Democracy: a history [1st American ed.] 0871139316, 9780871139313

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AC "A masterly performance

.

.

.

the next time you hear the word democracy,

reach for this book."— 77/A

economist

JOHN DUNN

>14.00

ONE OF THE ECO NO A rS BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR For the

last

dem-

twenty-five years, fostering

ocracy around the world has been a cornerstone

Why

of U.S. foreign policy.

important today,^

Why should

democracy so

is

hold such sway

it

over the political speech of the modern world.^

What does

its

recent prominence really mean.'^

Why

does democracy,

idea,

linger so large in the current political

both

as

word and an

a

imagination.^ Within the last three-quarters of a

century,

democracy has become the

political

West

offers to

core of the civilization that the

the rest of the world.

Now,

nascent dem-

as

Middle

ocracies begin to flourish across the

we need

to

understand what democracy really

In Democracy:

A

History,

John

England's leading political theorist to

explain

democracy in

East,

the

in today's world.

—

sets out

presence

extraordinary

The

is.

Dunn of

story begins

Greece, where democracy started as an

improvised remedy

for a

very local difficulty

twenty-five hundred years ago. Athens gave

democracy out

an

a

name

elaborate,

{demokratia) and

highly

worked and

distinctive,

astonishingly thorough interpretation of the political

conditions required

to

achieve

it.

However, democracy's tenure was

short-lived,

flourishing briefly and then fading

away almost

everywhere

for

nearly

two thousand

years.

Democracy reappeared with the foundi""^ of the new American repuuii ind amid the struggles of the French Revolution. I'he

word

democrat suddenly became a partisan label and a

badge of political honor, lending credibility

the idea of transforming

human

anywhere and everywhere, ments of democracy

to

collective

fit

that are sc

to

life,

the 'cquirer

to us

today. (conr »:

ack flap)

m

321.8 DUNN 2005 Dunn John Democracy a history ,

:

BEL-TIB

31111022822678

DATE DUE

Brodart Co.

Cat.

# 55

1

37 00

1

Printed in

USA

DEMOCRACY

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2011

http://www.archive.org/details/deniocracyhistoryOOdunn

DEMOCRACY A

History

JOHN DUNN

Atlantic

Monthly Press

New

York

Copyright

© 2005

by John Dunn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or the facilitation thereof, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to

work

obtain permission to include the

inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841

First

in

an anthology, should send their

Broadway,

New

published in Great Britain in 2005 by Atlantic Books,

an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd. Printed FIRST

in the

United States of America

AMERICAN EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dunn, John, 1940Democracy: a history p. cm.

/

John Dunn.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

lSBN-10: 0-871 13-931-6 ISBN-I3: 978-0-871 13-931-3 1

.

—

Democracy

History.

I.

Title.

JC421.D85 2005

321.809—dc22

2005058861

Design by www.carrstudio.co.uk Atlantic

Monthly Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic,

Inc.

841 Broadway

New

York,

York,

NY

10003

Distributed by Publishers

Group West

www.groveatlantic.com

06 07 08 09 10

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

1

NY

10003.

For Ruth

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book

is

no one's

selves out to help

patience, lucidity efforts to plan

But many people have put them-

fault but mine.

me

as

wrote.

I

I

and directness of

and complete

thank Toby Mundy,

who

it.

am

extremely grateful for the

Gill Coleridge

At Atlantic Books,

throughout I

should

my

like to

brings to publishing a combination of

consideration and zest of which authors vainly dream, and Bonnie

Chiang,

who has been

prompt, generous and colleagues in

consistently encouraging

and

helpful.

effective aid over particular points

I

have had

from many

Cambridge and beyond: notably Robin Osborne, Simon

Goldhill, Stephen Alford, Paul Cartledge,

Basim Musallam, Gareth

Stedman Jones, Tim Blanning, Bela Kapossy, and Michael Sonenscher.

The experience of writing tual debts

it

has reminded

me

which can never be repaid, above

vividly of old intellec-

all

to

Moses

Finley

and

Bernard Bailyn, of the intellectual companionship over decades of

Michael Cook, Quentin Skinner and Istvan Hont, and of the help and

encouragement

in

a

variety

many

of settings of

Fontana, Bernard Manin, Pasquale Pasquino,

Adam

friends:

Bianca

Przeworski, Tony

Judt, Richard Tuck, Cynthia Farrar, Sunil Khilnani, Sudipta Kaviraj,

Tom

Metzger, Ian Shapiro,

Andrew

Barshay,

Takamaro Hanzawa,

DemocrtJcy

who

Takashi Kato, and most recently Guillermo O'Donnell, devoted his Ufe to fathoming democracy's

Raymond

thanks to

decade, and

who

Geuss, with

whom

fate.

I

owe

have taught

I

has

very special

now

for over a

has been the truest of friends.

My colleagues in

the Department of Politics have shouldered many me the chance to work on it. I am especially grateful to Helen Thompson and Geoffrey Hawthorn for their help and solidarity.

burdens to give

The

University of

enabled

me

to

Cambridge gave me the

begin

it

in

sabbatical leave which

reasonable calm; and the Arts and

me

the final term of

me hope and

nerve over the last

Humanities Research Board, once again, gave research leave which

I

needed to complete

Three figures particularly have given few years

in pressing the questions

by his warmth, his glowing spirit, as

nosity

the shades closed

vitality, in.

which

and

Janet

it.

I

try to answer.

Edward Said

his unforgettable generosity of

Malcolm by her grace and lumi-

on the page, and by the ear of the Recording Angel. Dr Kim

Dae-Jung, the one unmistakably great political leader with have had the privilege to talk at length, to

more than

it

whom

his

whom

I

country owes far

has yet begun to realize, by his singular courage.

King's College, Cambridge, October 2004

We

used to go in

down on our

power, but

now we

knees before the people

have got to our

feet.

Nadia Berezovska (middle-aged postmistress, amongst the crowds in central

Kiev

who

forced the holding of a fresh election on Ukraine's

incumbent President) [Stefan Wagstyl

& Tom Warner, 'We used to go down on our knees

before the people in power, but

Financial Times, 21

now we

have got to our

December 2004, pl7]

feet',

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter

1

Why Democracy?

Democracy's

First

13

Coming

23

Chapter 2

Democracy's Second Coming

Chapter 3

The Long Shadow of Thermidor

119

Chapter 4

Why Democracy?

149

71

Notes

189

Index

239

Preface

WHY DEMOCRACY?

This book

tells

an astonishing

story. It is the story

word of

of a

casual origins, and with a long and often ignominious history behind it,

which has come quite recently to dominate the world's

imagination. Over the course of the book

try to

I

yet understand that remarkable ascent, but also

grasp

its

Why

how we can

recent prominence really

to bury

Baghdad

racy of

all

in its

own

Why

mean? When America and rubble,

why was

confusion?

it

words that they claimed to do so?

in fact illusory: a sustained exercise in

should

we

learn to

Or does

it

mark

a

in the Is its

real, for history to

This book

democracy

sets

come

it

hold

What does

Britain set out

name novel

of democ-

dominance

fraud or an index of utter

huge moral and

political advance,

which only needs to cover the whole world, and be made a

remedy

little

causes and significance altogether better.

does democracy loom so large today?

such sway over the political speech of the modern world? its

political

show how

little

more

to a reassuring end?

out to explain the extraordinary presence of

in today's world.

for a very local

It

Greek

shows how difficulty

it

began as an improvised

two and

years ago, flourished briefly but scintillatingly,

13

a half

thousand

and then faded away

Democracy

almost everywhere for

back to

life

as a real

all

but two thousand years.

modern

It tells

how it came why it first

political option, explaining

did so, under another name, in the struggle for American independ-

new American

ence and with the founding of the

how

it

then returned, almost immediately and under

more

far

registers

and

its

erratically,

how

rise

shows

own name,

if

It

over the next century and a half,

we

in the years since 1945. In that rise

strong the continuities remain, but also

breaks must be, between cratic state.

its

It

amid the struggles of France's Revolution.

slow but insistent

its

overwhelming triumph

can see

it

republic.

how sharp

the

Greek original and any modern demo-

its

We can grasp what it is about democracy which equipped

to evoke such vital allegiance, but which also guarantees that

it

will

continue to arouse intense fear and suspicion, and open intellectual

and moral scorn. Within the racy has

become

of a century democ-

last three-quarters

the political core of the civilization which the West

Now,

offers to the rest of the world.

understand what that core

really

as never before,

As do those

is.

to

we need

to

whom we make

that offer. In this book, accordingly,

The

first

try to

the single

outcome of the

in

a clear

politics.

most unmistakably momentous

last three-quarters

no serious attempt to answer the it

answer two very large questions.

concerns an extremely strange fact about modern

The second concerns political

I

first

of a century.

question.

Few even

I

know

of

care to pose

and reasonably frank way. Answers to the second

question, by contrast, are two a penny.

They

litter

the pages of

serious newspapers and form a commonplace of contemporary political

commentary Most, however,

the question

is

considered with care,

exceedingly hard to answer.

I

tions are closely connected,

it

are plainly wrong;

becomes

all

too clear that

may judge

it is

believe that the answers to these ques-

and

between them, they show

that,

something of immense importance about modern readers

and once

otherwise, and

still,

I

But

hope, learn for themselves

from the challenge of trying to answer each.

14

politics.

Why Democracy^

The single

Why

question has two distinct elements: the existence of a

first

cosmopolitan standard, and the term selected to express

should

it

be the case that, for the

conspicuously multi-lingual species, there

still

single

it.

time in the history of our

first

is

for the present a

world-wide name for the legitimate basis of political

authority? Not, of course, uncontested in practice anywhere, and

roundly rejected

still

many

in

quarters, but never, any longer, in

favour of an alternative secular claimant to cosmopolitan legitimacy

This it is

is

clearly requires explanation; but in itself

much

not necessarily any stranger than

which we now is

and

a startling fact,

live.

What

is

else

very strange indeed

about the world

(in fact,

in

quite bizarre)

the fact that this single term, endlessly transliterated or translated

across

all

modern

languages,' should turn out to be the ancient

Greek noun demokratia^ which originally meant not a basis imacy, or a regime defined by

good intentions or

its

its

for legit-

noble mission,

but simply one particular form of government, and that a form, for

almost two thousand years of

who

overwhelmingly judged by most grossly illegitimate in theory

The

and every

question, therefore,

first

history as a word, which,

its

is

political

But

it is

used the term, had proved

in part a question

about the

modern

and

Why

should

be

it

the verbal competition for ultimate political the globe?

What does

How

after so very

for so long

off

its

politics,

its

also a question about the history of

thought and argument, and about the history of political

organization and struggle.

victory?

was

bit as disastrous in practice.

history of language (the vocabulary of historical antecedents).

it

it

carry within

did the ideas

many

we now

centuries, face

dominated

it

it

take

down

this

word

commendation

to gain it

its

it

this

won

across

smashing

to imply, in the

end and

the variety of ideas which

with such apparent ease?

lengthy notoriety, adjust

that has

register

How

did

it

shake

from dispassionate or

disabused description to confident and committed commendation,

and pick up the oecumenical

allure

which

its

Athenian inventors

never intended, and could not distantly have imagined?

15

Democracy

At the core of

this story

is

the intensely political history of a very

political

word. But the word

itself

Once

was there

we know, summoned

it

precisely to

name

Athens, for his

(as far as

cannot answer our questions.

now

largely inscrutable reasons, very late in the sixth

century BC), that word could be carried laterally

backwards

into existence

the regime form which Kleisthenes pioneered for

as well as forwards in time.

It

in space,

and aimed

could be deployed to desig-

nate communities which had never heard of Kleisthenes, or even

Athens, and practices, whether earlier or

which were

later,

clearly

quite unaffected by anything the Athenians ever did, or anything else

which we know them to have

said.

remained a noun designating

a

But for over two thousand years

system of

Not

rule.

till

it

very late in the

eighteenth century, very close to France's great revolution, and apparently largely in a

and because of

noun of agency

it,

did democracy transform

itself into

democrat)^ an adjective which expressed

(a

giance and did not merely allude to

it

alle-

{democratic)^ and a verb (to

democratize)^ which described the project of refashioning politics, society,

and even economy

by the idea of popular

as a regime. But, as far as

democrats:

men

women) who

set

Ancient Greece had partisans of

democracy

(or

meet the standards

in their entirety, to

self-rule.

we know,

it

did not exactly have

did not just favour democracy in a

particular setting within a given conflict, but were also confident of the clear illegitimacy tively clear just

anywhere of every

rival political

where the superiority of democracy

Greek thinker or

political actor ever either

form, and rela-

lay.

Certainly,

no

defended or explained

their political aspirations as efforts to raise distinct aspects of political,

economic or

social

arrangements to the exacting standards

which democracy implies.

Athens gave democracy a name, and worked out an elaborate, highly distinctive and astonishingly thoroughgoing interpretation of the political conditions required to achieve

Revolution, well over two thousand years a partisan label

and

a

badge of

political

16

it.

But

later, to

it

took the French

turn democrat into

honour, and

first

lend imag-

Why Democracy?

inative credibility to the idea of transforming

anywhere and everywhere, to as far as

we know,

For us, democracy value.

We

how

far the

own

life,

beings begin to speak of democ-

which they belonged. both a form of government and a political

quarrel fiercely,

cates or indicts our

over

is

collective

those requirements. Only after 1789,

human

did any

ratizing the societies to

fit

human

if

confusedly, over

how

far the value vindi-

practices of government; but

same value

we

also quarrel

practically coherent, or desirable in

is

its

prospective consequences in different circumstances, on any scale

between an individual family or domestic unit and the entire human population of a

still

democracy

painfully disunited globe.

form of

as a

When we do

Greek arguments between

largely recapitulate

rule,

and

we

so,

local partisans of

intellectual critics

who

invented

political philosophy, alongside other genres of critical reflection

attempts to

politics, in their

call its

With the French Revolution, democracy acquired a political merits, both

momentum that it

throughout, as they

its

democracy

still

democracy idea.

But

limitations, there

word

is

idea

lost. Its

something

its

potent about

and that any hope of halting

The

its

political

intellectual

no standing

miracle.

It

it

potency of

potency as an

cannot issue

present prominence, and even the degree of

reluctant deference which

many

irresistibly

meaningless or unintelligible buzz of sound.

Democracy has won

plainly a source

is

and

has become ever clearer that,

no guarantee of

political force

merely from a

with very

is

it

in its tracks is utterly forlorn.

as a

its

word and an

are today. But despite these blatant

as a political rallying cry,

permanently

as a

has never since wholly

moral and practical, have been contested vigorously

endlessly reiterated vulnerabilities,

whatever

on

merits into question.

it

now

enjoys, in ferocious competition

other words, and not a few other ideas. Today,

and embodiment of

political

power

in itself;

cumulative victory, however disappointing or hollow against loftier aspirations of

its

own

sustained display of political power.

17

or others, has

if

itself

it is

and

its

judged been

a

Democracy

In this

book

I

tell

the story of democracy's passage from parochial

and protracted ignominy, seek

eccentricity

morphoses along the way, and show what unexpected victory all

now

time,

have to

means

main metaand wholly

for the political

justice to

full

two

which most students of democracy have found

it

combine: the startlingly insistent power lurking drab word and

in the ideas

speciousness of applying

it

It

in

which

has

it

come

which we

and through

clear perceptions

uncomfortable to in this

apparently

to evoke,

and the

at all literally to the organizational

governmental structures of any millennium.

world

In tracing that vast arc across space

live.

throughout to do

try

I

really

its

long, slow

to capture its

human

population early

and

in the third

easy to grasp democracy by suppressing either

is

perception. But,

if

you do, what you grasp must always be drastically

other than what

is

really there: a cynical truncation of that reality, or

upon

a stupidly ingenuous gloss politics.

We

are

it.

(It is

not hard to be an idiot

in

strongly tempted to political idiocy quite a lot of

all

the time.)

The

now

citizens of

Athens

in the fifth

and fourth centuries BC, to a

What

bewildering degree, governed themselves.

democracy (which was complex of

originally their word)

institutions

which enabled them to do

population can govern themselves feeling for political reality

in the

when we

Britain, as they prepare for

strive

same

they meant by

was the extraordinary

sense;

and we

today to see

war or draw up

No modern

so.

in

their public budgets,

instances of either people governing itself in even a mildly way.

When

any modern state claims to be a democracy,

misdescribes

itself.

But that

scription inconsequential,

is

its

friends

own

it

necessarily

very far from rendering the misde-

is

every reason for today's citizens to

state describe itself in these terms,

and commit

opaque

and cannot credibly be viewed merely as

deliberate self-deception. There insist that their

lose all

America or

its

power and resources

other states which also choose to do

so.

There

and choose

largely alongside

are, as

very practical advantages to doing so over time, even

if

we

shall see,

most of them

Democracy?

'Why

might be furnished

just as rehably for a bit

under a more dinical

vocabulary.

But the label of democracy does more than affirm a clear duty for states to provide their citizens

with these practical advantages.

It

also

expresses symbolically something altogether different: the degree to

which

government, however necessary and expeditious,

all

presumption and an offence. Like every modern cies of

today

demand obedience and

insist

state, the

on a very

compulsory alienation of judgement on the part of

demand

that obedience

When

state a state.)

make

that

demand

name, however, they do not merely add

is

own

own permanent

demands, and

measure of apology for the offence inherent

in levying

that offer, they close the circle of civic subjection,

itself

what makes a

insult to injury, or perpetrate

potential for effrontery in levying any such

think of

democra-

measure of

large

in their citizens'

an evident absurdity They also acknowledge their

framework of categories within which

also a

their citizens. (To

and enforce such alienation

they

is

offer a slim

them. With

and

set

out a

a population can reasonably

over time as living together as equals, on terms and

within a set of presumptions, which they could reasonably and freely choose. Everywhere that the

word democracy has fought

its

way

forward across time and space, you can hear both themes: the purposeful struggle to improve the practical circumstances of

and

life,

from arbitrary and often brutal coercion, but also the

to escape

determination and longing to be treated with respect and some degree of consideration.

govern ourselves.

What we mean by democracy

When we

democracy, what we have that our

own

organize our

state,

lives,

is

not that

we

speak or think of ourselves as living in a

in

mind

is

something quite

different.

It is

and the government which does so much to

draws

its

legitimacy from us, and that

we have

a

reasonable chance of being able to compel each of them to continue to

do

so.

They draw

it,

today,

from holding regular

which every adult citizen can vote

freely

and without

their votes have at least a reasonably equal weight,

19

elections, in

fear, in

and

in

which

which any

Democracy

uncriminalized political opinion can compete freely for them.

Modern

democracy has changed the idea of democ-

representative

racy almost beyond recognition. But, in doing so,

from one of

history's hopeless losers to

one of

has shifted

it

its

more

it

insistent

winners.

My

second question, then,

centred

much

upon

reviled

this novel state

word

is

it

is,

and

win through

drive to

three remarkable stories.

tells

place the story of a word. But

embodied

or

in

form, that has given this very old and

the stamina

This book, then,

what exactly

it

It tells

also tells alongside

it

in the end. in the first

the story of an

and ludicrous, and the further story of a

idea, by turns inspiring

range of widely varying practices associated with that idea.

One

broad family of those practices, the governmental forms of the

modern

representative capitalist democracy,

world through

now dominates

unprecedented powers of destruction which

it

has at

first

two

stories are long, complicated,

The

first

two sections of the book, accordingly,

The

boldest outline.

more complicated:

third

all, let

This least,

is

disposal.

The

closely intertwined.

far briefer, but also

tell

them

in the

much denser and

It is

not clear that

it

could yet be told as a

alone told convincingly at endurable length. In this

third section, therefore,

but to explain

is

and

its

the very core of the political history of the globe

over the last half-century. story at

the

wealth and confidence, and through the quite

its

why

a story,

it

all

I

attempt not to record what has happened,

has done

so.

too obviously, about us: the story, at the very

of the historical backcloth to the lives of an ever-growing

majority amongst

second question,

us.'

is

The question

why

try to

answer here, the book's

this particular state

form, the modern repre-

I

sentative capitalist democracy, has for the present

struggle for wealth

and power. This

claim to have answered

it

is

conclusively.

a

won

the global

hard question; and

What hope I

to

show

I

is

cannot

why

its

answer cannot be either of the two conclusions which we are endlessly urged to

draw from

it

(because

20

it

is

evidently just

and

Democracy's First Coming

because

must

works

it

reliably in practice),

He. If these

judgements are

own need

conclusion: that our the world in which

we now

and where,

right, they

instead, that answer

imply

at least

one simple

to understand the political reality of

live is still

every bit as urgent as the need

which prompted the Athenians to invent and deepen that very distant system of

For them,

self-rule.

it

was

a price they chose to

pay to

protect their freedom, as well as an expression of that freedom in itself.

we

We

cannot protect our freedom

how

care to, can see

tion, judge

who

how

best

best

we

can.

We

services

we

too,

same

way. But still

can be protected amongst the

volunteer their

ourselves the price

theft

it

in the

pressingly that freedom

if

for

we

too,

many

claimants

the purpose, and choose for

are or are not willing to pay to protect

we

if

needs protec-

it

as

choose, can use this antique word, not in

and mystification, but to focus the challenges which history

sends us, and face them alertly together.

21

Chapter One

DEMOCRACY'S FIRST COMING

Out

come

of the dark and from very long ago has

word which where

carries authority for

in particular.

human

it

presses a claim for authority

Everywhere,

still,

settings they are

listeners

began

its

hfe some-

in

any numbers. Wherever

and

a

demand

brushed effortlessly aside, and

all

it

for respect.

these claims remain sharply contested. In

silence. In others they are

most

it

word. Like every

Today that word reaches out almost everywhere

on earth where humans gather together goes,

beings,

a

some

but cowed into

affirmed sonorously enough, but heard by

with a hollow groan. Virtually nowhere any longer,

even in the most brutal of autocracies, are they merely unintelligible as claims;

and

in

remarkably few

sites

by

now

are they simply

and

permanently inaudible: excluded or erased from public speech by the sheer ferocity of repression. (Note, for example, what was

respond even for Iraq Security Council its

invasion.

It

in the

summer

demanded

its

of 2003

when

first to

the United Nations

submission, before America launched

was not the tyrant who had ruled the country with

such murderous brutality and for so long, and whose image dominated every Iraqi public space, but what passed for a national representative

assembly: a Parliament.

It

was

they,

23

not their real master,

who

D e m o c rij cy

showily declined to submit. Within the week, their real master,

Or

showily, had decided quite differently.

less

so, at least for a time,

it

seemed.)

As

on

travels all by,

it

through time and space, the word democracy never

travels

it

its

own. Increasingly, as the

and perhaps now even, well.

last

two centuries have gone

human

has travelled in fine company, alongside freedom,

rights,

at least in pretension, material prosperity as

But unlike these companions, democracy stakes a claim which

is

disconcerting from the outset: the claim to be obeyed. Every right constrains free action. Even freedom necessarily intrudes on the

freedom of action of others. But democracy

on the

will: a

demand

enticing about that will

to accept, abide by,

most of your fellow

the choices of

to,

and

the authority

This

many

won

in the

may not

by

many

ways, and from this far-flung

word

is

pressure

end even submit

There

demand, and no guarantee ever

a story with a beginning.

is

itself a direct

citizens.

avoid fearsome consequences and

complicities. In

is

is

nothing

that accepting involve

it

hideous

different points of view,

strange indeed.

Democracy began

in

Athens.

Not

anything whatever which anyone today might reasonably choose to call

democracy,' but something which someone

we know,

did.

Today democracy has come

gall, to refer to it

entered

as

first in fact, as far

to be used, with sufficient

almost any form of rule or decision making. But when

human

speech,

it

did so as a description of an already

existing and very specific state of affairs,

somewhere

in particular.

That place was Athens.

What

exactly did

democracy describe when the Athenians

used the term as a description? in this

What

did they

way? To see what was happening

labelling),

it

mean by

first

describing

in that first act of

naming

it

(or

helps to begin by listening to the Athenians as they

addressed one another about the experience which they hoped to capture. Consider

two

voices,

one very much speaking on democ-

racy's behalf, the other writing of

more confiding and enquiring

it

fashion.

24

without enthusiasm and

in a

Democracy's

The

first is

First

Coming

famous and imposing, the voice of

Pericles himself.

The

grandest celebration of ancient democracy comes not from a poet or

philosopher (or even a professional orator),^ but from the great political leader

who

Athens into the war which

led

evokes, and claims to report, a single

held late in the year 430BC. True,

himself ever spoke a single word of izing historian

readers that

it,

who

certainly

like the

momentous

but destroyed her.

It

historical ceremony,

we do not know

that Pericles

But Thucydides, the mesmer-

it.

composed

many

all

virtually all of

it,

assures his

other speeches of his History, conveys

not merely what Pericles should have said but also what he would have meant.' Thucydides, as he

tells

his story to last for ever;^

and

state in

war and peace

Churchill,

us himself with

some

pride, intended

had

led his city

Abraham Lincoln

or Winston

Pericles by that point

for longer than

and done so under conditions which often

tested the skills

of domestic political leadership as exactingly as America's devastating Civil

War

Third Reich.

He

or the grim struggle to withstand and overthrow the also led

it

(and could only have led

that has never been true in any

it),

to a degree

modern Parliamentary or

Presidential

regime, by convincing, time after time, a majority of the citizens present on the occasion by the speeches which he made.

power by

oratory,^

nance of It

was

this

We

held

and did so steadily and tautly enough

Thucydides himself to describe Athens single person.^

He

at the time as being ruled

for

by a

need not be surprised at the lasting power or reso-

remarkable witness.

proud sad occasion: a eulogy to the war dead

a speech for a

of Athens in the opening year of the long drawn-out Peloponnesian

War, delivered, as at every Athenian public funeral of the single exception

common it,

finely

spoke not at

though he

all

left his

What he spoke

nity for

the victors

of

fallen (with

Marathon),^ before their

grave beside the loveliest approach road to the city walls. In

Pericles

heroes,**

of

its

of,

of the individual exploits or daring of his hearers in

little

doubt that many had done

incomparably, was Athens

which each had made their

25

itself,

final sacrifice.

the

commu-

He spoke

of

its

/) e

singular glories and

mo

L

r

a cy

unique claim to such ultimate devotion.

its

Thucydides was no sentimentalist, and no one since he wrote has in

those years more

in praise

of Athens at that

judged the political conduct of the Athenians

What

searchingly

he makes Pericles say

point, in vindication of the choices of those

from and centres on

behalf, begins

its

political

and

spiritual lives

which

it

freed

who went

out to die on

political regime,

its

and the

and prompted the Athenians

to live together:

We

live

under a form of government which does not emulate

on the contrary, we are

the institutions of our neighbours;

model fparadeigma, or paradigm) which some

ourselves a

follow, rather than the imitators of other peoples.^

This regime, which

is

democracy {demokratia), because

called

it

is

administered with a view to the interest of the many, not of the few, has not merely

made Athens

great.

It

has also rendered

its

citizens

equal before the law in their private disputes, and equally free to

compete

for public

to lead the

city,

honours by personal merit and exertion, or to seek

irrespective of their

ground. '° Pericles praises it

it

for the

own

wealth or social back-

mutual politeness and lack of

fostered between those citizens, for the deep respect for law

cated,

and

world.

He

for

determined openness

its

for

drawing to the

praises

it,

its

taste

and respect

in face its

wisdom,

its

pride in

it

had mustered,

of every other people, and the

way of

life.

and responsiveness to beauty, for

incul-

and products of the whole

too, for the military superiority

stalwart courage nurtured by for

city the fruits

it

spite

its

But he praises

equally,

sobriety of judgement

its

own

generosity Athens, he boasted in summary,

it,

energy, discretion

is

and

an education for the

whole of Greece."

Democracy

for the

before the category

Athenians began (and even acquired

itself

its

name)

carried or expressed any clear or special

value. Yet within a few decades of picking

26

up the name,

it

had come

Democracy's

mean

to

some not

for

suffused

of personal a

way of organizing power and

whole way of

institutions, but a

somehow

just a

it.

Coming

First

life

and the inspiring

At the core of that way of

commitment

to a

community of

qualities

life lay

birth

political

a

which

combination

and residence, and

continuing practice of alert public judgement on which that

community

quite consciously depended for

its

own

security:

man who takes no part in public affairs, one who minds his own business, but as good for

For we alone regard the not as

nothing; and

we Athenians decide

public questions for

ourselves or at least endeavour to arrive at a

standing of them, in the belief that

it is

sound under-

not debate which

is

a

hindrance to action, but rather not to be instructed by debate before the time comes for action}^

There has never been a lies at

the very centre of

fuller or saner expression of the

democracy

The speech which Thucydides

as a political ideal.

gives us

a historian's presentation

is

of a dutifully partisan and highly political performance.

epitome of the ways

in

which the

hope which

citizens of

It is

also an

Athens had come to wish

to conceive themselves as a community.'^ To other Athenians at the

time, just as earlier

very different, as slaves,

not

all

figure

metics -

women,

the critics of

it

democracy naturally meant something presumably did to many inhabitants of Attica -

and

later,

who

could never become

democracy there

is

a

wider range of voices to

of them cultured despisers like Plato.

whom

British

forgotten, have

come

classical

to call the

full citizens.'^

scholars,

^^

listen to,

Especially striking

for

now

reasons

Old Oligarch, author of

With

is

the

largely

a terse study

of The Constitution of Athens^ long attributed to Xenophon.'^ For the

Old Oligarch, writing

War but

in all probability before the

Peloponnesian

even began, Athens's democracy was no occasion for applause;'^ it

certainly

was

a coherent political order, with

well calculated to sustain

and strengthen

27

it

over time.

many elements It

gave power to

Democracy

the poor, the unsavoury and the unabashedly popular,'* and did so quite deliberately at the expense of those of wealth, nobility of birth

or social distinction.''* This distribution of power''" had entirely consequences,^'

natural

expense of the source of the ingly

benefiting the

What made

power,

city's military

former mercilessly at the

was the main

the distribution viable its

citizen navy,

drawn overwhelm-

from the poorer sections of Athens's population, unlike the

heavily

the

latter.

armed

hoplites

Old Oligarch,

it

who dominated

was true

in every

its

land armies. ^^ In the eyes of

country that those of greater

distinction" oppose democracy, seeing themselves as repositories of

decorum and

respect for justice,

and

their social inferiors as ignorant,

disorderly and vicious.^" In the face of these attitudes, the poorer

majority of Athens's citizens are very well advised to insist on their

opportunity to share the public offices of the address their fellow citizens at allocate those public offices

will,^^

city,

and

their right to

and especially well advised to

on which the safety or danger of the

people depended,''^ the roles of general or cavalry commander, not

randomly across the

citizen

body but by popular

them

best equipped to hold

election of those

the wealthier and

(inevitably,

more

powerful).

For Pericles, as Thucydides makes him speak, the democracy of

Athens was a way of

living together in political

ennobled the characters and refined the

community cation,

It

opened up

and protected them

another.

It

to ask for

an entire

sensibilities of

lives rich

with interest and

effectively in living

would be hard sanely

ical institutions

the

to

them

freedom, which

out these

lives

more from any

set

gratifi-

with one of polit-

or practices. For the Old Oligarch, in stark contrast,

democracy of Athens was

a robust but flagrantly unedifying

system of power, which subjected the nobler elements of

its

society to

the meaner, transferred wealth purposefully from one to the other,

and distributed the means of coercion clear-headedly and determinedly to cement

this

outcome and keep the nobler elements under

control.

28

Democracy's First Coming

For the people do not want a good government under which they themselves are slaves; they want to be free

No

and

to rule.^^

one could miss the clash between these two views. What

to assess

is

how

is

harder

judgement and not merely

far they really conflict in

and, where they do conflict in judgement, which better

in taste,

conveys the way democratic Athens really was.

Anyone who

different obstacles.

anywhere

at

above

the

all

nents.^^

of

The

any time.

first is intrinsic

to assessing the politics of

comes from the ambiguities of

It

permanent tensions between

Every political community

human purposes and

human

themselves faces three very

tries to see that reality for

actions.

is

its

politics itself,

two principal compo-

an elusive and unstable blend

the (principally unintended) consequences of

Those purposes can be extremely narrow or very

widely shared. They can

flicker for a

day or two, or congeal into well-

defined institutions or rules of action, and carefully interpreted conceptions of

why both institutions and

rules are or are not appropriate.

on

picture of politics which focuses principally

and values registers

starts off

from the

down what actually happens

men and women choose community

official face of a political

in a less

to behave

that the aspirations enunciated its

institutions grossly at

against another true, however,

and

is

little

clearly

on

all

but certain to present that

conclude

occasions are often bogus,

one

line of

political

tools of deception. ^^

and the conduct

What must

that neither picture can ever be adequate

on

its

be

own

wholly beside the point.'" With Athens,

perhaps than with General Mobutu's Zaire or the

The other two impediments really

how particular

light. It is likely to

Wahabite Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the need

it

picture which attempts

their official justifications,

to sanction

more than

community, and

as a result of

its official

odds with

it

neither, therefore, ever

more

is

sanguine or generous

values invoked within

A

and pretensions.

aspirations

its

instead to pin

Any

institutions, practices

was are

less

for each

to seeing Athenian

intimidating but

29

is

very clear.

democracy the way

every bit as inconvenient.

The

Democracy

first is

which

the sporadic and often capricious character of the evidence

But

rate descriptive texts." a relatively small

number

upon us

another, press

now

for

of

all

of this does not consist of elabo-

it is still

their

own

We

in the

shadow of works

all

one way or

All of these, in

picture of that very distant reality,

purposes of their own,

to identify

much

very

of extremely striking texts, above

drama or oratory

of history, philosophy,

and do so

Much

available to us.

is still

many

hard, or even impossible,

have works of painstaking institutional descrip-

of Athens, comedies and tragedies

tion, like Aristotle's Constitution

from Aeschylus to Aristophanes, probing

from Herodotus

histories

and Thucydides, passionately engaged speeches by prominent ical

into the

meaning of human

from Plato and

some

Aristotle.

life

and the place of

out of view. These large gaps

nothing to blur the

salutary warning of

how

easy

see them,

and

feel

will

it

own

ourselves about the sources of our

The

in

make

we

can. But they offer a

always remain to deceive

views of those

is

them

shall see, little direct relation

practices of ancient Athens is

realities:

why

the lengthy and surprisingly continuous this way, a history largely carried

by the historical transmission of exactly the same

today But there

or weaken our

about them, the way we do.

third obstacle

history which has led us to see

we

texts

it

our knowledge do

realities of the distant past,"

reasons for straining to grasp them as best

we

politics within

Between them these disparate

things arrestingly clear; but they also leave a great deal which

now wholly

is

polit-

advocates like Demosthenes or Isocrates, unexcelled enquiries

between the

texts.

There

is,

political institutions

as

and

and those of any human community

unmistakably at

least

one connecting strand, which

runs without interruption from the texts of Aeschylus to the present

day What

is

structures of

along

it,

and aim tions.

transmitted along this strand

power or

vitality, is

and why and how to

Conceptions of

seldom,

definite institutional practices.

often with great for,

is

this

act

if

firm

travels

conceptions of what to value

on the

basis of those concep-

kind (values, ideals, visions of

30

ever,

What

life)

never

Democracy's

Coming

First

determine the outcome of the poHtics of any community, and change constantly as they shape and reshape purposes along the way. But no

community can

exist even fugitively, let alone persist

and extend

across long spans of time, except by courtesy of just such conceptions,

and the complicated

and practices which

tissue of institutions

they inform and sustain. (The law of any society

which to see the weight of

this

an ideal setting

is

in

simple consideration: an endless

battleground of contending force, but also and just as necessarily a seamless canvas for enquiry and interpretation, the play of

intelli-

gence and even the impact of scruple. ^^)As we peer back towards the

democracy of Athens, through the murk of endlessly about

what was ever

really there,

history,

we

and quarrel

largely recapitulate

Greek arguments.

We

in subject matter:

because the reality we are trying to grasp was to

do so partly because of an obvious continuity

such a large degree what those arguments were about; and partly too

because recapitulating Greek arguments was what for almost two

thousand years Europeans, and trained to do. But

we

also

some of those arguments, of

life

from which they

What

later

North Americans, were

do so because of the enduring power of

itself a

testimony to the power of the way

first came.^"*

then was Athenian democracy?

Of some

quite certain. For the Athenians themselves fiercely contentious

have been

less

from

like the

tirelessly

its

beginning to

anodyne

things

we can be

what

it

was remained

end.

It

could scarcely

its

political recipe

which democracy

readily seems today, an almost wholly unreflective formula for

how

things ought to be politically almost everywhere and almost always

(anywhere and any time, at matter).'^

What

happened

in

least, at

and through and because of

their regime therefore

it

does not very urgently

their

meant. They had far

principal institutions were, or

when

it

less

was what

democracy, and what

doubt about what

its

had come into existence, or

it had come to an end. What divided them, as it human community, was how they saw one another's

when, eventually, divides every

which

the Athenians disagreed about, of course,

31

Demo c ra cy

political actions,

forces

and

and the purposes which

lay

interests (conscious or otherwise)

behind these, and the

which

in

turn lay behind

those purposes.

Throughout as well as

come

its

history, the

democracy of Athens had

committed partisans, both

at

home and

abroad.

to be, as Pericles boasted, a proudly shared

conspicuously splendid setting; but that way of

bitter It

may have

way of

life

enemies

itself

life

in a

attracted

hatred and scorn as well as love and admiration; and the hatred and the love flowed out over the

democracy

interests

and

and enveloped the

in

which

it

reflected

social

and secured.

Athens arose out of struggles between wealthier

landowners and poorer families who had losing, their land,

and practices of

and the balance of competing groups,

itself,

political energies

Democracy

institutions

lost,

or were in danger of

and who therefore risked being forced into unfree

labour by their accumulated debts.^^ consciously, through that struggle

It

did not arise, directly and

itself,

self-

by unmistakable victory of

the poor over the rich, but through a sequence of political initiatives

which reshaped the social geography and institutions of Athens, and

endowed

with a political

it

equipped

it

identity,

and

a system of self-rule

which

and defend that identity The most important

to express

of these initiatives, the reforms of Solon, were put in place before

Athens had

in

any sense become a democracy

Solon was an Athenian nobleman {Eupatrid), chosen magistrate {Archon) for the year 594BC, and given basis of land ownership, credit

Athenians, and give

eligible to

power

to reorganize the

and personal status amongst the

lasting legal form.

it

the levels of property

full

He

codified the laws, revised

on the basis of which wealthier Athenians were

hold public

office,'"

modified the structure of law courts,

greatly improving access for the poor, freed those already enslaved for

debt and abolished debt bondage for the future.

He

firmly refused to

redistribute the land.'**

By these means Solon tamed the brutal dynamics of appropriation, land hunger, debt and potential enslavement amongst the Athenians

32

Democracy's First Coming

how Athens

themselves, and showed them

and keep

itself,

changed round

together as a community, while the world

itself

What

it.

could hope to conceive

he failed to do was to establish a political

mechanism through which the Athenians could that hope. His reforms were a

Athenians themselves.

It

was

remedy

between the

for a dire trouble

become

yet to

act together to realize

remedy

a

in their

own

hands.

The next key guration,

initiative, the

came almost

political turmoil.

Solon was a

a figure of legend,

haunted the

conventional date for democracy's inau-

much

intervening

real historical person; but

he was also

a century later

and

after

one of the two great Lawgivers

political

(Legislators)

who

imagination of Greek communities, and have

What

obsessed their would-be successors ever since. ^^

the Lawgiver

did was to focus the fundamental challenges facing a particular

community

framework which

clearly in his mind's eye,^° set out a

provided a durable solution for those problems and define this

through the medium of

507BC what

the Athenians in due course

also a historical figure, a

become

never

presents the

him

who brought

came

nobleman (Eupatrid)

a figure of legend.

from a

as setting out

None

to

Athens

to call democracy, like

in

was

Solon; but he has

of the historical sources

clearly articulated conception of

fundamental challenges Athens faced, or carefully selecting

democracy unnamed.'*'

before him,

It

was not even

was

problem.

for

so,

yet

a pre-specified formula, applied to solve a

What

Kleisthenes did, as Solon had done

to reorganize Athenian social geography

tions to resolve a set of

work

Democracy, indeed, was not merely as

for their remedy.

clearly defined

do

law. Kleisthenes,

immediate problems and build

and

institu-

a stable frame-

Athens as a community around that would-be resolution. To

he needed to win power in the

turned out, was both an

initial

consequence of having done

so.

first

means

to

What was

place;

and democracy,

do

and

so,

different

was that the framework he established was from organizing political choice which took

33

it

in

as

it

due course

a

about

its

his solution

outset a

way of

outside the ranks of the well-

/)('

born and

til c

y

and assigned

relatively wealthy,

cally to the

;;/ (> c

Athenian demos as

it

elearly

and unapologeti-

a whole.

Herodotus presents Kleisthenes's adoption of

this

approach, not as

an instance of intellectual or moral conviction, but as a practical expedient to muster support against his aristocratic

Spartan

which

done is

allies/'

led

him

and

their

But even at the time the motives and aspirations

to select

it

may not have

What mattered more

so.

that in

rivals

many ways and

greatly mattered, once he

even then, and

still

had

matters to this day,

for a surprisingly long time the expedient

worked.

As

-

it

continued to work,

rule of, or by, or,

more

acquired a

it

literally,

name

of

its

own {demokratia

strength or power in the hands of,

the

demos -

the people as a whole, or, in the eyes of

the

common

or non-noble [non-Eupatrid) people).

a developing institutional

deepening sense of delivered

(in

Kleisthenes

its

form to express that

own

identity

and point.

in

enemies,

also fashioned

rule,

and a steadily

Pericles's

some form) some three-quarters of

won power

its

It

speech was

a century

Athens through and for democracy; and

Athens remained a democracy, with two brief but destructive ruptions, for a further century afterwards.

an end

in the city,

what ended

it

Throughout of

some

It

inter-

When democracy came

was not Athenian

even their unintended consequences). the armies of the

after

to

political choices (or

was foreign military power:

kingdom of Macedon.

this

century and three-quarters, Athens, a community

third of a million inhabitants with a large

and increasingly

resplendent urban centre and a substantial rural hinterland, was very often at war, initially against the Persian empire, but usually against

other Greek city states (above

all, its

great rival, the warrior

kingdom

of Sparta), and eventually and decisively against the only quasi-Greek

kingdom of Macedon. There were Greek community, between political institutions

its

close ties, as there were in every

military (or naval) organization,

and the balance of

social

groups within

it

its

which

supported or threatened these institutions. The Athenians liked to

34

Democracy's First Coming

think of themselves as

more

own

rooted in their

historically continuous

contrasting the depth of their

commitment

and nomadic attitudes induced by more By the time that rather grand

Pericles

to the

fertile

had finished with

of fine

city, full

new

and more firmly

than other Greek city states/^

territory

more opportunistic

parts of Hellas.^

Athens had become a

it

public buildings

(many

still

there to

be admired) and magnificent statuary (much of which, for one reason or another, war,

is

now

elsewhere). But except

when most of

Long

when

rural inhabitants chose to retreat behind

its

its

Walls, the majority of Athenian citizens did not live perma-

nently in the city in Attica.

The

itself

but continued to

in

citizens, all adult

all,"*^

of

whom

men,

women and children,

slaves (perhaps 150,000 in

more than

full

males and most of them Athenian by descent for

were some 40,000 resident aliens

whom could hope in due

a few of

course to become citizens themselves, and a

Most

land elsewhere

about 30,000 would have been

several generations. In addition there {metics),

own and farm

citizen population of Athens was never very large,

perhaps 100,000

little

directly threatened in

The

all)."*^

much

full citizens

larger

number of

therefore represented

a tenth of the population."*^

of these citizens, naturally, did not spend

attempting to rule the

city,

or fighting in

its

campaigns. Many, for the century after

all

their time

endless naval or military Kleisthenes,"*^

could not

own slaves themselves, and drew such income as they had, and secured much of their household's food supply, from the produce of their own small farms. Some lived too far away from Athens to attend the meetings of the

conceivably have afforded to, since they did not

Assembly with any frequency. But the

Assembly met,

as

it

all

had the

right to attend

whenever

did with increasing frequency as the democ-

racy evolved over time, whether at pre-arranged intervals or to deal

with particular eventualities - a diplomatic or military emergency, a

major

trial."*^

They

also

proposals coming before

on

all

and thus to determine together

its

had the it,

outcome, but also to address

it

right not merely to vote

themselves,

35

if

they could muster the

Democracy

on any

nerve,

issue

which came under discussion. They held these

rights as equals, whatever their

own

level

of personal wealth or educa-

tion, the social standing of their families, or the prestige of their

occupations.

We do

not

know how many mustered

what emboldened them

do

to

so.

the nerve, or just

But we certainly

know

that a

majority of them for nearly a hundred and thirty years remained firmly committed to, and took a deep pride in, the conspicuous core

personal equality which these arrangements expressed and

of

Athenian

asserted. For success in

politics personal wealth, family

background and even costly education were

tries).

just as helpful as they are

United States today (or most other wealthy capitalist coun-

in the

As

far as

we know, no Athenian was

have proved so, or embarrassed

when

surprised that they should

they did.

What was

surprising,

and remained disconcerting to some throughout Athens's history as democracy, was

how

became, and how

a

robust the assertion of equality eventually

clearly

it

set the

terms on which the pressures of

wealth, family background and educational embellishment could

continue to exert themselves. Besides the Assembly

itself,

made war

state for the Athenians,

navies,

which took

all

the great decisions of

or peace, despatched armies or

and passed or rejected each new

law, there

were several other

key institutions, which kept the main direction of Athenian political firmly in the hands of

life

Council (the Boule), 500

in

its

citizens as a whole.

There was the

number, which drew up the agenda for

every Assembly meeting.^" This met each weekday, co-ordinating

other public bodies and effectively conducting the foreign relations of the polls throughout. (the

It

was drawn from

all

the 139 territorial units

demes) into which Kleisthenes had divided the Athenians for

political purposes, its

members

selected by lot

from those who chose

to offer themselves for the purpose.^' Within the Council a tenth of

members

its

served as a continuing executive body, rotating throughout

the year, chaired on each occasion by a fresh individual, selected again

by

lot

from the tenth

in

question for twenty-four hours at a time."

36

Democracy's

Coming

First

There were also the popular Law Courts, an annual panel of 6,000 service

citizens, all of

and sworn a formal oath

do

to

significant case brought to trial in their verdict,

Athens and decided

They held every magistrate

of their office, most decisively of

any prominent Athenian

and who were

its

outcome by

all in

to account for the conduct

the great political trials which

might have to face

political leader

and which often endangered not merely

personal fortune but their very It is

it,

These courts heard every

it.

without benefit of (or impediment from) professional

judicial advice.

point,

whom had volunteered for the

justice within

paid a modest daily fee for providing

drawn from

in effect juries

at

any

their reputation or

lives.

not hard in this picture to pick up some of the fierce directness

of Athenian democracy, and the formidable dispersion of personal

power and possible.

responsibility

across the citizen

What remains hard

immediacy

in

Athenian

to see clearly

politics,

personal accountability which

and modified the continuing

it

is

body which

quite

how

made

it

this startling

and the permanent and intensely enforced, nevertheless fitted with

role of

its

political leaders. If Pericles

ever in any sense ruled Athens as a single person, he certainly did

most

so by continuing courtesy of, and with the clear consent of,

of his fellow citizens

who took an

active interest in the matter;

and

even Pericles in due course found himself the target of a menacing prosecution, and sentenced to pay a heavy

made

their

mark, and

danger, was

laid themselves

fine.^^

Where

the leaders

open to such acute personal

by setting themselves forward to champion major defend one

line of policy against another, prin-

cipally in the field of foreign war,

and by competing to lead the armies

changes

or

in the law, or

fleets sent off to fight in

these incessant struggles.

To do

the

first,

they had to win the consent of the Assembly, and do so without the

backing of an organized personal following which could ever have mustered a substantial proportion of the votes required. (Contrast

any modern legislature

in action.)"''

To do

themselves elected for the purpose.

37

The

the second, they

had

to get

election of the Generals,

Democracy

was widely recognized

Strangely to our eyes,

as the least democratic

feature of Athens's political arrangements, a clear concession to the

massive importance of warfare, and the dire potential costs of losing at

it.

We

can picture

this political

regime most clearly when at

most

its

public and dramatic, in the great set-piece debates in the Assembly at

which

took

it

We

most momentous decisions.

its

see

above

it

all,

whether we wish to or not, through Thucydides's glittering portrayal of the trajectory of the Peloponnesian War: in the savage punishment

upon Mitylene and almost immediately

willed

or the

regretted,

launching of the Sicilian expedition which ensured Athens's ultimate defeat.

