Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 26

For episode 25, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns

XXVI. Jean Jacques Rousseau and Rediscovery of Community
 A. Great gap between Rousseau and his contemporaries.
 B. Was a deeply divided personality, noble vs base, ideal vs real.

     "More than most men, Rousseau projected the contradictions and maladjustments of his own nature upon the society about him and sought an anodyne for his own painful sensitivity. (Sabine, 577)"

 C. Used contrast between the natural and the actual not as appeal to reason 
      but to attack reason.
 D. Against intelligence, growth of knowledge and Enlightenment progress,
      he set amiable and benevolent sentiments, good will and reverence.

     "What gives value to life is the common emotions, perhaps one may say instincts, in respect to which men differ hardly at all and which he imagined to exist in a purer and less perverted form in the simple uneducated man than in the enlightened and sophisticated."

 E. Based his values on "realities" of everyday life.
 F. Intelligence and science are dangerous because they undermine 
     reverence and faith.
 G. Pulled philosophy away from union with science and implanted 
      distrust of intelligence.
 H. Rejected systematic individualism and self-interest as virtue.
 I.  Took from Plato a general outlook.
       1. Political subjection is essentially ethical and only secondarily a
           matter of law and power.
       2. Community itself is chief moralizing agent and represents the
           highest moral value.
       3. Therefore fundamental moral category is citizen not man.
 J. Saw rights not as against community but within it.
       1. Natural egoist is fiction, some kind of community is inevitable,
           society is purely instinctive.
       2. Community has corporate personality, a general will.
       3. Government is agent for this will (could be radical or conservative).
       4. General will is the source of law and morals.
 K. The General Will
       1. Saw city-state as the best example of venue for the general will.
       2. Contract useful device even though government has no
           independent power; citizens exist as members of society,
           individuals have no rights except as members of the community.
       3. General will is the collective good of the community which is not
           the same as the private interest of its members.
       4. Men become equal within a society not because (per Hobbes)
           their physical power is substantially equal.
       5. Absolute authority of general will vis-a-vis indefeasible individual
           rights.
       6. When one is forced to obey general will, one is being forced to
           be free because one doesn't know his own good.
 L. Rousseau originated romantic cult of the group contrary to rationalist's
      cult of the individual.  
 M. In adapting the model of citizenship within the city-state to modern
      modern nation-state, Rousseau helped to recast it in such a form
      that national sentiment could appropriate it.
 N. Rousseau's impact
       1. Idealizing moral feeling of the common man led to Kant
       2. Full significance of idealizing collective will and participation in the
           common led to the idealism of Hegel.
       3. Descartes split reason from custom, Rousseau tacitly set it aside,
           Hegel tried to reunite them.
       4. Burke supplied missing content to "general will" by giving
           corporate life of England (custom and tradition) a conscious reality.

Next week:  Convention and Tradition -- Hume and Burke










 
 


 
 




