De Juvenal uses the word "Power" to refer to centralized authority. In the Middle Ages it was the king. From On Power, p. 267:
"What the old constitution had guaranteed was that no proposition made by Power in the name of he public interest could become law without having obtained the assent of the various interests included in the nation. It would have been illogical for these various interests as such to have proposed laws since the purpose of laws was to serve the public interest. The assembly could become, as it did, the propounder of laws only in virtue of the quite novel idea that it was representative of the nation, considered as a whole and in its general interest; this was the role that had formerly belonged to the king. The change, which affected the very essence of the assembly's nature, was marked by a new-found freedom of action on the part of the representatives in regard to their constituents, a freedom which the doctrinaires of the new system especially emphasized. They were careless of the fact that Parliament, once it had been unified, emancipated, and made supreme as being the main, and tending to be the sole author of law, could not possibly maintain the same dispositions as had characterized it when it was disparate, bound down and without authority proper to itself.
"Parliament was now the king's successor as the representative of the whole: it had taken over his mission and his requirements. Unlike him, however, it no longer had representatives of diversity to deal with, mandatories of particular interests, which it must take into account.
"In the ancient constitution the interest of the nation was represented in two ways, as a whole and as a collection of parts, the former disposed to ask and the latter to refuse. One of them now disappeared. It was not as might have been expected, the king, for the legislative Power representing the public interest is merely his successor. No, what has disappeared has been the representation of various interests included in the nation. What had been a body for the protection of private citizens is now one for the advancement of the public interest, and has been clothed with the formidable power of legislation.
"In its new form Power had a much wider scope than its old. The sovereign, when he was king, was tied down by a higher code, which religion validated and of which the Church stood guardian; he was restrained as well by the various customary rules which being rooted in popular sentiment acted as makeweights to himself. But this code and those rules are of no avail against Power turned lawgiver, whose recognized right and duty it is now to be itself the source of codes and rules. 'The English Parliament,' it has been said by some wit 'can do anything except change a man into a woman.
"It is quite certain that nothing of this sort entered philosophical heads. All of them were deeply convinced of the existence of a natural and necessary order, and the function of the lawgiver as they saw it, was to disentangle the outlines of this order..."
Showing posts with label power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label power. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Bertrand De Jouvenal on the Equivalence of Progressivism and Corporate Conservatism
"Every association of men shows us the same spectacle. When once the social end ceases to be continuously pursued in common (as happens, for instance, in an association of pirates, where there must be a chief, but where no active body emerges over a passive generality) and becomes the permanent charge of one differentiated group, to be interfered with by the rest of the associates only at stated intervals--when once the differentiation has come about, then the responsible group becomes the elite, which acquires a life and interest of its own.
"It withstands on occasion the mass whence it came. And it carries the day. It is hard in reality for private persons attending a meeting, taken up as they are with their own concerns and without having concerted among themselves beforehand, to feel the confidence necessary to reject the proposals which are cleverly presented to them from the platform, and the necessity for which is supported by arguments based on considerations of a kind to which they are strangers."
De Juvenal shows that power is monarchical in nature. The popular sovereignty-based power of Progressivism is an imitation of European monarchy. Europe arrived at this model, shows de Juvenal, via monarchy. Dirgisme, strong state power, is the function of monarchy legitimized by popular sovereignty that has replaced the monarch with the "national will", an abstract concept that is vacuous of meaning. Thus, power becomes the possession of a group of self-interested activists or demagogues who claim to reflect the "national will". In the case of corporate conservatism, the argument is that the efficiency of corporations entitles them to special consideration. This is the corporate conservative view. But the corporations are not efficient and they cannot be because if they were there would be no motive to act as special interests in claiming state privilege.
Both corporate interests and social democratic cliques claim to serve the public. The corporate interest claims to do so through efficiency, when it is actually inefficient. The social democratic clique claims to do so when it actually serves itself.
Progressivism and progressivism, corporate conservatism and social democracy, are the same ideology with two rival gangs competing for power.
What is to be done? The alternative ideology to Progressivism and progressivism is Lockean liberalism: the insistence on individual rights; the insistence on no special treatment for any party; and skepticism that the state has the ability to create benefits out of thin air. This skepticism leads directly to a rejection of Keynesian economics; of socialism; and of social programs that have caused more harm than good.