We know

almost nothing of the ceaseless mustering of

ence or flow of persuasion which gave

and helped them sway

do not

huge audiences. In so

many ways and

that in

is

Looking

main leaders

understand why, or quite how,

really

plainly see

their

its

at

it

far as

within

its

own narrow

essentially the right way, assigning basis,

did work,

for a long time

it

and allocating

it

in the right

confines,^^

it,

is

that

should have done

it

it

we

we can

just did.^^

from today, what we most want to believe

Athenian democracy somehow worked because so, because,

it

did so. All that

it

influ-

their followings

organized power

in

within those terms, on the right

way

It is

above

all

that conviction,

however confusedly, which we locked into place, when we turned the

noun which on which political

initially

it is

described

it

into our

own name

decent to claim political power over time in any modern

community. Quite how and why we chose to

formation

is

for the sole basis

what

this

book

is

about.

Most

effect that trans-

of the answer must

very far from ancient Athens either in time or in space. principle even be true that

none of the answer had any

itself

might mean no more than

that.

It

real

The passage of

tion with that vastly distant experience.

might be

just

might

It

lie

in

connec-

the

word

an accident

in

the patterning of letters or sounds, across languages and territories,

over a huge span of time. But that at least

The

survival of

democracy

as a word,

38

we

its

clearly

know

to be false.

penetration from ancient

Democracy's

Greek into

wide range of

a

translation over a

much

other substantial

human

its

Coming

First

later languages,

and

still

more

its

enforced

briefer time-span into the language of every

population across the globe, came

continuing capacity to

elicit

enthusiasm than from

its

less

from

utility in

organizing thought, facilitating argument and shaping judgement.

This

is

extraordinarily important.

reminding

It

its

won

its

means

democracy entered

hearers of a glory for which they consciously longed, or It

did so just by referring,

than seductive terms, to possibilities

in less

and facing

reluctantly

vast following not by evoking a golden past, or

with which they already urgently identified.

and

that

modern world

the ideological history of the

backwards.

It

before them. Initially at least,

when

it

did this,

it

now opening up helped them not

merely to talk more clearly to one another about these possibilities,

and the rewards and hazards which they might

more

clearly

about whether to pursue these

prospective cost. the term can (as the

still

Two

millennia and

readily play.

Freudians put

it)

more

we need

What

many

to think our

at

what

and

fro it

way past

and ever more overwhelmed as

a

an aid

in

understanding

mass of history and block

survived from ancient democracy, for at least the next two

for carrying

on

political

set of institutions or practical life.

It

was

a

fashioning

it)

techniques

body of thinking which

creators certainly envisaged (whatever else they in

and

not a role which

pressing importunities.

thousand years, was not a

mind

is

too highly cathected: saturated with emotion,

by accumulated confusion. To rescue

our ears to

possibilities,

later this

Today the term democracy has become

irradiated by passion, tugged to

politics,

carry, but also to think

may have

also

had

as an aid in understanding politics. Its

its

in

most

powerful elements can be found principally in three books, by three separate authors rian Thucydides, All three spent

who

and the philosophers Plato and

an appreciable portion of their

None was an open Plato

was

overlapped with one another

in time: the histo-

his pupil Aristotle.

lives in

Athens

itself.

partisan of democracy as a system of rule; and

as harsh a critic as

it

has ever encountered. But

39

all

were

m o c ra c y

/) e

more concerned

evidently

meant than they were

The

least

to sneer at

of

explicit

Thucydides, was also

in

some ways

most informative

the most informative, and

but his historical

made

its merits.)^** It

what

it

was

England up

like,

drawn

influential

for their

most evocative evidence of mid-nineteenth-century

in

it

for.

to

attempt to

with one

political

regime

is,

Each, accordingly, judged the democracy of Athens

some degree wanting, because

and natural operating dynamics

laid

it

its

and forces which they valued

far

principal elements

wide open to purposes of

which they keenly disapproved, and largely closed

Much

little

work through an elaborate

and enormously ambitious conception of what a

and found

interpreters

their differences

all

another, each viewed the democracy at

or should be,

study of the

modern

and Aristotle make

convey anything of the kind. For

his

was Thucydides's History above

from George Grote

today/^ Plato

till

still

like in action.

or no attempt to reach an

little

on which the most committed and

of Greek democracy have

judgement,

on ancient democracy was not

text

Constitution of Athens, which

all

it.^^

ultimate

his

in

what the democracy was

systematic treatise the Politics,

overall assessment of

or try to subvert

it

three

the

gives by far the best sense of (Aristotle's

what democracy was and

to understand

it

to considerations

more highly

of the continuing political and moral thought of the western

world has been a sequence of arguments about what conclusions to

draw from these three

writers: naturally

too, but increasingly over the last particular. In

What

claims should

about many other matters

two centuries about democracy

we and should we not

what respects should we place our

conclusions

drawn

remained

more or

it,

or decline to do

span of time, the

less

Democracy, on the Athenian evidence, was not a techniques for conducting political

would be

well advised to trust.

life

in

it?

this

trust in

anything of the kind? For far the larger part of

accept about

in

sharply

negative.

set of institutions or

which any community

The experience of Athens, no doubt

flamboyantly misreported, was grossly discouraging.

40

It

was an

Democracy's

First

Coming

experience, too, which had ended in humiHating and permanent

And

defeat.

lifespan,

it

well before this, less than halfway through

passed through the long trauma of the Peloponnesian War,

and

staged, by a writer of superlative political intelligence force, as a story of the

far

literary

due punishment of overweening pride, greed

and deeply corrupted judgement/" Scholars disagree to

how

political

its

Thucydides was

in the

day over

this

end an enemy to democracy

itself,

and

how far he was merely a particularly subtle and clear-sighted analyst of how it operated in Athens over one of its darkest times and in face of its single most unnerving challenge/' What is certain is that many European thinkers read

later

his History, as

Thomas Hobbes

did as

he worked through his translation in the anxious decades before England's mid-seventeenth-century Civil War," as the definitive diag-

democracy

nosis of the malignity of

as a political regime.

Thucydides a case for democracy you had to look for Victorian historian George Grote did, with case today a

is

some

care.

To

see in

as the great

it,

To

find that

as hard as ever, not least over democracy's suitability as

way of conducting

strategies for a

the foreign relations or choosing the defence

community

immediate

in

peril, as

Athens was, and we

are sure to continue to be.

But

it

was not the

text of

format through which generation after generation of Europeans

as a

sought to understand kept the

it

more

however later,

What preserved and

politically explicit

we have

that

politics.

it

for this purpose,

all

evasively).

It is

intellectually

less at

demanding

become democrats today (however To

texts of

not, of course, because Plato so detested

reject

democracy today may

to write yourself out of politics.

more or

It is

and

in all

it is

far

sooner or

definitely to write yourself

once out of polite political conversation. But there

our political vocabularies. The connection

from

clear

what

it

means.

41

It

it

sheepishly,

just be,

deep connection between Plato's open scorn and the salience of

term

and

durably available as an instrument of practical thought, were

Plato and Aristotle.

a

Thucydides which preserved democracy

is

is

this

not obvious,

does not run from democracy,

Democracy

either as an idea or in the forms in

ized its

and reaHzed that

institutional

which the Athenians institutionalwhich the idea or

idea, to a set of conclusions

embodiments simply enforce upon anyone. Instead

runs from the experience of democracy over time,

which that experience offered them, and the opportunity which provided them, for reflecting more or just

what

less

it

accountably with others on

does mean to institutionalize power

it

it

to the occasion

in

one way rather

than another, and seek to realize particular political goals through

one such institutional form rather than another. More bemusingly,

it

runs from the drastic force of the conclusions reached about each

When

question by these two remarkable thinkers.

they gravitated

back to the vocabulary of ancient Greek classifications of forms of

government (democracy, aristocracy, oligarchy, monarchy), what pulled successive generations of Europeans back, time after time, was the imaginative tug of these

it

political assessments.

Plato's Republic

At face value, Perhaps, as

two

says

itself, it is

is

not a book about democracy

principally about justice, or acting as

should, or about the nature of goodness and

sound all

why human

reasons to try to see that nature clearly

the imagination

and energy

good and bad forms of government

it

remains to

this day) that in the best

phers would rule. But

it

to clarify the grounds

at least

It

(as

to

with

it

certainly discusses

for a city state {polls)

ending up by defending the exotic conclusion

beings have

and respond

at their disposal.

one

community,

implausible then as

form of government philoso-

appears to do so principally

which every individual human being

in

order

intrinsi-

cally possesses for living well rather than badly: as they should,

and

not as they emphatically shouldn't.

Except Republic

in is

its

physical setting and

its

cast

list,

aspiration, for everywhere, as Thucydides's History for all

was

to be a

in

book

time. But, despite the modest portion of the text devoted to

democracy and what as a

furthermore, the

not obviously even a book about Athens: more a book,

it

means,

it is

book against democracy, and

no distortion

to see the Republic

at least in part therefore in the last

42

Democracy's First Coming

instance against Athens precisely because

was so

it

ebulliently a

democracy.

There are many reasons why Plato might have disliked democracy,

and held dence.

It

Plato himself

came from one of

He

it

over the preceding century, very

belonged unmistakably

ranks of the

from democracy, as the Old Oligarch saw them:

to beltiston

(the best bit).^^ Pericles, as

it

But

this

must be too simple, since the same was true of

had been of Kleisthenes before him, by no

imagination enemies to the democracy.

It

immediate matter of personal milieu, the lovers,

resi-

in the

against their will.

losers

of birth and

the grander Athenian families, forced

power to

collectively to surrender

much

own community

his dislike against his

might have been simply a matter of social background, since

some of

whom

stretch of the

might have been a more circle of friends,

or even

proved their enmity towards democracy in

too practical and conspicuous ways.

It

might, more narrowly

all

still,

have been a response to the bitter fate of his great teacher Socrates,

sentenced by a democratic court to corrupting the sively,

from

none of stain

its

city's

kill

himself for his impiety, and for

youth (once more drawn principally,

grander families). Probably,

it

was partly

not exclu-

if

all three.

But

these, not even the judicial murder^"* of Socrates, that primal

on democracy's honour, does much to explain what Plato held

against democracy,

what he saw

as ineliminably

wrong with

it.

Socrates himself had been a deliberately disturbing presence at

Athens for many decades, before the Athenians

and chose to

kill

him.

his fellow citizens

As

He

thought, above

all

about

course of a long

deserting Athens could instead and living

kill

anywhere

and

his

still

save that

life; life,

and

not to

him (above

at the end,

all

live.

on the

when only

he elected to stay in prison

himself as ordered, because he had no wish to go on else,

and saw the very idea of taking

betrayal of a lifetime's citizens

turned on him

how and how

a citizen he carried out every duty required of

battlefield) over the

at last

disturbed by challenging the terms in which

commitment

to a place, a

flight as the

group of fellow

deep respect for the community to which he had

43

Democracy

belonged throughout that Hfe and striven to serve to the utmost of his

own courage and

imagination/''

This proud choice was the clearest message which Socrates

behind him; and Plato turned

it,

left

with whatever embellishments, into

power, the Apology.^^ In so far as Plato's case

a text of singular

against democracy was merely a denunciation of the killing of Socrates, that denunciation

the

is

carried far

Apology and the Crito than

chose to

kill

reasons.

One was

bilities in

Socrates, as far as

in the

more

clearly

Republic

we can

tell,

itself.

for a

and

directly in

The Athenians

number of

different

the affront which he gave to their religious sensi-

the hectic conditions at the end of the Peloponnesian War.

Another, almost certainly, was his intimate relations with some of those

who most harmed Athens during

those terrible years: above

all

with Alkibiades and Kritias. Alkibiades was the glittering, haughty, ruthless orator

and general most responsible

trous invasion of

who

Sicily,

for launching the disas-

eventually betrayed his fellow citizens

most flamboyantly by deserting to the enemy. Kritias was the most brutal

and domineering of the oligarchic leaders who crushed the

democracy

at

the war's

citizens, until they

These were not,

close

and tyrannized over

their

fellow

too were overthrown in outrage in their turn.

in

retrospect, friendships

which

it

was easy

to

excuse. But Socrates himself was no advocate of tyranny or treason.

When

Plato set out the lessons which he had

more elaborate and searching explorations of too offered was in no sense a defence of social, political or

economic

drawn

himself, in the

the Republic,

tyranny,*^^

what he

or even of the

privileges of the loftier elements in

any

existing society. In all

its

elusiveness

and power, that

offer centred

on a defence of

the need for rule and order, and the steady recognition of

genuinely

is

good, and on an uncompromising rejection of the democ-

racy's claims to provide

accident.

what

The Republic

erately teasing book,

any of these, except by sporadic and fleeting is

a

book with many morals.

It is

also a delib-

and open to an endless range of interpretations.

Democracy's

But no serious reader could

First

Coming

to recognize that

fail

comes down

it

firmly against democracy/^

Plato

an

makes many charges against democratic

which forms around

life

all

and

it

arises out of

it.

rule,

He

sees

in essence as

it

but demented solvent of value, decency and good judgement, as

and always potentially

the rule of the foolish, vicious, frontal assault

on the

possibility of a

the scale of a community. the presumption that,

The

when

good

life,

everyone

else's.

principle of democratic rule

comes

it

That presumption

lasting shape to a democratic

ways

in

which power

is

brutal,

much weight

in turn implies that there

community, and nothing

exercised within

What

it.

equality,

is

community and

to shaping a

Thomas Hobbes pointed out two thousand

and a

with others on

lived

exercising power, everyone's judgement deserves as

the

and the way of

reliable this

years later,

is

as

can be no

about

means, as that in a

democratic community there can be no real security for anyone or anything except by sheer fluke.

^^

Exactly the same principle applies, with equally calamitous effects, within the individual personality and in the individual

democratic priate to a

man

(the individual personality

democracy) there

oute anagke) in his straint

life.

which makes a

'

free

it is

precisely this shapeless uncon-

and sweet and blessed {makarion: the

key word of the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount)

acknowledges the

vitality of this

colour and diversity can readily liberty^''

For the

neither order nor compulsion {taxis

is

For him

life

life.^'^

formed by and appro-

way of

make

life, it.^^

and

sees

how

.^'^

Plato

enviable

its

But for him the rage for

which accompanies and corresponds to

its

commitment

to

equality ('Anyone free by nature could see only a democratic polls as fit

to live

in')^^

will infallibly

undermine democratic

every form of authority within the ties between teacher parents,

and

young and

slaves,

comes

even

it.

It

and dissolve

disrupts and in the end destroys

and taught, father and son, children and

old, foreigners (metics)

human

rule

and

beings and animals. ^^

to be seen as slavery^

The chaos which

45

citizens, free

Any

this

persons

constraint at

all

unleashes must end

Democracy

ineluctably in arbitrary rule (tyranny): a precipitous descent from

democracy, the height of Hberty, to the

fullest

and harshest

slavery/**

was not an astute prediction of the democracy's

Plato's assault

two generations.

future over the next

captured nothing of what

It

due course brought democracy to an end

in

Athens

itself.

But

it

in

raised

the stakes in assessing political regimes to an unprecedented height.

Democratic Athens shrugged Plato himself aside without discernible effort.

But the challenge which he levelled

preferred conception of what

it

meant remains

world which has chosen to embrace at

in a

aspects of the idea in preference to any of

at

the democracy's

as potent as ever today,

word and some

least the its

innumerable competi-

How can this of all political ideas in the end sense? How can it claim allegiance and win loyalty,

tors across the ages.

make any while

it

stable

endlessly takes to pieces every other form of order or basis of

inhibition

around which groups of human beings have

organize their

Plato saw democracy above idea,

all

whose demerits could be read

clearly in

recipe for the worst

life,

life

which

it

as tyranny was,^^

it

realized in

came, and the

all

but guaranteed a bad

life

others. This

it,

and

effortlessly

together in close associa-

was an extreme

view,

and

from careful study of what did or did not occur

clearly derived not

many

it

any community that chose to adopt

community of

was

sanctioned. While not a reliable

subverted every attempt to lead a good tion with a

erratic passage

its

itself

the political disruptions of the communities to which

disorder of the ways of

to

to

presumptuous and grossly ugly

as a

through the Greek world. The chaos of the idea

life

tried

lives?

in

places over a long period of time, but from brooding on the idea

itself.

Aristotle, Plato's

confidence

in

most

gifted

and

least

dependent pupil, had

far less

what can be judged about the human world merely by

considering ideas

in

themselves.

He

set

himself as well to assess the

merits of contending political formulae by identifying what did and

did not occur in most cases in the

46

human world when

they were

Democracy's First Coming

applied to

The

it.

lessons about

enquiries were far

democracy which he drew from these

more extensive and complicated than

verdict in the Republic.^^

They

Plato's

are also far less conclusive in their

ultimate implications. Plato loathed democracy and did so without

Some have

inhibition.

seen, in his entire conception of knowledge, a

systematization of that overwhelming distaste. Aristotle was more sober, less carried

ments of others

away by

in the

his feelings

conclusions which he eventually drew. For him

democracy {demokratia) was not since

rule,^'

it

community

and more open to the judge-

amounted

to

one of the good forms of

itself

government not

whole but merely of the poor {ton aporon). But

as a

government by the many

[to

plethosf^ could nevertheless prove a

good form of government, provided only that

common call

it

When

good.

in the interest of the

he thought

it

was exercised

or,

more

informatively,

was distinguished from democ-

racy not merely by a difference in purpose and disposition

ment

to collective

different

commit-

(a

good rather than group advantage), but

also by a

and more elaborate institutional structure. The purpose of

this structure latter's

for the

was, Aristotle himself chose to

not democracy but politeia (polity

constitutional government). Politeia

it

was not

expense

distribute

to enforce the will of

(like oligarchy,

some upon others

at the

or at the extreme tyranny), but to

powers and responsibilities as

accordance

far as possible in

with capacities, and thus draw on a far wider range of energies and skills,

and

loyalty by Politeia

common

elicit

doing is

a correspondingly

broad range of sympathy and

so.

not the only form of government which aims at the

advantage**'

Monarchy and

and

is

aristocracy, the

therefore

compatible with

government of

a single

superior group, might in principle set themselves the

justice.

person or a

same goal and

vindicate their claim to justice in so far as they contrived to reach

it.

But their success or failure depended quite directly on the virtue,

discernment and luck of the rulers themselves. Only politeia, Aristotle suggests strongly,

47

in the case of

does the prospect for realizing

Democracy

government of

justice in practice in the

on the

largely

resulting division

it.

seem ever to have supposed,

Aristotle does not

Thomas Hobbes

community depend

power and the

institutional organization of

of responsibilities within

a

or Jeremy

Bentham often

as later followers of

did, that the institutional

organization of power, or the predictable workings of individual interest within

it,

might somehow furnish dependably

just

outcomes,

without the need to pass through and engage the purposes of agents,

who took

constraints which

for

justice

it

inevitably

own

their

human

goal and accepted the

imposed upon them.

He

did not think

of political institutions as a substitute for personal virtue, but as a

way of

eliciting

and sustaining

on what might always prove Aristotle,

seems

it

democracy and

and a means

did not draw the distinction between

from current

to bring into focus a key contrast.

common

The point

usage.

beings living together in substantial numbers?

saw

as he

tions of

that

it,

was

how

it

He

developed

is

the point of

And how

human

exactly must

together to best secure that point?

lives

it

of that contrast was to

answer two large and pregnant questions: what

they organize their

more

economizing

for

a very scarce good.

clear,

politeia

it,

The

point,

and define together compelling concep-

to explore

does and does not make good sense to

live,

a search

depended profoundly upon language, imagination, and the

balance of sympathy and antipathy between to realize the

degree possible

envisaged task.^

It

it,

human

beings;

more compelling of these conceptions in the living

this

of real

lives.

and then,

to the highest

Even as Aristotle himself

proved an open-ended and somewhat centrifugal

has lost greatly

in

imaginative force, and ceded

in recent centuries to the very different

much ground

enticements of the quest to

enhance material comforts and multiply personal amusements. But, like the latter, the principal

Aristotle's goal too can,

pursuit of happiness."''

dynamic of our own economic

energies,

without mistranslation, be described as the

What

is

striking for us in

48

how

Aristotle

saw

Democracy's First Coming

that quest

shape a

not the value he attached to experience and the will to

is

but the extent to which he viewed a system of participa-

life,

tory self-government as an aid in

pursuit,

its

and the

the Greek polis as a special opportunity for attaining

Because of the massive impact of his book The

peculiarities of it.

Politics

on the

thought of Europe, and then the world, both idiosyncrasies have proved to matter. The special

which to pursue the good

eligibility

life

together

of the polis as a setting in is

an elusive and confusing

theme*^ which need not concern us. But the idea that a system of participatory self-government will aid

strand of the story

thousand tant.

years.

One

we need

Two elements

the far juster and

is

its

pursuit provides the central

to follow for in Aristotle's

more

of a

and where

it is

view are especially impor-

careful assessment of the merits

of government by the multitude, where this

common

most of the next two

is

based on the acceptance

good, and on some willingness to pursue also organized in a

way

together, its

more malevolent and dangerous character-

citizens

and

istics in

an effective way. The second,

restrains their

it

that uses the capacities of

in the

end

a very long time every bit as consequentially,

less decisively,

was

but for

Aristotle's decision

not merely to contrast a healthy with a pathological version of rule

by the multitude, but also to reserve the term demokratia for the pathological version.

The Greek champions of democracy

praised and fought for rule by

the multitude {to plethos), by a broad array of political arrangements.

But, unlike Aristotle, they either did not choose to write books, or failed to ensure the preservation of

any books which they did write.

Their picture and their case have largely passed from the earth, leaving the scantiest traces behind.**' Politeia for Aristotle say (using a device of

Hobbes) was simply democracy

we might

liked, while

demokratia (democracy to you and me) was democracy keenly misliked.

Not only was

insistently,

it

explained

all

the

was marked

word

in a

itself

marked

way and through

too evocatively just

49

why

it

negatively;

still

more

a set of thoughts that

deserved such suspicion.

Democracy

Democracy

in Aristotle's final

handed on

ally

ings of politics,

common

at a

Europe and thus

to medieval

was

good.

a It

vocabulary, the vocabulary he eventu-

was

more

modern understand-

regime of naked group

a

many

getically devoted to serving the

the better, the

to

form of government which simply did not aim

at the

more

elevated, the

unapolo-

interest,

expense of the wealthier,

As

fastidious or virtuous.

they took their bearings through the vocabulary which Aristotle had

passed on to them,

it is

not hard to see why generation after genera-

European thinkers shied away from

tion of

democracy

and menacing

violent, unstable

wealth, power or even pretension, centuries of

European speakers

to

it

this

word. Not only was

to those

who

already held

was, Aristotle taught

mean,

many

and disrep-

ill-intentioned

utable in itself through and through.

Why

then have

our mind? (Or, feelings

blunt,

we now,

if

so recently and yet so completely, changed

not our mind, at least our verbal habits, and the

which we attach to them?) The

and perhaps not too

difficult to

pluck a plausible answer off the library

what

lies

of those questions

first

answer (though

it is

But the second -

shelf).

behind our selection of the term democracy

elusive.

To grasp

this,

we need

to see a

-

is

good deal more than how

and why we have reversed the values attached

to that

back from pejorative to neutral, and then, more all

just

itself as privi-

leged vector for political legitimacy and decency across the globe

more

is

hard to

word, shifting

tentatively,

onward

it

to

but untrammelled enthusiasm. Such shifts in the evaluative conno-

tations of political

words occur during most protracted

and often serve

struggles

not why we

question

is

why our

greater

feel

to

register

warmth has

huge weight of

political

have chosen a Greek word at of us

who

political

The

outcomes.''

more warmly towards democracy

Why

so baleful, Greek

noun

Why

to carry

should we

should we (that large majority

are not Europeans) have chosen a

50

It is

of the entire prior history of

hope and commitment. all?

real

today, or

crept into our vocabulary choices.

why we have chosen, somehow, out human speech, this single, for so long this

their

European word?

Why

Democracy's

should

be this of

it

all

Coming

First

Greek words?

Why

is it

this set of letters

sound on which we have come to place

this loose blur of

and

this vast

gamble?

No doubt, itself. It

to

we

if

see the matter quite like this,

we must be

understanding what we are doing, or

error, either in

grossly in

in placing the bet

cannot possibly be sane to entrust the destiny of the

an arrangement of

not what

we suppose

to be doing (no

letters

species^'

or a set of sounds. But that, of course,

ourselves to be doing.

doubt correctly enough)

that word picks out, however vaguely,

is

What we

is

believe ourselves

to place our trust in

in the world: in a

more

what

or less

coherent approach to assigning power and acknowledging responsibility

within the ever more complicated network of political,

economic, social and legal communities to which we belong and on

which we have no

option but to depend.

real

Democracy has come

to be our preferred

name

for the sole basis

We may

which we accept either our belonging or our dependence.

embrace

either with joy, or even ease; but, at least

these might be communities which

than repudiate.

It is,

we, the people.

What

is

not

how

above

all,

the term

rule.

our term for

means

political identification:

(even now, is

That was what

when

lie.

when

Much

it

very

much appears

of the history of

that so clearly

that the people (we)

meant

it

where the claim bore some relation to the truth. That today,

is

modern

politics has

at Athens,

what

thumping falsehood:

a

this proviso,

on balance we can accept rather

matters are in the outside world)'"

hold power and exercise

on

on

not

it

means

a bare-faced

been a long, slow,

resentful reconciliation to this obvious falsehood, a process within

which democracy has often proved a far from preferred term for ical identification.''

Across this struggle, with

all its

swirls

polit-

and eddies,

and stagnant backwaters, the vicissitudes of democracy have often

no

special reason to believe

will give either clear or

economical guidance on

been of negligible importance. There that to focus

on

it

what exactly has been they have.

Where

at stake or

is

why

the battles have

come out

as

there has proved to be something very special about

51

De mo cracy

democracy

in the lonely

is

eminence

however temporary or precarious

it

now won. In that outcome, may prove, we can see quite

has

it

something of immense importance which we reasonably can (and perhaps now must) set ourselves to try to understand. clearly, there is

One

side of the story, the

embrace of

intricacy, a single relatively clear

one word, has, for

this

shape

space and time.

in

have already noted, a story with a beginning. single heroine.

{Demokratia

It is,

we

too, a story with a

a feminine noun.) Or,

is

all its

It is,

if

that seems too

literal-minded a

way of putting it,

the demos,

of Athens and now, potentially, of anywhere in the

first

world where a

set

human

of

a story with a single collective hero,

beings cares to think of themselves as

belonging together by right and responsibility, and through and because of who they are.

The other all. It

side of the story, the

words not chosen, has no shape

has no discernible beginning and no self-identifying

even a definite cast heroines.

Much

of

list, let

too unheroic and inconsequential

is

to bear telling. There cannot be a story of

myriads of unchosen words which

We

fall

the myriads

all

passing them by on the other side, evidently appropriate structure. all

at

all

Still

upon

by the wayside.

cannot think about the casting aside of potential

through

not

sites:

alone a manageable array of heroes or

obviously,

it,

at

less

rivals,

or

once and through a single can we

sift

consecutively

these interminable rejections or evasions in any coherent

way

All

Why Why

thirdly this of all

we can

readily do is to recognize the different shapes of enquiry appropriate to these three questions we have already raised. firstly a

European word?

The main brunt of tions falls clearly

They is it

secondly a Greek word at

the answers to the

on the

last

first

and

two centuries or so of world history

way of organizing and competing

representative democracy, has

tive success

all?

third of these ques-

are facets of the answer to a very different type of question:

that one

talist

Why

Greek words?

had such overwhelming competi-

over the last sixty years?

52

why

for power, the capi-

It

was

this

Greek word, of

all

Democracy's

Coming

First

Greek words, because

it

names something about

format which

is

closely

political

gave

it

that

(if

perhaps misleadingly) tied to what

awesome competitive

because, in the end,

now dominant

that

edge.

It

was

European word

a

was European powers and not China which

it

forged the world capitalist economy, and built the successive empires

within and through which that

economy was

because, once their power had ebbed,

was the United

it

America, very much an heir to the language of European in

no small part

commandingly

To

would need

struggle

way, and see right across

shoes.

human between human

it

life

on earth

way

It is

their

Bushmen

or Evans-Pritchard's

way

than China" which habitat for our

to see

made

why

it

why

come from

Nuer

homeland now seared by decades of

crisply convincing

as a single

beings to get their

not hard to see

for legitimate political authority does not

the San

own

some and

the global

name

the language of

Southern Sudan,^^

in the

repression. But there

is

no

should have been Europe rather

the world a single crowded painful

species,

we

and with steady detachment why exactly

the balance of advantage has tilted endlessly towards

against others along the

and

politics,

glib level of understanding,

to view the history of

amorphous

blind

abandoned

somewhat

this

States of

through that language, which stepped

built

into their

get beneath

and

largely shaped,

common

and so made Europe's bigotries and

parochialisms a global world-historical force, instead of a mere local

deformity or a continental stigma. To see the place of the words not

chosen we must take

many

things as given, above

all

the densely over-

lapping histories of capitalism and imperialism, the shapers of the

world

in

which we

all

The odd one out

now

belong.

questions

in these three

European word which has come

why

is

to enjoy this startling world-historical

destiny should have been a Greek

word

at all.

slightly

further

It

west,

might,

still

more

might have come

It

instead from further north or further east, from a

or Turkish language.

the privileged

Norse or Teutonic

plainly,

have

come from

from the language of Greece's Roman

53

Democracy

Romance languages which

conquerors, or the later

stemmed from

large within

struggle for wealth

now

if

some form of

these. All of these languages recognize

Some

authorization through popular political choice.

loomed

Europe

and even beyond

itself,

due course

in

time

for a

global

in the

it

and power. But, whatever would have happened by

the Third Reich had

somehow won

only one of these languages looks today

World War,

the Second

formidable

like a truly

the Latin language of Rome's great empire. That language

rival,

gives

still

us a large proportion of our vocabulary of political evaluation:

and

zenship, legality, liberty, public

private, constitution, republic,

union, federation, perhaps, directly or at one remove, state

What

it

does not give us

is

the

word democracy. And

itself.

that, not

because democracy does not happen to be a word which the

Not only

themselves went to the trouble of borrowing. not a classical Latin word. not express

aged

how

politics. It

bad translation in

is

It is

Romans

the

not a

Roman way

Greek work demos. Nor

and hence of

Romans

democracy

of thought.

(any of them, as far as

no sense conceived the Roman populus

Rome's

is

is it

It

we know)

not that the Latin word populus (people)

for the

citi-

is

that the

does

envis-

at all a

Romans

as the ultimate source of

Rome.

It is

simply

that they never conceived that populus as ruling directly

itself,

unim-

peded, and within a framework of authority which

was perma-

law,

nently free to revise for

Roman

political authority within

The

itself.^''

it

unit of political authority in

public inscriptions (of which there were many) was the Senate

and People of

Rome

{Senatus Populusque

formula (and by no means only

in that

Romanus: SPQR).

In that

formula), the Senate

came

first.

There

is

much

argued over the

else to say last

on

this question,

few decades

in

Oxford and

were, perhaps, other possible futures for the military subversion bitter end.^^

some of

Roman

and imperial subjection

in

it

powerfully

elsewhere.''^

There

Republic than the

which

it

came

to

its

There could perhaps have been another outcome to the

struggles of the

champions of the populus, the brother Tribunes,

54

Democracy's

Coming

First

Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, than the political murders to which they succumbed. Perhaps

it

might even have been possible to keep the

Republic in being, alongside the armies with which of the world

whom

it

back to brood on these

European communities repeatedly and

possibilities,

was not the history that forged the world nothing to

tell

try to

But that was not the history which

life.^*

us about

hundred

overthrew.^' For almost fifteen

years the political thinking of

back into

conquered most

knew, and for Rome's empire to have been an empire

it

only for the rulers

circled

it

summon them

in fact occurred.

which we

in

live.

It

It

has

why democracy should now be our name

for

duly exercised political power.

The Romans themselves, democracy

as far as

we know, never used

to interpret or assess their

or indeed anyone

else's. It

own

was, however, used about them by at least

two sophisticated Greek analysts of Rome's

Polybius was the loftier thinker.

mulated resources of Greek

Rome's

rise to

political

Dio.'°°

Of

these two,

systematically on the accu-

thought to analyse the basis of

mastery over the Mediterranean world and explore

future prospects.'"' In a

He drew

development as

historical

community, Polybius and Cassius

a political

the term

political arrangements,^^

many ways

his Histories

its

remained, for well over

thousand years, the most systematic attempt to grasp the dynamics

of Rome's remarkable

rise. In it,

Polybius also

made some

effort to

grasp the relations between the basis of this extraordinary ascent and the internal vulnerabilities to which,

other

human community, was

Polybius saw

Rome from

many

eventually

centuries later,

bound

it,

like

any

to succumb.

a singularly instructive angle.

Born and

raised in a leading political family in Megalopolis, the effective capital of the

hostage

in his

168BC by

Achaean League, he was brought back youth, following the

Roman

the Consul Aemilius Paullus,

and

to Italy as a

conquest of Greece

lived for

decades

in

in close

contact with his conqueror's household, for at least part of the time as tutor to

one of

twenty years

later,

his sons.

was

That son, Scipio Aemilianus, more than

to be the

Roman

55

general

who

finally defeated

Demo c ra cy and

sacked

the

Mediterranean domination for century

under

earlier,

close indeed to being

Rome's

Carthage,

of

city

final destroyer.

its

Hannibal,

general

great

for

rival

beforehand, and half a

a full century

own

its

leading

Amongst other

very

qualities,

Polybius had a fine sense of historical occasion and records with

some

eclat the tearful response of his distinguished pupil, looking

down

over Carthage in flames, to the recognition that one day

(as

happened over

five

hundred years

later),

Rome

too would

fall

it

for

ever.'°^

some ways

In ical

order

down

is

the picture which Polybius painted of Rome's polit-

now hard

to us. His

to read. Large parts of his text have not

come

book was composed over an extended period of time

and, like Aristotle's Politics, central subject matter

it

probably changed significantly

from the author's point of view

composition. As far as we can judge today,

it

is

in the

in its

course of

also reasonable to

conclude that some aspects of his thinking never became entirely clear or coherent. But what

is

occurred to him that

Rome

unmistakable

monarchy, several centuries

in the

earlier,

racy Viewed from one of the

is

that

it

seems never to have

period after

had

at

ceased to be a

any point become a democ-

principal

city's

it

political

suppliers of Consuls for generation after generation, this surprising. Like Aristotle,

if

families,

was not

a trifle less clear-headedly, Polybius fully

acknowledged the practical value of

a

democratic element

in the

organization of a political community, and in his case more particularly in the

organization of Rome's Republic. But, again like Aristotle,

he was at pains to restraint by restricted

above

odd if

all

insist that this value

two further elements,

power of

aristocratic

initiative over

to the Senate

depended

many

and Consuls.""

It

for a client of Scipio's family to see

the

prospects for

office continued to

its

strictly

upon

firm

and monarchical, which

issues, in the

Roman

case

would have been extremely

Rome

as a democracy, even

male members to win high

depend on

its

political

their capacity to get elected by citizen

assemblies."*^

56

Democracy's First Coming

A

simple comparison between the composition, authorization and

practical

shows

powers of the Athenian Council {Boule) and Rome's Senate

just

how

implausible any such equation

to Polybius himself.

ment, not that

Rome

anyone as being) might

it

What

a

is

striking, however,

in the If

warned, that condition could not last long, the city

itself.

'°^

as

it

plainly

was

was Polybius's judge-

already was (or could readily be conceived by

democracy, but that

due course become one.

in

is,'°^

long run, and disastrously,

and when

did, Polybius

it

and must inevitably destroy

the flames of Carthage were the portent of a final

If

foreign conquest, a sack of

Rome,

like Alaric the Goth's,

Polybius

himself also contemplated the possibility of a purely domestic end to

Rome's great journey: the coming of democracy.

At

this

point in his analysis, Polybius's vocabulary muddied

somewhat, and democracy was

retitled,

following a Platonic prece-

dent, ochlocracy^^ (the very worst sort of democracy, the rule of the

component of

lowest and most disorderly

put

later

it,

the

demos

or, as the

was more the deepening of an

the mob). But this

than a refinement in diagnosis. The political structures

which had enabled its

deft,

might

all

if

Rome

to conquer

wholly unplanned,

too readily end

upon

who

of power by just

world

Rome

disappeared from view completely for

But before

half.

recommend democracy

at large.

mare or the

amongst those

it.

millennium and a

less to

[politeia)

knew, with

it

a loss not merely of all external restraints

it

did so, and

into view in the aftermath of the Renaissance,

done

insult

balance of contending elements,

that power, but also of every internal inhibition

then exerted

Polybius's portrait of a

'"**

most of the world

in the unrestricted exercise

one of these elements, with

English

when

it

it

came back

could hardly have

as a promising regime

form to the

Seen through his eyes, democracy was the worst night-

final ruin of

by far the most imposing historical model of

which any European was even aware: both a symbol and a potential

mechanism

for the

thought that

this

doom

word, of

of an entire civilization. all

Who

would have

words, was due to conquer the world?

57

D e w o c ra cy

The word demokratia entered know,

1260s, in the translation

the

in

the Latin language, as far as

William of Moerbeke of Aristotle's

we

by the Dominican Friar

Politics,^"'^

the

most systematic

analysis of politics as a practical activity which survived from the

ancient world.

and the

(It is

important for the intellectual history of Islam

political history of the

modern Middle East

that

it

had not

already entered the Arabic language, with the very elaborate and substantially earlier reception of Aristotle's thought in the great

centres of Islamic civilization.)"" available,

and

political practices utility, less

hand

Once duly

and has remained so ever

cratic aspects.

The

their

own

soon proved

its

had carefully noted,

may each have some demo-

conceptions of the purpose of their internal

extensively to explain cities

became

self-governing city states of a thirteenth-century

organization and used the

Some

it

it

in assessing

because there was a throng of sovereign democracies to

to consider, than because, as Aristotle

had

an aid

possibilities. In this guise,

very different sorts of political regimes

Italy

latinized,

since, as

combined

Roman

language of republican liberty

and commend relatively

it

in all its turbulent variety.'"

broad

citizen bodies with elective

magistrates and a clear legal framework for the exercise of power.

But none of these chose to adopt the new-fangled Greek vocabulary of

Moerbeke

to vindicate the merits of

Lucca, the continuator of St Princes,^^^

Thomas

recognized the second-century

Tribune at

Rome

as

its

own

regime. Ptolemy of

Aquinas's book The Rule of

BC

creation of the office of

adding an element of democratic primacy

[democraticus principatus) to the unmistakably aristocratic primacy in its

republican regime, epitomized by the Senate and Consuls.'"

Bartolus of Sassoferrato, a leading

same time about eye very

city

civil

lawyer writing at

much

the

regimes {De Regimine Civium) and with his

much upon contemporary

Italy,

distinguished, as Aristotle

enjoined, between good and bad versions of the rule of a few {aristocratia

many

and oligarchia) and good and bad versions of the

{politia or democratia).^^^

rule of the

But no medieval or early modern

58

Democracy's First Coming

any Italian

Italian writer bluntly described

we know

city

government of which

democracy; and anyone deploying Aristotle's vocabu-

as a

lary in Latin

any other language into which

(or

it

came

to be

imported) could only have been insulting the city in question, by

doing It

so.

took a good three centuries for the term to recapture some of

Greek descriptive neutrality and tizing

company

Even once its

it

of

its

simplicity,

and shake

off the stigma-

more respectable Aristotelian twin

had begun to do

its

politeia.

so, politeia (polity) at least retained

strong positive connotations: not merely a mixed form of govern-

ment, which

somehow combined

the best of monarchy, aristocracy

and democracy, but a structure which contrived to constrain democracy in ways which could reasonably hope to keep

it

on

its

best

behaviour.

Only

does the term

in the seventeenth century

begin to

at last

shake off these negative connotations and be used, slowly and with

much

hesitation, to defend

ments or

insist

and

justify existing political arrange-

on the urgent need

different settings.

for

early in the seventeenth century.

institutions, the Cortes

governed on a democratic basis,

govern

lo poble).^^^

regime

itself

On

this

It

does so

in several

Catalan

its

existing constitution with the

and the Generalitet, was

as,

according

and towns, the government simply

republics

'to

common

is

in fact

law, in all

the people' (^5 lo

occasion the opportunity to describe the

roundly as a democracy does not seem to have been taken

up. But, as the century in the

ones.

clearly there for a

The Perpignan lawyer Andreu Bosch

firmly insisted that Catalonia under

two core

new

The opportunity was

went

by,

it

at last

began to be

so,

most

strikingly

powerful, commercially dynamic and quasi-republican regime

of the United Netherlands, in stray places in the tough, disabused

writings of Johan and Pieter de la Court, "^ in Franciscus

Van den

Enden's The Free Political Propositions and Considerations of State in i665,"'

dissident

and above

all in

Jew Benedict de

the deep but obscure reflections of the

Spinoza."**

59

Democracy

Even

term democracy was

at this point the

far

from serving as

rallying cry. In the great seventeenth-century struggles

natural for us to see as blazing a in

which

it

democracy, and most of

trail for

a is

all

the Leveller drive to use a greatly broadened franchise to hold

England's government to the active consent of

democracy plays no public and more

insistently,

is

in

role.

Where

its

subjects,"'' the

anxious conservative responses to the great

seething mass of rebellion which shook England's state to tions.

Thomas Hobbes

term

does begin to appear, more

it

its

founda-

himself placed the blame for the Great

Rebellion and the regicide

itself

on many

different factors, not least

the translation of the Christian Bible into the vernacular,'^" the devel-

opment of Protestant theology and priestly ambitions.

'democratical gentlemen' of the the cheap

and

learning of the Universities,'^' and giddy with the

silly

When Hobbes providing a

But

in the

villains falls to the

House of Commons, puffed up with

republican indiscretions of the ancient world.

Members

described the

'democratical', he

of

the endless proliferation

But pride of place amongst his

was

'^^

Long Parliament

of the

certainly not using their word,

fair description

as

and scarcely

of any beliefs which they actually held.

long run he was perhaps right to be so confident that he

could see more clearly than they did, not merely into the sources of the beliefs and attitudes which they held, but also into the political

implications which ultimately followed from them. Perhaps by the

time of the English Civil War, and certainly by the time that

it

became

available for recollection in anything but tranquillity, the potential of this pejorative analytical

was

term to pick out potent sources of allegiance

at last in clear view.

least at a verbal level,'"

From then on, was

centuries since the printing of Hobbes's

have

come and gone and regimes have

time,

and ever more

It

has shaken off

open and proud

its

insistently,

esoteric

future. This

its rise

to

world mastery,

at

to be just a matter of time. In the

Behemoth risen

and

(1676), allegiances fallen.

one word has worked

its

But

all

the

way forward.

and shame-ridden past and claimed an is

much more than

60

its

due, and a very

Democracy's

poor description of the

real basis of its

and consequential enough nition in

its

own

Coming

First

shift in

human

triumph. But

a striking

it is

experience to require recog-

right.

By the beginning of the next century becomes

powers of attraction

We

apparent

this shift in its

appears

first

very

example, the

still

rela-

easier to pick up.

It

much

in private self-description.

tively

youthful Irish Deist John Toland, illegitimate son of a Catholic

priest

and already author of the widely execrated Christianity not

Mysterious (1696), boasting lives

in

find, for

1705 of his exploits

in publicizing the

and editing the works of James Harrington, John Milton and

other advocates of 'democratical schemes of government'.

was firmly

own

in its

legendary indiscretion,

him, from the hacks.

and

in the context of a private letter,

terms. Toland

was

But

this

from frank even

charm and

a figure of disorientating

who maddened everyone who had

loftiest aristocratic

He was

far

^^'^

to deal with

patrons to the grubbiest fellow

also indefatigable in his

own

self-advancement and

notably unfastidious in the techniques which he was willing to deploy in

promoting

it.

Yet even Toland

political allegiances in public

To

see

what made the

views. For these,

it is

would have hesitated

with such unflinching

shift possible,

we need

best to pin

at

down

clarity.

steadier

Hobbes and Spinoza.

some length against democracy and did its

his ancient sources

and franker

hard to do better than turn back to two of the

seventeenth century's greatest political thinkers,

Hobbes wrote

to proclaim his

principal demerits once

and

for

all.

his

pungent

He saw

it,

as

encouraged him to do, as disorderly, unstable and

intensely dangerous. But he also

saw

it

much

very

combining much of the insecurity of the

in his

own

way, as

state of nature (a condition

of comprehensive and standing peril) with a level of mutual offence

only conceivable in a setting in which listen to

one another patiently and

especially, for orators (or those

also in effect a

undue

at

who

human

beings were expected to

length.

It

was

a paradise,

fancied themselves as such), and

form of tyranny by orators: of subjection against one's

will to the force for others,

not of the better argument, but of the

61

Democracy

more potent

speech.'^'

Hobbes captured

since the pain of oratorical defeat,

and the centraHty of these feeUngs

within democratic participation for anyone at stake but has

some

no particular oratorical

will say,

who

That a Popular State

publique businesses, there

their

all

is

much

them who to

up

moment; which by reason and seeme

excell in such like faculties,

this

same way

to the greatest part

this

be nonef He

tell

our

own

of Subjects; and what

by an uncertain

tryall

of a this

whether we have the

better,

to

is

in a

shut

a grievance, if

is

whom we

scorne,

our wisedome undervalued before

undergoe most certaine enmities [for

faces;

But

and honour,

you: To see his opinion

is

to themselves

all things.

to obtain praise,

preferr'd before ours; to have

deliberating

in

bred in humane nature,

exceed others, the most delightfull of

Monarchy,

to be preferr'd

have an opportunity to shew

matters of the greatest difficulty and is

is

men have a hand

all

wisedome, knowledge, and eloquence,

of that desire of praise which

what

cares about

flair:

before a Monarchicall; because that, where in

anyone before or

better than

little

vaine glory, to

cannot be avoided,

or the worse); to hate, and to be

hated, by reason of the disagreement of opinions; to lay open

our secret Counsells, and advises to without any benefit; to neglect the These, wits,

I

say, are grievances.

although those

trialls

affaires

they delight in

The key

men

no purpose, and

to

of our

own

But to be absent from a

Family: triall

are pleasant to the Eloquent

therefore a grievance to them, unlesse

grievance to valiant

all,

we

to be restrained

will say, that

from

is

of

not

it is

a

fighting, because

it.'''

egalitarian prerogative of the Athenian

demos, the equal

right

to address one's fellow citizens as they take their sovereign decisions {isegoria),

has

always been offset by

the

less

agreeable

(but

accompanying) duty to hear out the persuasions of every fellow

62

Democracy's

citizen

who

chooses to exercise

First

it,

Coming

and by the

still

more painful duty

to accept whatever these fellow citizens together then proceed to

Under the conditions of

decide.

a

modern commercial

society, the

rewards of this egalitarian prerogative were not merely offset but effortlessly

outweighed by

its

evident inconsequentiality for the great

majority and by the ever more prohibitive opportunity costs of exer-

Modern

cising

it.

at the

Athenee Royale

liberty (as in

Bourbon Restoration),

Benjamin Constant assured the audience

1817

in the

the liberty to

substantial proportion of your offer

it

nity to

was

own

do what you

will

to

fall

and the

like for at least a

now made almost

but impossible to refuse. Ancient

do your best

your

to

all

life,

wake of Napoleon's

liberty,

everyone an the opportu-

bend the sovereign judgement of your fellows

by pressing your views upon them

promised almost nothing

in practice.

But

in the

in

public,

nightmare months of

had raised the tempera-

the Terror, the ghost of that ancient promise ture of politics to fever pitch. ^^^ Better a quiet

and enjoyable

life,

even

under a monarchy of some absurdity. To pursue ancient liberty under the conditions of

modern commerce was

to clutch at a mirage, to

suffer in return a penal weight of irritation

run

in addition a considerable

and pointless

As Constant pressed the point

came out tative

in the

and

extreme danger.

wake of the Jacobin

Terror,

it

as a demonstration of the superiority of modern represen-

democracy over ancient participatory democracy.

hands, however, the main thrust of the case was dispersion of political power across the adult ical

and to

ineffectuality,

risk of

community and

in

In Hobbes's

still

against the

membership of

a polit-

favour, by contrast, of the superiority of

monarchy over every other form of regime. Even Hobbes, though, conceded not merely that democracy was a plausible basis on which for political society to have begun, but also that

it

was

equivalent to the establishment of a political order in the

in a sense first

place.

