Rousseau_contrat-social

fertility of the climate, on the sort of labour the land demands, on the
nature of its products, on the strength of its inhabitants, on the
greater or less consumption they find necessary, and on several further
considerations of which the whole relation is made up.
On the other side, all governments are not of the same nature: some are
less voracious than others, and the differences between them are based
on this second principle, that the further from their source the public
contributions are removed, the more burdensome they become. The charge
should be measured not by the amount of the impositions, but by the path
they have to travel in order to get back to those from whom they came.
When the circulation is prompt and well-established, it does not matter
whether much or little is paid; the people is always rich and,
financially speaking, all is well. On the contrary, however little the
people gives, if that little does not return to it, it is soon exhausted
by giving continually: the State is then never rich, and the people is
always a people of beggars.
It follows that, the more the distance between people and government
increases, the more burdensome tribute becomes: thus, in a democracy,
the people bears the least charge; in an aristocracy, a greater charge;
and, in monarchy, the weight becomes heaviest. Monarchy therefore suits
only wealthy nations; aristocracy, States of middling size and wealth;
and democracy, States that are small and poor.
In fact, the more we reflect, the more we find the difference between
free and monarchical States to be this: in the former, everything is
used for the public advantage; in the latter, the public forces and
those of individuals are affected by each other, and either increases as
the other grows weak; finally, instead of governing subjects to make
them happy, despotism makes them wretched in order to govern them.
We find then, in every climate, natural causes according to which the
form of government which it requires can be assigned, and we can even
say what sort of inhabitants it should have.
Unfriendly and barren lands, where the product does not repay the
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