 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 25

For episode 24, see here

The Theory of the Nation State

XXV. France: The Decadence of Natural Law
 A. English consolidated their revolution and political theory
      shifted to France.
 B. French concern for political and social theory resulted from
      decadence of royal absolute rule.
 C. Discussion typically popularized rather than created.
 D. Tendencies
       1. Mixture of logically incompatible ethical and political
           utilitarianism with natural right theories.
       2. Growth of philosophical romanticism hostile to
           empiricism and rationalism.
 E. Rousseau untypical of 18th Century French thought.
 F. Through Voltaire and Montesquieu philosophy of Locke
      became foundation of French Enlightenment. 
       1. Reason, tied to tradition in English thought, was placed
           in opposition to custom and fact in France.
       2. No fundamental law or gradual transition of ideas or
           institutions in absolutist France. 
       3. French political thought thus radical and often little
           more than propaganda.
 G. Urban middle class was conscious of itself and saw clergy
       nobility as social parasites.
 H. Characteristic of social thought of 18th Century was belief
      in possibility of happiness and progress guided by reason.
 I. Montesquieu (Spirit of the Laws, 1748) 
       1. Undertook sociological theory of government and law
           by showing they depended upon circumstances in
           which a people lives.
       2. Also analyzed constitutional conditions of freedom.
       3. Saw "reason" as manifesting itself through different
           institutions in different environments.
       4. Saw separation of powers (in England) as prime 
           guarantee of liberty.
       5. Made separation one of the legal checks and balances
           between parts of the constitution.
           i. Didn't specify the parts
           ii. But did assume some form of legislative supremacy
 J. Voltaire
       1. Sought to popularize Newton's physics and Locke's
           philosophy.
       2. Especially admired England's freedom of discussion 
           and publication.
       3. Pressed struggle for civil liberties but did not connect 
           that to a basis in political liberty.
 K. Helvetius
       1. Presented an elaboration of Locke's psychological of
           association (Pain and pleasure as basic motives).
       2. Made it basis for the reforming legislator and conveyed
           greatest happiness principle to Beccaria and Bentham.
       3. Legislator must make general interest consonant with
           individual interest and spread knowledge of how public
           welfare includes that of the indivudual.
       4. Notion that everyone's happiness could be maximized
           at once was nothing but old belief in harmony of nature. 
       5. Belief that one man's happiness ought to be counted as
           the same as that of another based on natural equality.
       6. Using pleasure and pain could in fact lead to harmonizing 
           interests through focus on utility.
 L. Physiocrats (economists)
       1. Regarded pleasure and pain as two springs of human action
           and enlightened self-interest as rule for a well-ordered
           society.  
       2. Assumed harmony would result if man was let alone.
       3. No legislator should regulate, must instead not interfere 
           with natural operation of economic laws. 
 M. Holbach
       1. Made atheist, or materialist, attack on religion.
       2. Also attacked government as representative of parasitic
           classes excluding the middle class whose special interest
           defined the general interest as well.
       3. Man was not born bad but made bad by bad government.
       4. Remedy was to give free scope to the "general will" arising
           from the harmony between self-interest and natural good.
       5. Education would reform man because men are rational and 
           need only to see their own true interest.
 N. Enlightenment thought did not necessarily lead to democratic 
      doctrine; power still based on property. 
 O. Turgot and Condorcet turned idea of progress into a
       philosophy of history.
       1. Saw history as series of progressive stages.
       2. Condorcet saw progress following three lines:
           i. growing equality between nations
           ii. elimination of class differences
           iii. a resultant general moral and mental improvement

Next week:  Rousseau and the rediscovery of community
          
           
      
           
 
 

  
         

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 24

For episode 23, see here

The Theory of the Nation State

XXIV. Halifax and Locke
 A. The Glorious Revolution indicated monarchy was to stay,
      albeit limited by Parliament. 
 B. Halifax was an empiric skeptic.
       1. Saw so-called "fundamentals" and "general principles"
           as pretense cloaking pursuit of partisan advantage.
       2. Laws based on such are attempts to bind the future.
       3. Government depends on (unspecifiable) inherent power
           of self-development of the people which may or may not
           be expressed through representatives and may be expressed
           through leadership in crucial cases.
       4. Argued for constitutional monarchy. 
 C. Locke was an empiricist, rationalist philosopher.
       1. Tapped medieval tradition (of moral restraints on power,
           responsibility of rulers to community and government 
           under law) through Hooker (Episode 20) and passed it 
           on to the 18th Century. 
       2. Relying on common sense, fails to get to first principles.
       3. His community based theory conflicts with Hobbes analysis
           of community as a result of individual cooperation.
       4. However, Locke used both conceptions:
           i. Accepted first as result of seeing England as a community
             existing through time despite change in government.
           ii. Had to describe society in terms of individual interests.
           iii. Made over natural law into claim of innate, indefeasible
             rights with government existing to preserve these.
       5. Saw state of nature as one of peaceful mutual assistance
           lacking only organization to give effect to these rights.
       6. Saw positive law adding no moral force to pre-exisiting
           moral laws which are broader.
       7. Private property results from mixing labor with land,
           extending ones personality to it.
       8. Right to private property is anterior to society.
       9. Life and liberty are also natural rights.  
 D. Both Locke and Hobbes helped fasten on social theory the
      presumption that individual self-interest is clear and 
      compelling while social interest is thin and unsubstantial.
       1. Locke assumed that common good equaled protection of
           individual rights.
       2. For Hobbes' calculation of security, Locke substituted
           the calculation of pleasure.
 E. Contract
       1. Civil power rests on the individual right to protect 
           himself and his property.
       2. Legislative and executive power of government is only
           what is resigned to it by individuals.
       3. By an original compact do men incorporate into society.
       4. Implicit are two separate compacts, one for society and 
           one for government. 
       5. Individuals must unanimously consent to form body
           politic and are therefore obligated to submit to it.
       6. As decision rule of that body is by majority, government
           depends on what that majority does with the power
           deriving from the original compact. 
 F. Grant of power to government divests people of power
      as long as government is faithful to its duties.
 G. Revolution is justified when the government seriously
      jeopardizes social interests because the moral order is
      permanent and not dependent on force.
 H. Four levels of Locke's theory (often confused)
       1. Basis in the individual and his rights
       2. Men are also members of a community acting as trustee
           of these individual rights.
       3. Government is the trustee for the community.
       4. Executive less authoritative than the legislature. 

