ABSTRACT
For the Greeks, a key aspiration was to bring the nomos – the law or custom – of the people in line with the logos, or rationality itself. Aristotle argued that the polis, the supreme human community, was qualitatively different from the oikos or household. Everyone is free to participate, but in a system governed by the logic of government, itself attuned economically and ecologically to the reproduction of the city as the human oikos. Modern republicanism purports to bring politics into line with governmentality. It does this by establishing the problematic of government as the a priori of politics. The limits on government, characteristic of modern constitutionalism, are designed to ensure that the government keeps to its proper task, which is to govern rather than to dominate. Most of the rationalities of depoliticized government flow from economy and ecology.