Since a political order can only be created through the choices of individual

human

beings,

it

must

personal agreement to accept a

at

its

inception simply be their

common

63

own

structure of authority over

Demo c ra c y themselves.

was that agreement which made them into

It

single entity, capable of ruling

multitude of quarrelsome

Once converted

and rendered capable of

itself,'''^

citizens with equal rights to vote (a

for

it

ruling,

through a 'Councell' of

Democraty), or to have

any the

all its

rule

by 'Councells', where the right to vote was more narrowly

restricted (an Aristocraty), or by a single

of these,

mere

a

individuals.'^**

into a People

People could choose to rule

done

a People, a

and exerting authority, and not

Hobbes

remain quite

person

(a

Monarch).

In each

and the Multitude

strikingly insists, the People

distinct.

The People

rules in all

Governments, for even

Commands-, for the People

the People

man; but the Multitude are

Monarchies

by the will of one

wills

Citizens, that

in

to say. Subjects. In

is

a Democraty, and Aristocraty, the Citizens are the Multitude,

but the Court

is

the People.

are the Multitude

And

and (however

it

in a

Monarchy, the Subjects

seeme a Paradox) the King

is

the People.

For his contemporaries People,

and

its

certainly

was

a

paradox to equate King with

paradox viewed either way round. The equation

a

incensed Charles in

it

I

well before the People (or those

name) placed him on

for his

trial

life

who claimed

and took

it

to act

on the

scaffold.^^"

Hobbes was too

eccentric a thinker

and too independent

a person

to find tact easy; but he viewed the turmoil of mid-seventeenth-

century England from a highly privileged angle, as tutor briefly to the

young Charles

II

at his exiled

court

in Paris,

on tour with

a miscellany

of young aristocrats of varying educational susceptibility, and as

long-term tutor and secretary to the Cavendish

family.'^'

No one could

have mistaken him for an advocate of 'democratical schemes of

government'. Spinoza was distinctly

less well

connected (except with

other mtellectual luminaries),"' but, as even

64

Hobbes

noticed,

if

De

anything was even

rfj

o c rac y

's

First

Coming

tact.''"

Born

disposed to

less

prosperous Portuguese Jewish family centre of Amsterdam,'

"^

in a fine

as the second son of a

merchant house

his worldly prospects

the worse by the destruction of

in the

were transformed for

extensive foreign business by

its

English maritime predators and Barbary pirates, and ensuing bankruptcy'"'

and

own

his

excommunication from the

vituperative

Sephardic community at the age of twenty-three, for his

and

acts, his

abominable heresies and

monstrous

his

evil

opinions

The

deeds.'"*

philosophical basis for these heterodoxies seems to have been laid

remarkably

and

early;

it

gave him a considerable underground repu-

and

tation for intellectual originality his late twenties until his

that time

onwards

death and well beyond.

to have lived principally

He

appears from

on earnings from grinding

some pecuniary help from

optical lenses, with

which lasted from

incisiveness,

and to

his friends,"

have devoted the bulk of his energies to developing a remarkable lectual system,

which

set the life of

human

the order of nature with unique steadiness

The

political implications of this

works, the scandalous

Tractatus

surreptitiously in 1670 (which

and resolution.

system were summarized

in

two

published

Theologico-Foliticus,

cemented

intel-

beings as a whole within

an atheist

his reputation as

by offending every extant religious confession within range), and the Tractatus Politicus,

left

unfinished at his death and published only

posthumously."' Both texts say

democracy

(as well as

some

many

appreciative things

less appreciative things).

The

about

Tractatus

Politicus breaks off with a brief (and notably perfunctory) defence of

the view that there

is

no pressing occasion to

equals. (They have less physical strength; will aggravate

women

as political as equals

men's already dismaying tendency to inane sexual

competition.) But before of settling

treat

and treating them

down

it

does so,""

it

certainly appears

to defend an egalitarian

racy as the ideal political order.

would have run, nor how edgement that no

it

It is

and participatory democ-

not clear quite

would have

fitted

how

this

defence

with his earlier acknowl-

states have proved less lasting than

65

on the point

popular or

/) c in

()

c

racy

democratic ones, and none as apt to be disrupted by is

however,

clear,

human need

ment was

for

insist

both his major political works; and he was

that the need could be satisfied as readily

sound monarchy or aristocracy

securely under a

and would pose no more threat

Human

that of the latter.

thoughts without

and

primacy of

for the

life

freedom of thought and expression. This commit-

clearly central to

at pains to

What

that Spinoza abhorred pohtical disorder

is

fought hard and consistently throughout his the

sedition.'^"

also need a clear

of authority to protect the lives which they necessarily encroaches

as in a democracy,

to the viability of the former than to

beings need to think freely and express their

They

fear.

and

on the

other,

and

live

effective

framework

together. Neither need

and neither has any

clear priority

over the other.

Democracy

is

a state in

which sovereignty

(the authority to

make

and repeal laws and decide on war or peace, the key prerequisite every

commonwealth)

common a

is

A commonwealth

multitude.'"*'

composed of

exercised by a Council

for

the

holds and exerts the power of

multitude led as though by a single mind,'^" a union of minds

{animorum unio) which does not make sense unless the commonwealth

itself

{civitas)

sound reason, useful shorter lived and

aims to the highest degree

for all men.'^' If

at

what seems,

to

democratic commonwealths are

more disrupted than

their aristocratic or

monar-

chical counterparts, the

overwhelming verdict of the tradition on

which Spinoza drew,

union of minds was scarcely more

persist

in

a

this

likely to

democracy Nor was there any obvious reason why

Spinoza should have seen democracies as wedded any more dependably to freedom of thought or expression. All he clearly believed in this respect, like

Hobbes and

was that democracy was ical

authority,

the

virtually all other natural law thinkers,

closest in structure to the basis of

universal

presumptively rational, of the exercised. In this sense

polit-

agreement, whether historical or

human

beings over

democracy was,

places, the ultimate source of

all

all

whom

was

to be

as Spinoza insists in several

political regimes,

66

it

'"'^

and

in just the

Democracy's First Coming

same sense the most natural of Politicus concludes, state.

'''^

In

anyone

it all

else

regimes. Democracy, the Tractatus

all

the third and completely absolute type of

children of citizens,

whom

all

native born inhabitants,

state

and hold public

which they can lose only through personal crime or

Democracy

in this sense

closest to preserving the

No

being.

and

the laws choose to recognize, have a natural right

supreme council of the

to vote in the right

is

is'''^

most natural of regimes.

the

office, a

infamy.''^ It

comes

freedom which nature allows to each human

one transfers

their

natural

rights

to

anyone

else

so

completely that they are never consulted again; but each transfers

community

these rights to a majority of the

to

which they belong.

all

remain, as they previously were in the state of nature,

equal."'** In

both works the potential disadvantages of transferring

'And so

these rights to smaller

numbers of people or

to a single individual are

explored in a variety of ways.

Spinoza at no point played a public role in the politics of the Netherlands.

The exiguousness of

his

means and

the notoriety of his

opinions would scarcely have permitted him to do so even had he

wished

to.

But he was for a time a clear partisan and may even have

been a personal acquaintance and potential client of Holland's greatest seventeenth-century statesman, the

de Witt.

Grand Pensionary Johan

On the day when the two de Witt brothers were dragged

prison and lynched by their fellow citizens, an ochlocratic ever there in the

was

one,'''^

Hague. Four years

later,

he confided

in

tence on locking the house up had prevented

same day

to put

person to the philoso-

him from

up a placard denouncing the murderers

as utter

Some

lectuals can stretch a point in retrospective accounts of their

heroism on such occasions; but everything we if

he said this at

all,

simple truth.

67

insis-

sallying forth

barbarians, and being promptly torn to pieces himself.'^"

suggests that,

if

Spinoza himself was living just across the town

pher Leibniz that only his Lutheran landlord's understandable

the

from

moment

intel-

own

know about Spinoza

he can only have been telling the

Democracy

What

was he trying

exactly

democracy? He was not, quite

to

contemporaries about

his

tell

certainly, seeking to assure

them

that

thought and expression, for him the most urgent of

liberty of

human

distinctively

anywhere

needs,

He

else.'"

'^'

was any

cannot have been

democracy than

safer in a telling

all

them

that

democracy

gave them any more solid guarantee of their individual physical security than

threats

more potent

its

democracy was

rivals.

He was

a particularly effective

from foreign enemies,*"

let

scarcely telling

form of

them that

state in face of

armed

alone boasting, like the English

republican Algernon Sidney,'^^ of the superior capacity of any form of republic, democratic or otherwise, to level

everyone

were

The

else.

in direct

supplanted

own

at

which he ascribed to

it

armed

clearest practical merits

comparison with the competing

it

threats of

its

state forms which had

throughout the civilized world: aristocracy and

monarchy. While no inhabitant of the Netherlands during Spinoza's lifetime as

was more

an adult could have seen

at

home

in

his

judgement that democracy

peacetime as a practical advantage, '^^ they could

perhaps have seen some connection between the military advantages of

its

more

successful competitors

and

their uglier

domestic political

consequences. Spinoza was no rhapsodist of democracy's edifiying spiritual

impact on the ruling demos; but he was an acute and forth-

right critic of the corrupting effects of personal crats

power upon

aristo-

and monarchs, a subject matter on which there was then

considerably more extensive and recent evidence. his ultimate verdict,

superiority of

broken off

abruptly,'^^

democracy on grounds of

It is

hard to see

in

any clear claim for the

security or liberty (then, as

now, the most evocative bases on which to vindicate a political regime).

What

there

political judge as

is,

and what can only have disconcerted as cool a

Johan de Witt,'" was

a consistently disabused

view

of the limitations of every form of government and a sharp assertion of the special

The

tie

between democracy and

significance of that

tie is still

equality.

as hard to judge after over three

centuries of practical exploration. But the

68

tie itself

goes back to the

Democracy's

First

Coming

beginning and lay at the heart of the vision and practices which the

Athenians evolved to realise and secure democracy.'^^ The relation of

freedom or liberty to any

state

form can be specious

(at

the mercy of

persuasive definition, or brazen mendacity). In every state, freedom

and

must be defined

liberty by necessity

cately

and courteously, on the

state's

in the end,

however

terms and by the state

But equality, whatever equality lurks in nature

itself

intri'^^

itself.

way we

(the

simply are, irrespective of what subsequently happens to us) does

sound

like

an external limit to the

ultimately to

its

powers.

state's claims,

and perhaps even

democracy expresses human equality

If

(whatever equality comes with simply being human) better than any other regime could, then that might well prove, sooner or

comparative advantage of some weight. Perhaps in the end

come

to

But can a state really express equality?

equality?

And one

Is

How

can whatever equality lurks

survive within a structure of uniform

subjection, in which

be coerced by

in

some

How

end

in the

whom, and

coercion required?

not a state the most

most permanent erasure of

backed, too, by an effective monopoly of the means

of legitimate violence?

world

might

seem a decisive advantage?

decisive and, at least in aspiration, the

itself

later, a it

and

in nature

relatively effective

will always be deciding

who

is

to

others in due course carrying out the

can equality be more than a cruel dream

in a

which some own and control and consume vastly more

resources than others? these resources

on

How

can

be so when they

it

a basis which, unless ceaselessly

own and

and

skilfully over-

and magnifies

ridden, ensures that the inequality re-creates

control

itself into

an indefinite future?

What we

affirm today,

hesitant, confused

when we

and often

in

align ourselves with democracy,

bad

faith.

It

becomes

less

almost always, the more clearly we bring out the premisses which

beneath our realities

own

values and the

is

convincing, lie

more openly we acknowledge the

which make up the institutions which we take them to

commend. Where we have become

69

clearer,

more frank and more

Democracy

confident as time has gone by

stand on democracy Above beings, because of

trusted

who

all

in

is

what we deny when we take our

what we deny

is

that any set of

human

or what they simply are, deserve and can be

with political authority

We

reject,

in

the great Leveller

formula, redolent of England's seventeenth-century Civil War, the claim (or judgement) that any

human

being comes into the world

with a saddle on their back, or any other booted and spurred to ride them.'^°

70

Chapter Two

DEMOCRACY'S SECOND COMING

As

it

entered the eighteenth century, democracy was

very

still

much

a

pariah word. Only the most insouciant and incorrigible dissidents, like

John Toland or Alberto Radicati stand upon

political

Anyone who chose of political

life,

ally all their

changed change it

di Passerano,'

could take their

even clandestinely or amongst intimates.

do so placed themselves

far

beyond the borders

at the outer fringes of the intellectual lives of virtu-

contemporaries. Yet, within a century, something had

decisively.

first

to

it,

We

can pin

down with some

became apparent. What

is

confidence where the

harder to judge

what caused

is

to occur.

What brought democracy back was two great

teenth century,

North British

Atlantic.

The

colonies in

first

to political

itself.

different.

The

late in the eigh-

The two

side of the

arose in the mid-1760s amongst the set of

North America which had never

French rule; the second, some two decades

France

life,

on either

political crises

settings

later, in

metropolitan

could scarcely have been more

thirteen British colonies which chose to revolt

as fluid a society

under

fallen

formed

and as dynamic an economic milieu as any

world, opening out on to a vast and

71

still

largely

unknown

(if

in the

far

from

/) e

m o c ra cy

uninhabited) landscape.^ Ancien regime France (as called)

soon came to be

it

was the proudest and most self-consciously

civilized state in

continental Europe, locked in a century-long struggle with England for

world mastery.

was the epitome of absolute monarchy, the

It

formidable heritage of the Sun King Louis XIV; but

haughty rulers

its

found themselves challenged increasingly by an assertive

more suspicious of to their

War

own

their political intentions

effective exclusion

from

of Independence, France threw

and ever

society, ever

less

reconciled

political choice. In

America's

its

and diplomatic

military

weight behind the revolting colonies. For a time these two arenas

meshed, leaving by

its

new nation and

close a

water mark for

a high

France's naval and military triumph, but also a burden of govern-

mental debt which neither the organization of France's economy nor the structure of

its

state

was equipped

war ended, France too found so drastic that ical

it

itself in

disruptive polit-

-

idea of revolution itself

that spilled

continent of Europe and beyond.

irresistibly across the

The two

revolution, a domestic struggle

new and uniquely

gave the world a

conception - the modern

to handle. Six years after the

crises differed in their causes, their

rhythms and

their

outcomes; but each has marked the history of democracy ever since indelible ways.

The term democracy played no

the crisis of the

North American

colonies,

and no positive

defining the political structures that brought

durable close. Where

it

featured at

all in

it

to

its

role in

strikingly

the language of America's

political leaders in the course of their great struggle,

and prominently as the familiar name

consistently

in

role at all in initiating

it

did so most

for a negative

model, drawn from the experience of Athens, of an outcome which they must at constitution

all

costs avoid.

was put

to

work and

the perspective alter sharply

England's

own

key body of

its

Only

in retrospect, as

the

When

it

new nation went on

its

new

way, did

did so, the familiar practices of

representative government, above legislators (in

America's

all

the election of a

North America, usually on

a far

broader

franchise than in most English parliamentary constituencies), found

71

Democracy's Second Coming

themselves rechristened in the language of the ancient world.

Once

they had been so, Americans began to see themselves, in the mirror of

having long been democrats already

their protracted colonial past, as

without knowing

it.

The

classic rendering of that picture

was given

not by an American author but by a young French aristocrat, Alexis

de Tocqueville, writing some half a century after America's inde-

pendence, and explaining the Americans not merely to his fellow

countrymen and European contemporaries but also

more insinuatingly than anyone

The key

to America's experience as Tocqueville

source of

human of

first

due course

in

saw

it

was

also the

for every other future

society across the globe, the pervasiveness throughout

its

ways

and forms of awareness of the brooding presence of democracy

life

itself.

exemplary force

its

to themselves,

has ever done before or since.

else

book Democracy

In Tocqueville's

in America^''

time the recognition that democracy

ness of

modern

political experience

is

we

find for the

the key to the distinctive-

and that anyone who hopes

to

grasp the character of that experience must focus on and take in just

what

it is

that

democracy

implies.

America's Revolution was an anxious response to a widely perceived threat to liberties long enjoyed, the very liberties which, as

time went past.^

by,

were to form the evidence for

Once those

liberties

its

protracted democratic

had been successfully defended, or won

back by force of arms, the constitutional order which the Americans constructed to secure them in future

came

in retrospect to

seem a

uniquely clear-sighted exercise in thinking through the requirements for political liberty

and implementing the conclusions of

ably public process of deliberation.

Nothing

remark-

this

quite like

it

had ever

occurred before; and no subsequent episode in constitution making has fully matched the political leaders,

which they

Queen

still

settled.

acumen less the

in

diagnosis

shown by

the

new

nation's

remarkable longevity of the remedies on

Ninety years later William Ewart Gladstone,

Victoria's great

and infuriating Prime Minister, described the

product of their efforts as 'the most wonderful work ever struck off at

73

/)

('

m o c ra cy

time by the brain and purpose of man'.' In the aftermath of America's savage Civil War, the grimmest evidence of the Hmits to a given

diagnosis and to remedy, this was a generous assessment. But

it

scarcely conveyed the levels of effort, the range of participants, or the fluster

made

and animosity of the process of decision-making which had

it

possible.

The Constitution was

initially

drafted in a secret Convention held

May and September 1787, through an elaborate process of manoeuvre and bargaining." The resulting in the city

draft

was

of Philadelphia between

first

made

public on 17 September 1787, and put to the

twelve State ratifying Conventions, for their approval or subsequent

emendation. For the next ten months State.

By July of the following

Island had duly chosen to ratify First

it

was debated publicly State by

year, all but it.

Congress which met under

North Carolina and Rhode

During the opening session of the its

auspices, between

September 1789, as Revolution accelerated mental elements were added to

Amendments basis

of

it.

A

Bill

in France,

of Rights, the

to the Constitution, drafted by

scores

of

March and two fundafirst

ten

James Madison on the

recommendations from the individual State

Conventions, was sent back to the States for their approval; and a Judiciary Act, creating the Federal court system, and endowing the requisite powers,

The most

it

with

was passed by the Senate.'

intense phase in this process followed the initial publica-

tion of the Constitution.

It

involved not merely the 1,500 delegates to

the State ratifying Conventions,

who worked

volume of public and private discussion,

over

its

in pulpit,

entire text, but a

newspaper press

and personal correspondence, which reached across the

entire nation."

Through

text in partic-

ular

this

hubbub of assessment and argument, one

now looms with

as a series of

extraordinary authority

anonymous newspaper

articles

It

appeared

at the

time

by three already promi-

nent political figures, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John

Jay Hastily written week by week, and barely co-ordinated between the three authors,

whose views

differed appreciably

74

from one another.

Democracy 's Second Coming

it

intervened boldly and effectively in the ratification debate.

The

case

which the Federalist made for the merits of the new system of government, while audience,

'°

it

failed to convince a great

rapidly

many amongst

became the barely disputed

of America's Republic ever since.

It

was

and military

revenues, control naval

threat to the personal liberties

such

peril

from

The case

their

rationale for the basis

ately

treaties

with

way which posed no

which the Americans had won back

power was

at

a mortal threat to personal

government was moving deliber-

Britain's imperial

and with some energy to dismantle

power.

in a

raise

America's Revolution had been exaggeratedly

for

and that

and sign

forces,

do so

which could

former colonial masters.

simple: that unrestricted liberty,

immediate

a case for the need for, but

also for the safety of, a strong central government,

foreign powers like any other state, but

its

More than

half of the Federalist

all

restrictions

upon

its

was written by Alexander

Hamilton," one of the most economically sophisticated of America's leaders

and uniquely

sensitive to the

and opportunities which

it

was sure

commercial and

strategic threats

to face in the centuries to

But the essays which have given the Federalist

its

come.

unique authority

were not written by Hamilton. Their author was the

shy, diligent,

unabrasive elder son of a Virginia planter, thirty-six years of age as the

Constitutional

Madison. By

May

Convention opened

lysy'"^

in

Philadelphia, James

Madison had played an

active part in America's

struggle against Britain

and

for over eleven years.

He

in the

its

new nation

brought to the Federal Convention an

elaborate set of proposals on

with

tangled politics of the

how

the

American Confederation,

single-chamber Congress, could be reconstructed as three

independent branches of government, with a two-House legislature with distinct responsibilities, elected on contrasting bases of representation. '^ State'"*

The

first

delegate to reach Philadelphia from out of

and one of the very few present on the day when the

Convention was due to begin, Madison, together with

his colleagues

from the Virginia delegation, seized the opportunity of

75

this forced

Democracy

interlude to draft a fifteen-point Plan of

Government around which

subsequent debate revolved. Characteristically, he also

all

set

himself, once the Convention formally opened, to the enduring grat-

itude of historians, to take a full record of

purpose

doing so was to ensure

in

Government was not

own

the

grasp of an extraordi-

agenda.

work of Madison

some of

clashed in places with

steady, patient, unhistrionic

more than anyone

number

to give

clarity in the

10,

The Plan

of

alone; and the constitu-

his strong convictions.

But

in his

and wonderfully thoughtful way he did

it its

ultimate shape.

and defended with

central purpose of that shape he set out

exemplary

main

which emerged from the Convention's deliberations

tional draft

The

his

and consequential

complicated

narily

debates.'^ His

its

most celebrated of

echoing the arguments of a

earlier to his fellow Virginian

and close

the Federalist Papers,

all

composed

letter

Thomas

friend,

drafter of the Declaration of Independence.

The

a

month

Jefferson,

tenth Federalist sets

out a remedy for the violence of faction, the key weakness of popular governments'^ and source of the

which plague

'instability, injustice

and confusion'

their public councils, 'the mortal diseases

under which

popular governments have everywhere perished' and 'the favourite

and

fruitful topics' of the adversaries to liberty. Faction

eliminated except by eliminating liberty

'sown

in the

Its

itself.

nature of man', in the variations in

cannot be

latent causes are

human

faculties, the

contrasts in the ownership of property, and the consequent divisions

of society into different interests and parties. identification are endlessly variable; but the tent of

them

is

the 'various

The sources of party

most potent and consis-

and unequal division of

property'.'^

The

propertied and those without property 'have ever formed distinct interests in society'.

(The immediate back-cloth to

this perception in

1787 was the issue of whether to honour or repudiate the vast debts, always to individual creditors, which every American State had run up in the

course of winning

opposed

interests to be

its

independence.)

How

were these sharply

balanced justly against one another?

76

Democracy's Second Coming

The causes

Madison was very

of faction,

All that could reasonably be

hoped

for

sure,

was

cannot be removed.

to control

its

effects."

A

minority faction could provoke endless trouble; but within a repub-

ought never to find an opportunity to impose

lican

government

itself

through the law Where a faction forms

it

popular governments give

The key challenge good and

public

majority, without at the

its

own

passions and inter-

popular government was to secure both

to

private

a majority, however,

every opportunity to sacrifice both the

and the public good to

rights of minorities ests."

it

rights

against the threat of a factious

same time

and form of

sacrificing the spirit

popular government. (A 'pure Democracy', Madison insisted,

a Society,

consisting of a small

number of

assemble and administer the Government

of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. interest will, in

almost every case, be

citizens,

A common

felt

who

can admit

in person,

passion or

by a majority of the

whole; a communication and concert results from the form

of Government inducements to

itself;

and

sacrifice the

there

is

weaker

nothing to check the party, or

an obnoxious

individual.^

That

is

why such democracies have always been

so turbulent and

contentious, have always proved incompatible with personal security or property rights, and 'have in general been as short in their

lives, as

they have been violent in their deaths'. Theoretical partisans of

democracy, accordingly, have had to presume, absurdly, that reducing

men

same time render them uniform and harmonious

perfectly equal in their

in

for the in

offered a different

ills

of democracy:

'a

Madison's view

would

at the

their possessions

and

opinions and passions.

In place of that perilous project of levelling

Madison

in

to perfect political equality

and homogenization,

model which promised Republic, by which

which the scheme of representation takes

77

I

to provide a cure

mean

place'.

a

A

Government Republic

in

Democracy

Madison's sense differed from a pure Democracy

in several

ways.

'The two great points of difference between a Democracy and a Republic are,

first,

number of

a small

the delegation of the Government, in the latter, to

number of

citizens: secondly, the greater

and greater sphere of country, over which the extended.'

took

The Union of American

in a very substantial population.

fore, a relatively small

a very large

number

chosen.

The

body would create

a

may be

in

way

a

was compelled

It

and

required a scheme of govern-

It

that

'Democratic

to choose, there-

of representatives to act on behalf of

Madison

of citizens; and this very selectivity,

optimistically assumed, tive so

not.

number

citizens,

States covered a vast territory

ment which could encompass both Government' plainly could

latter

would ensure the quality of the representa-

scale of

its

territory

and the

wider variety of parties and

size of its citizen

interests,

and lessen

the risk of majority coalitions intent on encroaching on the rights

of other citizens. Even where such coalitions did arise, the need to operate politically

on

a far larger stage

would

itself

impede the

co-ordination of surreptitious and plainly disreputable policies. Religious bigotry, for

'a

rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts,

an equal division of property, or for any other improper

or wicked project' are far less likely 'to pervade the whole body of the Union' than they are to infect a particular State, just as they are

more

likely to taint a particular

county or

district

than an entire

State.''

The

extent and structure of the Union, therefore, could and

provide

'a

Republican remedy for the diseases most incident to

Republican Government.

'''

Three and half months this

later, in Federalist 63,

judgement, qualified one aspect of

element.

would

it

Madison returned

but reaffirmed

its

to

central

The principle of Representation formed the pivot of the

American Republic. '' There were elements of representation even

in

the purest of Greek democracies, in the election of public officials

who

held executive power.'" 'The true distinction between these

78

Democracy's Second Coming

communities and the American Government' was of the people

in their collective capacity

'the total exclusion

from any share'

in

the comprehensive exclusion of popular representatives

it,'"

not

from the

administration of the polis. Successful representative government

would have been impracticable

in these small

and

all

too intimate

communities. But on the scale of the American Union, the evident need for for

it

it

could and would provide

it

with enough political support

calm and

to operate with sufficient

enough

for long

to

make

its

solid advantages very clearly apparent.

Even though we use the term democracy so differently today, the force of Madison's insistence

comes

as

total exclusion of the

from any share

their collective capacity still

on the

in the

people in

American Government

something of a shock. For Madison himself, however,

how

was the

clearest evidence

classical

Greece the new state which he was struggling to defend

was, and the proof that

unlike the democratic city states of

unlike them,

it,

it

was not

democracy

a

really

at all.

In his vocabulary, as in Plato's or Aristotle's, a people totally excluded in their collective capacity

from the government of

could not conceivably be thought to rule controlled

it

in the

end was the

immediate control over else the

new American

it

community

directly themselves.

will of the majority of

somewhere quite

rested

state

it

their

citizens.

its

different.

might or might not be

What

called,

it

But

Whatever could not

properly be termed a democracy.

A

representative government differed decisively

from

a

democracy

not in the fundamental structure of authority which underlay in the institutional

to keep solely

it

in

on the

mechanisms which directed

legal precision

but

with which they had been defined spirit

of power'),'^ but

and more decisively on the practical relations between them and

the political energies racy,

it,

course and helped

being over time. These depended for their effect not

('parchment barriers against the encroaching also

its

on which they could hope

to draw. In a

democ-

'where a multitude of people exercise in person the legislative

functions,

and are continually exposed by

79

their

incapacity

for

e

regular deliberation

mo c racy

and concerted measures to the ambitious

intrigues of the executive magistrates', the threat of tyranny might come principally from the executive. But in America, the principal threat came from the legislature, the threat, as Jefferson had put it in his

Notes on the State of Virginia three years

despotism'.

earlier,

of 'elective

^^

As the Americans moved towards Revolution in 1774, John young New York aristocrat, and in due course co-author

Jay, a

of the

Federalist

and future Secretary of

State, described

them with pardon-

able exaggeration as 'the first people

whom heaven has favoured with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing forms of government under which they should live'.'** At this stage the opportunity seemed exhilarating, and the

risks associated

to those of defying the British)

with

it

(in

stark contrast

relatively negligible.

If

the term

democracy carried no particular inspiration, it held little or no immediate menace. Even such a hardened political sceptic as John Adams felt

confident that

terms'.''

The new

toral districts to

'a

democratic despotism

is

a contradiction in

State constitutions redrew the boundaries of elec-

make them more

widened the suffrage, imposed and representatives

equal, insisted on annual elections,

residential requirements

on

electors

and empowered constituents to instruct In doing so, they reinforced and sharpened a

alike,

their representatives.'"

key contrast between American and British experiences of political representation, with the Old World emphasis on historical continuity, the sovereign unity of a single community, and the symbolic and virtual

character of the links between represented and representer discarded firmly for an insistence on actuality, choice, consent, and an ever fuller In the

and more equal participation."

immediate aftermath of the Constitutional Convention

process of deliberation and choice was there were

still

very

much

in train;

this

and

no surviving public advocates of a less participatory or on which to approach it. What had become drasti-

egalitarian basis cally

more

salient

were the

risks of failing to reach a firm conclusion.

Democracy's Second Coming

and the substantial contribution which democracy almost certainly would make to aggravating those

At

this stage the

Americans had

could and

itself

risks.

in essence four options.

might have chosen to repudiate the most democratic elements

new

state, the

uniquely prominent place which

it

gave

its

They

in their

male

free

population for wide popular participation in conditions of near political

equality in framing and taking public decisions. In continental

Europe, even a century

later,

there were

sometimes powerful) defenders of

World Wars, to

Europe and also

in

implement some aspects of

home and

They might

the Atlantic,

also, as

juxtaposed with

Japan, Fascist governments sought

it,

with devastating consequences

it

little

(still

instead to press

confined to males, and

still

apology to a very substantial slave population) it

clashed with and overrode the claims of

abolished debt, redistributed large land holdings and

a society to be equal all through.

Here

too, at this point, there

seem to have been no advocates amongst the Americans for

More

at

had no surviving public advocates.

Madison noted, have chosen

boldly forward, so that

drastic,

(and

and between the two

in

the principle of political equality

remade

many prominent

abroad. But in America, with the defeated Loyalists fled to

Canada or across

property,

still

this response;

and potentially equally destructive, realistically

to choose at

all,

of America's

more

alternative.

perhaps, they might also very readily have failed

recoiling

new

this

from any strengthening of the central power

state for fear that this

must

re-create the alien

and

always potentially tyrannical structure from which they had just

escaped at such a high cost. In effect this would have been the immediate practical upshot of the victory of the Antifederalists, a passive

acceptance of the existing forms of government, as these had already

emerged under the Articles of Confederation, with no

effective over-

arching structure between the individual State governments.

The option they and

his fellow

chose, in broad outline the option which

authors pressed upon them, was embodied

Madison

in the

Constitution, as this survived the ordeal of ratification and

81

new

amend-

Democracy

mcnt, and then of implementation

in

That option gave the Americans, and deal.

failed to reconcile a

It

Washington's

first

Presidency.

due course the world,

in

regime of political liberty

men) with the widespread ownership of

slaves,

a great

(at least for

reconciliation

a

effected only partially even three-quarters of a century later in the

convulsions of Civil War. Even today there ever over

how

hope remains that option taken

it

will ever

as

What

be completed.

is

certain

from America's continuing

than

the following effectively,

that the

it

But

far less vital,

prominent an element within the American imagination

has proved

it

is

political imagination.

has given that impulse a distinctive cast, rendering

insistent or

agreement as

little

been carried, or what

1787 has conspicuously failed to eliminate the egali-

in

tarian impulse it

is

far that reconciliation has since

two

and, as

in

most other

centuries.

societies across the globe over

secured the

It

we now know,

new Republic extremely

for a very long time. In

doing

so,

it

turned the United States into the most politically definite, the best consolidated and the most politically self-confident society on earth. It

also, over

time and to the vast prospective gratification of

its

raffish

and impatient Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, opened the

way

for

it

to

become overwhelmingly

human history When Madison looked back on

the

the most powerful state in

making of

the Constitution in

his old age,''

evoking 'the distracted condition of affairs

and the

want of respect abroad' which surrounded

still

utter

saw every reason

ment could eliminate federal republic,

No human

minimum."

It

little

recognize

now

sign of

how deep

were, and

how

govern-

a third of a century,

warming

to the

the inroads of the futile

it

was

had cut

had not done so by embracing the

claims of democracy without reservation; and

shows

home,

birth, he

the risk of the abuse of power. But America's

on the evidence of over

those risks to a bare

at

which has brought

for pride in 'a constitution

such a happy order out of so gloomy a chaos'.

its

term

in later life.

new conception

to resist

82

Madison himself But he did

of democracy

them openly By the

early

Democracy's Second Coming

1820s, property qualifications for the suffrage, which

had seemed so

obviously benign at the time of the Convention, had become a pointless

anachronism/"*

James Kent of

New

their key role in

Madison by

A more

obdurate conservative

York might

taming

still

like

Chancellor

not hesitate to argue overtly for

'the evil genius of democracy'.^^

But for

where a propertyless majority threatened

this point,

a

propertied minority, this was not a danger which could appropriately be handled by excluding that majority from the franchise. To exclude a majority

from the suffrage

government, that those

who

making them'/^

voice in

which was certain

It

'violates the vital principle of free

are to be

bound by laws ought

to have a

also establishes a basis for governing

in practice to

destroy any free government:

'it

would engage the numerical and physical

force in a constant struggle

against the public authority, unless kept

down

fatal to all parties'.^

Instead,

Madison placed

by a standing army, his hopes, over

above the internal restraints of the Constitution he had done so to create,

on the ameliorative impact of education. In

conclusion had

much

in

common

its

and

much

sobriety, his

with the verdict, delivered fifteen

years earlier by the prominent architect Benjamin Latrobe, in a letter to Jefferson's Italian friend Philip Mazzei: 'After the

adoption of the

federal constitution, the extension of the right of Suffrage in states to the majority of the adult

male

all

citizens, planted a

the

germ

which has gradually evolved, and has spread actual and practical

democracy and

political equality over the

whole union. '^^ The

results

were undoubtedly impressive: 'the greatest sum of happiness that perhaps any nation ever enjoyed'. But they did have their costs: 'our state legislature fact

is,

does not have one individual of superior talents. The

that superior talents actually excite distrust.' This general

erosion of deference and social distinction had 'solid and general advantages'; but 'to a cultivated mind, to a

man

of letters, to a lover

of the arts', he noted frankly to his equally fastidious correspondent, 'it

presents a very unpleasant picture'.^'

the wings.

83

Henry James was waiting

in

Democracy

What

presented this distasteful picture was a democratic politics

become wholly and

logic

its

routine, an entire

own

all

way of

too pervasive culture.

matter of routine, democracy might

still

and North over

struggle between South

political

life,

Once become

on the foundations of the

sustained

slavery,

under much pressure to

It

on,

filled

it

way

a

seismic

later,

economy which

democracy had come to

faced no surviving rivals and was seldom

reflect

against a real challenge to

itself,

in this

or perhaps even by the

social order or the

within politics

But,

it.

dominate the landscape.

own

its

be threatened by the bitter

depths of the Great Depression almost seventy years pressures

with

on

its

own

nature,

let

alone defend

itself

ascendancy For Americans, from then

its

and anyone who chose

the horizon of politics;

to reject

it

publicly simply rendered themselves politically impotent. In America,

the battle for democracy, as Americans had

won

effectively

much

It

earlier

was

in

by default, even

and with much

Europe,

if

much

effort

of

come its

to understand

it,

substance had been

was

won

under very different names.

late in the eighteenth century, that the

term

first

figures in the speech of political actors, struggling to transform a state,

and seeking

their strategies

to explain the basis

and coming

goals. In this guise

much on

its

made

its initial

entry, sporadically

and very

the margins, in the Patriot Revolt which revitalized the

faded political this revolt

it

on which they were planning

to understand the implications of their

was

life

of the Dutch Republic in the 1780s. At the outset

diffuse in

political strategies. '^^

its

goals and

more than

confused

a little

in

But between 1785 and 1787 a number of the

Patriot leaders at times

shook themselves

free

of the hallowed

squabbles between the wealthy urban oligarchs and the House of

Orange,

which

reached

back to the origins of

the

United

Netherlands, and set out a novel and consciously egalitarian political

platform.

The

institutional key to the

most radical aspects of

their chal-

lenge lay in the urban popular militias of the Dutch Provinces, the

84

Democracy's Second Coming

Free Corps/' which

onwards, usually

met

assembhes from December 1784

in regular

in Utrecht/^

As the

far

from egalitarian Patriot

Baron Joan Derk van der Capellen

leader,

'Liberty

and unarmed people stand

December 1784

noted:

in direct contradiction';'*'

and by

movement had taken up arms. At

the Patriot

peak of the movement,

den

Pol,

tot

a

the

delegate of the Delft Free Corps

proclaimed ringingly:

The Burgher, dear comrades, no longer wanders shadows. fiercely

He

can show himself fearlessly

the

of our

in the light

breaking dawn. The Sun of his freedom and Happiness

more strongly from hour

shines

in

to hour,

and we can assure you

on the most powerful grounds that before she reaches her zenith there will be no

The Armed Freedom

in this land.

The Provinces and Orange

more Tyrants of

the People to be found

will blot out their very

of the Dutch Republic split bitterly between Patriot

parties.

By 1787, suppressing the Patriot movement

required the intervention of a Prussian army, despatched to rescue Princess Wilhelmina of Orange, a Hohenzollern princess

had the temerity to flag

set

who had

out to travel to the Hague to raise the Orange

and the misfortune to be apprehended en route by the Gouda Free

Corps, and treated brusquely and with some indelicacy by her tated captors.'*^

command

By September 1787, the Prussian

of the

Duke

forces,

Patriot resistance, the city of

Patriot

movement

common

under the

of Brunswick, had restored the rule of the

Stadholder at the Flague; and by 10 October, the

The

irri-

last

Amsterdam, surrendered

movement did not

at

to him.

any point define

for democracy. Its goal, in so far as

it

had

bastion of

itself

a coherent

as a

and

one, was to establish a constitutional order for the Dutch

Provinces which represented their inhabitants at large, and freed them

from the control of a potentially oppressive Orange monarchy, or a

85

Democracy

wealthy and entrenched urban oHgarchy, equally intent on usurping the people's powers. In seeking to define a less oppressive

and more appropriate form of

representation for the Dutch nation, the Free Corps leadership found

themselves on at least two occasions adopting a position which

The

entirely natural to describe as democratic.

assembly,

held

in

June 1785

Association,^^ pledging

its

in

Utrecht,

third Free

drew up an

was

it

Corps act

of

participants to defend a true Republican

constitution to the last drop of their blood, to restore the lost rights

of the burghers and to strive for a 'People's government by representation [Volksregierung bij representatieY

Corps assembly

in the

.

A

few weeks

'The citizens of a State, above

all

Its

more

revothat:

adhering to

all

still

of a Republic founded on Liberty,

confer this on each of them, head for head... Liberty right,

Free

preamble stated boldly

Province of Holland adopted a

lutionary manifesto, the Leiden Draft.

later, a

is

an inalienable

burghers of the Netherlands commonwealth.

power on earth, much

less

No

any power derived truly from the people...

can challenge or obstruct the enjoyment of

this liberty.' Its Articles

affirmed the sovereignty of the People, the responsibility of elected representatives to their electors, the absolute right of free speech as

foundation for a free constitution, and the denominationally impartial

admission of of

their

all

citizens to the militia (the effective coercive guarantee

continuing freedom). Taken together, they formed a

compelling expression of 'the ideas of a Republican popular sovereignty'.""

In the aftermath of

its

military suppression, the Patriot

was soon caught up inextricably

in the international political

military maelstrom of France's great Revolution. into this swirling chaos,

its

movement

presumptive

heir, the

As

it

and

disappeared

Batavian Republic of

1795-1805, shed any trace of national autonomy and came to seem a

mere puppet of the French At

its

nadir, the

state in the latter's rapid

metamorphoses.

Emperor Napoleon was rude enough

Netherlands as an alluvium washed

86

down

to describe the

by 'the principal rivers of

Democracy's Second Coming

my

But the Dutch themselves naturally retained a keener

empire'/**

domestic disagreements. As they strove to define

interest in their

these

more

clearly,

they found themselves increasingly attracted to a

vocabulary drawn largely from Paris. In the course of these efforts,

democracy and democrat won an unprecedented prominence

Dutch

programmes and

political

own

Dutch wished

was

for

a 'free

Assembly duly signed

and

constitution';

its

constitution'. In

members of

a petition for 'a

in the

By 1797

Holland agent that what the

and democratic

of the next year, a third of the

a political club

a 'democratisch systema\

Directory was assuring

succeeding

in

By 1795 Amsterdam

De Democraten, and

boasted a leading newspaper

whose goal was the winning of France's

identities.

January

Dutch Constituent

the

democratic representative

month

a

committee of the same

assembly unwisely boasted to the French agent that the Dutch were 'capable of a greater measure of democracy than

By

the French'."*^

this point,

aristocrats

would be

centre of the stage. But in Holland, as in France

who

Aristocrats

first

country

to

do

so.

In

1786 Gijsbert Karel van

long-term partisan of the House of Orange, described

in

French to a correspondent as troubled by a cabal, which

'is

divided

Hogendorp himself was

into

aristocrats

certainly by

aristocrat, even before he

He moved

had been

a

Hogendorp, his

itself, it

served to define a political grouping, well before

Democrats could come

people say

suitable to

had long surrendered the

and democrats'.'" Van

Dutch standards very much an

became Pensionary of Rotterdam

in elevated circles;

and

it

was

his

son

who

in 1787.

provided the

immediate stimulus to Princess Wilhelmina's ill-judged escapade."

was also

a practised caballer in his

own

right,

and was

still

He

intriguing

vigorously on behalf of the Orange cause at the time of the Orange restoration a quarter of a century

on Dutch factional squabbles

later.''

still

But

in

1786 his perspective

aspired to be external, detached,

cosmopolitan and sophisticated: a painstaking exercise judgement.

It

was not

itself a political act;

nor was

intended as either domestic or distinctively Dutch.

87

it

in political

cast in terms

Democracy

The

first

setting in

which the term democrat does appear incon-

testably as a pole of domestic pohtical affihation in Europe's (or the

world's)

modern

economies or

what

Britain), but in

Netherlands.

history

societies is

was not

one of the more advanced

in

of the continent

(in

now Belgium and was

The provinces of

states,

Holland, France or then the Austrian

the Austrian Netherlands,

subject

all

Low

Emperor, formed the southern half of the

to the Austrian

Countries which Spain contrived to reconquer after the sixteenthcentury Revolt of the Netherlands. As a result of that reconquest, and in drastic contrast to the

Provinces which got away,

was

it

Catholic, and effectively excluded from international

still

solidly

commerce by

the closing of the river Scheldt to sea-going traffic, enforced by the

terms of Dutch independence. Within ical

and economic

making Dutch

it

the

it,

to a remarkable (and

life

'museum of medieval corporate

a virtual

Patriot refugees

who

and

spirited reform initiatives of the

Emperor Joseph

the Enlightened Despot. Joseph

first set

abolishing torture, (dissolving a

to

number of

the

The

Duke

in II,

its

political

response to the the archetype of

himself, with characteristic

tact, to

rationalize

liberties'.^'

awakening from

slumbers came very much from the outside, and

and lack of

polit-

degree,

'backward, superstitious,

it

oligarchic'. ^^ Belgium's

vigour, thoroughness

stifling)

borders in 1787, as the

fled across its

of Brunswick reimposed order, found priest-ridden

Church dominated

somewhat

reform the penal law by

activities

of

Church

the

religious houses, regulating pilgrimages

and

the timing of popular festivities), challenging the guild monopolies,

deregulating the terms on which masters could employ labour, and

opening up public

more

offices to non-Catholics." In 1787, he

drastically, to reorganize the entire administrative

went on,

and

judicial

system of the Provinces. This was seen across Belgium, accurately

enough, as an assault on the old order, and duly resented as such. The nobles of Alost, unabashed aristocrats to a man, complained forcefully that:

not hold

it

'Our

right to judge

is

our property. Lord Emperor.

by grace, but have received

88

it

We do

from our fathers and bought

Democracy's Second Coming

it

with blood and gold.

will.'^^

It

The lawyers of

should not be taken from us against our

no

Brussels, less grandly but

less cogently,

remonstrated that they had paid good money to secure the positions they held, and done so, and laboured to acquire the knowledge

needed to discharge their responsibilities,

in the confident expectation

of supporting their wives and children on the proceeds/^ Their rights to

do so rested on the

liberties, the celebrated

historical foundation stone of the Province's

Joyeuse Entree, issued by the

Duke

of Brabant

over four centuries earlier in 1355.

Late in 1788 the Estates of Brabant and Hainault refused to pay taxes to the Emperor, and Joseph

four centuries since

its initial

two main leaders of the Brussels lawyers. aristocracy,

Noot fled

II

responded by repudiating, over

proclamation, the Joyeuse Entree.'^ The

revolt.

Van der Noot and Vonck, were each

Van der Noot was wealthy and

at least related to the

Vonck the son of an appreciably poorer farmer. Van der

assailed the Austrians in an incendiary pamphlet, but promptly

abroad and busied himself with unavailing

House of Orange

to intervene

efforts to

persuade the

and reunite the Netherlands. Vonck

drew the moral of Brunswick's brisk suppression of the Dutch Patriots,

and

set

himself instead, along with a group of Brussels

and

friends, to organize a secret society Pro Arts et Focis (For Altars

Hearths), to co-ordinate groups of youthful volunteers to travel

abroad for military training, and link these to a clandestine network of

sympathizers within Belgium

itself.

Vonck attracted many

followers across the entire range of Belgian society,

from the abbots of

the wealthiest monasteries to the grandest of the secular nobility.

On

18 June 1789 Joseph responded by dissolving the Estates of

Brabant and annulling the Joyeuse Entree. By Revolution was well on

meet

in Versailles.^*^

its

way and

Only the day

this

time France's

own

the Estates General had begun to before, the representatives of the

Third Estate proclaimed themselves the National Assembly.^*^ In August, Revolution broke out too in the Prince-Bishopric of Liege,^'

and young Vonckists flooded across the frontier to prepare themselves

89

/)

armed

for the

('

;;/

o

c r

struggle. In practice,

a cy

little

up without

the Austrian authorities gave

struggle

was required, since

a fight in

one province

after

another. The network of urban revolutionary committees which

Vonck had established

to reconstruct the

set itself

patchwork of

medieval liberties as a single sovereign national government. Vonck's allies in this task

rats

'were called Vonckists by their enemies, but democ-

by themselves'." These enemies, unsurprisingly, included not only

Van der Noot, but

the earlier followers of

of

beneficiaries

Tongerloo

the established

now prominent

order,

also

most of the major

with the great Abbot of

within their ranks:'" 'The abbots as a group

represent the secular and regular clergy, and indeed they represent the

whole

rural country as well, being the largest landowners; and, finally,

usage has always been this way, and should remain constitutional, It

so, since

and the Constitution cannot be changed.

was an unequal

fight.

it

is

'^^

The Vonckists found themselves

tarred

with the menace of France's Revolution, especially after March 1790,

when many

of their leaders were arrested, and the remainder, with

numerous of

their followers,

exile in France itself.

They

found themselves forced to

also found themselves portrayed, not

entirely

erroneously, as catspaws of the

Leopold

II,

Joseph

II,

whose reform were every

flee into

plans,

bit as

if

less

new Austrian Emperor

draconic

in style

than those of

out of sympathy with the hallowed

customs and whimsical privileges of Brabant. Neither alignment was reassuring to the foreign champions of the other; but the two together, however inconsistent the combination, were

enough

to

Democrats.

unite In

a

large

June 1790,

counter-revolutionary

more than

majority of the Belgians against the in a rehearsal for

rising in the

the bloodily suppressed

Vendee three years

later,^^

the

parish priests of rural Brabant roused their devout peasant congre-

gations by the thousands, and marched threateningly, week after

week, into the centre of Brussels, carrying the insignia of their threatened faith, and brandishing an unnerving array of agricultural weaponry.'*''

Vonck himself, who came from

90

just

such a parish, had

Democracy's Second Coming

never thought

it

wise to adopt a pubHc

Belgium as a

cratic reconstruction of

programme

state.

for the

demo-

His followers did not see

themselves as democrats, because they had chosen from the outset to

pursue a clearer and more extreme version of France's national reconstruction.

was

a far

They did so because

the immediate

enemy they faced

denser and an even more arbitrary array of

privileges than those of France's first

two

aristocratic

and because

Estates,

enemy was backed by much wider popular support than draw on.

equivalents proved able to over two hundred years

this

their French

In Belgium, as in Algeria a

little

democratic outcome chosen by a

later,*^ a

majority of the adult inhabitants would certainly not have meant the

establishment and consolidation of a secular and democratic republic.