Next week: France and The Decadence of Natural Law


 
         

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 20

For episode 19, see here

The Theory of the Nation State

XX. England: Preparation for Civil War
 A. Lines between rival political ideas not clearly drawn in early 17th Century
      England.
       1. No need to support royal absolutism with the theory of divine right.
       2. None had to seek theoretical defense for right to resist.
 B. Thomas Moore's Utopia (1516) was political satire expressing dislike of 
      growing acquisitive society.
       1. Harked back to Platonic conception of community of cooperative
           classes.
       2. Illustrated "looking back" from coming economic age.
 C. Richard Hooker argued that Puritan refusal of obedience to establish church
      was denying all political obligation.
       1. Reason was accepted universally as soon as it was understood.
       2. Law of reason was manifestly binding on all men.
       3. Man cannot satisfy all their needs in isolation and therefore form society.
       4. Ground of political obligation is common consent by which men agreed
           to be ordered by someone.
       5. Society could never withdraw its consent to authority it has set up after
           the fact.
       6. Ecclesiastical law of England not contrary to Christian faith and therefore
           binding -- as was all law -- upon all Englishmen.
 D. Calvinists and Catholics objected to royal supremacy in the Church as an 
      invasion of it's spiritual independence.
 E. Independents split church from state, seeing the former as a voluntary
     association.
 F. Erastianism of John Seldon saw the relationship between religion and the
     king in utilitarian, secularist and rational terms not common or typical
     for times.
 G. King, courts and Parliament each seen as having inherent powers, none
      claimed supremacy until the civil war.
 H. First conflict between king and courts over royal prerogative.
       1. Francis Bacon defended the right of the King to overrule the courts.
       2. Chief Justice Edward Coke argued for supremacy of common law over
           the King and Parliament.
      3. Coke saw law as indigenous growth within the realm that defined all
          rights and obligations.

Next week:  Thomas Hobbes


     

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 9

For episode 8 see here

 The Theory of the Universal Community

 IX. Cicero and the Roman Lawyers

  A. Known [Western] world soon to be under single political rule like
       Mediterranean
       1. Melting pot became single community
       2. No politically self-conscious nations 
       3. Stoic ideas of world-state, natural justice and universal citizenship
           became common property of all educated men
       4. World ruled by God, father to human who were therefore brothers
  B. Development of these ideas followed two lines
       1. embedding of "natural law"into Roman jurisprudence
       2. development of religious implications of law and government rooted in
           plan of Divine Providence
       3. little political theory done systematically
  C. Cicero not original but very widely read
       1. Wrote to bring Rome back to Republican virtues but failed
       2. Most important contribution was to give statement of Stoic doctrine of
           natural law universally known in the West through the 19th century
       3. Natural law arose from fact of God's providential government of the
           world and from rational and social nature of human being which makes
            them akin to God
           i. In light of this law, all men are equal

"Indeed Cicero goes so far as to suggest that it is nothing but error, bad habits
  and false opinions that prevents men from being in fact equal." (164)

           ii. Equality is moral requirement rather than a fact, contrary to Aristotle
       4. State is a moral community, the res publica, or affair of the people 
       5. Membership in the state is common possession of all its citizens, as is its
           advantages of mutual aid and just government.  Thus:
           i. its authority arises from the collective power of the people
           ii. political power when rightfully and lawfully exercised is corporate power
              of the people (and only to be exercised by law)
           iii. state itself and the law is subject to God, in effect to moral or
               natural law
   D. Roman lawyers
       1. Classical period of development of Roman jurisprudence , repetition and
           elaboration of Cicero in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD
       2. Speaking in terms of right and justifiable powers (legalistic argumentation)
           remained a generally accepted method of political theorizing
       3. Positive Law was seen as approximation to perfect justice and
           definition of the right, lawyers seen as "priests of justice"
       4. Emperor's will has force of law because people transfer to him their
           power



Next week: Seneca and the Fathers of the Church


 

Africa by 2100?