"It withstands on occasion the mass whence it came. And it carries the day. It is hard in reality for private persons attending a meeting, taken up as they are with their own concerns and without having concerted among themselves beforehand, to feel the confidence necessary to reject the proposals which are cleverly presented to them from the platform, and the necessity for which is supported by arguments based on considerations of a kind to which they are strangers."
De Juvenal shows that power is monarchical in nature. The popular sovereignty-based power of Progressivism is an imitation of European monarchy. Europe arrived at this model, shows de Juvenal, via monarchy. Dirgisme, strong state power, is the function of monarchy legitimized by popular sovereignty that has replaced the monarch with the "national will", an abstract concept that is vacuous of meaning. Thus, power becomes the possession of a group of self-interested activists or demagogues who claim to reflect the "national will". In the case of corporate conservatism, the argument is that the efficiency of corporations entitles them to special consideration. This is the corporate conservative view. But the corporations are not efficient and they cannot be because if they were there would be no motive to act as special interests in claiming state privilege.
Both corporate interests and social democratic cliques claim to serve the public. The corporate interest claims to do so through efficiency, when it is actually inefficient. The social democratic clique claims to do so when it actually serves itself.
Progressivism and progressivism, corporate conservatism and social democracy, are the same ideology with two rival gangs competing for power.
What is to be done? The alternative ideology to Progressivism and progressivism is Lockean liberalism: the insistence on individual rights; the insistence on no special treatment for any party; and skepticism that the state has the ability to create benefits out of thin air. This skepticism leads directly to a rejection of Keynesian economics; of socialism; and of social programs that have caused more harm than good.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Bertrand de Jouvenal on the Divorce Between Socialism in Theory and in Practice
"Once it is admitted that Power may forswear its true reason and end, and as it were, detach itself from society to form far above it a separate body for its oppression, then the whole theory of Power's identity with society breaks down before this simple fact.
"At this point nearly all who have written on the subject look the other way. A Power which is both illegitimate and unjust is off their intellectual beat. This feeling of repugnance, while it is understandable, has to be overcome. For the phenomenon is of too frequent occurrence to give any chance to a theory which does not take account of it.
"It is clear enough how the mistake arose: it was from basing a Science of Power on observations made, as it is history's business to make them, of Powers whose relations with society were of one kind only; what are in fact only its acquired characteristics were thus mistaken for Power's essence. And so the knowledge acquired, while adequate to explain one state of things, was quite useless in dealing with the times of the great divorces between Power and society.
"It is not true that Power vanishes when it forswears its rightful begetter and acts in breach of the office which has been assigned to it. It continues as before to command and to be obeyed: without that, there is no Power--with it, no other attribute is needed."
----Bertrand de Jouvenal, On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth, p. 108
In the 1950s Stanley Milgram showed that conformity to authority comes naturally to a large segment, and likely a majority, of the population. All that is required to confer legitimacy on a Sovereign is an appropriate title or costume. Under laboratory conditions between 30 and 60 percent of the population will be willing to kill another person upon a scientist's command.
De Jouvenal points out that two restraints on European kings limited their exercise of power to a greater degree than modern democracy is limited. These were custom and the Church. Legal doctrines received from the Barbarian Codes and from the Romans left European kings with strictly delineated authority. Moreover, the power of the nobility, the dux, countered the power of the rex. Viewed historically, power seemed limited to historians of the 19th century because the kings never knew unlimited power until the Protestant Reformation, which overthrew custom and created the conditions for the argument of the divine right of kings. At the same time, the argument of popular sovereignty derived unlimited power from the popular will. Thus, the two doctrines of the divine right of kings and popular sovereignty evolved at the same time and considerably extended the possibility of power.
Historians could not anticipate the tragic consequences that would emanate from the unrestrained popular will of Rousseau, Hobbes, Hegel and Marx. Even the arch-capitalist Herbert Spencer was taken by surprise. He had argued that the organic evolution of the state in light of popular sovereignty would be in the direction of reductions in state power rather than more.
America was spared the Rousseauean tragedy because Locke did not claim that the people bestow all liberties on the general will, or that there is a general will at all. Unlike Rousseau and Hobbes, Locke saw only a limited granting of rights to the state. This limitation on state power creates a considerable distance between American and European democracy. Jefferson did not see this difference between the French and American Revolutions. That is one point on which Hamilton and Washington, the Federalists, were right and the Democratic Republicans were wrong. In America, Thomas Paine was exalted. In France, he was imprisoned.
Progressivism is a reassertion of Rousseauean values. The extent of the damage that Progressivism has done has yet to be seen.