The pays

such democracy

reel,

would have voted any

given the opportunity,

down without

a

moment's

hesitation.

thinking through the implications of the Vonckist fate in retrospect

of democracy

To in

see

mind

why democracy its

one

movement and

could possibly have inferred from

was destined

No

it

its

that the cause

to sweep the world.

faced that future,

we

certainly need to bear

fate in North America over the next century, and the

economy under

majestic rise of America's

its

aegis. But,

beyond the

Americas, the impact of these experiences on the politics of other countries really

was

come

still

into

quite its

modest

own

until the First

until the

World War, and did not

aftermath of the Second. Before

then, democracy's unsteady dispersion across the world

was no

mony

the force of

to

American power, and not much even

American example. things. as

It

If

anything,

it

might be evidence of the

to

testified, rather, to

intrinsic

one of two

power of democracy

an idea (odd for a political term which had not even begun

as a

itself

its life

conception of the politically desirable, and which had long served

to label the quite evidently politically undesirable).

but

testi-

still

quite puzzlingly,

it

More

plausibly,

might instead be testimony to the force of

another and far more obtrusively ambiguous historical example, the

awesome Revolution which overwhelmed France.

91

Democracy

What happened

France

in

in the

few short years between 1788 and

1794 changed the structure of poHtical possibilities for

human

communities across the world almost beyond recognition.

did so,

we

for reasons

permanently. Even

Thermidor

when

it

was

over,

with Robespierre's overthrow

for the last time,

left a different

it

how

meant, a new vision of selves politically,

own

their

reach.

and

when Napoleon

conception of what politics

societies can or

must organize them-

transformed sense of the scale of threat which

a

can pose to any society and

political life

was within

It

in

or Napoleon's rise in Brumaire 1798, or on the

in 1794,

plains of Waterloo, quite close to Brussels, in 1815 fell

It

very vaguely comprehend, both radically and

still

new conception

this

that

upon one community

itself,

slowly but inexorably,

made

these inroads, once again, not through

its

all

within their

democracy forced after another.

prominence

It

in the

speech of the Revolution's leading actors, or through the names

adopted to pick out

political groupings, factions or institutions.

Those names - Jacobins, Girondins, the Mountain, the their

own

Some,

history.

Left

-

none of them ever competed, even

momentarily, for the role of world-wide basis for political

macy; and none ever offered

very

much

struggles.

language

live

up

to.

in

it

comparably firm standard

a

The democratic legacy

the product of

But

had

due course, cast lengthy shadows over

in

distant corners of the world. But

authority to

all

intense

its

was no echo of

for political

of the Revolution was

and often devastating

its

legiti-

political

public symbols,^** nor of the

which those struggles were openly conducted. Only

at a

handful of points was the category of democracy deployed explicitly to define

what was

them, and even then only once at

at stake within

the storm centre of the struggle

itself.

Only

in retrospect, as the

most

detached and analytical categories through which Europeans had striven for centuries to grasp

as

it

does were

whole

really

set to

work

what

to

politics

fathom

means and why

just

it

operates

what the Revolution

as a

had meant, did democracy slowly begin to emerge as

central issue,

and do so

in its

own

right

92

and under

its

own name.

its

Democracy's Second Coming

At

this point,

France's

of

it

linked back to one of the most intriguing visions

political

Considerations sur

le

predicament

earlier

gouvernement ancien

The Considerations was

the

work of

in

the

et present

prominent

a

century,

de

the

la FranceJ'^

aristocrat,

Rene-

Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d'Argenson. D'Argenson came

from a long

and

line of royal officials,

chief of police/"

He

his father

had been the

Paris

served himself in several elevated positions, most

notably as Minister of Foreign Affairs. But he was too brusque and

too independent to be a practised courtier; and in ties

and much of

his social

The Considerations was

many

of his loyal-

imagination he was a traitor to his order.

first

published, anonymously and from a

highly imperfect manuscript, in 1764.^'

It

set

out a plan for the polit-

reconstruction of France which D'Argenson had already

ical

advanced as early as 1737, and which he for long hoped to persuade the

King

to permit

him

to carry out himself in the role of First

Minister. In manuscript form, and subsequently in print, his

it

had, as

son boasted in a Preface to the greatly augmented second edition

twenty years

later, left its

mark on most of

the great French political

works from the middle of the century onwards: the Physiocrats, Quesnay, Mirabeau, Montesquieu, Turgor, Rousseau, Mably.^^

D'Argenson's plan was a striking expression of the these royale, the perspective

on French government, economy and society which saw

in

an enlightened monarchical reform the best hope for reshaping and rationalizing France as a state its

and

society,

and serving the

interests of

people as a whole.^^ But D'Argenson approached the task of

reform, as the

title

of his manuscript

made

clear,^"*

not by seeking

merely to restructure the royal administration, but by asking himself 'how far democracy could be admitted into monarchical

government'. This was scarcely the sort of question calculated to win

cheap popularity royal

at the court of Versailles. In later decades, as the

government clashed with

the Parlements,

D'Argenson

its

principal constitutional courts,

at points

modified the sharpness with

which he sought to exclude the aristocracy from the strategic niches

93

Democracy

which enabled them to obstruct royal power. out throughout his political

life

was the extent

essential to introduce democratic procedures

way

^

But what marked him to

and

which he believed

it

institutions into the

which France was governed. What made these procedures

in

was

indispensable, in his eyes,

common good

less the difficulty

of enforcing the

through a purely monarchical structure of power, or

any prospective divergence between the

monarch and

interests of the

those of his people, than the sheer difficulty of locating what the

common good was institutions

in the first place.

For this latter task, democratic

and procedures enjoyed unique advantages. He put

this

point with particular clarity in his (equally unsuccessful) submission

Academy

for the

of Dijon's 1754 prize competition which elicited

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discours sur les

les origines

de Vinegalite parmi

hommes. Nature

is

divine

and

dictates to us only laws

But you must heard only

listen to

among

which are easy

to execute.

her to follow her; she makes herself

equal citizens and friends. In these condi-

tions, contradictory interests control

and

conciliate themselves,

sharpness softens, difficulties are levelled /s'aplanissent/ by

what

is

evident,

and

the

common good

from equality alone that good laws come assembly of

men

equal

among

discovered. to us.

It is

It is

thus

through the

themselves that their implemen-

tation /manutention/ can be assured.^^

New

Administration which D'Argenson proposed

for France,^ the public

good, the supreme law, was to guide a well-

In the Plan of the

organized monarchy, with the aid of a well-understood democracy

which little

in

no way encroaches upon royal

room (and no need whatever)

between king and people.

'"*

obeyed.

It

This

it

very

sole incon-

was too divided

must therefore be regulated and directed by

94

left

an intermediary power

D'Argenson argued that the

venience of democratic authority was that itself

authority.^*

for

to

make

a single

Democracy's Second Coming

spirit

which bears upon the entire body of the

interest aside

from the general

interest.

state but has

no

Such was the role of royal

authority.

The

role of

democracy was

to enlighten the sovereign,

who,

as all

French monarchists stoutly maintained, had no interest of his

own

apart from those of his people, and so no motive for betraying them,^°

who could

but

were.

Any

identify

all

too readily

fail

to ascertain

what

their interests

sovereign therefore needed the help of his subjects to

which of

their interests

as the people in their turn

were truly common,

needed to be aware of one another's judge-

ments to distinguish particular

Nowhere did

the

monarch need

assessment of the

just as urgently

from the general good.

interests this aid

more urgently than

in the

and distribution of taxation, an ever more

level

contentious issue as the costs of global military and naval conflict

mounted

inexorably,

and the government's debts rose precipitously

along with them.^' Under D'Argenson's Plan, the administrators set the

who

tax levels in every district of France must be chosen from then

on from men who resided and owned property within the

district,

by

majority vote and through secret ballot.^' They were to be subject

annually to renewal or replacement at elected Assemblies of the district.

Besides offering a belated political basis on which to meet

France's spiralling fiscal crisis, this democratic choice of administrators

would

also help to intensify French agriculture, ensuring that all

land was cultivated by In itself,

its

owners.**^

D'Argenson's conception of democracy was conventional

enough: 'Democracy

is

popular Government,

in

which the whole

people shares equally, with no distinction between nobles and

commoners. and

false

False

"*''

He

distinguished in the classic fashion between true

democracy:

Democracy

Government of

rapidly

falls

into

the multitude, as

when

the insolent People scorns the

Anarchy.

Laws and

95

It

is

the

a People revolts. Then reason.

Its

tyrannical

Democracy

Despotism shows

itself in the violence

by the uncertainty of

its

movements, and

Deliberations.

its

Democracy

True

of

through

acts

Deputies,

and these

Deputies are authorized by the election of the People. The mission of those chosen by the People and the authority which

supports them constitute the public power. Their duty insist

on the

protect

interests

of the greatest number of

them from the

greatest evils

is

to

citizens to

and secure them the

greatest goods.^'

On

the

first

appearance of

this point that a

his

democracy of

Government of the United

book

in 1764,

D'Argenson notes

at

kind was, or should have been, the

this

Provinces,

By 1784 he

his son) felt free to replace this assessment

(or

more probably

by the bold claim that the

only true Democratic States in Europe at the time were the popular

cantons of Switzerland.

^''

D'Argenson was an unabashed monarchist. He

fully

accepted the

French monarchy's exclusive commitment to the Catholic Church,

whatever his reservations may have been over the manner and timing of Louis XIV's Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and subsequent

persecution of the Huguenots. For him democracy was a valuable

adjunct to the monarchy, not differed sharply for

ment, then or

most of

earlier,

its rival

or potential replacement. But he

his life

from theorists of mixed govern-

who saw

the political aftermath of

European

feudalism as a system of government uniting monarchical, aristocratic

and democratic elements

in careful

balance against one another, and

savoured, to varying degrees, the restraining influence on royal wilfulness of the intermediary powers of the aristocracy In France this

meant above tional courts laws."^

all

the noblesse de robe,

and saw themselves

who

staffed the French constitu-

as the dedicated custodians of the

For D'Argenson the crying need of the French monarchy was

not restraint but guidance; and neither aristocracy nor Church had the least capacity to provide that

guidance

96

in a

dependable form.

Democracy's Second Coming

D'Argenson was

relatively

unreformed must collapse

it

did, his picture of

acute,

and

monly

prescient:**^

his sense of

many

in being. It

universelle/,

way.

in quite a different

its

will

hasten

and

end uncom-

its

its rights, it

would

universal national assembly /une

a

establish

to

Assemblee nationale

years by

fundamental flaws was notably

likeliest to

were to recover

If ever the nation fail

its

what was

feared

chaos in the

in

near future. Although he had been dead for

the time that

not

left

who

monarchical reformer,

a frustrated

monarchy

that a French

It

would make

would compose

province and of the towns.

dangerous to royal authority

it

It

of great

would

it

necessary and always

lords, deputies

of each

imitate in every respect the

Parliament of England. The nation would reserve legislation to it

and would give the king only a provisional

to

implement

What broke siness

fprovisoirej right

it.

monarchy

the

and bad luck,

a

in the

end was

its

own

political

clum-

wholly unpredictable succession of maladroit

Ministers, failures of nerve, vagaries of judgement, and sheer

mishaps. But what placed

it

any special infirmity

person of the reigning monarch, or even

in the

within reach of catastrophe was

less

the acute unpopularity of his Austrian wife, than the obstinacy,

conceit and ruthlessness of D'Argenson's key adversary, the French nobility, the

order from which he came. France's Revolution was a

revolution against aristocracy well before

incumbent monarch. As native actors*'

was

a

himself,'^*'

who

did

for long

complements

to

the

it

its

of

its

in their

prominent

own

vocab-

had unmistakably broken out.

most to foment

championed

turned against the

we know, none

far as

convinced democrat (either

ulary or in ours) until well after

Even those

it

it,

like

the

Abbe

Sieyes

democratic elements solely as

continuing and effective authority of

monarchical government.

97

its

D c ni o

;

c

a cy

As with the making of America's C^onstitution, what drove the reconstruction of the French state was the crippHng burden of war debt, and the pohtical challenge of finding a basis on which to

discharge

it

without openly repudiating

cipally required

was the design of

In

it.

America what

this prin-

system of government safe from

a

capture by irresponsible enemies of property, a firm barrier to democ-

most notorious weakness, or

racy's

Democracy'.

'^'

But

in

to

what D'Argenson

France the immediate obstacle to handling the

debt effectively was the very partial and obstructed royal

government and the elaborate

beyond

as

it

its

form of

it.

most cases law of

standing. As they faced a government forced to

special

fiscal

reach of the

tissue of exemptions, province by

province and order by order, which served to limit tions were a matter of law, in

ately

called 'False

live

All these

many

ever

exemp-

centuries'

more desper-

means, every one of them was a kind of privilege, a legal immunity, or private legal right to elude the law

bore on other French

kingdom, with one law

men

for all

its

or

women. France was not

subjects.

It

was

a single

a vast archipelago of

overlapping jurisdictions and endlessly differentiated statuses, fiercely defended, It

and

all at

least

pretending to centuries of antiquity.

defied systematic comprehension,

bit as

all

alone coherent excuse, every

let

obdurately as the customs of Brabant had defied Austria's

reforming Emperors.

The two most prominent Church and the who,

in the

blocs of

nobility, the First

privilege

belonged to the

and Second of the three

understanding of virtually

all

interested themselves in such questions,

Estates,

France's population

made up

who

the French Nation.

Neither Church nor nobility was ranged solidly against the interests of the royal government,

let

alone the French Nation. Between the

year of America's Independence and 1789, each provided leading

Ministers

who

struggled to persuade their recalcitrant fellows to

surrender at least some of their tax privileges

debt back

in

order to bring the

under control. But Church and nobility both firmly

refused, in one setting after another, to

98

comply with these proposals.

Democracy's Second Coming

The

Ministers, noble or ecclesiastical (or in one case both), soon

fell;

and by August 1788, France's increasingly anxious King, Louis XVI, found himself forced to turn once more to a Minister who was neither a noble nor a Prince of the Church, indeed not even a French subject,

the

Genevan Protestant banker Jacques Necker/^ More

disconcertingly

and even before

still,

de Brienne had handed

compelled to agree to first

time for a

omized the

full

summon

the Estates General of France, for the

century and three-quarters. Brienne himself epit-

political limitations of the ancien

Archbishop of Toulouse

tether.

Lomenie

his hapless Minister

resignation, Louis found himself

his

in

position to arrange for his

own

its

time of his appointment, he

at the

had had the conspicuously poor

regime at the end of

taste to take

advantage of his

transfer to the considerably

more

remunerative Archbishopric of Sens; and his tactless and indecisive

handling of the Provincial Estates greatly aggravated suspicion of the royal

government throughout France.

Because

knew

it

quite

had not met

how

summon

to

an immense span of time, no one

for such

the Estates General, even once the

decision had been taken; and no one could be certain quite

members were

to be selected, let alone

sioned to concede or demand.

would meet

in

once

its

No

how

its

what they would be commis-

one even knew what forms

it

members did duly assemble. Brienne himself

belatedly recognized the need to fix the procedures for the election

of

its

members,

been, or should

invited evidence

now

and opinions on how

be, constituted,

and

it

had

last

lifted the censorship, so

that the answers could be properly considered.

The

result

was over-

whelming.

Throughout France, archival research in

of

how

in

the

one place

things had been

months from July onwards, busy

after

done back

another probed into the question in the distant

days of 1614, with

varying and confusing results. Every rank in French society was to be invited to take part in

one forum or another, whether,

aristocracy or the bishops, in the select

99

company of

like the

grander

their peers

and

Democracy

commanding

with some hope of

local rural assemblies in

nerve to take

it

which even those of the peasantry with the

were to be given their brief

their votes, before the lists

attention for their views, or in the

outcome was

say,

filtered

and permitted to cast

upwards. In each setting,

of grievances {cahiers de doleances) were drawn up, as precondi-

tions to the acceptance of any fresh taxes needed to refloat the French

Treasury, or bargaining counters in the allocation of the

new

tax

burden amongst different groups of the population.*^'

Amidst it

excitement, and the spontaneous optimism which

all this

both prompted and reinforced, one particular public decision

sharpened the inchoate contours of social and political interest and redefined suddenly the muddled struggle between nation and royal

government as an open confrontation between the Third Estate and its

two privileged counterparts. One of Necker's opening

acts as First

Minister was to reconvene in September 1788 the Parlement of Paris, the principal institutional challenger to royal authority in recent

decades, summarily evicted only four months earlier from role of registering the public law of France

and

all

its

ancient

royal edicts which

covered the whole kingdom, in favour of a judicial body appointed by

Only two days

the King himself.

the Parlement gave

must meet:

in the

its

after

its

decisive verdict

triumphant return to

Paris,

on how the Estates General

forms of 1614, as three distinct Orders, and with the

Third Estate having no more and no fewer representatives than each of the other two.

Two months

of Notables to see

with equally

success,

little

number of Third

later

Necker reconvened the Assembly

they could be persuaded to reverse this outcome,

if

and was able to secure

a

doubling

in the

Estate representatives only by a decree of the Royal

Council at the end of December.

By

this

time the damage was well and truly done.

The Parlement's would be

decision ensured that the population of France

forced, as never before, to choose between the

long past and a

accumu-

attempt to redefine

itself,

through political choice, as a single national community

fully

lated routines of

its

100

vital

Democracy's Second Coming

equipped to assume responsibility for

Many

its

own

monarch

stakes in that past. Like the

was deeply inured what made

many

to seeing in

worth

life

it.

destiny.

it

and basis of much of

the source

and the ground of every practically

living,

them had

of

ness that this

come

also

way of viewing

and that

sense,

and

himself, every French subject

enough

serviceable right which they were fortunate

very

security

and well-placed figures throughout France held huge

able

it

had

a certain

The crushing burden

to enjoy. But

to have at least a

shadowy aware-

their lives over time

made imperfect

obvious shabbiness and absurdity to

of the debt, the manoeuvres of the old

regime's beneficiaries to shirk responsibility for meeting debilitating squabbles over

worsening

in

who was most

the predicament of

to

blame

and the

it

for the steady

both government and nation

focused on the nobility, the Church and eventually on the

Monarch

himself, an unprecedented weight of ideological odium. In the end all

three buckled beneath

political exploration

and enactment, and French nation

bitter

and all

on

effort clearly

five years,

legislative deliberation

and international warfare, the

itself

with a new legal

and implement

guaranteed

liberty

to reconstitute France as a society

as cruel, hypocritical,

later, in

lives

to

It

ended, on

its

it

and

at the

a state

consequences, as the very

own

terms, in

parvenu empire, and, a quarter of a

the reluctant restoration of the dynastic monarchy.

had done

ruined the

in its

muddled and disorientating

failure: military dictatorship, a

it

security

and calmly today as contemporaries found

worst abysses of the ancien regime.

Before

and

remains almost as hard to see that convulsive

The attempt

century

identity. It

a fresh set of institutions

through political action was often nightmarish

and

through turbulent

together without either ignominy or absurdity,

which

basis

a

citizens. It

its

time.

live

civil

endow

out to

set

For the next

and struggles, intense

also set itself to design

through which to

it.

so,

it

devastated the continent of Europe and

of countless millions of

its

the imagery of Goya's Disasters of War.Y'^

101

inhabitants. (Think of

Democracy

But the same attempt to reconstitute France through pohtical action also in due course defined a practices for every other single

human

new

universe of political and legal

society across the globe, with the

and glaring exception of the United States of America.

of those societies have yet to be forced to submit to

Many

requirements.

its

But none of them, not even Britain, France's global military, political

and economic its

rival,

which did most of

all

to bring the Revolution to

exhausted close, has since been able consistently to ignore

it.

Given the depth of the nightmare, and the awesome impact of the Revolution's blood-stained wars, inevitably,

some of

drawn from

the models

were negative rather than positive

- precedents

it,

to avoid or

catastrophes to insure against at virtually any expense. Revolution

and counter-revolution were born together, and have proved,

Edmund Burke promptly It is

hard to

warned,'^' practically inseparable ever since.

whether the unintended consequences of the attempt

tell

to reorganize a society rationally for the benefit of

its

members have

had any shallower an impact than the more edifying of the goals which

its

conspicuous

adopted and pursued

leaders

setting.

The harms which

it

in

their

uniquely

its

partisans.

issued just as forcibly from the galvanizing effects of that

audacity on

neurs

political

perpetrated over time did

not stem solely from excess of audacity on the part of

They

as

who

its

more obdurate enemies, and on

traded

in their fears. If

forward to Stalin and

Mao

the political entrepre-

Robespierre and the Terror looked

Tse-Tung and the vast famines which each

unleashed, they also gave the cue for the extremities of struggles to arrest or reverse the threat of revolution for

to

more than two

come, to Fascism, the Third Reich, and perhaps even

centuries

truly Islamic

revolution.

One

figure did

more than anyone

unleash the Revolution.

candidate for the role, and

in

many ways

draw the Sieyes

battle lines

was

and

a surprising

ill-equipped to finish

what

He was not one of the Revolution's great orators like Danton, who could hold sway over the Assembly for a

he had started.

Mirabeau or

else to

Emmanuel Joseph

''^

102

Democracy's Second Coming

time by the sheer power of their words; nor did he have Robespierre's gift

of assurance in arranging to have his poHtical enemies killed.

when

Forty years old

earned

his living

the Estates General

was summoned,

from within three years of

Sieyes

had

his ordination by serving

and then,

as secretary, first to the Bishop of Treguier in Brittany,

following his patron's fortunate posting in 1780, to the far wealthier

and

less

secluded see of Chartres, with

its

majestic cathedral and

ready access to Parisian intellectual and political

became

Chartres, Sieyes

circles.^'

mark

his

in

turn vicar-general of the diocese, a canon

in

of the Cathedral and in 1788 Chancellor of the Chapter.

began to make

Once

in a variety of the

He

also

Church's representative

bodies. In 1788,

under the pressure of events, he wrote

three striking pamphlets.

The

first to

quick succession

in

be composed (though

published) was a relatively cool and systematic analysis of Estates General could

deep quagmire of

its

now

best set about rescuing France

political past:

last to

be

how

the

from the

Views of the Executive Means

Available to the Representatives of France in 1789.

It

drew extensively

on the many years of careful reading and hard thinking which Sieyes had devoted to working out the

political

needs and opportunities of

the highly commercialized society which France, like Britain,

been. Behind

lay close study of

it

the contribution of

some of

the

what he

of

all

of

Adam

throughout

all

This was not

ground

in

kind of society of a radical division of labour,

itself

an evidently democratic

for rejecting

ence to the demands of

and unequals

alike'.'"'

political order

and

by the single criterion of effectiveness.

Indeed, for Plato, over two thousand years earlier, central

social

Europe, and most decisively

Smith. Sieyes's key insight was the shaping influence

this novel

guided above

called 'social mechanics':^^

most powerful economic,

political thinkers of eighteenth-century

had long

democracy en bloc

for

it

line of

thought.

had served as the

its

brazen indiffer-

justice: 'distributing a certain equality to

equals

But for Sieyes, far from flouting these demands, a

could be dependably just or effective,

103

if

and only

if it

Democracy

human

viewed and treated the

of rights, and organized

was

Sieyes

as alert as

human community; its

beings

itself to

Adam

who made

Smith'"*^ to the

up

as equal bearers

need for authority

in

any

but, like Smith, he believed that a state could hold

authority legitimately only by dint of meeting the needs of

subjects. This did not

make him

Smith one. For

Sieyes,

democracy was neither a

nor a favoured

political

it

it

protect and benefit every one of them.

a democrat,

any more than

it

its

down

the

worlds of politics and law with new clarity and precision, But,

no simple enemy of democracy Even

Sieyes

if

in

made

long history, could

have been one of his characteristic neologisms, deployed,

interminable coinages of Jeremy Bentham, to pin

else.)

own

rhetorical rallying cry,

paradigm. (Neither, given

widely taken up by anyone

its

like the

shadowy if

seldom

was no democrat, he was

Views of the Executive Means

he insisted robustly, as D'Argenson had done before him, on the need for every legislature to be refreshed by the democratic

the consequent need to minimize the

number of

the inhabitants of the local communities the successively elected representatives late

on

their behalf.

It

was the

up of a small number of

scale of France as a society

citizens, they

itself."°^

legis-

which neces-

community made

themselves will be able to form

the legislative assembly. Here there will be

thing

the nation from

due course

in

sitated an elaborate structure of representation: 'In a

and on

which separated

levels

who made up

who would

spirit,'"'

no representation, but the

Representation serves efficiency; but

it

also carries great

dangers:

every

human

association has to have a

functions. To carry out these functions

common aim and public it is

necessary to detach

number of members of the association from the great mass of citizens. The more a society advances in the arts of trade and production, the more we see that the work connected

a certain

to

public functions should, like private employments, he

carried out less expensively

make

it

and more

their exclusive occupation.

104

^^^

effectively

by

men who

Democracy's Second Coming

Sieyes plainly viewed public administration as a thoroughly

employment

for the talented; but

obvious that he had any clear

less

it is

worthy

conception of what a career in electoral politics was likely to involve.

One

point which he certainly did grasp, however, was that those

carry out this work, in their

own, which may be sharply

They come

community and

France as

at

odds with those of

to see their role as a right

When

longer as a duty to others. political

it

was

in

who

whatever form, readily develop an interest of

and an item of property, and no

they do, they dissolve the bonds of

form of

establish a

1788 was

their fellows.

less 'a

political servitude.

^""^

nation organized as a political

body' than 'an immense flock of people scattered over a surface of twenty-five thousand square leagues'.

organized nation, what benighted

past.^°^ It

was

it

To turn

to heed the lessons of reason,

sound constitution, the

its

murky and

draw boldly on

endow

the recent findings of social mechanics, and belatedly, with a

into a politically

it

needed was not to probe into

itself,

all

too

means which could

sole

guarantee citizens the enjoyment of their natural and social rights, consolidate the elements in their better,

bad'.'°^ In the

how

common

and 'progressively extinguish remainder of

his

all

itself to

last

which worked for the

pamphlet Sieyes

for the

itself to

provide

with that constitution, and do so without allowing

be sucked back into the political whirlpool of the debt which

had prompted

its

summons

in the first place.

Unlike the Views of the Executive Means, the

pamphlets to reach the public, Privileges, fateful

done

out carefully just

set

and organize

the Estates General must view

France at long

life

that has been

in

November

first

of Sieyes's

1788, the Essay on

was an immediate response to the Parlement of

September decision and an open

Paris's

arms. In his bitter

call to

tirade against the claims of privilege,'"^ Sieyes broke openly with the nobility of France as an order edifice of conceit

and

set

himself to demolish the entire

and pretension which held

its

very idea of privilege (the basis on which the their formidable

powers of

world together. The

first

political obstruction)

105

two Estates held

was

lethal to

any

('

good or happy

/;/ ()

c rci c V

The essence of

society.

privilege

common

possessor 'beyond the boundaries of

place

to

is

its

either an

right','"**

exemption from the prohibitions on wrong action which face every of an exclusive right to do what the laws

other citizen/"* or the

gift

would otherwise

open

leave

to anyone. 'All privileges...

from the very

nature of things, are unjust, odious, and contrary to the supreme end

Not only was

of every political society' itself, it

was

also profoundly corrupting of

was not an honourable quest

Privilege

members

fellow

of society;

it

was

all

who

mean

concern for public

interest.

who The

feel

and

'so full of vanity,

seek to cloak

it

citizens,

citizens.'"" It

in

it

than

was

and

a

yet

feigned

idea of country, in the heart of the

privileged, 'shrinks to the caste to

seem

it.

by your fellow

and an unnatural appetite,

in itself, that all

benefited from

a constant spur to insolence

vanity: 'You ask less to be distinguished

so

in

to earn the admiration of

you seek to be distinguished from your fellow secret sentiment

wrong

privilege deeply

which they belong'. They come to

to themselves 'another species of beings'.'" This apparently

exaggerated opinion, while 'insensibly

itself,

becomes

establishes itself in

all

in its

minds'.

no way implied

in the idea

of privilege

natural consequence, and in the end

The

effects

were ludicrous, turning the

imaginations of the nobility endlessly back towards a distant and ever

more

practically irrelevant past.

They were

also intensely pernicious,

fomenting an esprit de corps and a relentless party ranks.""

The

desert,"'

and

spirit

within their

inheritance of privilege broke any possible link to left its

presumed beneficiaries

to a

life

of intrigue and

mendicity, of 'privileged beggary', at the expense of their fellow citizens."'' It

skills

in

inevitable

this

nurtured also

in

the scions of the nobility formidable

ignominious competition for self-advancement. The

result

was

to

spread the corrupting example - 'the

honourable and virtuous desire of living

in idleness

and

at the

expense

of the public"" - throughout society

The

third,

and

appeared next,

in

far the

most famous, of

January 1789, turning

106

Sieyes's trio of

pamphlets

this tirade into

an open

Democracy 's Second Coming

programme

Marx

of revolution, and handing on to the young Karl

half a century later the classic formula for revolutionary conscious-

We do

ness.'^^

cleric

not really

visceral

his

know

what gave

quite

this forty-year-old

hatred of aristocratic pretension.

It

may have

reached back to his childhood as son of a minor royal official in the

modest Provence township of in

Frejus.

It

may have been nurtured

later,

the course of his reluctant training for the priesthood in the

many

Parisian seminary of Saint Sulpice, a career for which

besides

Sieyes himself subsequently noticed his drastic lack of vocation. (As a

boy he strongly preferred the prospect of mining engineer.) What we do know it

is

an

as

life

that,

definitively in public early in 1789, the resulting text

raced across France. find

'What

is

A

title,

was

Sieyes's

into Revolution.

very

much

had made

it

As they entered 1789 the

had

commitment

The Third

two Estates were

Estate

was

to that identity

most

in doubt.""

and a confidence is

and understand Christianity it

their drabber its

and

claim even to

Both the

on

in

first

two

was

to ask

and the Church which

itself,

on

power,

its

own

behalf,

Church and

free

a long history of self-consciously continin political self-

the Second Estate

was was to ask how to

many

centuries of rhetorical

view Nobility, again a question with effort devoted to

own

earth. In France at least, that

uous thought and devotion and a practised fluency

To enquire what

its

the First Estate?'

well organized to answer the question

draw on the resources of

assertion.

still

a conscious solidarity, a sense of collective identity, a

and worth. To enquire 'What

to see

at

the Cinderella of France, with

embodied and interpreted was

first

political crisis

the fair sisters, pride and glory of a long and singularly self-

more nebulous adjunct,

how

of the

the political question of the hour.

belong to the same family eminently

dignity

which

or even especially

answer to that question which turned

assured history"^

Estates

a fuse

summoning

stimulating as a question. By January 1789 the

It

lit

to express

year earlier, no one would have been likely to

the Third Estate?' evocative as a

Estates General

to

artillery officer or

when he came

working up

flattering answers,

107

if

for the

most part on

Democracy

the basis of distinctly less strenuous intellectual exertion. In his Essay

on

Privileges, already, Sieyes

had highlighted the imaginative

What

of this carefully cultivated tradition of self-regard. In

new

authority in what was already a very old state.

by giving an astonishing answer to his he proclaimed brashly,

ical

'Everything'.'"

is

political order of France,

title

it

He

Up

presumptively for

least

in its

The Third

It

Estate,

had carried no

The

so, they

polit-

King's Ministers

name and on

doing

over-

political

to then, in the existing

had been 'Nothing'.

benefit. In

its

for

began, notoriously,

question.

weight, and received no formal recognition.

and the Privileged Orders had acted

basis

the

is

smug and

Third Estatef, he turned the tables decisively on his bearing antagonists, and set out a quite

fragility

behalf,

if

at

had not been,

as

its

they fondly imagined, displaying a generous and attentive paternalism.

They had simply usurped powers which and robbed

To

of the place which was

it

survive

and prosper,

public services.'^'

which

its

It

legitimately belonged to

a nation requires private

employments and

must work the land, manufacture everything

from the

It

also

loftiest to the

requires a

huge variety of personal

most menial. '^^ At present

all

the

most

rewarding and honorific of these services are monopolized by the

two

it,

rightful due.'^"

inhabitants require, and distribute these products to their

eventual consumers. services

its

Estates. But there

is

first

not a single one of them which could not

perfectly well be provided by the Third. Already the latter carries out all

the really hard work, while receiving virtually

The Third

nation'.'^' It

oppressed.

none of the honour.

Estate contains 'everything needed to form a complete is

'Everything; but an everything that

What would

it

be

without

the

is

fettered

privileged

and

order?

Everything; but an everything that would be free and flourishing.

Nothing can go well without the Third

Estate, but everything

would

go a great deal better without the two others.' The exclusion of the Third Estate from every post which carries honour against

it.'^''

may have

It

reflects a 'state of servitude','^'

is 'a

lasted, can only have arisen in the first place

108

social crime'

which, however long

it

from conquest

Democracy's Second Coming

and can no longer be sustained against

enough today not

They may

a people

to let itself be conquered'.

was everything.

the nobility

thing and nobility

is

Now the

itself

political

from the

consequences are

'foreign to the

its

The

made

every-

new

the people,

its

nobility has separated

itself a

political rights

Nation by virtue of

come from

is

^^^

clear.

nation and

rest of the

on exercising

insistence

Third Estate

and the People has every

intolerable aristocracy has slid in,

did not

real for all

it is

only a word. But beneath this word, a

reason not to want any aristocrats.

The

which

There was once a time when the Third Estate were serfs

that.

and

strong

'is

try in vain to shut their eyes to the revolution

time and the force of things has brought about:

and

which

'^^

on

its

people apart. '^*

own

made

has

principle, because

its

and second, by virtue of

Its it

mandate

its

object,

since this consists in defending, not the general interest, but particular interest'.'"

The

and magistracy. They form the executive power.

They

a caste

which dominates every branch of

side instinctively with

one another against

the entire remainder of the nation. Their usurpation

they reign.

The

Church

aristocracy monopolize high office in army.

total.

is

Truly

'^°

battle lines are sharply defined

and already foreshadow

war: 'the Privileged show themselves no less enemies of the

civil

common

order than the English are of the French in times of war."^' By

excluding themselves from the

on

common

ranks of citizens and insisting

their privileges, they have forfeited the political rights

citizenship can carry,

common

order'. '^^

and made themselves 'enemies by

They form

like the vegetable parasites

a caste

which clings to the

'which can

live

which only

estate of the real

nation

only on the sap of the

plants that they impoverish and blight'.'"

'No

aristocracy', therefore,

must be the rallying cry

for all true

friends of the nation."^ But the enemies of aristocracy are in

109

no sense

Democracy

We

democrats.

'will repeat

"No democracy"

with them and against

them... representatives are not democrats;... since real democracy

impossible amongst such a large population, it

or to appear to fear

racy'

which

in

it.'

What

caste of

a

foolish to

it is

too possible

is all

is

which

it

democracy 'This

trails in its

wake, exists

presume

democ-

a 'false

independently of any popular

birth,

mandate, claims the powers which the body of exercise in a real

is

citizens

false

democracy, with

in the

country which

all

is

would the

said

ills

and

believed to be monarchical, but where a privileged caste has assigned to itself the

monopoly of government, power and

immediate

his

and

place.' For Sieyes,

Second Estate, fighting tooth

political antagonist, the

nail as a single agent to preserve their privileges,

forms a 'feudal

democracy'.'" For Sieyes, democracy as such could pose no real threat in France,

however deep

its crisis,

as large as France,

shape

represented. effectively

with

an

itself into

its

A

since

the

it

was simply impracticable.

demos could never assemble together

effective political agent.

select

In a country

To

act at

all, it

to

must be

and separate group, small enough to co-operate

and be capable of action, must act on

authority, that

group must

behalf. But, to act

be chosen by

first

As 1789 dawned, the aristocracy of France to claim the authority of the French people,

darity to abuse that claim to press their

its

own

still

it.

had the presumption

and the coherence and

soli-

private interests. Sieyes

was

very sure that their time was gone: 'During the long night of feudal

barbarism, turn

all

it

was possible

to destroy the true relations

concepts upside down, and to corrupt

dawns, so gothic absurdities must ferocity collapse

Even

in

and disappear. This

What

is

fly is

all justice;

but as day

and the remnants of ancient quite certain.'

the Third Estatef, however, he

confident of what exactly would replace

we merely be

between men, to

it:

was sometimes

less

Shall

substituting one evil for another, or will social

order, in all its beauty, take the place

110

of former chaosf Will the

Democracy's Second Coming

changes we are about to experience be the bitter

fruit

war, disastrous in all respects for the three orders

and

of a

civil

profitable

only to ministerial power; or will they be the natural, antici-

pated and well-controlled consequence of a simple and just outlook, of a happy co-operation favoured by the weight of

circumstances, and sincerely promoted by

all

the

classes

concerned^^^^

History's answer was not the one for which he hoped, though not until

Napoleon

those

who

From

seized

profits in

civil

monarchy and

war, setting the

intractably at odds with the people at large, fatally

a state of barely

a

cauldron of

fears, threats

any prospect of the simplest and achieving

and aligning

it

ever

a practical

and counter-threats

well-controlled

When democracy

years of blood and confusion

it

good

order.

What

air of practical irrelevance.

As

won

consequences

in plausibility as

was

its

reassuring

fresh friends across a

ravaged by decades of war, even those most troubled by

prominence came to

see in

be laid to rest, not a simple

most

settings

Germany

it

phantasm

(in

Belgium, Holland,

in

France

it

do

their

much

precision, let alone

competing parties or the strategy of key

best

to

Italy,

was seldom employed

But three figures of some importance did,

another,

must

'Democracy' served simply to label

to define the terms of political struggle with

actors.

new

which could safely be ignored.

itself

contending political factions." Even

clarify the goals of

Europe its

a potently destructive ghost that

beyond France

or Poland),

which

to govern itself in peace,

lost definitively

it

it

in

re-emerged from those

had gained nothing

model of how France could hope

prosperity and

even

more

justest of political conceptions

and

intended

clearly

vanished without trace.

In

more

agents ever

its

with the residues of the long night of feudal barbarism. The

was

result

any sense accrue to

months of 1789 France entered

the opening

suppressed

power did the

currently wielded executive power.

show

just

111

why

the

at

political

one point or

momentum

of the

Democracy

Revolution carried version of

towards democracy, and why some

insistently

it

democracy was an appropriate destination, and not an

Two

inevitable disaster or a clear disgrace.

of them are familiar heroes

of the Democratic Revolution: the flamboyant English artisan (and

former staymaker)

come

Tom

Paine,

whose pamphlet

close to launching America's

open struggle

Common

Sense had

for independence,

and

Maximilien Robespierre, the formidably self-righteous Arras lawyer

who became

the Svengali of the Jacobin Terror.

Chiaramonti,

in his

Christmas Eve homily

in 1797, a

before his elevation to the Papacy as Pius VII.

was

far

cally

The

third

was more

the central Italian Bishop of Imola, Cardinal Barnaba

surprising:

from

a call to arms.

somewhat

What

premature

It

required

all

The Bishop's message

affirmed, in effect, was an histori-

us'

Christian

of

version

Democratic government 'among the Gospel.

it

mere two years

was

in

Democracy.

no way inconsistent with

the sublime virtues which only the school of

Jesus could teach: 'The moral virtues, which are nothing other than the love of order, will

true sense.'

It

make

would preserve

before the law, with

between the

us democrats, partisans of a democracy in the

all

'equality in

rightful meaning', equality

for the

marked

differences

roles of different individuals in a society. Its goal

join hearts together in gracious fraternity

a tension between

brethren, be

its

due recognition

democracy and

was more

to

No devout Catholic need fear my dear

their religious duties: 'Yes,

good Christians, and you

Paine's position

was

forensic.

will be the best of democrats."'** It

appeared

in the

second part

of his very widely circulated defence of the Revolution's goals against the criticisms of

Edmund

Burke, The Rights of

the Revolution's political

outcome

as a

Man. Paine presented

triumph, not for simple

democracy, but for 'the representative system'. That system retained

'Democracy

as

Monarchy and

the ground' and rejected the corrupt systems of Aristocracy.

Simple Democracy was society governing

of secondary means.

itself

without the aid

By ingrafting representation upon

112

Democracy's Second Coming

Democracy, we arrive at a system of Government capable of embracing and confederating

and population; and

extent of territory

much

tages as

is

For Paine, America's

that also with advan-

to hereditary literature.

new government was

best seen as 'representa-

upon Democracy'. This novel creation united

advantages of a simple democracy; but of

and every

superior to hereditary Government, as the

Republic of Letters

tion ingrafted

the various interests

all

it

also avoided most,

if

all

the

not

all,

notorious disadvantages. 'What Athens was in miniature,

its

America

will be in

world; the other present.'

It

magnitude. The one was the wonder of the ancient

becoming the admiration, the model of the

is

was the simplest, most

intelligible

and most practically

form of government, avoiding Monarchy's ineliminable

attractive

exposure to the risks of ignorance and insecurity throne, and simple Democracy's

all

in every heir to the

too obvious inconvenience.

It

could be applied over any scale of territory, and across the most

profound divisions of great

and populous

system.

It

is

interest;

as

it is, is

and

it

can be applied

at once. 'France,

but a spot in the capaciousness of the

preferable to simple

Democracy even

in small territo-

ries.'^^^

The Rights of

Man

was Paine's attempt

Revolution, not only through Droits de

I'Homme, but

its

own informing

to

defend France's

political values, the

also through the reassuring precedent of

America's relative domestic peace as an independent representation, as Sieyes and effective

state. It

Madison had each done before

saw

in

it,

an

system for designing and organizing a form of government

accountable over time to the governed and dependably committed to serving their interests.

It

firmly refused to see in the representative

system the slightest element of regrettable concession to

economic or geographical In the

realities at

political,

democracy's expense.

Bishop of Imola's homily, democracy scarcely features as a

load-bearing element in any serious attempt to understand politics.

113

/)

Even

in Paine's

('

writings or speeches

than a tautening

relaxation

ra cy

c

;;/ ()

Maximilien Robespierre,

appearance signals more a

its

intellectual

in

for the first time in

But with

attention.

modern

history,

democ-

racy at last appears not merely as a passing expression of political taste but as In

an organizing conception of an entire vision of

politics.

due course Robespierre was to become an unnerving figure even to

the

man who

did most to launch the Revolution.

('If

M.

Robespierre

asks for me',' Sieyes warned his Brussels housekeeper forty years later

from the depths of of Terror,

flu, in

him, I'm

'tell

muddled

out.')'^"

geriatric reminiscence of the year

By that time Robespierre himself had

been dead for well over three decades; but

between 1789 and 1794 he nently

upon the

set his intensely

entire Revolution, defining

in the five short years

personal stamp perma-

its

main goals with unique

and identifying himself ineffaceably with some of

authority,

achievements and

many

of

its

most odious

At the core of Robespierre's conception of egalitarian

him (all

at

and

activist

its

greatest

political techniques.

politics lay a fiercely

understanding of the rights of man, which

set

odds from the outset with even the remarkably broad franchise

twenty-five-year-old male inhabitants, native born or naturalized,

who appeared on

the tax rolls) under which the Third Estate deputies

were elected to the Estates General.'^' In October 1789, after the Third Estate deputies had transformed themselves boldly into the National

Assembly and passed the Declaration of the Rights of Citizen, the

dations of franchise.

Assembly turned

its

to consider the

Man

and the

September recommen-

Constitutional Committee on the future bounds of the

The Committee,

largely

on

Sieyes's

prompting, had already

distinguished sharply between two types of citizen: active citizens

who pay

taxes and 'are the only real stakeholders in the great social

enterprise', citizens

and the sole

('women,

foreigners,

at

full

least

members of

the association,

and passive

under current circumstances, children,

and those who make no

fiscal

contribution to the

'''^

state').

Passive citizens are fully entitled to the protection of their person,

property and freedom. But only active citizens have the right to take

114

Democracy 's Second Coming

an active part

in the election of public officials.

The Committee's

proposals restricted the franchise to adult male residents of twentyfive

or older, duly qualified by birth or naturalization,

of at least three days' local wages. criticized

by one or two speakers

''^^

The

in the

who

paid taxes

was

resulting restriction

Assembly

itself (the

Abbe

Gregoire and the Physiocrat Dupont de Nemours), and assailed in

Camille Desmoulins's crusading newspaper Les Revolutions de France et

de Brabant. But

attack

upon

in this way,

it

was

it

in the

to Robespierre to

left

Assembly The proposal

mount

a full-scale

to confine the franchise

he claimed in his opening speech on the matter, clashed

directly with three separate Articles in the Declaration of the Rights

of

Man. All citizens, no matter

who

they are, have the right to aspire to

every degree of representation. Anything less would be out of

keeping with your declaration of lege,

rights, to

which every

privi-

every distinction and every exception must yield. The

constitution has established that sovereignty resides in the People, in every

member of

the populace. Each individual

therefore has the right to a say in the laws by which he

governed and to him.

in the choice

Otherwise

rights, that all

'A

man

is

it is

men

all

men

are equal in

are citizens}^

this right

on earth. '"'^ Two years

of the administration which belongs

not true to say that

by definition a

can take away

is

citizen,'

which

is

later, in

he went on the next

day.

'No one

inseparable from his existence here

the final debate

on the Constitution,

he rejected the very idea of passive citizenship, 'an insidious and

barbarous expression, language'.

which

defiles

both

our

laws

and our

""^^

In February 1794, a

few months before

his

death and at the height

of the Terror, he linked this view finally with democracy

itself, in

the

Report which he drafted to the Convention on behalf of the

115

Democracy

Committee of Public Safety on

the 'Principles of Political Morality

Convention

must guide the National

which

the

in

Internal

Administration of the Republic'. His ambitions were characteristically lofty,

and expressed with more than

'We wish

in a

word, to

a touch of

the will

fulfil

[les

bombast.

voeux] of nature, to

accomplish the destiny of humanity, to keep the promises of philosophy, to absolve providence of the long reign of crime and tyranny'

Let France, for so long a country of slaves, eclipse 'the glory of

previous free peoples, and become a model for

all

all

nations, the terror

of oppressors, the consolation for the oppressed, the ornament of the universe, and, sealing our

the

dawn

The

of universal

sole

work with our blood, may we

see at least

felicity."'*'

form of government which could

realize these prodigies

was

democratic or republican: these two words are synonymous, despite the vulgar abuse of language, for aristocracy

monarchy

the republic than

Democracy

is.

is

no more

not a state in

is

which the people, continuously assembled, regulates by all

public affairs,

still less

one

in

fractions of the people, by isolated, precipitate

tory measures,

would decide

itself

which a hundred thousand

and contradic-

the destiny of the entire society.

Such a government has never existed and

if

it

ever did,

all it

could do would be to return the people to despotism.

Democracy

by laws which are

that

own work,

it

can do well,

therefore in the principle of democratic

government

and by delegates It is

a state in which the sovereign people, guided

is

its

all

that

it

you must look for the

does by

itself all

could not.

rules

of your

political conduct.

To found and consolidate democracy amongst the peaceful reign of constitutional laws,

of

liberty against tyranny

us, to

we must end

reach

the

war

and pass happily through the storms

of the Revolution.

116

Democracy 's Second Coming

This

the goal of the revolutionary system.

is

The fundamental principle of democratic or popular government, the essential ressort which sustains is

virtue, the public virtue

and makes

it

which worked such miracles

move,

it

Greece

in

and Rome and which would produce even more

startling ones in

republican France - the love of country and

laws.

its

Since the essence of the Republic or democracy

is

equality, ^"^^

the love of country necessarily embraces the love of equality. It

therefore presupposes or produces all virtues,

bilities

[NB Two

possi-

with sharply diverging practical implications] since

all

are simply expressions of the force of soul which enables a

person to prefer the public interest to

Not only this

is

form of government.

supplants

it.

sovereignty it,

To have

Only

and can

numbers

monarchy the

In a

it

can only exist inside

sole individual

and hence has no need

in a

it

citizens.

