For inspiration, Montesquieu looked to Britain as having a government that withstood change while avoiding despotism. Can the same be said of the United States today?

For Montesquieu, government requires virtue. In a democracy, the representatives of the people must be civic-minded and put the public’s interest before their own. Worried primarily about aristocrats perpetuating their wealth at the expense of others, Montesquieu argued that an oligarchy could become entrenched in a republic and undermine it. Though not an original idea—Montesquieu was steeped in the classics—it was based on patterns of political behavior he observed over time. History now seems to be repeating itself.

Meanwhile, the Enlightenment also witnessed the growth of a business class that was independent of the church or king. Robertson points to Adam Smith who coined the term commercial society, which he deemed even more virtuous than the class of nobility seeking favors in a king’s court. When Louis XIV’s finance minister, Colbert, met with businessmen to hear their advice for how he could support them, the resounding answer was “laissez-nous faire.” In other words, leave us to do it without the government’s interference.

Robertson notes that Benjamin Franklin took this lesson from France. However, he did not interpret the idea to mean that no government was necessary, just not too much by selfishly pursuing trade policies on its own. Franklin had grown convinced that Britain was doing just that with its American colonies by limiting their trade to the home nation. Robertson further points out that Franklin agreed with the French businessmen’s perspective provided they “conduct trade responsibly, with an eye to the general good, not just to their selfish and short-term interests.”

Businessmen, like lawmakers, have to be virtuous. The problem, as Adam Smith argues in The Wealth of Nations, is that they rarely are. Government needs to be independent of business and allow it to flourish while curbing their excesses and monopolizing interests. As Robertson infers from Smith, “businessmen are unfit to govern.” Yet that is exactly who governs the United States now. The country has championed unfettered capitalism, often by misconstruing both the original context of laissez-faire as well as Smith’s arguments.

If we are to believe Montesquieu’s theory, once a country’s spirit is established, it is hard to undo. Compounding that is another point Robertson highlights: “A democratic republic is fragile because political virtue is difficult to sustain.” Indeed. By explaining how governments become corrupted, The Spirit of the Laws makes for an enlightening read these days.