"At this point nearly all who have written on the subject look the other way. A Power which is both illegitimate and unjust is off their intellectual beat. This feeling of repugnance, while it is understandable, has to be overcome. For the phenomenon is of too frequent occurrence to give any chance to a theory which does not take account of it.
"It is clear enough how the mistake arose: it was from basing a Science of Power on observations made, as it is history's business to make them, of Powers whose relations with society were of one kind only; what are in fact only its acquired characteristics were thus mistaken for Power's essence. And so the knowledge acquired, while adequate to explain one state of things, was quite useless in dealing with the times of the great divorces between Power and society.
"It is not true that Power vanishes when it forswears its rightful begetter and acts in breach of the office which has been assigned to it. It continues as before to command and to be obeyed: without that, there is no Power--with it, no other attribute is needed."
----Bertrand de Jouvenal, On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth, p. 108
In the 1950s Stanley Milgram showed that conformity to authority comes naturally to a large segment, and likely a majority, of the population. All that is required to confer legitimacy on a Sovereign is an appropriate title or costume. Under laboratory conditions between 30 and 60 percent of the population will be willing to kill another person upon a scientist's command.
De Jouvenal points out that two restraints on European kings limited their exercise of power to a greater degree than modern democracy is limited. These were custom and the Church. Legal doctrines received from the Barbarian Codes and from the Romans left European kings with strictly delineated authority. Moreover, the power of the nobility, the dux, countered the power of the rex. Viewed historically, power seemed limited to historians of the 19th century because the kings never knew unlimited power until the Protestant Reformation, which overthrew custom and created the conditions for the argument of the divine right of kings. At the same time, the argument of popular sovereignty derived unlimited power from the popular will. Thus, the two doctrines of the divine right of kings and popular sovereignty evolved at the same time and considerably extended the possibility of power.
Historians could not anticipate the tragic consequences that would emanate from the unrestrained popular will of Rousseau, Hobbes, Hegel and Marx. Even the arch-capitalist Herbert Spencer was taken by surprise. He had argued that the organic evolution of the state in light of popular sovereignty would be in the direction of reductions in state power rather than more.
America was spared the Rousseauean tragedy because Locke did not claim that the people bestow all liberties on the general will, or that there is a general will at all. Unlike Rousseau and Hobbes, Locke saw only a limited granting of rights to the state. This limitation on state power creates a considerable distance between American and European democracy. Jefferson did not see this difference between the French and American Revolutions. That is one point on which Hamilton and Washington, the Federalists, were right and the Democratic Republicans were wrong. In America, Thomas Paine was exalted. In France, he was imprisoned.
Progressivism is a reassertion of Rousseauean values. The extent of the damage that Progressivism has done has yet to be seen.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Democracies are More Coercive Than Monarchies
"It may be argued that there are really two Powers which are different in kind; that one is the Power of a small number of men over the mass, as in a monarchy or aristocracy, and that Power of this kind maintains itself by force alone; and that the other is the Power of the mass over itself, and that Power of this kind maintains itself by partnership alone.
"If that were so, we should expect to find that in monarchical and aristocratic regimes the apparatus of coercion was at its zenith, because there was no other driving power, and that in modern democracies it was at its nadir, because the demands made by them on their citizens are all the decisions of the citizens themselves. Whereas what we in fact find is the very opposite, and that there goes with the movement away from monarchy to democracy an amazing development of the apparatus of coercion. No absolute monarch ever had at his disposal a police force comparable to those of modern democracies. It is, therefore, a gross mistake to speak of two Powers differing in kind, each of which receives obedience through the play of one feeling only. Logical analyses of this kind misconceive the complexity of the problem."
---Bertrand de Jouvenal
On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth, p. 23
"If that were so, we should expect to find that in monarchical and aristocratic regimes the apparatus of coercion was at its zenith, because there was no other driving power, and that in modern democracies it was at its nadir, because the demands made by them on their citizens are all the decisions of the citizens themselves. Whereas what we in fact find is the very opposite, and that there goes with the movement away from monarchy to democracy an amazing development of the apparatus of coercion. No absolute monarch ever had at his disposal a police force comparable to those of modern democracies. It is, therefore, a gross mistake to speak of two Powers differing in kind, each of which receives obedience through the play of one feeling only. Logical analyses of this kind misconceive the complexity of the problem."
---Bertrand de Jouvenal
On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth, p. 23
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