The French

citizenship. This

a country

democracy

rely

on

This

is

as

one must be a is

many

the

the sovereign,

citizen,

all

and share

the state truly the country of interested defenders of

what makes

summoning is

is

is

he occupies the place of the people, and so

men

the real reason

to equality

why

all

who

in its

all

who

cause as

its

free peoples superior to

are the first people in the world

true democracy,

who can

for virtue,

himself, since only he truly has a country or

at least in fact. In effect

form

particular interests.

virtue the soul of democracy,

truly love his country {patrie),

monarch

all

it

others.''*'^

have established

and the

full rights

of

the tyrants leagued against

the Republic will be conquered in the end.

'Republican virtue

is

as necessary in the

people at large.

If it fails in

people to appeal

to.

lost.

when

the government alone, there

Only when the

Happily the people

corrupt only

it

is

government

latter is corrupted,

naturally virtuous.

passes

A

is

as in the is still

the

liberty truly

nation becomes truly

from democracy to aristocracy or

monarchy."^''

117

Democracy

In peacetime, it

must

'rely

w^hich terror

Terror itself

'is

popular government

upon

relies

virtue. In revolution,

simultaneously on virtue and terror: virtue, without is

deadly, terror without which virtue

merely prompt, severe and inflexible

an emanation of

impotent'.'^'

is

justice.

justice, less a particular principle

Hence

it

is

than a conse-

quence of the general principle of democracy applied to the country's

most pressing need."^^

The revolutionary government (Robespierre and

his associates)

was

the 'despotism of liberty against tyranny': a grim indivisible war,^" in

which any faltering or holding back must simply increase the strength of the Republic's enemies and divide and weaken In

this

its friends.'^'*

nightmarish struggle, the sole remedy was the ressort

general (the panacea) of the Republic, virtue.

'Democracy perishes by two excesses, the aristocracy of those who govern, or the contempt of the people for the authorities which itself established,

a

contempt

in

it

has

which each faction or individual

reaches out for the public power, and reduces the people, through the resulting chaos, to nullity, or the In this great

and

power of

terrible address the

a single

man.""

Revolution comes into clear

view, rending itself to pieces. But already,

completed the task of self-destruction,

it

mere months before

had inscribed

it

this old,

battle-scarred, but for so long also oddly scholastic, term ineffaceably

upon

its

standard, handing

it

on without apology

across the world and far into the future.

who brought democracy back no longer merely an

to

life

It

to fellow

in the

pole of attraction and source of power.

Ill

all

as a focus of political allegiance:

elusive or blatantly implausible

ment, but a glowing and perhaps

humans

was Robespierre above

long run

form of govern-

all

but irresistible

chapter Three

THE LONG SHADOW OF THERMIDOR

Robespierre for us

is still

man

not the

is

a figure of reptilian fascination.

But what matters

himself, nor the role he played within the

Revolution's lurid political intrigues.

It is

the

words and ideas which

blew through him. In that awesome speech, he saw something which has proved overwhelmingly important, and he expressed a judgement

which most of us now

in

some form confidently presume

Just as certainly, however, he failed utterly throughout his

whatever he did see into sharp and steady focus, cate

it

dependably to anyone

else;

and we,

let

to be valid. life

to bring

alone communi-

our turn, are

in

still

straining to capture just where the valid element in the judgement that

democracy

is

the

mandatory form

quite possible that clear

form

in

we

are

still

at

for legitimate rule really

lies. It is

such a loss because there simply

which the judgement

is

valid,' just a

or seductive verbiage, and a blind shapeless

is

no

hurricane of abusive

human

struggle which

those words serve to shroud more than illuminate.

We do saw

not need to decide whether

clearly

in

democracy Robespierre himself

something which was and remains genuinely

119

politically

/) e

m o c ra cy

compelling (how a state must be to citizens, the

Form

of the

Modern

saw, through a haze of blood,

earn the devotion of

fully

its

Political

Good), or whether what he

was no

better than a

now

mirage. You can read his speech even

shimmering

as a conscious projection of

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's answer to the central question of the

Contrat Social: what can render legitimate the bonds of political authority (those bonds which everywhere bind

was born

free)?^

You can

also hear

it,

desperate plea to his fellow citizens, in face of

and act were

though the demands of

as

fully legitimate

much

-

less a

their

humans each

all

the evidence, to feel

temporary and shaky

in extremis.

republic as a form of state.

By 1794

a republic, the reluctant political

no more be an aristocracy than

it

affirms

it

synonymous with

is

made some

product of France's turmoil, could could a monarchy That was a lesson

which very many republics, from the grandest of

all

the longest lived and most politically effective of sors (Venice)

had been ostentatiously

its

monarch

had been

a

conspicuous

itself

at intervals for

triumph along the way

almost a century, with in the

and

own

is still

It

aristoc-

combine in

France

one notable

was emulated

not wholly discred-

some settings (Morocco, Thailand, Holland, Sweden, Britain,

in future

perhaps even Saudi Arabia). But even today the very

term republic {respublica - the public thing thing)'

had begun

to

at least

person of Napoleon.

widely elsewhere for quite some time, and ited in

its

The quest

failure.

to

succes-

efforts to re-

its

varying proportions persisted

in

Rome)

modern

aristocratic. France

into dependable enmity towards

democracy with monarchy

history, in

(ancient

its

Revolution by declaring war on aristocracy; and

educate

the

sense to insist that

which no one could have drawn solely from the record of

racy

rulers

claim to truth than a bid for loyalty very

The democracy which Robespierre

its

whom

of

every bit as plausibly, as a

is

more

a

in

contrast to the private

claim to enjoy the quality of legitimacy than an

explanation of what that legitimacy might consist of what could validly confer

it.

Heard

120

clearly,

it is

in,

or an account

far closer to a flat,

The Long Shadow of T h erm idor

indistinct, ideological boast,

By 1794

justification.

vindicate

its

democracy, its

than an effective structure of ideological

hope

a republic claiming legitimacy could

claim by setting

itself

to

against aristocracy, and could use

v^^ithout further explanation, to express

and authenticate

categorical opposition to aristocracy.

What

it

could not do was to use the same category to

questions of

how

exactly

anything should limit

its

its

own

powers

rule should be organized,

who should

in practice, or

the opportunity to exercise that rule for

means. Ancient democracy was the political

settle the

name

how

what

if

acquire

long and by just what

of a set of relatively definite

arrangements, worked out to preclude the continuing rule of

aristocrats, or self-appointed

the Greeks called them).

It

and permanent monarchs

was

also, however, the

name

(tyrants, as

of the goal of

avoiding either type of subjection, a goal which could be, and was,

adopted as a shared purpose by a very active community of

citizens.

Robespierre was clearly appealing to this aspect of the term's history

when he invoked tors. In

doing

so,

it

on behalf of himself and

his political collabora-

he faced the immediate political inconvenience that

the practical arrangements to which

it

had

referred in the ancient

world differed so starkly from the unnerving routines of the

Committee of Public Safety

When

he assured the Convention, in that Committee's name, that

'democracy was not a

state in

bled regulates by itself

all

which the people continuously assem-

public

affairs',''

he was underlining some-

thing salient and evidently important about the term's history in

which the people continuously assembled regulates by

public affairs'

was an

excellent,

if

selective,

ancient democracy had aimed at with

times largely achieved.^

It

was

'state all

description of what

some determination and

at

a wholly implausible description of

France's Revolution at any point along

people of Paris, the

A

itself

its

turbulent

menu peuple who formed

way Even

the

the angry crowds which

drove the Revolution forwards, storming the Bastille or the Tuileries Palace, or even surging into the

Assembly

121

itself,

were

in

no position

to

D c m o c ru cy

assemble continuously, and never entertained the fantasy that they

might truly be ruling

They

France.*^

intervened, in the great revolu-

tionary journees, not as rulers themselves, but as citizens deeply affronted by the actions or inaction of those ruling France (or at least

who

genuinely were

should have been), to force them into bolder

courses, sharply restrict their future freedom of action, or change the cast drastically.

To acknowledge

no democracy

in

that, even in Revolution, France

was

and serviceable sense was merely to

that clear

acknowledge, as Sieyes and Madison had done before him, that a

on the

territorial state all, It

would have

to be

scale of France,

made and

if

it

was

to be democratic at

kept so by a system of representation.

to be, in a phrase casually coined over a

would have

decade

earlier

by Alexander Hamilton, a representative democracy.

A

representative

rule. Instead,

what

democracy was no system of

was

offered

it

direct citizen self-

a system of highly indirect rule by

representatives chosen for the purpose by the people. this indirection

was merely

To acknowledge

to recognize the obvious. In insisting

applying the category of democracy to France's revolutionary state this way,

much

What was

less

term

in a mildly eccentric

manner of

mean: 'one

in

his

own.

obvious was the basis of his urgent repudiation of the

second possible interpretation of what democracy might

still

now

which a hundred thousand fractions of the people, by

isolated, precipitate

and contradictory measures, would decide the

destiny of the entire society'. In this guise, democracy **

all

in

Robespierre was not arguing against committed enemies so

as deploying the

dream of

on

political

community somewhere

else very

was no unreal

long ago.

It

was an

too real nightmare of the chaos into which France had often threat-

ened to descend

in the

course of the previous

five years.

The hundred

thousand fractions, although a numerical exaggeration, were the sites

Paris

and

local

units of revolutionary agitation, the Section meetings of

itself,

the political clubs across the nation, the Sans-culottes

gatherings which endlessly frustrated every attempt to cool the

Revolution

down and

bring

it

to a steady

122

and reassuring

close. In the

The Long Shadow of Th ermido

r

opening years of the Revolution, while Robespierre was establishing his reputation ical

and forging the structures of identification and

support which for a time gave him such power, these

their

polit-

and

sites

occupants formed his main political resource. With the Terror,

the strains of

war and the worsening challenge of provisioning

with food which most of

Paris

inhabitants could afford to eat, his erst-

its

while friends turned increasingly against him. Their multiplicity, disorganization and practical indiscretion no longer afforded an endless array of opportunities to disrupt the governmental strategies of his ruling enemies. Instead, they

became an increasingly perturbing

own

attempts to rule France coherently

and infuriating obstacle and

to his

effectively in face of its

In February 1794,

if

ever,

deadly

peril.

France desperately needed a government.

The

alternative of dissolving into anarchy

But

at

had no open champions.

each setting throughout France, the 'hundred thousand'

fractions of the people naturally viewed their differently; and, even in retrospect, they

descendants saw the closing

down

and

own purposes

very

their self-conscious

of this seething disorder less as a

belated recognition of the requirements of political reality than as a

crushing defeat in conditions of overwhelming external menace.

Two

years after Robespierre's death a handful of these former friends

plotted clumsily to overthrow the

new

rulers

who had

taken power

from Robespierre on the Ninth of Thermidor and unleash the second

and greater Revolution, which was also Revolutions.^

The

plot itself

defiant dream; and most of

may have been its

to

be the last of

largely a confused

certainly did belong to

them over stirring

it,

and

participants (real or supposed) were

picked up effortlessly by the police. '° But one of the few

crat, Filippo

all

a spoiled

Michele Buonarroti,"

and intemperate Tuscan

lived

who

aristo-

long enough to immortalize

thirty years later by publishing in Brussels exile his

own

Marx

later

account of the Conspiracy, a text from which Karl

drew much of

his

sense of the Revolution's political and social

dynamics.''

123

D c m o c ra cy

was the leading

It

Babeuf,

who

figure in the Conspiracy of the Equals,

provided

before the tribunal of the

muddled

it

in retrospect

reality of the

conspiracy

own execution. The main motif insistence

with

Vendome he gave

on equality

in

it

its

name.

Gracchus

In his defence

an outline far sharper than

itself,

and

led

promptly to

his

Buonarroti's account was his

as the Revolution's deepest

and most transfor-

mative goal, and on the profound gulf between the true defenders of equality and their sly and

all

too politically effective adversaries,

the partisans of the order of egoism, or 'the english doctrine of the

economists',"

who had

struggled against them throughout

its

course,

and ended by triumphing over them. The Revolution had marked an ever-growing discord between the partisans of opulence and distinctions,

The

and those of equality or of the numerous

class of workers.'^

partisans of egoism saw national prosperity as lying in the

multiplicity of needs, the ever-growing diversity of material enjoy-

ments,

in

an immense industry, a limitless commerce, a rapid

circulation of coined money, and, in the last instance, in the anxious

and

insatiable cupidity of the citizens.'^

strength of a society

is

placed

Once

the happiness and

in riches, the exercise of political rights

must necessarily be denied to those whose fortune provides no guarantee of their attachment to the creation and defence of wealth. In

any such social system, the great majority of citizens subjected to painful labour, and in poverty,

condemned

is

constantly

in practice to languish

ignorance and slavery'^

The fundamental struggle on which the Revolution had turned, the eyes of both Babeuf and Buonarroti,

in

was the struggle between the

order of egoism and the order of equality In the order of egoism, the sole ressort of the feelings and actions of the citizens

was purely

personal interest, independent of any relation to the general good.'^

For

its

partisans, Rousseau's party, equality

sociability

formed the basis of

and furnished the consolation of the wretched. For

opponents, depraved by the love of wealth and power, chimera.

124

it

their

was merely

a

The Long Shadow of Thermidor

The order of egoism was

aristocratic in

and because

inevitably generated inequality,

substance because it

it

both required and

ensured the exercise of sovereign power by one part of the nation over the rest.

The freedom of

equality which

its

citizens,

and the

second

no substitute

is

a nation

the product of

is

two elements: the

laws create in the conditions and enjoyments of the fullest

extension of their political

for the first;

rights.'^

and the friends of equality

The

clearly

recognized the destructiveness of concentrating on constitutional reconstruction at the expense of real equality of condition. their

more

They saw

constitutionally preoccupied opponents, the Girondins, as

man.

a branch of the vast conspiracy against the natural rights of

Throughout Buonarroti's label, the political

'Democrat' appears as a party

story,

form of the partisans of the order of

equality.

It

was the expression of democratic ideas which shows the partisans of the order of equality re-entering politics after the crushing blow of

Robespierre's

fall,

democrats

over the next year, democrats

who

carried their

campaign forward

whom the conspiracy's Secret Directory

must ensure were elected to the new national government by the people of Paris, one for each departement, once tyranny was overthrown.'^

before

the

What had

lost

Thermidor was the

lack

of

Convention.^"

France both democracy and liberty even diversity of views, the conflict of interests,

unity

virtue,

The new, and

and perseverance

in

the

carefully vetted, National

National

Assembly

at

which the conspirators aimed, democrats to a man, would display

none of these

vices

and weaknesses. The point of the

grounds for operating not merely

body bound together

in

in secret

vetting,

and the

but as a tightly organized

shared conviction, was precisely to eliminate

them.

One ical

reason

why democracy remained such

category in Europe for the next

conception of what

it

the very different view

fifty

meant continued worked out

a fiercely divisive polit-

years

was that Buonarroti's

to strike a deeper chord than

in practice at the

same time

United States. In America, once the Constitution was firmly

125

in the

in place.

Democracy

democracy soon became the undisputed expression of the order of egoism.

It

quite rapidly, a rich understanding of

political

framework and

also developed, in retrospect its

own

character, centring, as

Tocqueville in due course showed,^' on the idea of equality, interpreted in terms fundamentally different from those of Babeuf or

Buonarroti. American equality was above

and a comprehensive scension.

It

rejection of

all

all

an equality of standing,

overt forms of political conde-

arose from and endorsed a society both self-consciously

and actually

in

rapid motion, expanding in territory, growing in

wealth, and looking forward to a future of permanent and limitless change.

trauma of

Even aside from the long and

slavery,

it

was sometimes

a society

all

but

ineffectively repressed ill

at ease

many

with

and throughout the nineteenth and twentieth

aspects of

itself;

centuries

it

continued to harbour

equality,

understood

in

much

its

the

own

partisans of the order of

Babouviste manner. But no

American partisan of equality who wished

to

deny

its

compatibility

with the order of egoism could afford to offer their followers or potential supporters a political access less

open than the rowdy

of electoral competition already provided.

hard on other terrain, for a time win

They might

many

battles,

as at points with the labour unions, a considerable

rituals

fight long

and

and accumulate,

amount of

local

defensive power. But in the long run, and on the terrain where they

must secure

their victory in the end, in elections to

Congress and to

the Presidency, they were always to find themselves heavily out-spent

and out-voted. In

America, therefore, the story of democracy has blended indis-

tinguishably into the political history of the country as a whole.

remained

a potent political

which defined that

history,

It

has

counter within the ideological struggles as

a

goal and as an instrument for

hastening (or impeding) movement towards that goal. At points too, often courtesy of the most purposefully anti-democratic element

of the Constitution, the well-protected

Court,

it

autonomy of

the

Supreme

helped to break through dense barriers to equality: slavery,

126

The Long Shadow of Th e r midor

segregation, dismally effective political exclusion. In the long run

now

has ensured that the great majority of America's adult citizens enjoy political rights which they can exercise,

growing number

now

often choose not

You can

no doubt

in practice,

see that

if

they choose to/^ (A

own good

for their

reasons,

to.)

outcome

at least

practical refutation of Babeuf's

two ways,

as a

comprehensive

and Buonarroti's somewhat rudimen-

tary understanding of political

and economic

possibilities,

or a

crushing historical defeat for the ideals to which they clung. But still

far

from evident that there

seeing the

is

support.'' In

democracy

combine the abandonment of politics or social

and

form with

social reality.

in

it is

anything wrong or confused

same outcome both ways

at once.

America

in

The order of egoism

always had ample reason to rely upon the adequacy of tional

it

its

discovered

it

motiva-

how

to

distinction as an organizing principle in

its

uninhibited efflorescence in economic

America today remains

a society

uncomfortable

with every surviving vestige of explicit privilege, but remarkably blithe in face of the

most vertiginous of economic

most obtrusive

hensively reconciled to the such. Behind this

outcome

lies

and compre-

gulfs,

privileges of wealth as

the continuing vitality of

its

economy,

the real source of the victory of the partisans of 'distinction, or the

english doctrine of the economists'.

Not

all

the economists, of

course, did promise America or anywhere else permanent prosperity, let

alone ever-growing prosperity. But the context in which American

democracy has developed to

as

which those who assured

it

has was given, above

all,

their readers that long-term

by the extent

growth

in the

wealth of nations was to be expected have so far proved to be right, at least in the case of

America

effectively by the extent to

itself.

It

has also been shored up quite

which other economists, who cast varying

degrees of doubt on that prospect, and insisted instead that equal or greater

prosperity,

and on more prepossessing terms, could be

provided there or elsewhere on some wholly different basis, have proved more or

less

catastrophically wrong.

127

m o c ra c y

/) e

James Madison,

as

we have

the form of state which

seen, provides

now dominates

no explanation of why

the world should have

democracy. For him, as for most of

to call itself a

contemporaries who were

was something altogether

is

and

different

distinctly unenticing.

a

does

this form of state alone can hope to represent It,

and perhaps

immediate practical

viability

if

a

state

above

all

of

that

people effecit,

can unite

with a convincing claim to act on behalf

relatively small

they be chosen by most,

It is

own

long run, only

in the very

of and by courtesy of the body of

government to

its

What

alongside

offer,

sound explanation of why

broadly this form should have proved so successful.

tively over time.

American

his

even acquainted with the word, democracy

his brilliant analysis in the Federalist papers

Alexander Hamilton,

come

its

numbers of

not

citizens.

To delegate

citizens but also insist that

of their fellows was a cunning

all,

mixture of equality and inequality

own

It

could not guarantee sustained

victory in practice to the partisans of opulence and distinction. But

could and did open up an arena

in

it

which that victory could be sought

and won time and time again, and won through the judgements and by the choices of the citizens themselves. By doing so, and by leaving their victory apparently in the

long run,

it

also

permanently

won them

at the

mercy of reconsideration,

the war.

Unsurprisingly, this has proved a very considerable service to the

patrons of opulence and distinctions. But

it

has done so over time,

of course, only because opulence and distinctions (the combination offered) have struck cial

citizens

than as simply malign.""*

over time It

more

is its

on balance

What

elasticity in settings

gives the

as collectively benefi-

formula such strength

where opulence has duly grown.

could scarcely work for long anywhere where distinction must be

sustained through stagnant or dimmishing wealth, and has been

widely and understandably abandoned, often with very tion, in circumstances of this kind: in

little

hesita-

Europe of the 1920s and

1930s, in Latin America sometimes for decade after decade, in East

or South East Asia, in Sub-Saharan Africa, sooner or

128

later,

almost

The Long Shadow of Thermidor

everywhere but

The

in the

elasticity

benefit

post-Apartheid RepubUc of South Africa

and revulsion

shifts

You can

why

see

misgivings

everywhere

all

the time. But

advantage of the protection

exaggerate the political

that advantage

itself.

The balance of

never provides a perfect shield.

it is

hard to

does provide.

it

so huge by setting Madison's

is

about democracy side by side with Babeuf's and

Buonarroti's picture of what democracy requires. For

made democracy

clearly impracticable

was above

Madison what

all its scale.

The

United States simply could not be governed as a democracy But

democracy any

blatant impracticality did not render a political idea. In that guise even

nizing

and

its

disruptive appeal.

directness, with

It

Madison had no

its

alarming as

difficulty in recog-

was the appeal, above

of immediacy

all,

deliberate openness to the

its

less

most

erratic of

judgement, to unrestricted factional passion and to swirling intrigue.

At the

limit,

he noted,

it

suggested irresistibly to

remaking of society and a reconstitution of property render the citizens as equal in other aspects of their

admirers a

its

relations, to

lives as

they strove

to be in the activity of governing themselves.

For Babeuf and Buonarroti the point of democracy was to attain just

such a comprehensive equality, the only undelusive and uncor-

rupting condition in which

human

beings could

live

together with one

another on any substantial scale. The appeal of that goal has naturally varied dramatically across time and space, at as in the aftermath of

alongside them in misery. is

most acute whenever,

Thermidor, the partisans of distinction and

opulence are unmistakably

appeal as a goal

its

in the saddle,

What

in the

and very many must

the unpromising instruments for realizing

rigidities inherent in its pursuit.

(Had

it

far,

it

and the

been reached, the goal would

no doubt have proved to harbour further repulsions of but these, thus

live

long run has blunted equality's

its

very own;

remain a matter of theoretical speculation, not a

truth of experience.) These rigidities

come

in effect

from the goal

itself.

Conspiracy, of course, was not an instantly plausible political

form

for

democrats to adopt.

Still

129

less so

was

its

successor form.

D e m o c racy

fine-tuned for the next three deeades by Buonarroti himself, the closed conspiratorial secret society, of which in

some

have been the sole member."' But anyone

in political adversity

cases he appears to

may

have to choose between stealth and surrender; and Babeuf and

Buonarroti hoped to conspire

and more or

less openly, into

conspiracy, such as for stealth.

Under

live

and act

freely

an indefinite future. The outcome of the

was,"^ certainly

it

order to

briefly, in

showed they had every reason

dangerous and flustered conditions, the goal of

less

equality proved less alluring to most citizens than either had hoped, easily set aside in favour of

modest material gains and a quieter

Wherever the opportunity to vote

freely has

been extended across an

found

entire adult population, the majority has

it

unattractive to vote

(The closest to

explicitly for the establishment of equality

life.

a counter-

example has been the remarkable governmental dominance of Swedish Social Democracy, which has made Sweden a very different country to today

live in

clearly

is

opulence.)

from any of

European counterparts, but even

its

widening the room

for

distinctions

What Babeuf and Buonarroti hoped

triumph has been as

far

real

word, as much as for

for their

political

and economic consequences have proved

As soon

as

it

became

government, but

a

far

the time that the

also,

it

has

come

and every

to

more

bit as

name not merely

a

triumph

much,

Old Oligarch

set

much

a political value. In

himself to diagnose

a political value for the

or even loved by some, as

it

it, it

its

By

political

to

Greeks themselves, as admired

we have

1.30

rapid.

had come

was despised and detested by

history as a word, as

form of

a

meaning must have been quite

appeals, or Pericles spoke so glowingly in praise of

its

practical

its

word, democracy very clearly implied a form

retrospect this extension of

most of

but

Pericles's;

idea.

of government. For us

be just as

as

triumph has been a

triumph

Madison's

well

as

democracy's

from coming true as what Madison feared

from the same outcome. Democracy's

for

for in

seen, far

others. For

more of those

to

The Long Shadow of T h er midor

whom felt

it

meant anything

at all

viewed

any trace of admiration for

more

different. In practice,

now

find

some

such scorn and hatred are

still

often every

prudent to express themselves considerably more

it

Democracy does

surreptitiously

with scorn or suspicion than

they ever were. But in most settings at most times

bit as intense as

they

it

Today, things could scarcely be

it.

still

retain principled

opponents

in

quarters. Iran's Guardianship Council, for example, seldom

hesitates to express

its

contempt

with President Khatami, and

still

for the liberal reformers voted in

does

all it

can to place them beyond

reach of popular election in the future. But even in Iran, the advantages of staging elections are implicitly accepted by those

and the principled

fear to lose them;

very

much

The

who most

rejection of elections has

become

a minority taste.

momentum

historical

of the term democracy from 1796 up to

today leaves us two very different elements which we plainly need to understand.

One

is

a matter of the fate of political institutions: the

diffusion of a variety of forms of state increasingly eager to describe

themselves as democracies, and the relatively sudden and widespread victory of one type of claimant to the tors.

The second may

at first sight

title

over

seem simply

all its

extant competi-

more

verbal, the ever

pervasive diffusion of the term democracy as a ground of political

commendation, just of

one

set

any features

would

like

a

way of capturing the supposed or

not

real merits

of political institutions against another, but of almost

in the

them

organization of our

to be,

and not

as

lives together,

organized as we

we would emphatically wish

they

were not. If

we keep

apart,

two

targets for potential understanding firmly

we would expect

to find very different ingredients to their

explanations.

these

The

fate of

forms of government must turn on the

capacity to create and defend wealth and enforce compliance,

which can be assessed with some confidence, But

it

also turns

on the sustained capacity

of

at least in retrospect.

to persuade,

harder to judge with any accuracy, before, during or after

131

all

which its

is

far

exercise.

Democracy

The

creation and defence of wealth, too, and even the capacity to

enforce compHance, under scrutiny, turn out to require a sustained

capacity to persuade (what David last

Hume

Over the

called 'opinion')/^

century and more, the commendatory force of the idea of democ-

racy has proved a key element within the intensely competitive

process of sustained persuasion which makes up so ical life

of every

human community.

vicissitudes of the state

we

If

much

of the polit-

try to follow the historical

forms and verbal commendations which have

implicated the term democracy from 1796 to the present day, certainly find the

over

much

also find,

two

stories

we

shall

merging inextricably with one another

we need

of the time and distance which

whenever we can keep them apart

for a

We

to cover.

moment

shall

or two,

each affecting the other quite brusquely and almost at once.

The

distinction between being persuaded

every child, spouse or colleague knows,

within

human

experience. But there

is

is

and being coerced, as

not necessarily a sharp one

scarcely another contrast to

which most human beings attach greater importance. Undisguised coercion

is

frequently dismaying; and coercion ineffectually disguised

as persuasion can be acutely offensive.

leads from 1796

up

A

to today (the story of

large part of the story which

modern

has been

politics),^**

the record of a continuing rise in the practical importance of persua-

on which human beings

sion in shaping the terms

live

with one

another, and the forms within which they seek to do so. As a political term,

democracy

is

above

all

the

name

modern

for political authority

exercised solely through the persuasion of the greater number, or for

other sorts of authority in other spheres supposedly exercised solely

on

a basis acceptable to those subjected to

it.

Persuasion, of course, had been central to the practice of democracy in

Athens

itself. ^^ It

was by the

direct force of persuasion, exercised

on innumerable and overwhelmingly public occasions, that the political leaders of

Athens held or

lost control over the city's political

was by persuasion, exercised

decisions.

It

Assembly

itself

and against

all

in the last

instance in the

comers, that Pericles for a time,

132

in

The Long Shadow of Thermidor

Thucydides's eyes, turned Athens effectively into a monarchy, the of

rule

single

a

Democracy politics

is

man

by continuing consent of the people.^"

more insinuating name than republic

a far

openly centred on persuasion.

recognizes the people not

It

merely as notional bearers of ultimate authority, but also as a

power

own

in themselves,

behalf.

in

a large

element of unreality

and insincere courtesy which

too authentic contempt. triate

of

site

with a capacity to act and exert force on their

There may be

nition, a stilted

for a

democracy

If

in that recog-

sometimes

his

Harvard audiences and

'the rule of the politician',^'

is

all

today, as the Austrian expa-

Joseph Schumpeter bluntly assured

due course the world,

veils a

it is

at least

the rule of politicians under real pressure to address their subjects

and

politely

solicit their

endorsement, and refrain from reconsti-

tuting their rule as an informal aristocracy or

own. Even

in the

hands of the

monarchy of

shiftiest of career politicians,

name

racy has not proved a compelling

for styles of

their

democ-

government

which are openly autocratic, authoritarian or tyrannical. The Big Lie can succeed remarkably as a short-term political tactic; but

has failed to show

in

itself

it

the long run a potent formula for

securing political authority.

As the

title

of a form of government, in the key ideological outcome

of the last two centuries of an ever

more global

of the order of egoism have captured the

politics, the partisans

word of

the Equals.

The

Equals, in the meantime, have largely been driven from the political field.

But neither their scattered remnants, nor even their more sophis-

ticated intellectual admirers,'' have felt inclined to surrender a

they

still

find irresistibly compelling.

seems not a conquest expedients they

outcome of

still

that

it

than

it

was

it

far

Even

from obvious

no more surprising

in the case of

word

the capture, even now,

but an unabashed theft, secured by

really understand.

war was very

failure to anticipate

loathed

in a just war,

do not

To them,

those

years ago the

to anyone;

and the

in the case of those

who

is

who

little else.

By

no testimony

to

longed for

now, however, the incomprehension of the losers

133

fifty

m o cracy

/) e

their political intelligence.

Once

seldom hard to see quite why

What

is

far

it

war

a

has

harder to understand

come out is

why

and

well

is

as

it

truly lost,

commended

to

them by

by Madison, or Sieyes, or even

is

has.

the partisans of the order

of egoism should have bothered to capture the Equals' word.

not a word

it

It

was

their wisest intellectual advisers,

Adam

Smith.

It

was not

a

word which

appealed to the ruling authorities or military commanders who, for

more than

the next century, ensured across Europe that the partisans

of equality were defeated time and time again: in the revolutions of 1848, in 1871, in 1918. Today, by contrast, no serious partisan of the

order of egoism would deny themselves the political advantages of

democratic authorization, as anything more than a temporary expedient,

an enforced and mildly humiliating departure from the

demands of steadily

political

decorum.

In

and so purposefully, the

embracing the term democracy so

political leaders of capitalism's over-

whelming advance have not been juggling

idly

with empty symbols.

and

their best to appropriate

They have recognized, and done

tap, a

deep reservoir of political power. This

no

is

the vital judgement.

If it

was wrong, then

politics

special place in the story of democracy's triumph,

might well have no

real political significance.

would have

and that triumph

The sources and mecha-

nisms of the triumph would have had to come from somewhere quite different,

above

all,

no doubt, from the laws of economics and the

crushing weight of weapons of ever more massive destruction. real stories

which we needed to follow would be

stories of

The

economic

organization and technical change, and of armaments and

their

deployment. Those stories would be insulated and self-contained. They would carry within them the prerequisites for their own passage through time and space, and owe nothing of consequence to the efforts,

whether on their behalf or against them, of rulers or

cians. Or,

if

they

owed anything

at all, they

would owe

it

politi-

solely to the

decisions which rulers or politicians make, for better or worse, over the

shaping of economies and the acquisition or use of the tools of war.

134

The Long Sbsdow of Tbermidor

There have been striking attempts to see human history

was much the most

rerms^ of whidi Karl Alarx'^s

inspiring,

in these

and

ior a

time had by far the greatest historical impact: not least on the devel-

opment of economies and the deployment of weapons

systems. But in

the end these pictures are not merely misleading; they are simply incoherent.

The

them

ideas which give

>ee" w.eiriy.

do not even make

and

their shape

sense.

their air of force,

Economies aie permanently

the merc>- of rulers. Private property, the foundation tahst

economy

operates,

is

on whidi a

at

capi-

sustained or cancelled at pohtical wiU.

Money, the medium through which

it

must be nurtured by

operates,

and can be jeopardized or even dissohied by the

pohtical prudence,

clumsiness or dishonesty of rulers or pubUc officials. Currencies rise

and

fall,

and economies thrire or disintegrate, through the good sense

and scruple, or the cynicism and

folly;

of those

who

gqf«em.

No

government can make a country prosper; but any go«;emment can ruin one;

and most today are

in a [x>sinon to

do so

extremely thoroughly^^ Democracy's real triumph,

of a century; has

last three-quarters

come

\iery

its

rapidly

an epodi

in

and

victory over the \^'here

the

powers of rulers to damage an economy and harm the U^es of entire populations have shown themselves greater than they hax^

e\Ter

proved

before.

Once we

many

recognize democracy's triumph as a pohtical outcome,

things

fall

into place.

We can

grasp that

it

was

not,

and could

never have been, an automatic concomitant of something quite different, beneath,

how

recent

above or beyond

and how extraordinary- that triumph

beyond the United States is

politics. XTe

itself.

We can

see that

can see at once both really

is,

everywhere

what has triumphed

not merely an exceedingly vague word, and a form of state associ-

ated, |>erhaps some^^-hat speciously, with that word, but above

beyond both, a pressing and engaging a

summary

hsting of

requires such a

igenda

is its

list

\*"hai is

sooner or

|>olitical

agenda.

and

An agenda

is

to be done; and every go\Ternment

later.

What

assertion that in the end

135

it

is

special to democracy's

must be the people that

Democracy

decides what

to be done. This

is

determines what is is

a

less

still

never a good description of what

of

who

permanent reminder of the terms

now

sions must is

done,

is

is

What

takes the decision.

in

it

which governmental deci-

be vindicated, and the breadth of the audience that

entitled to assess

whether or not they have been vindicated. Until

democracy's triumph, the rightful scale of that audience was always seen as pretty narrow.

It

was defined by

a layering of exclusions:

those without the standing, those without the knowledge or

ability,

those without a stake in the country, the dependent, foreigners, the unfree or even enslaved, the blatantly untrustworthy or menacing, the criminal, the insane,

women,

children.

Democracy's triumph has

been the collapse of one exclusion after another,

in ever-greater

with the collapse of the exclusion of women, the most

indignity,

recent, hastiest

and most abashed of

Today only the

all.

child

remains excluded everywhere, openly and without much embarrass-

ment; and even for them, the age at which childhood ends steadily

creeping

down.

For most of

human

history

it

has been above

exclusion which have given structure to

coming of

literacy,

tions between surface,^"*

dependence and

With the

societies.

and the formalization of many aspects of the

human

rela-

beings over most of the world's inhabited

both dependence and exclusion were converted increasingly

has been above dination.

all

human

into self-conscious principles of social order.

It

the

all

signals

the sway of these

human

is

backwash from

Democracy's triumph

this great

and reinforces the steadily

movement of subor-

rising pressure to break

two principles and refashion the

beings on softer and less offensive

lines.

relations

between

Democratization

is

the working through of their prospective successors, the imposition of the apparent requirements of equality

material of

human

lives.

No

and Buonarroti each plainly clearly

it

one today could mistake

did, for

defined destination.

untransparency,

on the endlessly

movement towards

But for

all

its

it,

a

resistant

as

Babeuf

known and

open-endedness and

shows unmistakably the continuing force of the

136

The Long Shadow of Th e rmidor

Equals' word, even buried deep inside the order of egoism

The market economy tling equality that

equality's enemy, as

many confused resolution

on

the

ever fashioned. But

and

later

struggles, that

a single political

Each grounds

most powerful mechanism it is

after

much

form and

You do not need what

image of society

to recognize the

momentous

has also been very

it

lacks a clear narrative line

meaning

on the

clearly

heavily as

shift the

much democracy's

and conspicuously

in

in living as they

claim represents. all its

complexity and

story As stories go, fails to

surface. Its massive silences

loudest choruses.

its

ways

to accept the validity of that claim (or even a

This great choice has been a single story In opacity,

with growing

settled

a particular

on the claim

itself directly

sincerity) to see

its

disman-

not simply

considered thought and

economy has

which humans are equal and to protect them equally choose.

for

Babeuf and Buonarroti confidently supposed.

two centuries

Instead,

is

humans have

itself.

Most prominent on

carry

weigh its

its

it

own

just as

surface has

been the spectacular diffusion of a word, but a word which, on exam-

no

ination, carries

clear or fixed

meaning. Almost as obtrusive has

been the staccato passage of several competing forms of government, each claiming to another.

The

embody

that word, from one geographical setting to

story of the word's diffusion has also been the story of

an endless enquiry into what

may not

justifiably be

ment has been exactly

is

at the

it

does or should mean (how

it

may

or

employed). The passage of forms of govern-

same time an uninterrupted struggle over who

entitled to act in the people's

name, and on what grounds,

over which forms of inequality, dependence or exclusion are to survive, be suppressed or re-created,

whom If

see

it

and over who

is

to be subject to

over what.

we view above

the story fastidiously and from a great distance,

all

as the quest for a secular grail: a clear sight of the

of Equality, which must also be the In this guise

we can

it is

as unclear as ever

Form of

the

Good and

Form

the Just^^

whether what has made the quest

so forlorn has been the overwhelming imaginative inroads of the

137

Dew o cm cy

order of egoism/'" or the deeper blindness of gender, reaching back far further in the past, or whether the quest itself has been throughout a

hunt for

a chimera: a treasure

which was never there to

find, the

Form

of something which from the outset simply never had a form. If

we view

it

more companionably, however,

many

it

must surely look

settings altogether

more encouraging. Not

a quest for anything at all, but a stumbling,

myopic blend of quar-

very different, and in

relling

and shared exploration of the inescapable

issue of

how

sustain everyday lives together as agreeably as possible. This

eminently democratic perspective on the

story, a

cratic practical enquiry into

what democracy

to

an

view not from above,

You could

before or after, but simply from within.

is

see

it

as a

demo-

as a political value turns

out to mean, as one people after another explores

together in the

it

space that history and their enemies leave open to them.

We

have followed the story of democracy as word over the two

thousand years and more that separates country of

its

birth

from the point when

it

departure from the

its

comes back

to

life in

the

fashioning and defence of political arrangements at the centre of a great state. There

is

no

lengthy passage. All

margins,

come

it

We

we know

somehow

just did.

after democracy.

our minds on the

clear reason is

why

that,

No

it

sometimes by the narrowest of

one knows what,

What we can hope

issue,

is

should have survived that

to grasp,

the days of Babeuf and those of

Tony

Blair or

in

applies should be so different both from

in

now comes

political practices

mind.

We

we concentrate

its

it

now

is.

meaning between

We

George W. Bush.

can see why the form of government to which

have had

if

anything, will

four things about democracy as

can see why the word has changed so sharply

and from any

if

it

distant

now

principally

Greek originals

which Robespierre or Babeuf can

can also see why the form of government which

so close to monopolising

its

application should have

won

such astonishing power across the world so rapidly and so recently

More

intriguingly,

this victorious

if

perhaps a shade

less clearly,

we can

see, too,

why

regime should have picked this old Greek word of

138

all

The Long Shadow of Th er mido r

words

for

its

The contours of

political banner.

the fashioning of a novel form of state, the struggle for power, are

Only the seem

is

outcome of

a global

well-defined targets for understanding.

all

question - the choice of a label by a type of state -

last

both elusive and relatively

at first sight

This

the history of a word,

trivial.

a reasonable intellectual suspicion; but

undemocratic.

If

we

see these

it

also deeply

is

two hundred years and more

sequence of political choice, taking

in

may

as a single

an ever-widening cast

the

list,

adoption of democracy as preferred label for the winning form of state

must emerge

history of the

an arbitrary quirk of

as anything but

word

The

taste.

will simply express that political choice as legibly

as the clarity of the choice permitted in the first place.

can be seen to have won, not through

something altogether different

The

state

form

exquisite adjustment to

its

(the requirements for the competitive

flourishing across the world of vast corporations of dubious local allegiance), but principally

ence,

and

in

many

settings

through the changing balance of prefer-

and more

directly, the allegiance

the harshest of ordeals, of that ever-widening cast

The

all

a history of political choice.

vast overarching choice has been

composed

myriads of other choices, swelling

in

self-aware living

human

actor.

need to grasp the contexts

made and

in

in turn of

To make

in

from

That one

myriads and

made by

a single partially

sense out of that story,

we

which those myriads of choices were

register the fierce external pressures

numbers of persons

fell

number, surging out across the

continents of the world, but each in the end

which drove huge

one direction rather than another -

stampedes into and out of communist the

list.

history of democracy's triumph since Babeuf's head

the guillotine has been above

through

rule, or the vast

in the great

convulsions of

two World Wars. To grasp those contexts and recognize those

pressures will to

some degree safeguard

us against the temptation to

romanticize our sense of what has been in play, or draw

uously from our

own

exempt us from the

it

parochial horizon of experience.

too ingenIt

will

not

responsibility to take a political attitude of our

139

Democracy

own

what the story means. Here democracy imposes an odd and

to

On

austere requirement.

a

democratic view, everywhere's political

history must be equally valuable and equally significant (also, equally

prove

likely to

silly,

ludicrous or disgraceful).

squabbles and bemusements must carry

ordinary everyday

Its

whenever and wherever they occur. None of

it

same weight

the

just

has any claim to privi-

leged attention; and none can justifiably be discounted or ignored. elect nations, or continents, or even civilizations.

There can be no

With democracy's triumph, It

this

a

is

most disconcerting demand.

dissolves the pretensions of intellectuals and corrodes the claims

to authority of

all

who happen

authority anywhere in particular.

its

meaning

(as

also decisively

It

assumption that historical priority insight into

time to exercise political

at the

undermines any

could give privileged

in the story

though the Greeks, or the French, or the

Americans, or for that matter the Belgians or the Swiss, might have

who came

understood democracy better than those in a position to

imitators, have for all).

determine whether

met or

later

and so be

or not their successors, or even

fallen short of standards already set

once and

^'

When

America's President, George W. Bush, assured the world that

'The global expansion of democracy

is

the ultimate force in rolling

back terrorism and tyranny',^' he was drawing on deep convictions as well as expressing a devout

prospects.

He was

hope

own

for his

also expressing a political

of America's role in

the world over the

century, in which

victories over

triumph with the the

USSR, were

ever

more

fall

judgement on the record last

three-quarters of a

Germany and Japan, and

edgily,

of

local

alike testimony to

its

own

political excellence,

he was announcing too, the shape, political

its

of the Soviet empire and the disintegration of

and the

irresistible recognition of that excellence across the

More a

its

short-term political

strategy

and economic power inside

a

for

still

the

use of

if

not the timing,

American military

imperfectly subdued

of the strategy was to install in due course

140

new

world.

Iraq.

The core

institutions of govern-

The Long Shadow of Thermidor

with at least some family resemblance to those of coun-

men:

in Iraq,

tries

which the United States views

as democracies,

manned with

dependable enemies of terrorism and tyranny as the United States elects to define

them. This

is

not a process, rather evidently, which has

ever been under firm control. Perhaps

more importantly,

which could remain under firm control

for

what they wish

it

own

its

one

core pretensions.

must be the people of Iraq who decide

They prove

to befriend or oppose.

also

any length of time only by

continuing miracle, or careful repudiation of

Under democracy,

it is

whom

or

to differ bitterly

with one another over the question; and very few of them seem drawn

American views on the matter.

to

triumph

in

democracy does

If

in

the end

Iraq, even in the limited sense of establishing a continuing

electoral basis for acquiring

new governments,

will

it

do so by

sequence of Iraqi choices, and with abundant mutual odium.

do so

also

less

It

a

will

by spontaneous imitation of the admired practices of

an exemplary model, graciously offered by the present occupying powers, than through grudging acceptance of imposed terms of peace. Terrorism and t>Tanny

in the eye of the beholder;

lie

democracy each beholder not only but

In

do

explicitly entitled to

is

its

racy's

own

terms, and by

triumph

is

a story that

you must stand outside

and apply standards to

and independently of claim; and there validity But

adequacy,

if

is

it,

will perceive

its

own

standards, the story of democ-

cannot be

and claim

told.

To

tell it

to stand above

which can be vindicated

it,

its

bemusing

to

for tell

readily recognize that

it

Democracy's triumph,

in the first place,

What triumphs along with

that

as a single story, it,

define terms

in their

struggles. This

no reason whatever

anyone

is

own

right,

a very bold

else to accept its

the story itself with any

has occurred, and try to

answer some of the more salient questions which

word.

for themselves,

so.

none of us can hope

we can

them

and under

it

raises.

has been the triumph of a

word

is

a particular

way of

thinking (and refusing to think) about the authority to govern, and a

range of institutions for selecting and restraining governments which

141

Democracy

claim to

fit

with that way of thinking. The way of thinking

wholly convincing, since

never

is

equates ruler with ruled, while every-

it

where, as Joseph de Maistre noted, ruler and ruled remain stubbornly

who command

apart: 'the people obey."'*

But for

bility),

it

are different

from the people who

insubstantiality (and often

all its

gross implausi-

its

serves admirably to define the central challenge to rulers in

the world which capitalism has refashioned.

That challenge

is

to

show

the ruled that the authority which confronts

them simply

their

own:

that is

it is

which stands behind

their will

compelled

end to

in the

To

serve.

their

their interests

gap

which

it

a forlorn task, in

is

no government has the

there, that

anyone simply against

and

But the acknowledgement that the

logic, in psychology, in politics.

gap should not be

it,

close that

is

own

will,

is

right to rule

a vast concession.

whole new world from the days when King Charles

I

It

marks

a

of England on

the scaffold, with stubborn confidence, assured his people in his dying

address that

'a

subject and a sovereign are clear different things'.'^

Only two months

earlier Charles himself

had picked out a term

that world, accusing his parliamentary enemies

they had unleashed of labouring 'to bring in democracy'.'" a

word which

little

political

the long run,

attracted

headway it is

What makes ment which

it

it

the

most of

his enemies;

and

it

for at least the next century

word which has

so adhesive

is

imposes on any ruler

far

it

It

was not

made remarkably and

a half. But, in

stuck.

the posture of involuntary self-abase-

who

uses

it.

Self-abasement

most

neither a natural nor an agreeable posture for inevitably, continue to refuse

for

and the armies which

with some asperity But

more insinuating ground from which

other less dutiful expression of humility

rulers. it

is

Many,

has proved a

to claim authority than every (let

alone

all

the open expres-

sions of arrogance or contempt).

For

much

of the time between 1796 and today there was

little

agreement over what sorts of institutions of government best met the term's

demands. The task of differentiating true democracy

from the many impostors which competed with

142

it

proved difficult as

The Long Shadow of Thermidor

outcome of

well as contentious. Today, the

that competition looks

suspiciously clear cut:

more

probably should.

not that the losers did not richly deserve to

lose: just that

It is

still

is

it

natural, or even inevitable, than

from

far

winner deserved to win and,

clear

II,

now seems

as exotic as the

far or

why

what enabled

did, quite

if it

The Democratic and Popular Republic Jong

how

it

the present to

it

do

of Korea, the regime of

world of Kubla

very

so.

Kim

As almost

Khan.'*^

the last surviving relic of a lengthy and potent challenger for the

term's monopoly,

it

dramatizes in a particularly extreme way both

the arbitrariness with which

of using

it

can be invoked, and the implausibility

at all to describe the institutions of

it

Here the people

rules twice over for

response with as

little

any modern

good measure, and

state.

ruled in

is

apology or recourse as anywhere

else

on

earth.

On

a

grim but plausible view, the Democratic and Popular

Republic of Korea

is

the terminus ad quern of the Conspiracy of the

Equals: not what Babeuf and Buonarroti wanted, but what

end they were always going to

candidate for that destination. Others with equally appeal have been the period of the Bolshevik Revolution, fields of the

Khmer Rouge.

lation, the rage for equality

made

enduring

killing

In these later episodes, in all their deso-

becomes

to a rage against the reality of other

of a society. Each

little

War Communism, which succeeded

Mao's Cultural Revolution and the ^'

in the

get. It is not, of course, the sole

for a time

human

something very close

beings or the very idea

a certain kind of sense for a small

group of

overweeningly ambitious politicians, and a very different kind of sense for varying

numbers of other groups

possible at

one

is

all

relied.

these politicians

Each was made

by extreme and mercifully unusual circumstances.

less equal, at the

if left

is

how

far the principle of equality

without impediment from any other principles,

to structure the lives of

No

point of death, than murderer and victim.