Talked recently with a young man originally from Ethiopia but now living in the US. He keeps up with his native land and was just back from a visit. I asked him how things were. He said: “It's Africa, you know what that means, corruption and conflict.” He spoke of the 2005 election and the resulting denial and repression of those he termed the “winners” and lamented the current situation in which, as he put it, the third largest ethnic group rules over the rest of the “80 tribes” that live in Ethiopia.

It is easy to see why someone might see Africa – mired in poverty, corruption and violence – as a land without much of a future. It's hard to name one functioning multi-ethnic democracy on the continent. Some countries have elections but these serve either to anoint those already in control and holding all the advantages of state power – official and otherwise – or to simply provide a patina of legitimacy for autocratic, tribally based rulers and cliques. African countries remain on the periphery of the global economy. As such they must earn their living in an environment where rapid technological change and the built-in advantages of the already developed core leave them little room for much more than the export of raw materials and the importation of finished goods. This may produce some wealth but it runs into the hands of those with the local monopoly. At best, it may feature as a form of primitive capital accumulation but even then the trickle down cannot keep up with rising populations and expectations. It would take an extraordinary amount of good governance, popular support and patience for even gradual economic development to lift these countries to the level of societal well-being basic to sustaining democratic norms, procedures and results.

History dealt Africa two cruel blows. The first was the slave traffic. Slavery certainly existed before the outsiders – European and Arab – brought it to the continent. But the tremendous demand created especially by the traffic to the New World magnified the level of violence already existing among the many native groupings. Slavery also was the entry point of European expansion into Africa, followed by the exploitation of natural resources and colonization. This was the second blow, the carving up of Africa into territorial units that took no regard of existing tribal patterns and political arrangements. There had been empires and nascent states before colonization but these were based on local realities with their own ebb and flow. Once this was super-ceded by the state boundaries drawn up by the Europeans, disparate peoples found themselves lumped together inside arbitrarily chosen fences. After independence – with almost no experience of political participation or democracy – they were left in the hands of those willing and able to use identity politics and violence to seize and hold power. Corruption, poverty and repression within the framework of tribally-based competition for space – economic and political – became the norm.

Some see democracy as the way to move forward. But democracy requires a level of economic development and political maturity (especially a willingness to see someone not like yourself win power). In a context of scarce resources, winner-take-all, tribal politics democracy is likely either to fail or simply produce further conflict between winners and losers. It would be nice if some model of power-sharing might work within federal or confederal arrangements. But such mechanisms also require an extraordinary degree of tolerance and political experience to function in a sustained fashion, especially in the context of economic underdevelopment.

In the history of Europe, stable states grew from heterogeneous tribes only through the growth of centralized states imposing a “national” culture and language. For the future of Africa, it may be necessary for the West to temper efforts to export “democracy” with an understanding of its own history. Acting against genocide or gross human rights abuse is an international responsibility. But it will also be necessary to recognize that over the next decades that African states will have to find their own way of constructing nations within the confines of the colonial fences left them.

Return DC to Maryland: A Case for Retrocession

Every week or so I get an email from folks supporting statehood for Washington, DC. As a long-time resident and taxpayer of the District, I understand why they do. As it says on our license plates, it's “taxation without representation.” DC is smaller than any of the 50 states but has a larger population than two of them. Yet we get no vote in the US Senate or House of Representatives. Instead, we get a voteless Delegate to the House like some overseas territory.

The Constitution allowed for the establishment of a federal capital through the “cession” of territory from willing states. Washington, DC was formally established in 1790 on swampy land, straddling the Potomac River, taken from Maryland and Virginia to be a neutral place between North and South. The District of Columbia was a square 10 miles on each side. In 1846, the Congress passed a law allowing for the retrocession of the part of the District in Virginia back to that state if approved by the people affected in a referendum and if accepted by the State of Virginia. This was accomplished in 1847. Through this action, the District shrunk from 100 sq. miles to the present 68.

While one may argue that DC should be a state, politically it remains very unlikely. Given that most would expect statehood to mean two more Democratic senators and one Democratic congressperson, this would never pass muster in any Congress without an overwhelming Democratic majority. Maybe not then either.

So, how about carving out the part of the District outside the federal government core – the White House, Congress and the office buildings around the Mall – and giving the rest back to Maryland? The various wards of the city might become a new Maryland city – Washington City? – or perhaps the various wards might each become their own local jurisdiction. The Congress might agree with this as it would not do anything beyond making Maryland a bit more Democratic without adding actual new seats to the Senate. Maryland would have to agree too but why not?

Washington City, Maryland. Maryland is a nice state, I wouldn't mind living there. And no more “taxation without representation.