Economics and Politics in the Revolutionary Discourse of Abbe Sieyes

In What Is the Third Estate?, abbe Sieyes makes political legitimacy dependent on contributions in the productive sphere, creating a discourse or a rhetoric at the service of the Revolution: it is because the common people perform all the really useful work, and because nobility is nothing but a burden to society, that the Third Estate is a complete nation, and that the privileged -unless they cease to be so- cannot be part of it. However, while making the economic usefulness of the Third Estate its major political argument, Sieyes claims that inequalities of wealth and property are outside the realm of politics. Moreover, he opposes the recognition of political rights for the working classes. These two points of tension, for now inserted in the abbe's universalist discourse, will soon come to light, turning the wheel of the French Revolution.