But what these episodes show can carry,

whom

to

could appeal, and on whose support they

human

beings

143

all

on

its

left

own. By equality's

Democracy

own they

standard, they

may seem no more than

show something

far

more

a brutal caricature.

abuse of a beguiUng idea. They show that that idea prove self-contradictory structuring principle

comes

ever

if it

the

for

it

bound

is

to

to be treated as the unique

between human beings.

relations

Elevated to this lonely eminence,

But

instructive than the openness to

both foments and licenses a deep

impatience with the tastes, loyalties and commitments of the existing inhabitants of every real society.

many

great

sooner or

Between 1789 and 1796

of the French population were

later,

whether they were

made

to ask themselves,

end friend or enemy to the

in the

ancien regime. By 1796, a more select handful had that they

must

commercial

to recognize

founded on an ever-deepening division of

number were very

clear that the

question followed from the answer to the the ancien regime in the

come

side for or against the order of egoism, the global

civilization,

labour and an endless proliferation of novel smaller

a

must be an enemy,

tastes.

Some

of this far

answer to the second

first:

enemy of

that any

too, to the order of egoism. But

long run this handful turned out to be wrong,

if

not indis-

putably in taste, at least unmistakably in expectation. Since 1789,

who have had the their own habitats.

throughout the world, the great majority of those chance have turned against the ancien regime In ever

more such

habitats, sooner or later,

on

often on a far

virtually everywhere

more

more

make terms with

has stalwartly refused to do

which the Equals expected. stolen rule

it).

more or

has

throughout, very vastly

settings also, sooner or later,

make

to

whom

them, have insisted for their it,

itself

What

at all the kinds of

it it

terms

has chosen their word (perhaps even

But the subjects over

on embracing alongside

less

Rule

the principle of equality.

is

It

so.

and sometimes with

intrusive basis,

greater brutality. But in ever

has had to

has proved impossible

them from doing

for their rulers to prevent

certainly gone

it

in

it

own

and with

conviction, the order of egoism.

144

rules,

and who permit

part, ever at least

more

it

to

pervasively,

equal passion and

The Long Shadow of Thermidor

Placed within the order of egoism, equahty faces more impedi-

ments, with greater powers of resistance, than

could have faced in

it

form of human association. To Babeuf or Buonarroti,

any

earlier

this

deeply inhospitable setting, equality would seem not so

may not be

confined, as tamed, or even neutered. But they judges. Equality has not simply struck

appeals to the passion and intelligence of

its

human

the best

abandoned

colours, or

its

its

What

audience.

permits the rulers to rule, in ever more settings and in the long run, the response of that audience: the terms which

element

in those

ago complained, to equals and

^"^

alike.

may sound

This

more

if

is

it

why should

should anyone even think

is

still

worth

it

better than none.

nition

would

equal.

The Conspirators

Why

the proffered equality matter at all?

elements to the answer. In the recognition

and

a trifle fanciful. If inequality persists,

regenerated ceaselessly by the central dynamic of the

order of egoism,

definite,

is

The key

terms has come to be the offer of a certain degree of

equality, extended, as Plato long

unequals

will accept.

it

in

much

on? There are three

insisting

matters because some

first place, it

Other things being equal, more recog-

plainly be better than

But other things are far from

less.

of 1796, in so far as they assumed anything

assumed that only

full

recognition could be either just or

worth having. Only untrammelled and complete equality could bring

and reconcile human beings

the last Revolution,

another over time. But untrammelled and

even coherent as an idea; and the route towards savagely divisive. little

It

appeals to too few

of the time, and

diacy and impact of

is

its

ment

it

human

it

requires of

fatally,

any ruler who

subjects nothing but recognition

(if

tastes

and

145

one not

much too

by the imme-

many

tries to

other

imple-

guarantees to their

indeed that). Certainly neither

amusement, and

them (those with opinions,

it

is

has always proved

incessant collisions with far too

extreme and permanent coercion; and

ease, nor comfort, nor

it

emotions, for

swamped, rapidly and

emotions. As a goal for rule

to

finally

complete equality

for the recalcitrant wills of their

amongst

own) not even

Democracy

much

in the

way of

nineteenth century,

security. it

As Benjamin Constant saw

it,

early in the

offers ancient Hberty, the delusory rewards of a

notional share in rule, in exchange for the surrender of liberty, the real

the criminal law and their a doctrinaire

modern

rewards of living as they please, within the bounds of

own incomes/'

It

then turns this offer into

programme which suppresses

the order of egoism en

bloc. In the long run, this last suppression proves simply unsustainable.

Ease, comfort, amusement, and most of

too strongly for far too

much

culty in protecting

itself, if

enemies

ceaselessly evokes.

is

little diffi-

in

more

the time, against the

many

not everywhere always, at least

settings for

many

The order of egoism has no

overwhelming coercive power, and

and more it

attract too

of the time. Highly coercive rule seldom

proves a plausible form of recognition. difficulty in generating

all security,

more and more of

The winning

offer

from

rulers to ruled

not a fixed sum, but a highly plastic, and always partially opaque,

formula.

It

blends minimal recognition with quite extensive protec-

tion of the institutional requirements of the order of egoism.

It

ensures property law, commercial regulation, and a due balance

between taxing enough to provide the protection and protecting

enough against taxation

itself)

way The scope

all

forms of expropriation (very much including

for the order of

egoism to proceed buoyantly on

its

of recognition offered and the degree of protection

provided are each renegotiated endlessly

The nition

offer matters in the first place because

(recognition as an equal,

if

evidence) carries a very deep appeal,

of

human

some degree of

necessary in the teeth of the

enough appeal

beings to be prepared to fight for

it

just

its

withdrawal.

It

matters too,

because the content of that recognition

pretation;

and anyone can therefore hope

consolidate what

it

146

is

at

has already given them.

for

huge masses

long and hard, and fight

with particular bitterness to retain or recapture threatened with

recog-

It

it,

when

in the

they are

second place,

always open to reinter-

any point to deepen or offers a field of aspira-

The Long Shadow of Thermidor

tion

and an arena

for struggle.

tion offered, while

it

It

may always

ation of the order of egoism,

is

matters,

lastly,

because the recogni-

threaten in practice the fluent oper-

at least

not openly contemptuous

The equal

or hostile to, that order and

its

modern democracy may not

listen very attentively

practically wise. But any of

requirements.

of,

citizens of a

or prove especially

them can be importuned

at

any time,

through their equal citizenship, to pay some heed to the requirements of the

way of economic

they draw the offers those

modern

who

life

on which they depend, and from which

liberties they

most

prize. In this setting,

volunteer to rule them (and

for the purpose) at least a set of terms

whom

they then select

on which to address them on

the requirements of collective prudence over time: above

not to starve the goose that lays their golden eggs.

147

it

all,

the need

Chapter Four

WHY DEMOCRACY?

It is

to

the sole clearly justifiable basis

owes

this

and

victory

on which human beings can accept the

eminence to the

the well-protected

its

being plainly the best, and perhaps

its

apparent indignity of being ruled at it

present eminence

its

both of two reasons. Some prefer to attribute

evident poHtical justice,

its

that

won

tempting to believe that democracy has

for either or

fluent

all.

Others find

fact that

it

and

it

it

easier to believe

alone can ensure

operation of a modern capitalist

economy. Neither cheery view, unfortunately, can possibly be

Democracy

in itself, as

we have Even

definite structure of rule.

expedient) to just

it

wholly

any actual society that

fails to

outcomes over any

many

at

seen, does not specify any clear

an idea

as

any time,

it

all.

As

makes

it

the

overwhelmingly probable

particular outcomes will turn out flagrantly unjust.

They

and

alone as a practical

a structure of rule, within

democracy

clash constantly in application.

rule will face incentives quite distinct from,

with,

(let

ensure any regular and reassuring relation issue at

idea of justice and the idea of together.

right.

fit

Any

The

very precariously actual structure of

and often sharply

at

odds

requirements for the fluent operation of a capitalist

economy But democracy,

quite explicitly, thrusts

149

upon

its

sovereign

Democracy

and notionally equal electors the

own

opportunity, to insert their

and

right,

some measure

in

the

preferences directly into the operating

conditions of the economy, in the attempt to do themselves a favour.

As

many

a bargain, this has

reasonably see

If

we want

we must

dynamic

as a safe recipe for ensuring the

it

economy

of the

great advantages. But no one could efficiency

at the receiving end.

to understand

how democracy

has

won

this

presumptions and think again and

set aside these

eminence, less

ingen-

uously.

Let us take again the four questions which must have reasonably accessible answers.

Why,

changed so sharply

in

Tony

Blair?

which

it

Why,

in the first place,

has the word democracy

meaning from the days of Babeuf second place,

in the

now predominantly

applies,

is

the

through

to those of

form of government all its

to

striking variation

over time, culture and political economy, always so different, both

Greek

from

its

Why,

in the third place,

and from Robespierre's or Babeuf 's dreams?

originals,

has that drastically different form of govern-

ment won such extraordinary power across the world, so rapidly and Why,

so recently?

should

words

for

its

political

to answer, once

answers to the victory it

in the

fourth place and

this highly distinctive

is in) is

banner? The

In retrospect

two questions

it

What

own, and

are quite easy

answer depends on the

their

(now that the

third question today

is

not possible

solely

through

its

is

to

own

Once

answer that fourth terms.

Babeuf 's Conspiracy was always a

less

Free and open choice by

deliberating together can scarcely be mistaken in secret conspiracy intent

all

also gives us the vital clue to the fourth

embodiment of democracy

to a

elusively,

word of

this

also relatively easy to answer, at least in outline.

question's answer. its

The

two.

has been answered,

question on

first

you recognize that last

somewhat more

regime have picked

on

seizing

it

it

the citizens faith for a

promptly on

acceptably' But

certainly important for Babeuf himself that this

150

all

good

power and passing

government hand picked to exercise

than plausible

it

was

new government was

Why Democracy?

temporary expedient,

to be only a

will of the existing

in face of the repressive

Thermidorian incumbents, with

power and

their shameless

dedication to serving the interests of the wealthy Babeuf himself did

not accept the legitimacy of the Thermidorian regime.

hoped would supplant (like

it

was

less a clearly

What

he

defined political structure

the Assembly and Council of Athens) than a continuing practice

of rule, not merely on behalf of the poorer majority of France's popu-

with their active co-operation. This was

lation, but

still

extremely

close to Aristotle's or even Plato's conceptions of the least edifying

variant of

democracy

(the rule of all

by the poor majority for the poor

majority), with the allegiance simply inverted. Babeuf 's democrats

might find themselves for a time forced to convert themselves,

however nebulously, into a clandestine furtive

party.

But there was nothing

about their political objectives. They saw no occasion for

apology

in a

new regime

in

which most of the (adult male) popula-

tion, in the

modest circumstances

would

on

rule

their

own

which they found themselves,

in

behalf, or at least actively monitor

promptly correct any of those

whom

they chose to rule for them. By

1796 this was not a prospect which attracted the rich anywhere world. Today, by a long and winding route, in tries in the

and

all

in the

the wealthiest coun-

world, the rich have learned to think better of the proposal

and become quite thoroughly inured to

Democracy has changed Babeuf and those of Tony

its

it.

meaning so sharply between the days of

Blair,

above

vast shift in political expectations.

It is

all,

because of and through a

natural for us to see this shift

predominantly as a movement from ingenuousness to sophistication,

from the simple-minded delusions of Babeuf to the cool acuity of those

who

Tony

Blair).

staff the re-election

But

it is

from one horizon of horizon.

very

On

little

campaigns of George W. Bush

more illuminating

to see

it

(or even

instead as a passage

political experience to another, very different

the matter of

difference

in

democracy

there

was

between Babeuf and

his

as each understood

expectation

it,

Thermidorian enemies. What each meant by democracy and

151

Democracy

imagined

would imply

it

in practice

was

virtually the same.

they differed intractably was in their evaluation of tical felt

and

in the prac-

implications which they drew from that evaluation: in what they

moved

A

it

Where

to try to bring

avert.

view of the history of modern democracy would see

blithe

change

about or

in expectations as following docilely in the

shift in

moral and

political conviction.

would

It

triumph as the victory of a compelling formula for rule, aptly

this

a prior

see democracy's

just

and legitimate

rewarded after a discreet interval by the happy discovery

and promises

that such rule holds few terrors for the rich,

some

wake of

at least

benefits to practically everyone. But with the partial but weighty

exception of the United States, that was scarcely the history which in fact occurred.

Babeuf 's own

political venture

on the realism of

was too

ineffectual to shed

his political expectations. In the

effective successors,

most notably Lenin,"

any

light

hands of more

political expectations

had

been recast purposefully before the bid for power was

already

launched; and the tensions between egalitarian and democratic goals

and authoritarian means and structures became and remained acute. It

was not hard

for those

who

detested the goals to highlight the gap

between pretension and consequence, and present the continuing project of equality, through that a

yawning gap,

as a deliberate fraud or

hideous and murderous confusion. After 1917 this ceased to be a

simple debating point and became an extremely potent political accusation.

made

The world

of which Babeuf dreamed, a rich-free world at last

safe for the poor, never

won widespread

credibility.

But the

grander and far more intellectually self-congratulatory project of

Communism, numbers of

Equality on

titular allegiance,

interpreted with

it

all

Democracy became equality,

Stilts,' in

due course secured very large

overt adherents. For as long as

it

retained at least their

clung on tight to Babeuf's political nostrum, the flexibility which he found natural himself. in effect the

regime

name

of the route towards

gracing whatever political institutions volunteered to

152

Why D e mo era cy

shoulder the responsibihty of pressing on towards that elusive goal.

was not until the change

in

expectations had run

It

course, and the

its

defenders of equality had formally surrendered, that the claim to a

democracy was surrendered along with

special tie to

an internally generated change

in belief or taste. It

to the crushing weight of a wholly

more

initially

the struggle for democracy's

fought out was the continent of Europe, and

Europe which Napoleon's

particularly the western parts of

armies controlled for longest and with least setting

The one key

effort.

which those armies barely touched was the

British Isles.

(The record of Ireland was somewhat

in Britain, as

This was not a capitulation

unwelcome experience.

The main battleground on which mantle was

it.

was

largest of the

different.)

throughout the European continent,

until

But even

almost the

end of the nineteenth century, democracy, under that name, remained the political goal of small groups of extreme dissidents, or move-

ments which sought to challenge the existing order frontally and

make up

fundamentally.^ Viewed from today, the practices which

democracy,

legislative elections

freedom or even

full

based on widening franchises, greater

secrecy at the ballot

accountable to those

partially

whom

dramatically, sooner or later, across

main forward movements, durable,

came not from

itself,

executives at least

they ruled, were extended

most of the continent. But

when

especially

these proved relatively

the revolutionary collapse of the old order, or

under the banner of democracy

itself,

but from deft defensive gambits

by audacious conservative politicians, Count Cavour in

due course

Italy,

Benjamin Disraeli

their

Otto von Bismarck in Britain.^

Even

in

in Prussia

France

in

and

itself,

Piedmont and

later

Germany,

under the revolu-

tionary Second Republic, the new electors promptly ushered

in the

Second Empire of Bonaparte's unexhilarating descendant Louis Napoleon. Universal suffrage, as the anarchist Proudhon noted morosely

at very considerable length,

good and could

readily

in

was

a

most uncertain

political

practice be hard to distinguish

counter-revolution.''

153

from

DemoL

The extension

ra cy

of legislative representation and the widening of

the franchise aroused bitter conflict sooner or later almost every-

where, often threatening the survival of the regime. With the Great

Reform and

Bill,

at least

even Britain seemed for a time to

some subsequent

many contemporaries,

historians, very close to revolution. At

peacetime, however, the cumulative experience of electoral

least in

representation proved remarkably reassuring.

The

prerogatives of

ownership, and even the flourishing of commerce and industry, survived the extension of the franchise surprisingly

even

women

more or

and with

less intact,

By the early twentieth century the idea that

little strain.

might safely be permitted to vote no longer seemed an

extravagance; and mass socialist parties with democracy on their

banners could be settings yet

to

left

compete with

on equal terms,

at least

their rivals,

if

not

in

most

without constant harassment.

Madison's early-nineteenth-century discovery that universal male suffrage

was no

appreciably

real threat to

later,

in

property was

made

independently,

if

well over half the countries in Europe, not

always by direct experience, but by ever more obvious inference. But virtually

none of

this, as yet,

not even the

first stirrings

of the enfran-

chisement of women, had happened under the rubric of democracy itself.

(The inclusion of

women

within the electorate was always an

excellent proxy for the literal-mindedness of If

democracy

everyone has to rule (or at least have a hand

legitimate or safe,

what

as an idea.

in rule) for rule to

be

clearer evidence could there be for the idea

being treated with reserve than the spontaneous and almost wholly unreflective omission of over half the adult population

from the

ranks of the rulers?)

What came

out with ever greater clarity was the stark political logic

of ever-widening representation: that

it

was obviously

in

practice

quite unnecessary to confine electoral representation, and equally

obviously on balance advantageous, both to ruling politicians and to those they ruled, to extend plainly

is

what we now

call

it

more or

less as far as

it

would

go. This

democracy, incomplete no doubt, and

154

far

why Democracy?

from

self-convinced, but unmistakably the thing

fully

why should we have come

to call

it

democracy?

Why

itself.

indeed

But is

it

even distantly appropriate to describe this form of government as a

democracy? It

is

Why

still

democracy simply

now

apply

the term not an obvious and brazen

is

how

not clear is

a

misnomer and

a flagrant,

it,

misnomer?

to answer this last question. Perhaps

at

for

any of the regimes to which we

some

level deliberate, misdescription.

But misnomer or not, the term has clearly come to

no use

stay. It is

wringing our hands at the semantic anomaly or moral effrontery.

What we need register

guise,

when

to grasp

why

is

the term arrived.

come

has

it

It

made

its

to stay.

The key

to this

entry in this essentially

is

to

new

beyond the North American continent, as the christening of a

new formula

for civilized rule (rule of the civilized by the civilized),

offered by the victors of

need of

The

civilization.

academic

political

University,

who became

two successive World Wars first offer

scientist

and former President of Princeton

President of the United States and would-

new world

be architect of a

to a world in dire

was made by Woodrow Wilson, an

order.^

At

this point, the offer

was not

a

practical success. Wilson's recipe for world order foundered in the vindictive intrigues of the Versailles conference

home

repudiated back give

democracy

a

in

America

(a

economic

else).

behind

it

conflict

and intense ideological and national

in acute

all

it

to

left

by bitter social

rivalries,

biding

over again.

right by those

little

The Europe

peril, riven

none too patiently to unleash world war was challenged savagely from the

essentially

repudiation which did

good name anywhere

remained

and was

who

its

time

Democracy

volunteered to

defend Europe's populations against the continuing menace of equality,

pressed

movement with

its

home by an equally authoritarian own primary allegiance to a very foreign

political

power.

It

was defended principally, and with far greater conviction, by those

who

still

hoped

neither a natural

unruffled

to press far closer to equality themselves.

name nor

hegemony of

a compelling practical

the order of egoism.

155

It

was

formula for the

/) e

For

it

to

become

and another and

m o c ra cy

second vast war had to be fought and won,

so, a

far lengthier struggle,

which

had to be endured and survived.

second struggle, and

in face

was

in that

of the horrors of the Third Reich and the

conquered peoples joined ranks with America beneath the

banner of democracy. At Soviet ally

did so

It

Asian conquests, that Europe's threatened and

brutalities of Japan's

largely

menaced even

at times

greater destruction,**

first

whose immense

much more

to check

armies and drive

it

they did so very

sacrifices

much

alongside the

and sustained military heroism

Germany's advance, break

its

huge tank

back home.*^ After Operation

relentlessly

Barbarossa, the blitzkrieg in which Hitler destroyed more than a third of

its

for

on the ground and broke through

airforce

many hundred

the Third Reich as Soviet

miles, its

also

it

had no residual

primary enemy

On

its

forward defences

difficulty in identifying

the matter of

democracy the

Union learned nothing and forgot nothing from the

bitter

ordeal of the Second World War. But further west the political leaders

of the order of egoism did learn one great and enduring lesson from this

overwhelming trauma. They learned that there could be circum-

stances in which that order, the basic operating principle of their

economies and

societies,

needed

this

stood very urgently indeed, hi the suffering, they

and to define

needed

a cause

it

above

all

word and the

last instance,

and

ideas for which in face

to focus their citizens' allegiance,

worth fighting to the death

for in a

order of egoism could never hope to provide for a good

Neither the Third Reich or

own phase

it

of intense

Italy's Fascists,

way

that the

many

nor imperial Japan

in its

of fascist militarism, set any store by democracy So the

term served comfortably enough to define their enemies without further need to resolve

its

ambiguities.

Only once the war was

over,

and the grip of the Soviet Union tightened over eastern Europe, did

become necessary

to define

democracy more

it

resolutely, to explain the

proper bases for political alliance or enmity both domestically and across the world. At that point a quarrel which had mattered intensely for Socialists ever since

Lenin seized power became of far wider

156

Why Democracy?

interest. '° Before

Socialists

October 1917 virtually

were democrats

differ in goals, political

dients. bitterly

in their

all

twentieth-century western

however much they might

eyes,

temperament or preferred

Within three years,

regime, rejecting

tyranny and oppression, or insisting that

its

governmental

who

style

disputed

to

its title

it

its

alone was the true

who adopted

bearer of the torch of the Equals." For those

point of view, anyone

categorically for

it

and

it

institutional expe-

world were divided

socialists across the

new Russian

by the

own

the second

democracy or censured

simply showed themselves partisans of the

order of egoism: abject lackeys of the

rich.

The charge

that they were

lackeys of the rich stung Social Democrats everywhere. But for electoral politicians with other allegiances

and they found

relatively effortless to

it

it

carried

no

special stigma;

adopt the democratic element

in the Social Democrats' denunciation, shorn of any associated

egalitarian encumbrances.

shaped

political

The ensuing

argument; and

it

is

far

quarrel was never a well-

from

either side can be accurately said to have

clear that in the

won

it.

What was

end

quite

unmistakable by 1991, however, was that one side had emphatically lost It

it.

was not that the

embody democracy was

victors' pretension to

vindicated by the collapse of the Soviet Union: simply that the claims of the vanquished

Communist

Party of the Soviet Union to rule as the

people, along with their claims to deliver equality in any shape or

form, dissolved into absurdity once they no longer retained the power to rule at secret.

all.

The

By 1991,

too, that absurdity

four decades of the Cold

War

was already

a very

open

provided something

less

than transparent collective self-education; but they did establish

beyond reasonable doubt that

it

is

a simple

and ludicrous abuse of

language to describe a wholly unaccountable ruling body, which denies

its

subjects the opportunity either to express themselves freely,

or organize to defend their interests, or seek their

within government on their

own

own

representation

terms, as a democracy (or indeed, for

that matter, a People's Republic).

157

Democracy

What made

the term

democracy so saHent across the world was the

long post-war struggle against the Soviet Union and

was

outset, that quarrel

its allies.

From

its

certainly between defenders of the order of

egoism and those who openly wished

it ill.

But

came

it

increasingly to

be a quarrel, too, over the political ownership of the term democracy.

Because of it

its intensity,

scope and duration, the lines of battle within

were often confused and disconcerting. For decades

at a time, in

Indonesia, in South Korea, in Taiwan, in South Vietnam, in Chile, quite

open and unabashed dictatorships were enrolled with

apology

enemy

is

my

unfavourable

little

ranks of the western democrats. (The enemy of

in the

friend.)

comment

became increasingly

But

this

lack

at the time;

clear that

it

of

fastidiousness

attracted

and as the decades went

was not merely

politically

my

by,

it

unprepos-

sessing but also costly to spread the democratic mantle quite so

widely American statecraft became, very slowly, a ious;

little

more

and wealthier and better-educated populations

latter faltered for a time, or the

sharply against

it.

many

in

took sharper exception to authoritarian

different countries

whenever the

fastid-

Under

this

economic

rule,

cycle turned

American provenance democracy was

presented and welcomed as a well-established recipe both for nurturing the order of egoism and combining

some

real protection for the civil rights of

its

flourishing with

most of the population.

threatened relatively few and held out modest hopes to a great

Economic prudence the order of egoism)

(a

due regard for the requirements

many

for nurturing

was incorporated, sometimes with some

into the professed political repertoires of

It

most contending

pain,'^

political

parties within democratic regimes.

After 11 September 2001, abruptly and with strikingly

little

embar-

rassment, the spread of democracy across the globe shifted

meaning

all

over again, and acquired a wholly

being the heraldic sign on America's banners, least for a time, a

acknowledged

in

it

new

urgency.

became

in

From

as well, at

key political weapon. As President Bush himself

November

the following year, 'The global expansion

158

why Democracy?

of democracy tyranny."^

the ultimate force in rolling back terrorism and

is

The United

tyranny

itself to

had found

States

little

in foreign countries for

difficulty in reconciling

decades at a time,

tyrants in question proved serviceable in other ways.

the

if

had viewed

It

with studied indifference (or even limited sympathy) the practice of terrorism

sometimes over equally lengthy time-spans,

itself,

variety of foreign countries,

from the State of Kashmir

Republic, and perhaps even at

made

it

roll

Ireland.

back tyranny was

and more pressingly

link to terrorism,

States

some points Northern

suddenly imperative to

in

a

to the Russian

What

presumed

its

to terrorism within the United

itself.

Tyranny,

now

it

appeared, bred terrorism. To stamp out terrorism

(or at least prevent

it

reaching as far as North America)

it

was now

The modern name, and

necessary to stamp out tyranny too.

the

uniquely efficacious modern practical recipe, for eliminating tyranny

was now democracy Only

a globe united under the sway of

racy could be a world in which the United States

This particular strategic appraisal

terror.

may not

last

very long.

globalization of democracy, even in this limited sense, political

agenda with many immediate enemies.

that achieving

reason

why

it

would

those

yield the desired

who

terrorism or succour

its

feel

bitterly

It is

to

acting on their feelings merely because they acquire

own

control over their

would do

little

by

rulers.

itself to

ideological overstretch.

does

represent

sequence.

the

We may

is

a

good way

inhibited in

somewhat more

either. In its

Israel to

present form

this

talisman than a glaring instance of

But temporary though

it

will surely prove,

it

culmination of one particular ideological

change our mind quite drastically (and even the

American government may change this

clear

no obvious

endear the citizens of the state of

less like a reliable political '"*

a costly

from

Democratizing the West Bank and Gaza

most of the existing inhabitants of looks

is

The

sympathize with

more

practitioners should feel

is

far

outcome. There

enough

democ-

wholly safe from

felt

in

its

mind somewhat) over whether

which to understand what democracy

159

is

or

Democracy

means. Succeeding American leaders will almost certainly modify their assessments of

what

reasonable to hope (or cease to fear)

is

it

from democracy so understood. What can scarcely happen is that anyone raises substantially this estimate of the benefits which democracy, so

understood,

We

now

can

Democracy has

likely to

is

how

see

altered

its

prove able to supply

answer three of our four questions.

to

meaning so sharply

since

Babeuf because

it

has passed definitively from the hands of the Equals to those of the political leaders of the order of egoism.

the active consent of selects least

most of

them and enables them

us) to the

to rule.

These leaders apply

it

(with

form of government which

It is

a

form of government

at

minimally adapted to the current requirements of the order of

egoism, shaped within, and adjusted

keep that order

to, the

continuing demands to

working condition. The Greek originals of democ-

in

racy could scarcely have provided that service, either organizationally or politically; and the service

have figured

m

cannot plausibly be claimed to

itself

dreams of either Robespierre or Babeuf. The

the

conjunction of representative democracy with the increasingly

self-

conscious and attentive service of the order of egoism has faced pressing challenges throughout these two centuries. But within the last fifteen years

it

has surmounted

all

these challenges and settled

with unprecedented resolution on the conclusion that democracy, this representative

form,

is

both the source and to triumph.

in

a large degree also

What

has enabled

to

the justification for the scale of

its

surmount the challenges

open to question. But much of the

answer unmistakably

is

lies in

still

it

the sheer potency of the order of egoism.

Early in the last century, a determined Russian statesman, Pyotr Stolypin,

made

a last desperate effort to rescue the Tsarist regime by

breaking up the egalitarian torpor of Russia's peasant communities

and subjecting them to the stern demands of the order of egoism.'' His name for this strategy was 'The Wager on the Strong'. It is a good general

name

for the political strategy of serving the requirements of

the order of egoism, whether in one country or across the globe. In

160

why Democracy?

contrast with Babeuf 's or Buonarroti's disapproving vision of a political

momentum

admirably the

somewhat

effete),

proves to possess

Safety,

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, proclaimed

thrillingly at one point at the height of the Terror that

who were

malheureux)

it

was the poor

the real powers of the earth. '^ But he has

proved a most inferior prophet. The Wager on the Strong

on the

rich, to

some degree perforce on those with

to be rich already, but above to

make themselves

so. In

all

on those with the

the long run the

the

has served

them

all

best of

words

to

name

a

is

wager

good fortune

skill,

nerve and luck

Wager on

the Strong has

paid off stunningly But what of the fourth question?

Strong select this of

whoever

in

Robespierre's unnerving associate on the

it.

Committee of Public

captures

it

of a strategy which aims at constant

change, and at harnessing the power to realize that change

(the

who were

regime centred on defending the privileges of those

already rich (and always potentially

Why

did the

the form of government which

all in their titanic

struggle to

mould

the world

to their purposes?

Even now But what in the

is

I

do not think we quite know the answer

clear

is

it

occurred

United States of America, and did so before the young Alexis

de Tocqueville took ship to appraise is

to that question.

that the key phase in their selection of

relatively easy to follow this

its

word

implications.

as

From then on

it

moves onwards with the

it

stream of history, sometimes hurtling through rapids, sometimes drifting out in great slow eddies, or disappearing for lengthy intervals

into stagnant pools.

many

different

enmities.

It

is

It is

users,

easy too to see

summoning up

even easier to see

along the way, stretched

in

why

it

why

use

it,

is

just

augmenting

allegiances

it

is

or

fomenting

one direction then another, and largely

who chooses to take how it aids or impedes

their political strength,

blurring their comprehension of their merits,

attracts or repels so

constantly loses definition

the mercy of anyone

harder to see

it

hard to believe that

own

this

161

is

it

those

still

at

remains

who do choose

to

exposing their deceit or

goals. a

What

up.

(Whatever

its

other

term which has greatly

D e m o cracy

assisted

anyone

own

to clarify their

political goals for

any length of

time.)

At

this

point democracy's ideological triumph seems bewilderingly

complete. There

is little

immediate danger, of course, of

out of enemies, or ceasing to be an object of

how

faces compelling rivals as a view of

structured, or of

authority

now

who

hands.

rests in the right

Its

running

its

no longer

it

political authority

assess

to

entitled

is

But

real hate.

should be

whether or not that

practical sway, naturally,

is

very considerably narrower, crimped or disrupted almost everywhere.

But the surviving doctrines which

and without benefit of

level,

contend with

still

special

in free

None

its

same

hegemony, are

of them any longer dares to try to face

all

down

it

and open encounter.

many

This odd outcome leaves

If so, just

equally or

perhaps

flatly

Is it still

as a

right, at

form of govern-

what form of government, and quite why? Or

more appropriate

very imperfectly

questions open.

democracy primarily

this late stage, to think of

ment?

at the

supra-human validation, and

which have also kept the nerve bluntly to deny faltering badly

it

embodied

to think of

it

is

it

instead as a political value,

any actual form of government, and

in

incompatible with

many obvious

aspects of the form of

government to which most of us now habitually apply

it? If

we

see

it

primarily as a political value, a standard of public conduct or political choice to

up, should did,'^

much

we

also go

an entire way of

on

to recognize in

it,

life,

social, cultural

and even economic,

as narrowly political?

(for better

and economic

just as

there be truly democratic politics

life?

one, after the last century, can sanely doubt that forms of

government matter greatly states are in

some

of half a century vastly

Can

as Tocqueville in effect

or worse), without democratizing every other aspect of

social, cultural

No

which forms of government should ideally measure

It

may be

true that even the grandest of

respects less powerful today than their predecessors ago.'**

more powerful

But

in a

it is

great

certainly also true that

many

162

most

states are

other readily specifiable respects

Why Democracy?

than they have ever been before. Government

between

levels,

moving

upvs^ards

may

shift elusively

and downwards from the individual

nation state; and governmental aspirations can shrink as well as

expand. But the world extensively

in

which we

and more intimately than

things matter

more

in practice to

all it

now

live is

governed more

has ever been before;'^ and few

most of

its

inhabitants over time

than what form that government takes.

The form of government term democracy it

to operate as

is

it

which most of us do now apply the

to

more than

a

little

blurred in outline.

What

does in any particular setting and at any particular

time remains exceedingly obscure.^'' But some aspects of settled

and

less

causes

it

are

more

contentious than they have ever been before. Very few

countries which entertain the idea of democratic rule at

all

any longer

dispute that the sovereign ruling body, the citizens, should consist of virtually all the adults duly qualified by birth.

There

is

more contin-

uing dissension even today over the terms on which citizenship can be acquired from the outside, or non-citizens admitted equally to the vote.

There

is

also continuing strife over the terms of personal exclu-

sion, of derogating

egregious breach of

from the its

privileges of citizenship by sufficiently

responsibilities, or

through crippling mental

incapacity (crime, insanity, even the purposeful withholding of tax).

But virtually nowhere on earth which stages voting for

forming a government

to participate in

it

as a

excludes

still

scarcely yet be said to have

less

its

government.) This vast change has

than a century. In most places

had the

effect of

aspect of social, cultural or economic

now can

the opportunity

does, emphatically does not envisage

way of forming

come everywhere within

observer

women from

means

on formally equal terms. (Saudi Arabia, which

apparently at present

democracy

still

at all as a

hardly miss

its

it

can

democratizing every other

life.

But the most jaundiced

impact anywhere where

it

has

obtained for any length of time.

The

variations within this form of government, Presidential or

Parliamentary rule, judicial review, contrasting party or electoral

163

Democracy

systems, even republics or monarchies, matter greatly for the politics

of any individual country In

room

doubt that

for

a single

it

behalf,

erratic

them

unites

is

little

to insulate the rulers as

sympathies and judgements of is

their

common

acceptance of

compelling point, the expediency of deriving the authority to

minimally credible way, from the entire citizen body over

rule, in a

whom

What

cases, in practice, they leave

main purpose

from the

radically as possible

the citizens at large.

their

some

must

and

in

apply.

The claims made by

some measure endorsed by

the form of government

itself,

these rulers less partial

naturally reach

much

on

own

their

champions of

They

further.

claim that the election of representative legislatures and executives,

however structured, not only confers upon them the authority of the with an effective

citizen electors, but also provides those electors

control over the laws to which they are subject, and the persons

make, interpret or enforce those laws upon them. extremely far-fetched claim. fairly steadily

It

is

far less dire

who is

an

also

one which

loses plausibility

it is

not absurd.

The predicament

with experience. But

whom

of being governed by those dismiss

is

In itself this

a clear majority can eventually

than the corresponding predicament of being

whom

governed indefinitely by those of

you can hope to

rid yourself

only by rising up and overthrowing them by force of arms. Is

democracy

a steady

power

a

good name

for a system of rule in which, in the end,

and substantial majority can be confident that

to dismiss rulers

democracy

it

has

come

originally meant; but

to loathe? it

is

is

holds the

not what the term

also not a plainly illegitimate

The

extension of that original meaning.

That

it

case against the extension of

meaning, nevertheless, remains simple and weighty have been the Laws, rather than the demos authority over the Athenians.'' But the

In

itself,

Athens

who

Laws could

it

may

held final

exercise that

ultimate ascendancy only through the continuing interpretation and the active choice of

the citizen

Assembly and the Law Courts.

Athenian democracy had very serious reservations about the division of political labour. Except under the special conditions of open

164

Why Democracy?

warfare, where Generals were elected and often selves for as long as the

pick individuals to exercise power in recourse to

it.

left

annual campaign lasted, its

it

simply refused to

name, and without further

organized the daily tasks of government, quite

It

by rotating them across the citizen body; and

largely,

them-

to fend for

it

made

every

great decision of state, legislative, executive, or even judicial, by the

majority choice of very large numbers, whether in the Assembly or the Courts.

and

Under democracy the

accurately,

citizens of Athens, quite reasonably

supposed that they were ruling themselves. But the

vastly less exclusive citizen bodies of

modern democracies very

ously do nothing of the kind. Instead, they select from a

they can do

commend

stewardship, the

menu which

individually to modify, whichever they find least

little

dismaying amongst the options on

wished to

this

full

offer.

Benjamin Constant, who

arrangement, saw the goal of their choice as

management

of

their

interests

by suitable

persons chosen for the purpose. ^^ This, he underlined, was rich

obvi-

approached the allocation of

their

own

time. There

how

the

was nothing

humiliating or necessarily alarming in having your interests managed for you.

find

The

many

rich at least

in serious

doubt that they could

more rewarding things to do with their time.

But even for those in

were never

who approved

of

it,

this

was never the only way

which to view the bargain. Constant was writing well before the

professionalization of politics. By the time, over a century later, that the Austrian emigre economist Joseph Schumpeter'' set out his

more elaborate

picture of

what democracy

practical implications of governing

tation tially a

had become

far clearer.

really

on the basis of

is

electoral represen-

To Schumpeter, democracy was

that competition

won

What

it.

The

victors in

the opportunity to govern for a limited period.

a system, therefore, electoral

cian'.^^

essen-

competition between teams of politicians for the people's vote

and the power to govern which would follow from

As

own

and means, the

democracy was

'the rule of the poHti-

the electors picked their politicians for

was

still

the

prospective quality of their stewardship. But once the politicians in

165

Democracy

question had been picked, the terms of the relationship changed abruptly. For

most

most of the time there was

citizens

doubt that they were

still

being ruled. The

whom

cheated or even tormented by individual stewards

been injudicious enough to

select.

the relationship between the their stewards. rigid

two

The amalgam

But

it

was not

democracy

of rule with stewardship

when they were

itself). It is

for

they had

a credible picture of

more

a far

is

responsibility than any

the citizens of democratic Athens were ever asked to

the

room

to describe the rich as being ruled by

and committing transfer of power and

those rare occasions

little

rich might find themselves

make

(except

on

asked, or compelled, to abolish

easy for electors not merely to regret indi-

vidual past choices (bargains that have gone seriously astray), but also

more generally

to lose heart It is

in face of the

options presented to them.

many

not simply because modern liberty can take so

(because that the

many more amusing ways percentage of those who bother to

it

offers so

fallen so relentlessly across the

voting rates

is

other forms

of spending one's time) exercise their vote has

democratic world. Some of the

fall in

best attributed less to a preference for private enjoy-

ments" than to dismay

most dismaying,

this

at

what

can result

At

electors have got for their votes. in the desertion of the electoral

forum

by very large sections of the population. Career politicians can

come

intent to be seen as systematically corrupt manipulators, reliably

nothing but furthering their

own

interests''

its

on

by using public authority

small ruthlessly in the service of the evidently sinister interests of

groups of independently powerful miscreants. 'Democracy', the French syndicalist Georges Sorel sneered almost a century ago, paradise of which unscrupulous financiers dream.

The ethos

'is

the

'^'

of democratic Athens evoked in Pericles's great speech

could scarcely have been more different. But

it

is

wrong

to see the

of contrast between Periclean glory and the squalid financial scandals applicathe Third Republic as one which mirrors an essentially valid tion of a clear term over against an obvious abuse of the

Some

of the contrasts between the two unmistakably

166

same term.

come out

in the

Why Democracy^

wrong

Even

direction.

Sorel's day, the franchise of

in

RepubUc was very considerably

less exclusive

the Third

than the citizenship of

ancient Athens."^ Even those contrasts which do clearly

come out

the right direction often turn on something quite other than

racy

itself.

The

in

democ-

citizen pride celebrated by Pericles certainly encom-

passed the freedom

(for the citizens themselves)

political organization of the polis.

the splendour and

dynamism

But

of the

it

life

embodied

turned more

in

the

end on

in the

of the polis community, the

former funded largely by resources drawn from other communities,

and the

than

it

much

latter also often exerted very

Democracy probably meant more

to

at other peoples' expense.

some contemporaries of

can have meant to any of France's population

decade of the twentieth century. But

it

did not

in the

Pericles

opening

mean more because

the Athenians understood democracy, and the French did not, but

because the Athenians saw their city as being

at the zenith of its

and associated that greatness with the form of

greatness,

its

rule,

while the French, in the lengthy shadow cast by the Franco-Prussian

War, were

in

no position

to

do

so,

and had correspondingly

little

occasion to congratulate themselves on the distinctiveness of their political

arrangements.

democracy

If

is

simply a way of organizing the relationships their governments,

between communities and

it

can scarcely

in itself

intense pride. Where communities are

be an occasion for

self-

confident and proud, some of that pride will rub off on their political institutions,

however the

tyrants across the ages).

latter are structured

Under

less ebullient

(a

point familiar to

circumstances, the attitudes

of communities to their governments are likely to be

by

how groups

served or

much

as

scientists

good or

ill

their

into

see their

government, a matter of

skill

and luck

will, sense of

them

in great detail,

what determines them

as

duty or culpable neglect. Political

and advertising agencies have each studied these

sentiment and sympathy

largely

interests as

or individuals within

damaged by

moulded

own

shifts of

and developed enough insight

to earn, at least in the latter case, consid-

167

Democracy

erable

sums of money

for

passing their conclusions on to the

competing teams of poHticians. The formidable

modern American

oration of a

and elab-

scale, cost

Presidential campaign, already certain

to be larger than ever in 2004, could rouse a sense of personal in

most individual

citizens only

freedom

through sheer delusion. But neither

the remorselessness of the manipulation attempted, nor the lavishness

of the resources squandered, are enough in themselves to invalidate

embody democracy. To run

claims to

complaint must

in the

against

end once again be made on behalf of the order

of equality, and against the order of egoism. However else

we cannot

stand democracy today, the recognition that

it

has been the clear verdict of democracy that the

two orders

is

must win.

democracy,

in this thin but

above

all

one which the order of egoism

which has handed the order of egoism

The

its

ever

big question raised by that victory

agenda of the order of equality can

still

is

momentous

different ways, as

how much

of the distant

be rescued from the ruins of in

two very

one of institutional architecture and the meanings

or as one of distributive outcomes (with the ascription

to ascribe to

it,

of meanings

left

severely to the individual winners or losers).

way of seeing the that

sense,

more conclusive victory

overwhelming defeat. That question can be seen

its

we under-

honourably brush aside

safely or

struggle between these It is

its

any coherent

it,

issue

is

bound

The

first

to attach special weight to the sense

democracy can only be adequately seen not

as a

form

in

which

individual states are or are not governed, but as a political value, or a

standard for justifiable political choice, against which not merely state structures, but every other setting or milieu in

beings

live,

which human

can and should be measured.

Democracy, so viewed, promises

(or threatens) the

democratiza-

tion of everything (work, sex, the family, dress, food,

demeanour,

choice by everyone over anything which affects any

number of

others).

What

it

entails

is

the elimination of every vestige of privilege

from the ordering of human live

with one another,

if

life. It is

a vision of

how humans

could

they did so in a context from which injustice

168

Why Democracy?

had been eradicated. Even thought through with Hmitless energy/'

however,

that

is

human

relations.

form of power

enough

all

At the very

stable

enough

least

far causes

does) from the relations between

forswears in the

it

human

is, it is

resistant

human

of

beings

is

so.

life

The

to go

most unlikely

also spectacularly unlikely to

medium

beings bring about consequences which they

intend. ^° But incoherent

and implausible though

also unmistakably the full

clearer

and

has done

it

instance the principal

first

(the

the removal of any

much

human

It is

power

it,

firm inclinations) from

to disclose itself to others,

to prove coherent even as an idea.

occur, since

own

demands

it

any length of time once

power (what thus

through which

not elusive about

is

requires the systematic elimination of

others act against their

to survive for

removal of it

it

make

capacity to

as

What

remains quite an elusive idea.

this

programme

almost certainly

it

of the Equals, and in a

and more trenchant form than Babeuf ever took the trouble

to elaborate

What

it.

it is

adopted by any groups

not, however,

programme

in the real world, still less

reminiscent of a form of government. inspire a

a

is

It is

a value that

form of government, and which,

ever widely

one even weakly might perhaps

at least in negative forms,

men and women, sometimes on a very coherent description of how power can be

often has inspired groups of large scale. But

it is

not a

organized, or institutions constructed:

anything

not a causal

The democratization of everything human as illusory as a

programme already

model of

at all.

it

promise as

it

is

is

not a real possibility:

carries very considerable allure. In

made

But as a political

idle as a threat.

many

places

it

has

far greater progress than the Abbe Sieyes could have

imagined. Within the richer countries of the world the back-breaking toil

and casual

brutality

which dominated the

lives

of huge numbers

of people even a century ago have been lifted from the shoulders of all

but relatively small minorities.

When

the conditions of those

minorities emerge sporadically into public view they cause as

shock as they arouse shame. Entire dimensions of

169

much

social, cultural

D e m o c ra cy

and economic

have been challenged irreversibly: most dramati-

life

between men and women. Usually slowly,

cally of all the relations

bemusedly, and almost always grudgingly, those relations

often

have begun to recompose themselves comprehensively to

fit

the

requirements of equality. The surrender of the vote was the merest

None

beginning.

or quite where

knows how

of us yet

it

far that

transformation can go,

you view democracy solely as

will end. If

you can be very sanguine about the extent of

may seem not merely equality to conquer.

domain

in

a privileged

which equality

are the limits to

human

still

is

The

ethnicity, literacy, even class.

Gender

this progress.

and uniquely urgent domain

can serve as

It

a value,

for

a proxy, too, for every other

obstructed:

effectively

sole boundaries to

its

race,

progress

and imagine

capacities to think clearly

coherently.

But that gives far too government.

It

weight to democracy as a form of

little

misses entirely the significance of

its

diffusion across

the world, as one very particular form of government, over the last

two

centuries.

politics to it

It

work

simply suspends political causality (what causes

the

way

does).

it

must suspend along with

even cultural causality too.

it

Almost

certainly,

most forms of

If

in this guise

on careful

social,

analysis,

economic and

democracy has spread

across the world, especially over the last half-century, by backing the

order of egoism to the itself

ever

more

hilt,

the order of egoism reciprocally has built

drastically at the

same time by adopting and

ioning democracy in this particular sense. live is a

The world

in

refash-

which we

all

world principally structured by the radicalization and inten-

sification of inequalities.

Between the inhabitants of much richer

countries, these inequalities need not result in wider gaps in wealth, status or personal earlier,

or

still

power than those which existed many centuries

exist in far

poorer countries today. But, by the principle

of economic competition and

its

cumulative consequences, they work

through, and have to work through, the sharpening and systematization of inequality in the lives of virtually everyone.

170

Why Democracy?

by

It is

the

its

pervasiveness and

its

peremptory practical priority that

order of egoism precludes equality.

and even

tolerates,

It

welcomes, many particular impulses towards equalization. But what drives less

it,

and

in the

end organizes the

entire

human

world,

is

a relent-

and all-conquering principle of division and contrast. That was

what Babeuf saw and hated.

It is still

to hate) to this

day What there can

into the future,

is

either in

What

one

institution, or in

there can be

which equality

is

human

one country, or

the democratization of

is

and as

be, today

not the democratization of

we

if

far as

care to,

we can

see

life in its entirety,

globe as a whole.

in the

human

egoism proves to permit. This

far as the order of

egoism

there to see (and,

life is

anywhere, as

not a struggle

going to win. The precise limits which the order of

sets to equality

do not form

a clear fixed structure

which can

be specified in advance of political experience. They are an endless

and

ever-shifting battleground.

the strategic

outcome of

The outcome

is

clear

unequivocally welcome. ments,^' let alone the

and

fixed, however,

is

victor.

its

not one which any of us cares to see very

itself is

and perhaps not one which anyone

clearly,

is

What

that long war, and the identity of

makes no

It

moral

sense.^"

who

did see

it

clearly could

moral

direct appeal to the

To put

senti-

the point less archaically,

it

an outcome which must offend anyone with the nerve to recognize

what

means.

it

The

role of

form of

life

as a political value within this remarkable

democracy

(the

World Order of Egoism)

tolerable limits of injustice, a

is

to

probe constantly the

permanent and sometimes very intense

blend of cultural enquiry with social and political struggle. The key to the

two

form of

life

instructive

as a

whole

is

thus an endless tug of war between

but very different senses of democracy

In

that

struggle, the second sense,

democracy

as a political value, constantly

subverts the legitimacy of

democracy

as an already existing

government. But the

first,

explores, but then insists

over the second.

The

too, almost as constantly

on and

in the

on

end imposes,

its

its

form of

own

own

behalf,

priority

explorations of democracy as a value vary in

171

Democracy

pace, urgency and audacity across time and space. At times, as in the

work of

American philosopher and educator John Dewey," the

the

imagery of

a

democratic way of Hfe bites very deep and

intense imaginative energies.

value

and long-entrenched

More

more

negative and far

is

injustice in

Everyone will have their

tive life.

no doubt,

often, the

specific

summons up

mobihzing force of the

- the demolition of spectacular

one domain

own own

after

favourites

another of collec-

among

these stirring

What

stories.

Many,

men

women may or may not do with their own or one own embryonic fellows. How one (self-

or

too,

their

especial aversions.

bodies or their

defined) racial grouping

may

or

office,

may

or

may not be exchanged

power or honour

may not

treat another.

directly for office,

in their turn

adult

another's

or other-

How money

power or honour, or

be exchanged directly instead for

money. The terms of trade, overt or covert, on which we

our

live

lives

together.

Most

of

modern

politics

is

taken up by quarrels over what to revere

or repudiate within these struggles. is

in

The

true definition of

merely one prize at stake in those quarrels. unalloyed triumph.

What

None

sets the limits to their

hard to ascertain; but almost always, sooner or

democracy

of the stories ends

triumph

later,

it

is

often

turns

on

definite decisions by powerful agents within the formal apparatus of

democratic license.

rule, career politicians or those

The balance between

whom

they in the end

cultural exploration, social struggle

and

public decision by ruling institutions of representative democracy

never fixed firmly or clearly But there are denser barriers to it

can go

in

one direction than

brief time, these barriers

seem

in the other. lifted, like

how

The periods when,

is

far

for a

the youth uprisings of 1968,

can be times of fervent collective hope, as well as transitory personal transformation. But they offer no rival instruments with which to leave behind

them

may win. Grand petty defeats.'"

solid institutional guarantees for

victories are often largely

Where they

representative legislatures,

fail

any ground they

undone by long

strings of

to carry through to the laws passed by

and to the

172

political decisions to ensure that

I

Why Democracy?

those laws are enforced, they can vanish as easily and rapidly as they

came.

One important

fact

about

no one within

that almost

it

this strange tries to

form of

we now

life

share

is

take in the fate of democracy in

both of these two key senses anywhere

at all.

This

is

neither surprising

nor simply inappropriate. Only someone of great arrogance, and probably also someone

dream of attempting

in considerable intellectual confusion,

would

to grasp the fate of both across the entire globe.

But the sharp bifurcation of attention for the vast majority of us

between these two domains, however natural ally

prudent

prompts us

its

it

is

fastidiousness, edifying.

It

happening. a

It

is

happening

world

in the

sanctions the cultivation of normative

connoisseurship of the prepossessing and the

also recognizes

and applauds

knowledge and

a cumulative

mastery of the practicalities of political competition. But virtually

It

and the desirable

to split a preoccupation with the ethical

from any sustained attempt to grasp what and why

sources or individu-

its

grounds, has extraordinarily malign consequences.

no demand that these two should meet, and

at least

it

makes

confront

one another. Except opportunistically and by individual contingency, they therefore virtually never do.

The

understanding

is

the organization of academic

lectual division of labour at

What no competent modern

its

life,

most aspiring and

political

modern

the

intel-

self-regarding.

student of politics can sanely attempt

either intellectual confusion or personal frivolity

is

do so betokens

to master both with equal resolution. Even to try to

is

and

clearest setting of this disjunction in our social

But

the synthesis

if

beyond any possible professional, how are the huge amateur

majorities of

modern

citizens

to

undertake

it,

the

as

choosers they presume themselves to be? (And what,

sovereign

they prove to

if

have neither the time, the nerve nor the inclination to do so, can they

honourably do instead?)

There

is

something deep about the structure of

this

condition of involuntary collective befuddlement which

173

outcome. The it

unrelentingly

Democracy

guarantees

not to see see, too,

not what Plato held against democracy. But

is

our

as a blemish within

it

how

in the

end

it

can

own form

of

life.

hard

is

hard to

democracy

to corrupt each sense of

fail

it

It is

abandoning the form of government to the tender

pretty thoroughly,

mercies of the professionals, and abandoning too the conduct of

and

refined cultural

intellectual enquiry to ever

more

and

scholastic

narcissistic introspection.

The

strongest pressures behind democratization are resentment at

condescension, and the will of individuals or groups to find better

ways to defend

their

own

The power of

interests.

captured by Tocqueville."

the first

is

admirably

focuses essentially on form and appear-

It

ance, and rightly presupposes that democracy, however obstructed

may prove form.

It

must

in practice,

must recognize

some opportunity to

above

all is

at least surrender privilege at the level of

their

give each at least

on being treated equally

What

own

and

citizens as equals

insist

especially concern them.

power to defend

all

it

it

cannot

interests.

in

in practice give

What

prevents

it

ways which

them

is

equal

from doing so

the scale and pervasiveness of inequality dictated by the

order of egoism. In the Assembly at Athens any fully adult male with the

good fortune

to have been

born

a citizen,

be present on the occasion and wished to do to address the people

on what was

they had the courage, defend their

own judgement and more

in their

own

in their

is

ever

now

true.

they happened also to

so,^^

to be done.

own

had an equal

They

interests in

voice. In the

the war-making) decisions of a

vaguely similar

if

could,

right

if

only

person with their

law-making (and

still

modern democracy, nothing

Ordinary

citizens are never present

personal capacity within a legislative assembly

Still less

do

they ever hold executive authority as ordinary citizens within a

modern most

state. In

issues,

most modern democracies, most of the time and on

ordinary citizens are almost certainly freer to speak or

think than the Athenians ever were.

The

penalties they face for

voicing views which most of their contemporaries dislike or find scan-

dalous are far

less

harsh and altogether

174

less public.

But most also have

why Democracy?

chance to make themselves at

little all,

widely audible; and no one at

all

except by resolute, strenuous and extremely successful competitive

effort,

has an effective right of direct access to legislative deliberation.

The newspaper

press,

which John Stuart Mill offered to mid-

nineteenth-century Britain as an effective substitute for the political

immediacy of the Athens Assembly,' lobbying power of great economic

does something to offset the

still

interests.

But most of

different parts of the world, belongs to a relatively small

private individuals;

and the ways

in

which

it

it,

many

in

number of

operates cannot be said

seriously to modify the evident political impotence of the great

majority of citizens at most times and over almost effect

the

is

most

insistent of

at present

owns

symbolic conjunction, a single

several of the national television channels (as

company), controls most of the other

well as the biggest publishing

television channels in his capacity as

government

What we

This

contemporary media of public communication.

In Italy, in a scandalous but deeply

man

all issues.

even more pronounced in the cases of television and radio,

as leader of a party

Prime Minister and heads the

which

furnishes most of us with almost

receive for

most of our

interests

is

all

is

effectively a personal

fief.^^

the effective representation

own

not our

public forum or site of binding political choice.

It is

access to any

an enormously

elaborate structure of divided labour, most of which operates wholly outside public view, and can be dragged into the light of day only sporadically, with great exertion,

niable political disaster. the term lives

It is

democracy that the

and

as a result of

some wholly unde-

not, of course, part of the political institutions

meaning of

which govern our

should be so far beyond the reach of most of us almost

time. But

it

remains clearly true that

of government

now amounts

to.

this

How

is

far

what democracy could

it still

all

as a

really

the

form

amount

to anything fundamentally different?

Because

this

complex of

institutions

designed or chosen by anyone,

it

and practices was never

must be true that every aspect of

could perfectly well be quite different. Because

175

it

it

has spread so widely

Democracy

now, however, and spread principally by imitation and competition,

it

can scarcely also be true that the complex as a whole could readily or rapidly alter into something drastically different.

hope

to

do so

in

ways which

relied

Still

less

could

on winning general applause or

even on gratifying most of those

who were consciously aware of

The key

variant of

issue for this

modern

it

necessitates a level of alienation of will,

democracy

is

how

them. far

it

judgement and choice which

any ancient partisan of democracy could only see as

complete

its

negation: at most a partially elective aristocracy,^^ and at worst a

corrupt and heavily mystified oligarchy. If

ancient democracy was the citizens choosing freely and immedi-

modern democracy,

ately for themselves,

citizens

circumstances, the relatively small

from then on choose

modern could selves:

it

seems,

is

principally the

very intermittently, choosing under highly constrained

for them.

citizens have

insist

number of

who

their fellows

There are many obvious ways

no need whatever to accept

on taking particular

in

this bargain.

state decisions personally for

will

which

They them-

putting them out to referenda, in which every adult citizen

just as eligible to vote as they are in a legislative election.

do indeed play

a role in the national politics of

some

is

Referenda

states,

both over

key issues of inclusion or exclusion, and over especially contentious decisions,

sometimes including constitutional amendments.'*"

In the

case of Taiwan, for example, early in 2004, an incumbent President

even used the threat of a referendum asserting the right of the citizens to choose for themselves whether or not to reunite with China, to

strengthen his hand against local opponents

who

favoured a more

diplomatic approach to the People's Republic. (This came very close to putting the central issue of state security out to direct popular

decision.)

What

referenda today have in

common

is

that the terms of

the choices offered are always decided by a ruling group of career politicians.

It is

more reasonable

career politicians

who

to see

them

as

manoeuvres open to

expect them to work to their

own advantage

than as real surrenders of power back to the citizens from

176

whom

it

Why Democracy f

supposedly came. Where their expectation

sway of the ruHng group

is

is

the consequences of adopting the expedient

who

sponsors. But the role of the electors still

disappointed, or the

successfully disrupted by their opponents,

may dismay

initial

its

vote in the referendum will

be principally to hand the victory to one team of career politi-

cians at the expense of another.

A more

substantial democratic opportunity

right to vote

on

issues

which

it

suits the

would go beyond the

incumbent government to put

to a referendum (on terms they can largely control for themselves).

would demand

It

well the opportunity to put to a referendum

as

whatever issues the citizens themselves happen to wish, and permit

them

referendum on their

to define the terms of the resulting

behalf.

The

first

element

not hard to supply

A

in this

opportunity

some

and some of

its

on the

time, both in the State of California and

Swiss Cantons. ^^ In each setting

critics;

quite substantial, and

right of citizen initiative in placing issues

ballot has existed for in the

is

own

it

has naturally had

many

consequences have proved extremely

damaging. The right to take such decisions can readily extend as wide as the citizen body, or the openness of the citizen

who wished

widely

is

to speak in

it.

Athenian Assembly to any

What cannot

be distributed so

the opportunity to focus the terms of the choice offered.

There the division of labour which rationalizes, and causes, the professionalization of

modern

in

some degree

politics enforces

an

effec-

tive alienation

of the task of formulation from a constituency as wide

as the citizen

body

choose and write on

to a relatively small its

behalf.

To

group entrusted to think,

draft a coherent text of any length

requires in the end a single process of consecutive thought:

mind and pen of

a single person, at least a conversation

if

not the

between

modest numbers of people, who can hear one another and respond

to

the pressure of each other's thoughts. In

recent years

academic

political

philosophers have devoted

considerable attention to outlining the qualities which deserve most

weight

in

taking public decisions of any consequence. *' They have

177

Democracy

taken their cue from Aristotle's acknowledgement of the principal merit of democratic choice: play, the full

Aristotle

hope

capacity to reach out to, and bring into

breadth of knowledge and awareness of the entire citizen

The assemblage and

body.""

beings

its

saw

was

it,

sifting of this

group of human

a process of deliberation. For a

who can communicate with one

ideally to

range of experience, as

become

a

common

another, deliberation might

enquiry,

and an exercise

in public

wisdom

reasoning, which could bring into play every element of

present in the citizen

and more grossly

body

It

could also hope to subject the

partial elements within the

wise

less

judgement of each

and mutually accountable

citizen to disciplined public scrutiny

criti-

cism.

democracy which embodies and

Deliberative democracy,

democracy

human

at its best,

attempts to prescribe

beings should wish for

good

sions reflectively, attentively and in

It

are sufficiently mature

can play an active part still, it

in fact

weight within

do

those

and rational

in

whom

It

in a

way

in

they affect, and

all

interests,^^

exactingly

who

all

and hold equal

it.^'

The order of egoism requirements than a milieu within

it

clashes

more

drastically with

some of

does with others. But both as a form of

which to

live,

it

is

at best neutral,

and

blankly indifferent, towards any of them. Towards some will

who

own

can enter, and

enter, the deliberation as equals,

all

More

to identify their

which

as calculations

should take them

determining their outcome.

should take them

wish to

should take them as

would be publicly good, and not

all

Many

should take these deci-

faith. It

of what would be personally most advantageous. non-exclusively: ensuring that

realizes

community of

a

public decisions to be taken.

its

themes have naturally suggested themselves.

decisions about what

how

at it

these

life

and

worst is,

and

always remain, quite openly hostile. Within the order of egoism

a large part of the point of

of the point of

money

power

is

conspicuously do, shape their

is

always money, and a large part

always power. ^^ Individuals can, and

own

lives in

178

very different terms. But

it

Why Democracy?

is

difficult (and possibly flatly impossible) for

them

to override the

main structuring principle of the form within which they

Democracy cultural,

They

as a

form of government and democratization

economic and

open-ended, indeterminate and exploratory.

is

out from, and responds

way

political value, a

human

in

which whatever matters deeply

far less

audacious

in its explorations.

some human beings always numerous ways

this

how

as a

body of form of

more determinate

Because

extensively control very

government

in

many

others in

fundamental contrast between value and form of

government has some obvious merits. limits to

for a

Democracy

rather less open-ended, considerably

is

It

conception of democracy as a

to, the

beings should in the end be decided.

government

and

as a social,

political process have very different rhythms.

are also subject to quite different sorts of causal pressures.

Democratization sets

live.

It is

better for there to be clear

you can be controlled by others. Democratization

far

today can be both more exploratory and braver than democratic

government because, unlike the responsible to or

our form of

for,

life,

latter,

is

it

the order of egoism.

neither licensed by, nor

It sits

much

lighter within

always searching out the limits of licence, but

leaving the task of securing that form of

life,

with varying degrees of

gratitude, firmly to others.

Representative democracy, the form in which democracy has spread so widely over the last six decades, has equipped

by making offers a in

its

framework within which that order can

which the

sions

may

and to

or

citizens at large its

may not

wealth secured ious.

The

itself for

the journey

peace ever more explicitly with the order of egoism.

can

set

flourish, but also

some bounds both

to

its

It

one

preten-

consequences. Wealth by permission of the people present less of a practical hazard to any of them than

in

open defiance of

battle lines

their will.

At

least

it is

less

obnox-

between the two orders which Babeuf and

his

fellow conspirators saw run very differently in any actual representative

democracy, losing

plausibility

all

their starkness

You can track the progress of

179

and most of representative

their political

democracy

as

Democracy

a

form of government from the 1780s

map

until today, sticking pins into

to record

its

advance, and noting not merely the growing

homogenization of

its

institutional formats as the decades

the

go

by,

but

also the cumulative discrediting of the rich variety of other state

forms which have competed against considerable this

assurance.

initial

The

it

state

throughout, often with very

form which advances across

time-span was pioneered by Europeans; and

world

which

in

first

it

has spread in a

Europe and then the United States wielded quite

disproportionate military and economic power.

For

much

of this time that state form was taken up by others for

promise to withstand or offset the power wielded by spurned instead

in favour of rivals (above

all

of the twentieth century, the great

of the

it

half of the century

it

in

most

defeats.

German and Japanese military power World War. The second, which followed closely, and the breaking of

much

violent struggle

if

more dispersed kind, was

of a

western colonial empire across the world, most of

better

overweening

their

number of

decisive advances, the largest

moving across the map, came with three great

in

temporarily more

Germany and Japan, with

immediate prospects of turning the tables on Its

most

much

of Russia and China. But for

was spurned too

potent and menacing states like

enemies.

or fascism)

service. For

was spurned with particular contempt

wounded former empires

first

inventors, or

its

communism

which promised more credibly to provide the same

its

fresh pins

The

first

in the

was

Second

also required

the collapse of it

within two

decades of the close of the Second World War. Representative democracy was the model imposed on their defeated enemies by that war's

western

victors."*^ It

was

also the

model which,

foot-dragging, they chose to bequeath to colonies,

after

much

most of

from the stunning precedent of imperial

preliminary

their

India,'"'

former

to the

most

parlous of Caribbean or Pacific island dependencies. Only with the return of

Hong Kong to

the People's Republic of China

firmly repudiated from the outset by the the inhabitants themselves).

new

sovereign

With the third great

180

was the choice (if

scarcely by

defeat, the

end of the

Why Democracy?

Union and the collapse of the bloc of

Soviet

so painstakingly around

racy shook off

all

on

it

its

remaining exemplary

an index of global normality.

It

was

still

which

states

own model,

and became

rivals,

society,

ciency by

and very

more than

little

dented

and brutally

in

many

and power. But none of

its

own, with the power

It

was excluded tena-

other parts of the world, in most cases in the struggle for

wealth

numerous and sometimes well-armed

enemies could any longer confront

it

with a countervailing model of

to reach out to

with different cultures and any ical

autonomy of any

half a century of rule under the aegis of a local

by the rulers of societies visibly faltering

their

virtually

in its rulers' sense of self-suffi-

variant of an openly western political doctrine. ciously

built

democ-

firmly rejected in China, site

of the lengthiest and proudest tradition of political

human

had

it

representative

real

arrangements for themselves.

and convince populations

opportunity to decide their polit-

On

a global scale

had ever occurred before, although there were more

nothing

like this

local precedents

scattered throughout history, in the Asian states encircling the Central

Kingdom

of China,^^ or the long shadows cast by

Rome

across the

continent of Europe. In the course of this last advance, a

number of

credited assumptions have been refuted.

example, that the western provenance of

somehow

It

it

It

can be (and has been)

in every continent, in societies

with long

cruel experiences of arbitrary rule, cultures of great historical

depth,

and religious traditions which

inequality of

human

their superiors

iously, in

insist

in

on the profound

beings and the duty of most of them to view

with the utmost deference,

South East Asia,

is

model makes

world or for populations

with sharply contrasted cultural traditions.

and

clearly not true, for

this political

ineligible for other parts of the

adopted with some success

is

plausible and widely

in

East and South and

Latin America, and more sporadically and precar-

Sub-Saharan Africa and even the Middle East.

In itself this

scarcely surprising. Every element in these supposed disqualifica-

tions

had prominent counterparts over most of the history of the

181

Democracy

European continent. Behind the

resistance to

sometimes antipathy towards the western inated,

and sometimes

a

there

who

is

societies

more urgent hatred of

and arrogance of the United States

itself.

advance there Hes

its

from which

the immediate

it

orig-

power

But accompanying both

also always an understandable reluctance

on the part of those

hold power within them on other bases and by different means

at the prospect of

being subverted openly and from within.

This advance has occurred

in a

world of intensifying trade and

ever-accelerating communication, in which people, goods and infor-

mation traverse the globe incessantly

It is

a world in

which human

populations are drawn more tightly together, and depend more abjectly for their security

intentions of those

who

and prosperity on the

rule

them than they have

That world certainly needs many and not

a

few which

which

facility

urgency,

is

selves.

which

on which

its

human

ever

done

before.

has yet to acquire,

many

and with the utmost

denizens can address the task

and good intentions of

skill

This task has

it

has yet even to invent or imagine. But one

clearly needs all the time,

it

a basis

of ensuring the

it

facilities

and good

skills

their rulers for

components.

different

It

them-

requires the

searching out and assemblage of a vast range of information, the

strenuous exercise of critical judgement, the permanent monitoring of the performance of those

who

devote most of their

to

lives

competitive politics or public administration. There are no cheap or reliable recipes for

guaranteeing a successful outcome, and

own can hope to shoulder great many sites, including

evidence that institutional design on

its

most of the burden. There are also

a

numerous formally independent nation

show

little

sign of recognizing

majority of the population has

any such little, if

states, in

which the rulers

responsibility,

any, effective

and the great

power

themselves against the fecklessness or malignity of those the

moment

little

to protect

who do

for

rule them.

In the midst of

impotence and despair, representative democracy

is

scarcely an impressive recipe for building order, peace, security, pros-

182

Why Democracy?

perity or justice.

No

one could readily mistake

Riddle of History. But,

in its

for a solution to the

it

simple unpretentious way,

now

has by

it

established a clear claim to meet a global need better than any of

competitors.

The

fact that the

how

meet

to

question to which, for the

The

answer.

fact that

it

make

it

a

time, there might be a truly global

none of representative democracy's surviving

acknowledges the need as

rivals

population of any scale, make

genuinely global. They also

first

its

now

so urgent, and

itself is still

human

so evidently confronts every the question of

need

clearly,

and none

provide the question with a global answer, lend

at all volunteers to it

a

unique status,

fusing timeliness and well-considered modesty with a claim for the

present to something very close to indispensability

hard to judge

It is

how

long

this

ineliminable limitations to the form of government, and

cannot

in principle

ensure for any

human

population.

to render professional politics ingratiating to

any length of time; and

it

duly

many

claim will hold up. There are

fails to

do

It

much

that

most of us anywhere

so. It

it

cannot hope for

guarantees a discon-

certing combination of shabbiness of motive and pretence to public

throughout most of the cohorts of practising

spirit

shabbiness might be veiled in more closed and conditions;

tive

but

it

is

bound

to

less

politicians.

That

audibly competi-

be highlighted

mercilessly

throughout the political arena by the vigorous efforts of competitors, inside

and outside

their

own

from democracy's outset

in

political groupings. All of this

Athens

itself;

and

its

was seen

key elements were

described with unsurpassed panache and scorn by Plato himself. It

rest

fashions a world in which political leaders

call incessantly for the

of us to trust them, and rely implicitly on their competence,

integrity

and good

their appeal

intentions. But within that world they

permanently

explanations of just naive

mass

it

must be

political

how

to confer

must press

in the teeth of their rivals' indefatigable

misplaced such trust would be, and it.

For

many

decades,

in

many

how

settings, the

party served to some degree to generate and sustain

this

kind of trust, at least between particular groups of the citizens and

183

Democracy

the party itself as an organization. nities of residence

interest across

lent a political

shape to

commu-

them, and established salient outlines for political

conflict over the exercise of

many

It

or occupation, helped to define a sense of shared

governmental power.'" But

most of the

different influences have dissipated

party structures.

The

in the

long run

plausibility of

struggle to sustain a trust in political leadership

has been submerged increasingly by the rising waters of popular

market where grounds tively

now on

Schumpeter's electoral entrepreneurs^' must trade

disbelief.

trust

more

is

for distrust easier

Even the more

and expensive than

elusive

and cheaper than ever

insistent of their

a

and the

ever,

to disseminate effec-

newer weapons, the

skills

of the

advertising profession and the ever-extending facilities of the media

of communication, are far better suited to dispelling trust than to

nurturing

it

or creating

from advertisements,

it

Seen as a whole, this too well adjusted to

a disenchanted

is

lives

personal income. But

in the first place.

it is

most

fugitive

and demoralized world,

and often ready to identify and respond cues: not just the youth, energy

and determination of Tony

Blair,

Schwarzenegger,

entrepreneurial

the

but the cinematic vigour of Arnold

Berlusconi." Viewed with charity the

world

is

momentum

modern democratic

a strenuous ordeal, scanned intermittently by

some

often querulously and always with

which

faith,

all

organized around the struggle to maximize

and unreliable of

or

credulity.

also a world permanently in quest of oppor-

tunities for re-enchantment,

to the

Whatever you should learn

can scarcely be a generalized

it

suspicion.

It is

of

Silvio

politician's

most

citizens,

a world from

deference and even loyalty have largely passed away, and

the keenest of personal admiration seldom lasts for very long. If this is

will

the triumph of democracy,

always find disappointing.

Pericles invoked for

which

it

has

its

come

impostor, bearer of a

It

carries

a

triumph which very many

none of the glamour which

Athenian namesake. Over the two centuries

to triumph,

name which

rule of the people by

it is

some have seen it

it

in

simply as an

has stolen, and instrument for the

something unmistakably

184

different.

No

one

Why Democracy?

anywhere nowadays can plausibly this is

no occasion

Madison and

see

Had

for regret.

it

it

as rule by the people. In

really

and even Buonarroti,

Sieyes, Robespierre

would assuredly not have triumphed, but dissolved and

ately

made

be

that

fear:

The

irreversibly, into chaos.

for

that

it is

it

least

warned,

all

instead,

it

immedi-

ambitious case which can

we have

so very far from the worst that

it is

itself,

been rule by the people, as

to

world in which we find

offers the inhabitants of the

ourselves the safest and least personally offensive basis on which to

together with our fellow citizens within our

live

service

own

not one which we have yet learned to provide at

is

the

name

name

to be appropriate,

stirringly perhaps,

racy as

it

now

is

cannot be

means so much more

possibility that the

to

fit

with

that it.

word

This

it

must mean more than

all

least

two

way

in

may

drastic

or

(or

how we in

fact that the

means something so

different)

and the

some imaginative contact

to be so.

(It

will

depend, amongst

act politically in the future.) There are at

which the democracy of today might perhaps

be altered in this direction.

One

mation amongst

and the degree to which

restrict

word

which we are now governed can be altered

may not prove

ways

this.

which we can reasonably hope.

for

better, or at least recover

other things, on

shows

must also imply that representative democ-

it

There must be some link between the historical itself

It

our selection of the word democracy as

in

form of government.

for this

For that

More

funda-

its

a case essentially for the practical

is

merits of representative democracy as a form of government.

no evident appropriateness

reliably

all

by any other means; and no one could reasonably deny

mental importance. But that

That

states.

citizens,

in the flow

is

and structuring of all

infor-

governments

and withhold information from the governed. Governmental

seclusion

is

the

most

direct

and also the deepest subversion of the

democratic claim," sometimes prudent, but never with the

literal

meaning of the form of

control what their fellow citizens

authority of those citizens for

how

know

rule.

compatible

The more governments

the less they can claim the

they rule.

185

fully

The more governments

Democracy

withhold information from their fellow citizens the

who

they are to those

them

give

their authority.

name, modern representative democracy would have

The

very radically in this respect.

itself

accountable

less

Even to

fit its

own

to transform

struggle for that transforma-

tion will certainly be arduous because the interests in obstructing

and so well positioned to impede

are both so huge

against transforming

it

has

now become

powerful imaginative pressures

ment

that this

The second

how

is

drastic

converge more with

it

less

No

survive to challenge the judge-

still

which our existing practice of rule might

in

democratic

very different circumstances. But

any

But the case

it.

merely one of discretion.

plainly should be altered.

way

its

it

title

it is

finds itself for the present in

just as simple,

and not obviously

compelling. As a word, democracy has

won

this global

competition to designate legitimate rule largely by courtesy of Buonarroti's order of egoism, the thought-through self-understanding

economy For Buonarroti himself

and endorsement of

a capitalist

victory in this guise

would have been

since he

had so

little

economy had grown utterly different

carries very is

comprehension of the basis on which that

own

in his

world which

little

its

But

a single vast act of theft.

weight.

it

and no foreknowledge of the

day,

has since constructed, his assessment

What

still

retains

most of

its

original force

the simple perception that a ruling people cannot confront one

another in conditions of acute inequality, where a few control before, during

and

after every

many

governmental choice or action. For well

over a century capitalist economies faced fierce political pressure

from well-organized mass

parties,

political

representing

many

millions of citizens, to compress these inequalities and place citizens

the

on something closer to an equal

moment

political footing.

At

all

least for

those pressures have largely disappeared. But their disap-

pearance does nothing to lessen the anomaly of the chasm between the

meaning of democracy

as a

word and

porary representative democracy

seems unbridgeable even

in

in principle.

186

the substance of contem-

action. It

At present that chasm

could be spanned at

all

only

Why Democracy?

if

we came

to understand economies well

enough

to establish

some

them, an idea which may not even make sense, and

real control over

an achievement which certainly seems practically quite beyond our reach.

For the moment, therefore, democracy has

monopoly contradicts

many still

global near-

its

own

its

pretensions.

remains blatantly

It

odds with

at

of the most obtrusive features of existing practices of rule.

clashes systematically

and fundamentally with the defining

of economic organization. But

victory

its

power

clashes with each as an independent

an appeal altogether warmer than less

won

as basis for legitimate rule in a setting which largely

power than

no mere

is

in its

may

either. It

own

it

still

mounts

It

and with

for the present have

economic

permanent challenge

a

logic

illusion.

right,

either (certainly far less than the logic of

organization). But

It

to each.

Melodramatically but not essentially misleadingly, you can see the relations

between the three as a long drawn-out war of position,

in

which the fronts are always under pressure, and no one can foresee quite where they will run even a few years ahead.

Beyond

(or beneath) this

struggle, to

the

individual

politically

how

yet barely applies even in the breach.

of rule amongst

Democracy has won question of

war of position runs another and older

which democracy as

The main elements

its

^'^

human

sovereign

beings

of

units

occur within

still

nation state.

the

global near-monopoly as an answer to the

a nation state should be governed.

adjusted, co-operatively or quarrelsomely,

Much

among groups

else

of nation

states in the endless variety of arenas constructed for the purpose.

the scope of the adjustment still

overwhelmingly

Many hope

left to)

is still

its

But

enforcement

individual states.

(and a few even believe)" that

racy can and will provide a good for

determined by (and

is

name

adjustment and for enforcement.

in the

long run democ-

for a quite different basis It

will

define the conditions for legitimate rule, but

keep it

its

global

both

title

to

will also itself enforce

those conditions, unitarily and comprehensively, across the entire

187

Democracy

democracy would become global not

globe. In this vision

pretension or aspiration but in simple fact.

One demos,

the

just in

human

population of the whole globe, would not merely claim a shared political

authority across that globe, but literally rule

it

together. This

is

a

natural yearning (with a lengthy Christian and pre-Christian past).^^ It

reflects

powerful and wholly creditable sentiments. But

it

is

an

extremely strained line of thought. It

ignores the direct link between adjudication and coercion in

defining what a state the vast

thinks away (or temporarily forgets)

It

is.

chasm of power and wealth between

across the world.

sets aside

It

different populations

not merely the victory of the order of

egoism, but also the factors which have caused

it

to win.

It

grossly

sentimentalizes the sense in which democracy ever does rule even in

an individual nation it

is little

state.

As an expectation about the human future

better than absurd. But

it

gets

one key judgement exactly

Democracy may or may not provide

right.

reliable recipe for

either a compelling or a

organizing political choice and

within one country.

It

its

enforcement

certainly cannot hope, just by doing so, to

provide at the same time a compelling or realistic recipe for organizing the political or

Unless

economic

relations

we can make more

installing such a recipe within

country, there historical

is little

between that country and others.

impressive headway in identifying and

our

own country and

for

our

own

danger of hitting on a remedy for the brutal

gap between the world's different populations. Perhaps,

given world

enough and time, there could be such

a remedy,

and not

merely in moral philosophy or welfare economics, but even

economic organization and

what it.

is

Until

quite clear

we

do,

is

that

we should

the scale of our failure to

political practice. If there really

we

are not for the present

at least expect to

do

so.

188

in

could be,

moving towards

go on paying the price for

NOTES

NOTES TO THE PREFACE 1.

This movement of transliteration and translation across the languages and societies of the world intellectual

and

political history

is

any care. Until we know why and how

hope (or

to understand

a piece of genuinely global

which has yet to be traced with it

has happened, we cannot

one of the central features of modern

perhaps simply to understand modern

politics?).

politics

For a

stimulating comparative study centring on concepts and practices of freedom see Robert H. Taylor (ed), The Idea of Freedom in Asia

and Africa

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), especially

Sudipta Kaviraj's superb analysis of India's experience. The most

ambitious attempt to assess the significance of case of China (oldest, densest, most defiantly

world's cultures, and globalizer in

its

own

Thomas

impact

in the

autonomous of

right

terms very long ago) has been made over the

its

and

in its

key

the

own

last thirty years

by

A. Metzger. (See conveniently his 'The Western Concept

of Civil Society in the Context of Chinese History', Sudipta Kaviraj &: Sunil Khilnani (eds), Civil Society: History

189

and

Democracy

Possibilities

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001),

204-31.) For classic studies of parts of the journey, see

Liang Ch'l-Chao and Intellectual Transition

in

Hao Chang,

China 1890-1907

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971) and Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West

(New

York: Harper, 1964). For Japan see chapters by Kenneth B.

Pyle (on 'Meiji Conservatism'), Peter

Duus

'SociaHsm, LiberaUsm, Marxism'), and by

Tostwar

Social

Wakabayashi

and

(ed),

Political

Press, 1998), esp 122-25,

Barshay, 'Imagining

Reflections

Democracy

Barshay (on

Bob Tadashi

in

297-98 and 326-27;

Postwar Japan:

Democracy

in

Ike,

The Beginnings of

Japan (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University

Press, 1950). For transliteration into Arabic see, for L, Gelvin,

E. in

on Maruyama Masao and Modernism', Journal of

Japanese Studies, 18, 1992; Nobutaka Political

Andrew

Thought 1945-1990')

Modern Japanese Thought (Cambridge:

Cambridge University

Andrew

6c Irwin Scheiner (on

example, James

'Developmentalism, Revolution and Freedom

East', in Taylor (ed). Idea

of Freedom, especially

(for

in the

Arab

Gamal Abdul

Nasser) 85-86; or into Wolof, in Senegal, Frederick Schaffer's

2.

exemplary Democracy

in Translation:

an Unfamiliar Culture

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).

It is

important to underline

how

Understanding

recently this has

Politics in

become

a

well-secured judgement. Even now, the relative scale of China's

population means that only the countervailing weight of India's

numbers makes

it

obviously true. Even twenty-five years ago the

presumption that India was as

likely to

remain democratic as

Holland would have seemed (and perhaps been) quixotic.

190

Notes

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1.

Since it,

we have come by now

and since there

is

1

mean

to

much about

so

so

many

the past of which

blankly ignorant, you cannot really say

2.

when

it

are in that

might have

so.

Someone who earned teaching others at the time still

we

when democracy

sense began, or even, in any interesting sense,

done

different things by

and

how

do

to

later,

from composing speeches or

their living so.

For

all

three of these roles Athens,

offered pre-eminent examples, figures

who

tower over the entire history of western culture: Aeschylus,

Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes.

more

friend than

enemy

Some were

of the democracy But even these did not

take the trouble, or see the occasion, to praise Athens's political

regime and way of

3.

life

with the same zest and amplitude

text

which has come down to

way

to

One,

us.

at least,

in

went out of

any his

do exactly the opposite.

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War Books

I

&

II, tr

Charles Forster Smith (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1928),

Bk

I,

xxii, 1,

pp 38-39. For the novelty and

self-

consciousness of Thucydides's method at this point see Simon

Hornblower, Press:

4.

A Commentary on

Thucydides, Vol

1

(Clarendon

Oxford, 1997), 59-61.

Thucydides, History, to have

composed

it

I,

xxii, 4,

pp 40-41. Thucydides's claim was

as a possession for

essay to be heard for the

moment

all

time, rather than a prize

(Hornblower, Commentary,

61-62). 5.

Josiah Ober,

Mass and

Elite in

Democratic Athens (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1989); Harvey Yunis, Taming

191

Democracy

Democracy: Models of Rhetoric Cornell University Press, 1996). solely by

making speeches

(cf

in Classical

He

Athens

(Ithaca:

did not, of course, hold power

M.I. Finley, Politics in the Ancient

World (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1983); Finley,

'Athenian Demagogues', Past and Present, 21, 1962, 3-24), but the

speeches w^ere essential to his capacity to hold

it.

The

principal

sources for the career of Pericles are Thucydides's History and Plutarch's Life. For an excellent brief

summary

see the article by

David Lewis, Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed, 1974. 6.

Thucydides, History,

II, Ixv, 9,

pp 376-77: Athens 'became

something that was a democracy by name, but actually a rule by the

first

man'. (See Hornblower, Commentary, 346, and for

critical

assessment of the claim, 344-47.) 7.

Buried where they

fell,

on the

virtually alone, saved Greece first

8.

great Persian invasion in

battlefield

490BC.

For Pericles's speech, see Thucydides, History,

318^1. For

II,

xxxv-xlvi, pp

the significance of the funeral oration as a public

ceremony, and

its

determined use

community, both to

itself

in defining

and to others,

impressive The Invention of Athens,

Mass.: Harvard University II,

xxxviii,

10.

Thucydides, History,

II,

xxxvii, 1-2,

Thucydides, History, that our city as a

is

Alan Sheridan (Cambridge,

1,

pp 322-23. The Commentary, 298-99.

II, xli, 1,

whole

political

pp 322-23

Thucydides, History,

disputed, see Hornblower,

tr

Athens as a

see Nicole Loraux's

Press, 1986).

9.

11.

where Athens, standing

from the massive land forces of the

pp 330-31:

'In a

translation

word, then,

I

is

say

the school [paideusin) of Hellas.'

Hornblower {Commentary, 307-8) has a thoughtful discussion of what Thucydides intended

Pericles to convey,

translation 'a living lesson'.

192

and commends the

Notes

12.

Thucydides, History,

Commentary, 305-6

II, xl,

2,

pp 328-29. Hornblower,

&c 77-78, citing L.B. Carter,

Athenian (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1985), 45.

between committed public concern and the

and

civility

which

Pericles

As Loraux's work shows

14.

Metics {metoikoi) were resident

15.

Note the balance

levels of

emphasizes alongside

13.

The Quiet

mutual respect

it.

excellently aliens.

For the range of intellectual criticism prompted by Athens's

democratic experience, see especially Josiah Ober, in

Democratic Athens: Intellectual

Critics

Political Dissent

of Popular Rule

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). 16.

Pseudo-Xenophon, The Constitution of Athens,

tr

G. Bowersock

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968).

main reason says

for continuing so to call

him

is,

as

(Mogens H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy

Demosthenes (Oxford: Blackwell, sounds

like.

doubt the

in the

1991), 5), because that

Gomme,

See too: A.W.

No

Mogens Hansen

'The Old Oligarch',

Age of what he

is

in

More

Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), 38-69. 17.

Cf

his repeated formula:

Xenophon,

I,

1,

'I

pp 474-75;

do not III, 1,

praise {ouk epaino)...' (Pseudo-

pp 498-99

pp 476-77

18.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

4

19.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

2,

pp 474-75

20.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

4,

pp 476-77

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

1,

pp 474-75;

21.

have chosen to

let

,

etc).

'in

making

their choice they

the worst people be better off than the

[chrestous). Therefore

on

this

account

I

do not think

constitution. But since they have decided to have

point out

how

well they preserve their

it

good

well of their

so,

I

intend to

constitution and accomplish

those things for which the rest of the Greeks criticize them.'

193

Democracy

22.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

2,

pp 474-75

23.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

5,

pp 476-77:

pp 476-77

to beltiston

-

literally,

the best

bit.

24.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

5,

25.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

6-8, pp 478-79

26.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

3,

pp 476-77

27.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

I,

7,

pp 478-79

28.

Cf John Dunn, The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of (London: HarperCollins/New York: Basic Books, 2000).

Politics

29.

Compare

the status of 'spin' in assessments of the political merits

and limitations of the 30.

Compare,

Blair government.

to take distasteful recent examples, the task of capturing

the political realities of Taliban Afghanistan,

Korea, or 31.

Saddam

Kim Jong

North

Hussein's Iraq.

Cf A.H.M. Jones, Athenian Democracy (Oxford: 1957); M.I. Finley,

IPs

Basil Blackwell,

Democracy Ancient and Modern, 2nd ed

(London: The Hogarth Press, 1985)

& Politics in the Ancient World

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Hansen, The

Athenian Democracy; Robin Osborne, 'Athenian Democracy:

something to celebrate?', Dialogos,

and

its

Price (eds).

Oswyn Murray

The Greek City (Oxford: Clarendon

265-93; 'Ritual, finance,

politics:

democracy', R. Osborne &: Politics:

1994, 48-58; 'The

1,

Divisions in classical Athens',

S.

Demos

6c S.R.F.

Press, 1990),

an account of Athenian

Hornblower

(eds). Ritual, Finance,

Athenian Democratic Accounts presented

to

David Lewis

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 1-21. 32.

They do not make those still

less

many

realities

unreal

(somehow cancel them),

render them inconsequential. They merely

respects

and

for

many

make them,

purposes, inaccessible to

194

us.

in

Notes

33.

Compare

three classic pictures: H.L.A. Hart,

The Concept of Law

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961); Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire

(London: Fontana, 1986); Michel Foucault, Power (London: Allen

Lane Penguin

Press, 2001).

34.

Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens

35.

Compare

the reactions of Western Europe and

North America

to

the military suspension of elections in Algeria in 1991, and the

hideous consequences which followed from that suspension. 36.

Hansen, Athenian Democracy^ 29-32; Simon Hornblower, 'Creation and Development of Democratic Institutions Greece',

J.

Dunn

(ed).

in

Ancient

Democracy: The Unfinished Journey

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 1-16. 37.

Only wealthier (and

invariably male) Athenians continued, for

almost a century, to be 38.

eligible to

hold such

office.

Hansen, Athenian Democracy, 19-^1. G.E.M. de Sainte Croix,

The Class Struggle

Duckworth, 1981)

in the is

the

Ancient Greek World (London:

most ambitious modern attempt

to place

the Athenian experience in the perspective of the history of the

Greek world

as a whole; but he does not offer a systematic

assessment of Solon's purposes or achievements. 39.

Plato, Machiavelli,

James Harrington, Rousseau, James Madison,

Sieyes, Robespierre,

somewhat 40.

Jeremy Bentham, even, as

it

turned out,

self-contradictorily, Lenin.

All Lawgivers/Legislators were

(who blandly credited

men. Contrast, according to Plato

Pericles's to his mistress Aspasia), the real

authors of funeral orations (Plato, Menexenus,

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

tr

R.G. Bury

Press, 1929), 329-81,

336-39,380-81). 41.

As

far as

we now know. But compare

Athenian Democracy, 69-70.

195

the argument of Hansen,

Democracy

42.

Herodotus, History^

tr

A.D. Godley (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1922), V, 66, 2, 43.

Thucydides, History,

pp 72-73; Hansen, 33-34

xxxvi, 1-2, pp 320-21; Loraux, Invention

II,

of Athens

pp 4—7

44.

Thucydides, History,

45.

Hansen, Athenian Democracy, 92-93. Hansen's outstanding book

3—6,

I, ii,

provides the best contemporary account of the institutions of the

democracy

at

work.

46.

Hansen, Athenian Democracy, 90-94

47.

Hansen, Athenian Democracy, 94

48.

In the fourth century

BC

this

may

have ceased to be so, at least for

some, because of the institution of the misthos, a daily rate of pay not merely for acting as a juror on the popular courts but also for attending the Assembly in effect

itself.

throughout an entire

own meals

The members of year,

had

alw^ays

the Council, serving

needed to have their

provided for them at public expense. The misthos was

loathed by critics of the democracy for coarsening the social

composition of

its

principal institutions, supplementing the

motives for political participation by grossly material incentives,

and

altering the democracy's natural political balance by so doing:

precisely the consequences

who opted

for

which appealed to the

citizen majority

it.

49.

Hansen, Athenian Democracy, chapter 6

50.

Hansen, Athenian Democracy, chapter 10

51.

With some of the smaller

units there

may have been an element

of

duress in the volunteering (Hansen, Athenian Democracy, 249), as there often 52.

still is

in small political units to this day.

This was not a position which could be held twice by the same

person

in

perhaps

any given year (Hansen, Athenian Democracy, 250),

ever.

196

Not

53.

Plutarch, Lives, Vol 2, tr Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge, Mass.:

Harvard University

Press, 1916); Pericles, 32,

Thucydides, History, 54.

Ixv,

II.

3-5,

pp 92-95;

35, p 103;

pp 374—75

Although modern historians have sometimes employed the term to analyse aspects of Athenian politics, the Athenians had nothing

which distantly resembled a modern 55.

political party

World

See, especially, Finley, Politics in the Ancient

Connor, The

New Politicians

&

W. Robert

of Fifth-Century Athens (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1971).

We

can certainly assume, as

all

the finest historians of Athens always have, that this hard political

labour of co-ordination, persuasion, reward, and threat must have

gone on 56.

the time.

Slave-dependent, women-excluding, unabashedly ethnocentric.

No 57.

all

one any longer would care to defend these confines openly

had personal and family and no one could it

fail

links with

men who

some

features of

it all

help us to understand them too, should Aristotle, Politics, tr

A

it;

aspects of

read him today

too well, and can

we happen

is

still

to wish to.

The Athenian Constitution,

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

George Grote,

still

many

H. Rackham (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1932);

59.

certainly

did try to subvert

to recognize that he viewed

with visceral revulsion. But the reason we

that he understood

58.

He

In the case of Plato this remains a partisan judgement.

tr

H. Rackham

Press, 1935)

History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the

Generation Contemporary with Alexander the Great (London, 1846-56): and for the longer-term historical context see Jennifer

Tolbert Roberts, Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in

Western Thought (Princeton: Princeton University 60.

Which

are the

words we reach

ourselves intellectually and

for

when we

Press, 1994).

try hardest to steady

politically in face of the greatest

trauma of modern history? Cf the volume

197

subtitles

chosen by Ian

Democracy

Kershaw Vol 6\.

1

for his magisterial study of Hitler's impact: Hitler:

A

Life,

Hubris; Vol 2 Nemesis (London: Allen Lane, 1998 &: 2000).

Cf Cynthia

The Origins of Democratic Thinking

Farrar,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 62.

Thomas Hobbes, Hobbes's Thucydides, Brunswick,

N.J.:

63.

Pseudo-Xenophon,

64.

It

I,

5,

same

in

modern English The mass

time.

(New

pp 476-77

would be more accurate

phrase

ed Richard Schlatter

Rutgers University Press, 1975)

to say jury murder. But this

is

too odd a

to introduce, without explaining

juries of the

most potent instruments of

its

it

at the

Athenian courts were one of the

democracy

in action.

When

they

voted for Socrates's death, they were making as definite a political choice as

when

they voted in the Assembly to savage Mitylene, or

voted again, a few hours III,

65.

reprieve

later, to

it

(Thucydides, History,

xxxvi, i-xlix, 4, pp 54—87).

H.N. Fowler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

Plato, Crito, tr

University Press, 1914), 150-91 66.

Plato,

Apology,

tr

H.N. Fowler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1914), 68-145 67.

Whatever

his

own

personal flirtations with incumbents of that role

(cf Plato, Epistles, tr

R.G. Bury (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1929), Seventh Letter, 476-565) 68.

Just

what

practical conclusions to

draw from

practical conclusions Plato himself

remains far

main

from obvious -

far

this (or

enough from obvious

intellectual stock in trade for

even what

went on to draw from

it)

to provide the

an entire school of

political

thought, the extended clientela of Leo Strauss, an important

element

in

American (and hence

three decades:

Ann Norton, Leo

in world) politics over the last

Strauss

and

the Politics of

American Empire (New Haven: Yale University

198

Press, 2004).

Notes

69.

Thomas Hobbes, De Give

70.

Plato,

The Republic,

Harvard University

tr

(1642) &: Leviathan (1651).

Paul Shorey, 2 vols (Cambridge, Mass.:

Press, 1930-35),

559D-562, Vol

71.

Republic, 561D, 302-03

72.

Republic, 561D, 302-03

73.

Republic, 561C-E, 300-03

74.

Republic, 562B-C, 304-05

75.

Republic, 562C, 304-05

76.

Republic, 562D-563 D, 304-11

77.

Republic, 563D,

78.

Republic, 564 A, 312-13

79.

Republic, 564A, 312-13, 566D-580C, 322-69

80.

2,

295-303

310-n

Plato's later political writings,

Statesman), have

less to say

The Laws and The

about democracy and

Politicus (or left far less

imprint on subsequent political perception or judgement. 81.

Aristotle, Politics, 1279b,

II

19-20, pp 208-09

82.

Aristotle, Politics, 1279a,

II

37-39, pp 206-07

83.

Aristotle, Politics, 1279a,

I

84.

Cf, helpfully,

18, 1279b,

10,

Martha C. Nussbaum, The

(Cambridge: Cambridge University 85.

I

Cf David Bostock,

204-07

Fragility

of Goodness

Press, 1986), Pt 3,

Aristotle's Ethical

235-394

Theory (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2001) 86.

Compare in

Hegel's dazzling portrait,

The Philosophy of History,

Pt

II,

The

chapter

York: Dover, 1956), 250-76. E.M. Butler,

over

Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge

199

Political

Work

3, tr J.

of Art',

Sibree

(New

The Tyranny of Greece

University Press, 1935).

Democracy

Contrast the findings on the classical Greek polls

Hansen's massive collaborative study of the

itself

city state

of

Mogens

form across

time and space: '95 Theses about the Greek Polis in the Archaic

and Classical Periods', Historia, SI 87.

Cf

Finley, Politics in the

(2003), 257-82.

Ancient World with Farrar, Origins of

Democratic Thinking. 88.

Cf

e.g.

Quentin Skinner, Visions of

Cambridge University

Press, 2002), Vol 1, chapters

89.

Cf Dunn, The Cunning of Unreason

90.

Cf John Dunn, Western

Political

Theory

8-10

in the Face

2nd ed (Cambridge: Cambridge University 91.

(Cambridge:

Politics

of the Future

Press, 1993), chapter

Cf Neil Harding, 'The Marxist-Leninist Detour',

in

Dunn

1

(ed).

Democracy: The Unfinished Journey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 92.

155-87

For the fate of the San

Bushmen

Leonard Thompson, Survival

in

(a

periphery of the periphery) see

Two

Worlds: Moshoeshoe of

Lesotho (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), chapter or C.W. de Kiewiet,

A

Economic (Oxford: Oxford University 19-20; for the

them

Nuer

1,

esp 13 &c 19,

History of South Africa: Social and Press, 1957), chapter 1,

as British anthropologists liked to think of

see E.E. Evans-Pritchard,

Press, 1940). For their

The Nuer (Oxford: Clarendon

more recent

The Root Causes of Sudan's

Civil

fate see

Douglas H. Johnson,

Wars (London: James Currey &C

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004). 93.

One

of the bravest attempts to

do so

is

Mark

Elvin,

The Pattern of

the Chinese Past (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). See also G.E.R. Lloyd &c N. Sivin,

The Way and the Word (New Haven:

Yale University Press, 2002), and, in more breathless outline, Jared

Diamond, Guns, Germs and chapter 16,

Steel (London:

'How China became

200

Jonathan Cape, 1997),

Chinese', 322-33.

Notes

94.

95.

Mogens Hansen {The Athenian Democracy)

claims something close

to this for fourth-century Athens, but as a political outcome,

and

certainly not as a verbal implication of the term demokratia

itself.

See particularly Fergus Millar, The

Crowd

in

Rome

in the

Late

Republic (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998) &: The

Roman

New

Republic in Political Thought (Hanover: University Press of

England, 2002), an exceptionally illuminating study of the

development of 96.

Though

see,

Clarendon

Roman

still,

Though

historical impact.

its

Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford:

Press, 1939), or Christian Meier, Caesar, tr

McLintock (London: Fontana, 97.

thought and

political

Vergil's

David

1996).

adamantine formula - Tu regere imperio populos,

Romane, memento: Remember,

O

Roman,

that

it is

for

you to rule

peoples with empire (Vergil, Aeneid, VI, 851) - scarcely suggests the latter. 98.

The

great historian of this endless circling back

is

John Pocock.

The Machiavellian Moment

See, especially, J.G.A. Pocock,

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975) and his recent

magnum opus on

the context of

Edward Gibbon's

century masterpiece. The Decline and Fall of the

late-eighteenth-

Roman

Empire:

J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, thus far Vols 1-3

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999-2003). 99.

Millar,

The Roman Republic

in Political

Thought

100. Millar,

The Roman Republic, 48^9

101. Millar,

The Roman Republic, 23-36; EW. Walbank, Polybius

(Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1972); Kurt Fritz,

The Mixed Constitution

in

Antiquity

(New

University Press, 1954); Claude Nicolet, 'Polybe

romaines', E.

Gabba

(ed),

York:

von

Columbia

et les institutions

Polybe (Geneva, 1973), 209-58. There

is

an interesting study of Polybius's acutely ambivalent attitude to

Roman power and Roman

culture by Craige B.

201

Champion, Cultural

Democracy

Polybiuss Histories (Berkeley,

Politics in

Calif.: University

of

California Press, 2004). 102. Polybius,

The

Histories,

Harvard University 'Scipio,

and

tr

W.R. Paton, 6

Press, 1922-27),

when he looked upon

in the last throes

of

its

(Cambridge, Mass.:

vols

XXXVIII,

22, Vol 6, 438-9:

was

utterly perishing

the city as

it

complete destruction,

is

said to have

shed tears and wept openly for his enemies. After being wrapped in

thought for long, and realizing that authorities must, like

men, meet

Ilium, once a prosperous

and

city,

all cities,

nations,

and

doom;

that this

happened

their

brilliance of

Media,

to the empires of Assyria,

and to Macedonia

Persia, the greatest of their time,

which was so recent, either

to

itself,

the

deliberately, or the verses

escaping him, he said:

A

day will come when sacred Troy

And Priam and

his

(Homer,

And when

people shall be

shall perish slain.

Iliad VI, 448-9)

Polybius speaking with freedom to him, for he was his

teacher, asked

him what he meant by

the words, they say that

without any attempt at concealment he named his

which he feared when he

reflected

on the

Polybius actually heard him and recalls

it

own

country, for

human.

fate of all things in his history.'

(This fragment survives only in Appian, Funica, 132, though see also Histories,

XXXVIII,

21, 436-37.)

Walbank

is

sceptical of the

significance of this fulsome passage {Polybius, 11). There careful discussion of the grounds for

doubt

is

a

in A.E. Astin, Scipio

Aemilianus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 282-87. 103. Aristotle, Politics, esp 1281b-1284a,

220-24

VI, 10-18, Vol 3, 292-311. For his central

Vol

1,

2-5: 'For

who

is

cf Polybius, Histories,

aim

I,

S-6,

so worthless or indolent as not to wish to

know by what means and under what system in less

see Histories,

than fifty-three years have succeeded

inhabited world to their sole government

202

-

of polity the

Romans

in subjecting the

a thing unique in

whole

Not

A

history?'

good sense of how

from suggesting

itself as

Roman

democracy was

an immediate description of Rome's

Andrew

pohtics can be derived from the

far the category of

The Constitution of

Lintott,

Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) and

Claude Nicolet, The World of the Citizen

in

Republican Rome,

tr

RS. Falla (London: Batsford, 1980). 104. Millar, 105.

Roman

Republic, 170

Hansen, The Athenian Democracy; compare Millar, Roman Republic, 166-67; Polybius, Histories, VI, 13, Vol

3,

298-301

(on Senate and diplomacy). 106. Polybius, Histories, VI, 57, 396-99: esp state will

change

its

name

to the finest

and democracy (demokratia), but worst thing of

all,

mob-rule

will

'When

this

happens, the

sounding of change

all,

freedom

nature to the

its

(ochlokratia).'' Millar insists,

convincingly, that Polybius at this point can only have had

mind,

Roman

in

Republic, 30, 35-36.

107. Polybius, Histories, VI, 57,

398-99

108. Polybius, Histories, VI, 10, 12-14,

109. Millar,

Rome

Roman

292-93

Republic, 55-58; Joseph Canning,

A

History of

Medieval Political Thought (London: Routledge, 1996), 125-26; Janet Coleman,

Ages

A

History of Political Thought from the Middle

to the Renaissance (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 62;

50-80,

is

excellent

Coleman,

on the background of educational practice

into

which Aristotle's Politics was absorbed; Anthony Black, Political

Thought

in

Europe 1250-1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1992), 20-21.

110.

Coleman, History of effective

demand

Political

at the

Thought, 55. There proved to be

apogee of Islamic

civilization for

many

aspects of Aristotle's thinking. But nothing about the political

organization of any Islamic society gave pressing occasion for

addressing his exploration of the significance of

203

politics. (Dimitri

Democracy

Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco Arabic Translation

Movement

in

Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society

(London: Routledge, 1998); Muhsin Mahdi, Alfarabi and the

Foundation of Islamic

Chicago

Political

Philosophy (Chicago: University of

Muhsin Mahdi,

Press, 2001);

'Avicenna', Encyclopedia

Iranica, Vol 3 (London: Routledge, 1989), 66-110; Richard Walzer,

Greek into Arabic (Oxford: Bruno

Cassirer, 1962), chapter 14,

'Platonism in Islamic Philosophy'. 111.

Quentin Skinner, 'The

Italian City-Republics', in

J.

Dunn

(ed),

Democracy: The Unfinished Journey, 57-69; Hans Baron, The Crisis

of the Early

Italian Renaissance, revised ed (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1966); Philip Jones, The Italian City State:

From Commune

to Signoria (Oxford:

112. UiWdiY,

Roman

Republic, S^-S9

113. Millar,

Roman

Republic, 60-61

114. Millar,

Roman

Republic, 62-63

115.

Clarendon

Press, 1997)

Andreu Bosch, Summari, index o epitome des admirables y nobilissims titols de honor de Cathalunya, Rossello I Cerdanya (1628), facsimile Barcelona 1974, cited by Xavier Gil, 'Republican Politics in Early

Modern

Aragonese Traditions', (eds).

A

Republicanism:

Cambridge University 116.

Spain: the Castilian and Catalano-

in

Martin Van Gelderen &; Quentin Skinner

Shared European Heritage (Cambridge:

Press), Vol 1,

263-88

Wyger R.E. Velema, '"That a Republic Anti-Monarchism

in Early

is

at

Better than a

Modern Dutch

Political

Skinner &C Van Gelderen, Republicanism, Vol

Martin Van Gelderen, and respublica mixta

'Aristotelians,

in

p 280.

1,

Monarchy":

Thought',

Monarchomachs: Sovereignty

Dutch and German

Political

Thought,

1580-1650', Skinner &: Van Gelderen, Republicanism, Vol

195-217.

204

in

9-25, esp 13-19;

1,

No tes

117. Vrye Politijke Stellingen en Consideratien van Staat, 172-73, ed

Wim

Klever,

Amsterdam

'Aristotelians,

Gelderen 118.

1974, cited by Martin

Monarchomachs and Republicanism, Vol

(eds).

Hans Erich Bodeker, 'Debating Dutch

Political

Van Gelderen,

Republics', Skinner 6c

Van

195-217, at 215-16.

1,

the respublica mixta:

German and

Discourses around 1700', in Skinner 6c Van

Gelderen

(eds),

Jonathan

Scott, 'Classical

Republicanism, Vol

1,

219-46, esp 222-28;

Republicanism

England and the Netherlands', Republicanism, Vol

1,

in

Skinner

in

Seventeenth-Century

& Van Gelderen,

61-81, esp 76-80; Warren Montag, Bodies,

Masses, Power: Spinoza and his Contemporaries (London: Verso, 1999); Jonathan

the

I.

Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and

Israel,

Making of Modernity, 1650-1750

Press, 2001);

(Oxford: Oxford University

Hans Blom, Morality and

Causality in Politics: the

Rise of Materialism in Seventeenth -Century Dutch Political

Thought 119.

The key

(Utrecht: University of Utrecht Press, 1995) setting

armies: A.S.P.

was the Putney debates

Woodhouse

Dunn

Puritanism and Liberty 2nd ed

& Sons, 1950); David Wootton, 'The

(London: J.M. Dent Levellers', in

(ed),

inside the parliamentary

(ed).

Democracy: The Unfinished Journey,

& 'Leveller Democracy and the English Revolution', in J.H. Burns & Mark Goldie (eds), Cambridge History of Seventeenth-

71-89,

Century

Political

Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1991), 4\1-A1.

The

best overall study of the

remains H.N. Brailsford, The

Levellers

2nd ed (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 120.

movement

and the English Revolution, 1976).

Hobbes, Behemoth, or the Long Parliament, 2nd

ed,

(London: Frank Cass, 1969), 21: 'For after the Bible into English, every

man, nay every boy and wench,

English, thought they spoke with

what he 121.

said.'

Hobbes, Behemoth,

26^4

205

God

E Toennies was translated

that could read

Almighty, and understood

Democracy

112.

Hobbes, Behemoth, 43; De Cive: the English Version, ed Howard

Warrender (Oxford: Clarendon 123.

Cf Dunn, Western chapter

Theory

Face of the Future,

in the

1

Worden, Roundhead Reputations (London: Penguin, 2002),

124. Blair 100.

Political

Press, 1983)

Worden

gives a spirited portrait of

Toland

stressing above all his youthful ebullience

opportunism

(p 119). See also Sullivan,

in action,

95-120,

and manipulative

John Toland and the Deist

Controversy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982)

and Chiara Giuntini, Panteismo Toland (1676-1722) (Bologna:

e ideologia repubblicana:

II

John

Mulino, 1979); Blair Worden,

'Republicanism and the Restoration 1660—1683', in David Wootton (ed),

Republicanism and Commercial Society 1649-1776 (Stanford:

Stanford University Press, 1994), 139-93; and Israel, Radical

Enlightenment. 125.

The contemporary

translation,

Thomas Hobbes, De

Cive:

The

English Version, captures the flavour of Hobbes's writing better, despite

some

inaccuracy. For a

reliable version see

Tuck

more

analytically

Thomas Hobbes, On

Press, 1998). For the centrality of

historically

the Citizen, ed Richard

&C tr Michael Silverthorne (Cambridge:

classical rhetoric, see

and

Cambridge Univesity

Hobbes's engagement with

Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric

in

Hobbes's Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 126.

Hobbes, De Cive: The English Version, X,

127.

Benjamin Constant,

Political Writings,

ix,

p 136

ed Biancamaria Fontana

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 313-28 128.

Hobbes, De Cive: The English Version, chapter 106-07, 109-10; Chapter XII,

8:

emphasized the importance of vision of politics

VII, 1,

and 5-7: pp

pp 151-52. Richard Tuck has

this

judgement

in

shaping Hobbes's

from the beginning: Richard Tuck, Philosophy

206

Notes

and Government 1572-1651 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993,310-11).

129.

Hobbes, De Cwe: The English Version, chapter

130.

C.V Wedgwood, The

Trial

of Charles

1

VII,

1:

pp 106-07

(London: Fontana, 1964),

71 131. See particularly

Malcolm, 2

The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes, ed Noel

vols (Oxford:

striking picture of his intelligentsia in

Clarendon

Press, 1994).

is

a

Malcolm's Aspects of Hobbes (Oxford: Clarendon

no especially

Press, 2002), chapter 14, 457-545, but as yet

illuminating biography

Noel Malcolm's, 132.

There

work fanning out amongst Europe's

The biography

to wait for, once again,

is

preparation for the Clarendon Press.

in

There are two interesting recent biographies of Spinoza by Steven Nadler, Spinoza:

A

Life

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1999) and Margaret Gullan-Whur,

Spinoza (London: Pimlico, 2000).

Withm Reason: A

Much

the

Life

of

most ambitious and

learned presentation of his impact on European thought and feeling at large

is

Israel's

remarkable Radical Enlightenment:

Philosophy and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), always interesting but not invariably convincing in

its

judgements. Contrast, for example, on the impact of Hobbes,

Malcolm's chapter 133. His biographer

in his

Aspects of Hobbes.

John Aubrey records Hobbes

as saying of Spinoza's

Tractatus Theologico-Politicus that he had 'cut through him a bar's length, for he durst not write so boldly'.

ed

Andrew

John Aubrey, Brief

Clark, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898),

134. Nadler, Spinoza, 44 135. Israel, Radical Enlightenment, \66 136. Nadler, Spinoza, chapter 6, esp 127-29 137. Nadler, Spinoza, 182-83

207

I,

Lives,

357.

Democracy

69.

Rene-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d'Argenson, Considerations sur

gouvernment ancien

le

et present

de

France^

la

2nd ed 1784 Amsterdam 70.

Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State

in

France

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 376 71.

Argenson, Considerations sur la

France (Amsterdam:

le

gouvernement ancien

Marc Michel

Rey, 1764).

et present

de

Keohane,

Philosophy and the State, 377 72.

Considerations 1784, considerable (officially)

7?).

iv-v.

amount

The son saw

fit

to interpolate a

of material apparently of his

own

into this

second edition.

Franklin L. Ford,

Sword and Kobe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1953, chapter 12) 74.

Keohane, Philosophy and the

State,

376

75.

Keohane, Philosophy and the

State,

390

7G.

Roger Tisserand

(ed),

VAcademic de Dijon 77.

is

much

Rousseau a

The

first edition,

sparser.

Considerations, 1784, 195. Cf il

J.J.

130-31

Considerations, 1784, chapter 7, 192-297.

215-328, 78.

Les Concurrents de

(Paris, 1936),

first

edition, 303-4. 'Le

King not reign over Citizens without dominating 79.

Roi ne peut-

regner sur des Citoyens sans dominer sur des esclaves^

Considerations. 1784, 272. Cf 1764 ed, 305-10.

Montesquieu's

classic defence of

Can

the

slaves?

Compare

intermediary powers as devices

through which one power can obstruct another throughout L'Esprit des Loix (1748) (esp

Bk XI, chapter

6),

and the defence of the

delaying function of the separation of powers in the Federalist. Cf

Bernard Manin, 'Checks, Balances and Boundaries: the Separation of Powers in the Constitutional Debate of 1787', Biancamaria

Fontana

(ed).

The Invention of the Modern Republic (Cambridge:

Cambridge University 80.

Press, 1994), 27-62.

Considerations, 1784, 296. Argenson's original formulation (1764 ed, 314)

was considerably more

tactful

towards the monarch's

own

authority, but just as confident of the indispensability of the people

218

Notes

as a source of information, both to the

monarch and

to

one

another, about the real scope of their interests. 81.

Michael Sonenscher, 'The Nation's Debt and the Birth of the

Modern

Republic', History of Political Thought, 18, 1997, 64-103

& 267-325. For the pressures behind this, see especially John Money and

Brewer, The Sinews of War: War,

the English State

1688-1783 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989). 82.

Considerations, 1784, 199.

None

of these details appears in the

1764 edition. 83.

Considerations, 1784, 199. This phrase does not appear in the 1764

The

edition.

galvanizing effects of his Plan on rural productivity

and prosperity

figure prominently in the original edition (1764,

274-95). 84.

Considerations, 1764,

common 85. 86.

7;

interest in the

the 1784 edition, 12 adds emphasis on the

good government of

the kingdom.

Considerations, 1764, 7-8; 1784, 15 Considerations, 1764,

8;

note that Switzerland

is

1784, 15.

The

original edition (p 12) does

a pure Democracy, since, although the

Nobility enjoys a measure of distinction, this furnishes

it

with no

governmental authority

There

is

no compelling synoptic view of the

quality of Swiss

scale, distribution or

democracy from canton to canton

in the

eighteenth century. For an assessment of an individual canton see

Benjamin Barber, The Death of Communal Liberty:

Freedom

in a

A

History of

Swiss Mountain Canton (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1974). For Geneva, a far from democratic instance, see

Regime

in

two chapters by Franco Venturi, The End of the Old

Europe: The

First Crisis, tr R.B. Litchfield (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1989), 340-50, and The

Regime

in

End of

the

Old

Europe: Republican Patriotism and the Empires of the

East (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 459-96; Linda Kirk, 'Genevan Republicanism', David

Wootton

(ed),

Republicanism, Liberty and Commercial Society 1649-1776 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 270-309; and Helena

219

Democracy

Rosenblatt, Rousseau

and Geneva: From the

'First Discourse'' to the

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

'Social Contract'

D'Argenson's assumption that Switzerland provided the only

modern European experience of democracy

protracted

was

still

compelling enough a hundred years

later for

in action

George

Grote, the great Victorian historian of Athenian democracy, to

make

'an excursion to Switzerland, in order to observe, close at

hand, the nearest modern analogue of the Grecian republics', to

draw conscious lessons from democracy

in action,

its

experience in interpreting Athenian

and to publish

his conclusions in Letters

on

Switzerland. (See Alexander Bain, 'The Intellectual Character and

Writings of George Grote', The

Minor Works of George Grote

(London: John Murray, 1873), 102-03.) 87.

Sword and Robe, chapter

Franklin L. Ford,

12.

Charles-Louis de

Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, hereditary President a Mortier of

Bordeaux and author of the great L'Esprit des

the Parlement of

Loix (1748) 88.

is

a classic instance.

Charles-Rene D'Argenson (Paris:

P.

Jannet, 1857-58),

historiques sur

349-50 89.

An

etc.

le

and

Reading note on Lettres

cf Considerations, 1784,

exception amongst

in the case of

Memoires du Marquis d'Argenson

V, 129,

Parlement. See also the amplification in 1756, pp

Tom

its

Paine.

J.M.Dent, 1916), 176-77 90.

(ed),

272

foreign admirers should perhaps be

Cf The Rights of

Man

Pt

II

made

(London:

etc.

For Sieyes see especially his Political Writings, ed Michael

Sonenscher (Indianopolis: Hackett, 2003); Murray Forsyth, Reason

and Revolution:

the Political

Thought of the Abbe Sieyes

(Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1987);

and Pasquale Pasquino,

Sieyes et Vlnvention de la Constitution en France (Paris: Odile

Jacob, 1998) 91.

D'Argenson, Considerations, 1764,

92.

The most

vivid

7; 1784, 15

and economical synoptic picture of France's

movement towards

revolution remains Georges Lefebvre's pre-war

The Coming of the French Revolution,

220

tr

R.R. Palmer (New York:

Not

Vintage, 1957). See also Jacques Godechot, The Taking of the Bastille, July

more

14th 1789,

recently

tr

Jean Stewart (London: Faber, 1970), and

Simon Schama's swashbuckling,

Chronicle of the French Revolution 1989).

(New

There are well-balanced treatments

Citizens:

A

York: Alfred Knopf, in

two books by William

Doyle, The Origins of the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford

The Oxford History of the French

University Press, 1980) and

Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), and Jones,

The Great Nation: France from Louis

XV to

in

Colin

Napoleon

(London: Allen Lane Penguin Press, 2002), 395-580. 93.

On

the cahiers see the classic analysis by Beatrice Hyslop, Guide to

the General Cahiers of 1789 Press, 1936),

and George

V.

(New

York: Columbia University

Taylor, 'Revolutionary

and Non-

revolutionary Content in the Cahiers', French Historical Studies, 7, 1972, 479-502. 94.

Goya's Disasters of War.

95.

Edmund

And

Arno

see

J.

Mayer, The Furies

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)

Burke, The Writings and Speeches, Vol VIII The French

Revolution 1790-1794, ed

L.J.

Mitchell (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1989) 96.

Despite the fact that he

is

often credited with just this contribution,

drawing the young General, Napoleon Bonaparte,

for

to the centre

of Parisian politics and collaborating with him in killing off the First Republic. For Sieyes's life see

de

la

Revolution franfaise

ideas see

(Paris:

Jean-Denis Bredin, Sieyes:

la

Cle

Editions du Fallois, 1988). For his

Murray Forsyth, Reason and Revolution. The most

accessible English-language version of his political

Michael Sonenscher's edition of Hackett, 2003) which contains

works

is

now

his Political Writings (Indianapolis:

all

three of the key pamphlets

written in 1788, along with a very subtle and suggestive Introduction. For French originals of these see Marcel Dorigny (ed),

Vol 97.

Oeuvres de Sieyes

(Paris:

Editions d'Histoire Sociale, 1989),

1.

Forsyth, Reason

and Revolution, 2

221

Democracy

98.

Vues sur

les

moyens

Political Writings,

99.

d' execution, 2 {Oeuvres, ed Dorigny, Vol

1)

ed Sonenscher, 5

Plato, Republic, tr Paul Shorey

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1935), 558C, Vol 2, 290-91: 'assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals 100.

Adam

and unequals

alike'

Smith, Lectures on jurisprudence, ed R.L. Meek, D.D.

Raphael, 6c P.G. Stein (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), esp 311-30, 401-4, 433-36. John Dunn, Rethinking

Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University 101.

Vues, 127 {Oeuvres, ed Dorigny, Vol

102.

Vues, 124-29 {Oeuvres, Vol

Modern

Press, 1985), chapter 3.

1); Political

1); Political

Political

Writings, 54

Writings, 53-55.

modified the translation here, and elsewhere, to make

it

I

have

more

literal.

103. Vues, 112-13 {Oeuvres, Vol

1); Political

Writings, 48

104. Vues, 114 {Oeuvres, Vol 1); Political Writings, 49

{Oeuvres, Vol

1); Political

Writings, 4

106. Vues, 3-4 {Oeuvres, Vol

1); Political

Writings, 5

105. Vues, 3;

1

107. Essai sur les privileges, 1-2 {Oeuvres, Vol 1); Political Writings, 69.

The

Essai was an essay

much an

assault

dominated the

on the idea of

privilege; but

on the highly particular array of

it

status system of ancien regime France.

article, in this case, carries

was

also very

privileges

The

which

definite

both senses.

108. Essai, 2 {Oeuvres, Vol 1); Political Writings, 70 109. Essai, 1-5 {Oeuvres, Vol

1); Political

Writings, 69-71

110. Essai, 14 {Oeuvres, Vol 1); Political Writings, 76. Sieyes cites as

evidence the shocked complaint of the Order of Nobility from the last

preceding meeting of the Estates General in 1614 that the

Third Estate, 'almost

all

the vassals of the

had the temerity to describe themselves

as

first

orders' should have

younger siblings of their

superiors {Political Writings, 90). 111. Essai, 53 {Oeuvres, Vol

1); Political

Writings, 74-5

112. £ss^/,18-25 {Oeuvres, Vol 1); Political Writings, 113. Essai,

29 {Oeuvres, Vol

1); Political

76-78

Writings, 80. This

is,

equally true of the inheritance of wealth in a capitalist

222

of course,

economy

Not,

and has remained an element of ideological vulnerability

(or, at

the

very least, of implausibility). 114. Essai, 37 {Oeuvres, Vol

1); Political

Writings, 84

40 {Oeuvres, Vol

1); Political

Writings, 85

115. Essai,

116. Qu'est-ce

que

Third Estate^

le tiers etatf, 1, 6,

9 {Oeuvres, Vol

1);

What

{Political Writings, 94, 96, 98). See Karl

is

the

Marx,

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law:

Marx

Introduction (Karl 3 (London: 117.

George

V.

& Frederick Engels,

& Wishart,

Lawrence

Collected Works, Vol

1975), 184-85).

Taylor, 'Non-capitalist Wealth and the Origins of the

French Revolution', American Historical Review, 62, 1967, 429-96; Colin Lucas, 'Nobles, Bourgeois and the Origins of the French

and

Revolution', Past

Present, 60, 1973, 84-126; Patrice Higonnet,

Class, Ideology and the Rights of Nobles during the French

Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981);

Guy Chaussinand-

Nogaret, The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: From

Feudalism to the Enlightenment,

Cambridge University

tr

William Doyle (Cambridge:

Press, 1985). For a powerful presentation of

the realities of the First Estate in

its

eighteenth-century setting see

John McManners, Church and Society

in

Eighteenth-Century

France, 1 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998),

summarizing 118. Sieyes, Essai,

a lifetime's research. 5?>

{Oeuvres, Vol

119. Sieyes, Tiers etat,

1

120. Sieyes, Tiers etat,

1;

1);

{Oeuvres, Vol

Political Writings,

Political Writings,

94

121. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 2; Political Writings,

94

122. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 2-3; Political Writings, 95 123. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 6; Political Writings, 96

124. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 4; Political Writings, 95 125. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 10; Political Writings, 98 126. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 10; Political Writings, 99 127. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 98; Political Writings, 147 128. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 6-9; Political Writings, 97 129. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 9; Political Writings, 98

223

90

1); Political Writings,

94

Democracy

130. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 16; Political Writings, 102 131. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 27; Political Writings, 107.

As the bloodshed of

the next twenty-five years placed beyond reasonable doubt, this

not a comparison to take lightly (Cf R.R. Palmer, Twelve

(New

Ruled: The Year of Terror in the French Revolution

Athenaeum,

was

who York:

1965), 218)

132. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 110; Political Writings, 158 133.

What 177.

is

the Third Estate?, ed S.E. Finer (London: Pall Mall, 1963),

The note does not appear

134. Sieyes, Political Writings, 147n.

in the

Dorigny edition.

The note does not appear

in the

Dorigny edition. 135. Sieyes, Political Writings, 147n. Finer, Third Estate,

196-97

translates vividly.

136. Sieyes, Tiers etat, 51; again Finer's translation: Third Estate, 96 137. R.R. Palmer, Political Science Quarterly, 1953 138. A. Dufourcq,

Le Regime Jacobin en

romaine 1798-99

(Paris: Perrin, 1900), 30;

Quarterly, 1953, 221 translates 139.

Thomas

Paine,

Italie:

more of

etude sur

la

Republique

Palmer, Political Science

the relevant text.

The Rights of Man, 176-77

140. Bredin, Sieyes, 525 141.

M. Crook,

Elections in the French Revolution (Cambridge:

On

Cambridge University

Press), 11.

during the Revolution

see, in addition to

Le Nombre (Paris:

et la

Raison:

la

the development of elections

Crook, Patrice Gueniffey,

revolution franfaise et

les elections

Gallimard, 1993).

142. Forsyth, 162-65; E.-J. Sieyes, Ecrits politiques, ed R. Zapperi (Paris:

Archives Contemporaines, 1985), 189-206; Crook, 30

143.

Crook, Elections, 31

144.

Crook, Elections, 33

145.

Crook, Elections, 33

146.

Crook, Elections, 34

147.

Maximilien Robespierre, Discours (Paris:

et

Union Generale des Editions,

148. Robespierre, Discours,

214

224

rapports a 1965), 213

la

Convention,

Notes

149. Robespierre, Discours, 216 150. Robespierre, Discours, 218 151. Robespierre, Discours^ 111

152. Robespierre, Discours, 111 153. Robespierre, Discours, 113

154. Robespierre, Discours, 111 For a spirited but impressively level.

headed analysis of

who

this

government

in action see Palmer,

Twelve

Ruled.

155. Robespierre, Discours, 236

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 1.

Cf John Dunn, The Cunning of Unreason (London: HarperCollins, 2000)

2.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk is

born

free;

and everywhere he

master of others, and did this change legitimate?

That question

Political Writings, 3.

Raymond

One

1,

chapter

1:

I

do not know. What can make

think

I

tr

I

'Man

thinks himself the

remains a greater slave than they

still

come about?

Contract and Discourses,

in chains.

is

How it

can answer.' {The Social

G.D.H. Cole (London: J.M. Dent),

5;

ed C.E. Vaughan (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962)

Geuss, Public Goods, Private Goods (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 2003), chapter 3 Res Publica. For the historical trajectory of the distinction

law see Peter Stein,

Roman Law

Cambridge University 4.

et

Union Generale des Editions,

M.I. Finley,

rapports a

la

Convention

1965), 213

Democracy Ancient and Modern (London: Hogarth

Press, 1985); Politics in the

University Press, 1983);

the

European History (Cambridge:

Press, 1999), 21 etc.

Maximilien Robespierre, Discours (Paris:

5.

in

between public and private

Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge

M.H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy

Age of Demosthenes (Oxford:

225

Blackwell, 1991)

in

Democracy

6.

George Rude, The Crowd Clarendon

and

French Revolution (Oxford:

Press, 1959); Albert Soboul,

the French Revolution 1793-94,

Clarendon 7.

in the

tr

The

Parisian Sans-Culottes

G. Lewis (Oxford:

Press, 1964)

Alexander Hamilton, Letter to Gouverneur Morris, 19 {Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Vol

Jacob 255):

E.

1,

Cooke (New York: Columbia

'When

May

ed Harold C. Syrett

1777

&

University Press, 1961),

the deliberative or judicial powers are vested wholly or

partly in the collective

confusion and

body of the people, you must expect

instability.

right of election

is

But a representative democracy, where the

well secured

legislative, executive

error,

and regulated

and judiciary

authorities,

& the exercise of the is

vested in select

my

persons chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in

opinion be most

likely to

be happy, regular and durable.'

Not

a

bad

judgement as prophecies go. 8.

Robespierre, Discours, 213

9.

Sylvain Marechal, Manifesto of the Equals (Filippo Michele

Buonarroti, Conspiration pour

I'egalite, dite

de Babeuf

{Paris:

Editions Sociales, 1957), Vol 2, 94-95: 'The French Revolution

is

only the precursor of another revolution, far greater, far more

solemn, which will be the 10.

last.'

Richard Cobb, The Police and the People: French Popular Protest

1789-1820 (Oxford: Clarendon 11.

Press, 1970),

3-81

Elizabeth Eisenstein, The First Professional Revolutionist: Filippo

Michele Buonarroti (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959) 12.

Jean Bruhat, 'La Revolution Fran^aise de Marx', Annales Historiques de 1966, 125-70

13.

Buonarroti, Conspiration, 26

14.

Buonarroti, Conspiration, 25

15.

Buonarroti, Conspiration, 26

16.

Buonarroti, Conspiration, 26-27

17.

Buonarroti, Conspiration, 28

226

la

et la

Formation de

la

Pensee

Revolution Franfaise, 48,

Note.

18.

Buonarroti, Conspiration, 33

19.

Buonarroti, Conspiration, 114

20.

Buonarroti, Conspiration, 114n

21.

Alexis de Tocqueville,

Democracy

in

America,

tr

&

ed Harvey C.

Mansfield &C Delba Winthrop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)

22.

For the sheer length of the time-span see Alexander Keyssar, The

Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy States

(New

in the

United

York: Perseus Books, 2000). For the complexity and

ambivalence of the protracted and

still

severely incomplete process

of political reconciliation to the outcome see especially Rogers

Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in

US

History

(New Haven:

Kettner,

The Development of American Citizenship 1608-1870

Yale University Press, 1997), and James H.

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978). 23.

Cf Bernard Williams, 'External and

Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1981),

24.

For a classic exposition of

Adam

Internal Reasons', in his

this point, see

Moral

101-13

Przeworski,

Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 25.

Elizabeth Eisenstein, The First Professional Revolutionist

26.

Cobb, The Police and the People

gives a withering verdict. For the

subsequent fate of the Democrats see Legacy: The Democratic

Isser

Movement under

Woloch, The jacobin the Directory

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), esp chapter 6 'The

Democratic Persuasion'. 27.

David Hume, 'Of the Moral,

Political

and

First Principles of

Literary, ed

Government', Essays

Eugene E Miller (Indianapolis:

Liberty Press, 1985), 32: 'Nothing appears more surprising, to those

who

consider

human

affairs

easiness with which the

many

implicit submission, with

and passions

means

this

with a philosophical eye, than the are governed by the few;

which men resign

to those of their rulers.

wonder

is

effected,

we

227

their

When we

own

and the

sentiments

enquire by what

shall find, that, as

FORCE

is

Democracy

always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to

support them but opinion.

government

is

It is

founded; and

therefore,

this

maxim

on opinion only that

extends to the most

despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free

Hume

and most popular.' The best picture of the conclusions which

drew from

28.

this insight

is still

Duncan

Forbes,

Hume's Philosophical

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).

Politics

Francois Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution, Forster (Cambridge:

attempt to political

France

de

tell

Cambridge University

en France

Peuple introuvable: histoire de

de

la

The

best

(unsurprisingly) in relation to

See Pierre Rosanvallon, Le Sucre du citoyen: Histoire

la suffrage universel

France

Elborg

the story continuously in relation to a single

community has been made

itself.

tr

Press, 1982).

(Paris:

la

(Paris:

Gallimard, 1992), Le

representation democratique en

Gallimard, 1998); La Democratie inachevee: Histoire

souverainte du peuple en France (Paris: Gallimard, 2000); Le

Modele

Politique Franfais: la societe civile contre le jacobinisme de

1789 a nos jours politics see Politics

(Paris:

John Dunn

Le

Seuil, 2004).

(ed).

For the context of modern

The Economic Limits

Modern

to

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) (especially

the chapter by Istvan Hont). 29.

Josiah Ober,

Mass and

Elite in

Democratic Athens (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1989); and Harvey Yunis, Taming

Democracy: Models of Rhetoric

in Classical

Athens

(Ithaca:

Cornell University Press, 1996) 30.

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Bks

I

&

II, tr

Charles Forster Smith (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1928),

31.

II, Ixv,

9,

pp 376-77

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy 3rd ed (London: George Allen

32.

See, for example,

&

Unwin, 1950), 285

Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue (Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000) 33.

The country

of which this

States of America;

is

least clearly true

is still

and the obstacles which stand

228

the United

in the

way of

its

Notes

doing so are

sriD a plain legacy

from the efforts by Madison and

his cx>lleagi]es to ensure that the United States should not be

they understood as a democrap'

'cf

what

Manin, 'Checks, Balances and

Boundaries% in Biancamaria R^r.rir i edV The Intention of the

Modem RepubUc (Cambridge: Ci 34.

Jack Goody;

D jmesticjtion of the Sjinge Slhui (Cambridge:

7';c

Cambridge Unir^rsity 35.

nmersity Press, 19^),

Press, 19

'

Cf Ronald Dworkin, Sot vrrrgyi Mrtuei John Rawls. Justice (Chsford: ClaroKlon Press, 19~2

;

A

Theory of

FbUtiod UbemUsm (New

York: Columbia Unii^rsity Press, 1993 36.

GA.

3".

The idea of

Cohen, If You're an EgaUtiritn,

How Come YoK'rr So Richf

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uniiersity Press, 2000) fixri

i.r.i :

glamour in:

remi^Te standards enjoyed an intense :he Resolution.

of time anc

-'--

of the wc»Tic led, arr

the inx

The view that measures

be drawn directly from the fabric

m antique superstitions or habits,

:

:

:

r

r

~

ings, to the creation

-

;

of a

new calendar and

"c system: cf Denis Gued). Le Metre du

rmmdt

AUTh:

:^uld

::l,2000h

Ken

Alder,

TV Mftis«?jpo/^

:0O4>.

,

38.

*US LciJier appeals to closest friend in the world', fmjncxj/ Tim^s,

39.

Joseph de Maistre, Works, ed

20NowEmber2003,p4 Macmillan. 1964 cfver

40.

.

whom? 0\^

93

It is

said that the people are soinereign; but

themselves, apparently:

The people

surely something equivocal

subiecL There

is

tor the people

which

C.V:

:

& tr Jack Liwhr New York:

if

not erroneous here,

command are not the people

Wedgwood, The

Trial

of Charles

I

are thus

w^iich

obey'

(London: Fontana, 1964

217 41.

Wedgwood,

42.

Bruce Cumings, North Korea: The Hermit Kingdom (London:

Trial

Prospect, 2003)

of Charles 1,71

,

Democracy

43.

Peter Holquist,

Making War, Forging Revolution (Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002); Philip Short, Pol Pot: The

History of a Nightmare (London: John Murray, 2004) 44.

45.

Plato,

The Republic, 558C,

Paul Shorey (Cambridge, Mass.:

tr

Harvard University

Press, 1935), Vol 2,

Benjamin Constant,

Political Writings,

290-91 ed Biancamaria Fontana

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 313-28

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 1.

The

best picture of Babeuf's political

to which he gave his

name,

attempt and prompt execution

is

at

Vendome,

aims

failed suicide

R.B. Rose, Gracchus Babeuf: The

Revolutionary Communist (London: Edwin Arnold, 1978).

There

is

no good reason to doubt Babeuf's commitment

democracy under 160-61, 380. third

the botched conspiracy

his defiant defence of a lifetime's

and convictions before the tribunal

First

life,

On

number of

less

to

extreme conditions throughout his

life:

4 July 1790, from the Conciergerie prison, his

Journal de

la

68,

in the

Confederation, he gave classic

expression to the most drastic vision of what democracy means:

'If

much

the People are the Sovereign, they should exercise as

sovereignty as they absolutely can themselves... to accomplish that

which you have to do and can do yourself use representation on the fewest possible occasions and be nearly always your

own

representative' (p 77). Easier said than done. For the final stage of his life see 325-26. 2.

Neil Harding, Lenin's Political Thought, 1 vols (London:

Macmillan, 1977 3.

&

1981)

Cf Jeremy Bentham's

verdict

Anarchical Fallacies, in

J.

Reform: Nonsense upon

on

full-fledged natural rights:

Bentham, Rights, Representation and Stilts

and Other Writings on

the French

Revolution, ed Philip Schofield, Catherine Pease- Watkin

& Cyprian

Blamires (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 317-434, esp 330.

230

Note s

4.

Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists: Popular Protest

in the

Wildwood House,

Industrial Revolution (Aldershot:

1986)

;

Gareth

Stedman Jones, Rethinking Chartism, Languages of Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 90-178; Mark Hovell, The Chartist

Movement

(Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 1918); Logic Barrow &: Ian Bullock, Defnocratic

and

Ideas

the British

Labour Movement 1880-1914 (Cambridge:

Cambridge University 5.

For Cavour see Dennis

Press, 1996)

Mack

Smith,

Italy:

A Modern

History (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), chapters 1-3; Denis

A

Smith, Cavour and Garibaldi:

Study

Mack

in Political Conflict

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Anthony Cardozo, 'Cavour and Piedmont', John A. Davis

Century (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2000), 108-31. For

Bismarck, A.J. P. Taylor, Bismarck: The

(London: Arrow Books, 1961);

^edl, Italy in the \inetee?ith

Man and the Statesman

Fritz Stern,

Gold and

Bismarck, Bleichroder and the Building of the

Iron:

German Empire

(London: George Allen &: Unwin, 1977). For Disraeli, Paul Smith, Disraeli:

A

Brief Life (Cambridge:

Cambridge University

Press,

1996); Edgar Feuchtwanger, Disraeli (London: Arnold, 2000);

6.

& Revolution

Maurice Cowling, 1867:

Disraeli,

(Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1967).

Gladstone

Proudhon thought and wrote about usually in a state

this issue over several decades,

of some anxiety and dismay For key episodes

see

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Idee Generale de la Revolution au xixe siecle,

ed

Aime Berthod

iParis:

Marcel Riviere, 1923), 210-14 and

344-45. For characteristic notes

see, e.g.

p 211:

directement, individuellement pour moi-meme; est a

mes yeux une

le

suffrage universel

vraie loterie^ \a complete lottery); p 208

'Gouvernement democratique contradictions, a

'Je veiix traiter

et Religion naturelle

sont des

moins quon ne prefere y voir deux mystifications.

Le peuple n'a pas plus voix consultative dans VEtat que dans VEglise: son role est d'obeir et de croire.'

demontree par

le

coup

d'etat

La Revolution Sociale

du deux decembre, ed Edouard

231

Democracy

Dolleans &; Georges Duveau &:

pp 288-97; De

Maxime Leroy III.

la

(Paris:

Marcel Riviere, 1936), chapter 3

Capacite Politique des Classes Ouvrieres, ed

(Paris:

Marcel Riviere, 1924), Pt

II,

chapter 15 6c Pt

For helpful presentations of his thinking as a whole see Robert

Hoffman, Revolutionary

The Social and

Justice:

Political

J.

Thought

of P-J Proudhon (Urbana: University of

Illinois Press, 1972)

Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

and

and K.

the Rise of French

Republican Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984). 7.

Cf Michael Mandlebaum, The Ideas that Conquered the World: Peace,

Democracy and Free Markets

Century

in the Twenty-first

(Oxford: Public Affairs Press, 2002) Tony Smith, America's

Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for

Democracy

John A.

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995);

Thompson, Woodrow Wilson (London: Longman, 2002) lucid

gives a

and balanced account. Note the firmness of Wilson

in stating

America's war aims to Congress, 2 April 1917: 'We shall fight for the things

we have always

carried closest to our hearts,

democracy, for the right of those voice in their

own governments,

nations, for a universal

who submit

itself at last free'

and

liberties of small

right by such a concert of free

peoples as shall bring peace and safety to

world

for

to authority to have a

for the rights

dominion of

-

all

make

nations and

the

(149-50). But note also the prudent

reservation a year later (remarks to foreign correspondents, 8 April 1918):

'I

am

not fighting for democracy except for the peoples

want democracy. (169, 185). 8.

Some

If

they don't want

it,

that

is

none of

Presidents learn slower than others:

Paul Bracken, The

Command and

my if

who

business'

at all.

Control of Nuclear Forces (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1982) 9.

John Erickson, The Road

to Stalingrad &c

The Road

to Berlin (both

London: Panther, 1985) 10.

Tony

Judt,

La Reconstruction du

parti socialiste

1921-1926

(Paris:

Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1976);

Socialism in Provence 1871-1914:

A

Modern French

Cambridge University

Left (Cambridge:

232

Study of the Origins of the Press,

Notes

1979); in

Marxism and

the French Left: Studies in

Labour and

Politics

France 1830-1981 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); George

Lichtheim, Marxism:

An

Historical

and

Critical Study

(London:

Routledge, 1961); Europe in the Twentieth Century (London:

Weidenfeld &C Nicolson, 1972) Annie Kriegel,

Aux

communisme

1966); Richard

franfais, 2 vols (Paris:

Lowenthal, World Faith

(New

Behind

Communism: The

Disintegration of a Secular

own

amongst much

else, the

thorny question

attitude towards democracy, in theory

practice. This epitomizes the opacity of the story recover,

Origines du

York: Oxford University Press, 1964).

this quarrel lay,

of Marx's

Mouton,

shrouded

in the

and

in

which we need to

dense competing smoke screens laid

down

by well over a century of global struggle. For representative disagreements, see besides the works of Lichtheim and Furet,

Shlomo

Avineri,

The Social and

Political

Thought of Karl Marx

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968); Oscar

The Red 48-ers (New York: Charles Marx's

Politics

Hunt, The

Scribner, 1969);

J.

Hammen,

Alan Gilbert,

(Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1981); Richard N.

Political Ideas

Marx and

of

Engels, 2 vols (London:

Macmillan, 1974); Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, 2 vols in 4

(New

York: Monthly Review Press, 1977-78); Leszek

Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism,

Clarendon

Democracy

Press, 1978);

tr

PS. Falla (Oxford:

Michael Levin, Marx, Engels and Liberal

(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989) &:

Democracy: The Rise of Modern Democracy

The Spectre of

as Seen by

its

Critics

(Macmillan: Basingstoke, 1992) and the Introduction by Gareth

Stedman Jones

to Karl

Marx

& Friedrich Engels,

The Communist

Manifesto (London: Penguin Books, 2002). 11.

Francois Furet, The Future of an Illusion,

tr

Deborah Furet

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) 12.

Cf

J.

Dunn, The

Politics

of Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1984); The

Cunning of Unreason (London:

HarperCollins, 2000)

233

Democracy

13.

George W. Bush, Financial Times,

Woodrow 14.

11

November

2003. Cf

Wilson, note 7 above.

Cf Paul Kennedy, The Rise and

Fall

of the Great Powers (London:

Fontana, 1989) 15.

Orlando

Figes,

A

People's Tragedy:

The Russian Revolution

1891-1924 (London: Pimlico, 1997), chapter Shanin, The

Awkward

6,

esp 232-41; Teodor

Class: Political Sociology of Peasantry in a

Developing Society: Russia 1910-1925 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972); Ceroid T. Robinson, Rural Russia under the

Old Regime

(Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1967). 16.

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, Oeuvres Completes, ed Charles Vellay (Paris:

An

II

Charpentier

prisons:

its

& Fasquelle,

1908),

'les

malheureux sont

droit de parler en maitres

[The unfortunate

II,

238 Speech of 8 Ventose

Convention on the contents of

(26 Feb 1794), a report to the les

puissances de

aux gouvernements qui

(the poor) are the

la terre; ils

ont

le

les negligent.'

powers of the earth; they have

every right to speak as masters to governments which neglect them,] 17.

Alexis de Tocqueville,

Mansfield

Democracy

& Delba Winthrop

in

America, ed &:

tr

Harvey

(Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 2000)

Dunn

Contemporary

18.

Cf

19.

Cf Samuel

Finer,

Clarendon

Press, 1997)

J.

(ed).

Crisis

of the Nation State?

(Oxford: Blackwell, 1995)

The

Fiistory

of Government 3 vols (Oxford:

Dunn, The Cunning of Unreason (London: HarperCollins, 2000)

20.

J.

21.

Mogens H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy

in the

Age of

Demosthenes (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) 22.

Benjamin Constant,

Political Writings,

ed Biancamaria Fontana,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 313-28 23.

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy 3rd ed (London: George Allen

&

Unwin, 1950), chapters 20-23; esp

chapter 23, 'The Inference'. For the

life

from which these

judgements emerged see Richard Swedberg, Schumpeter: Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

234

A

Noti

24.

And

Schumpeter, Capitalism, 285.

can always be made to do so by definition.'

really rule but they

Compare diary:

200);

two aphorisms gleaned from

the force of

aphorism

3:

see p 247: 'the people never

'Democracy

and aphorism

'To

18:

lie

is

government by

- what

his private

lying' (Swedberg,

distinguishes

man from

animals' (Swedberg, 201). 25.

Cf Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon

&

Schuster,

2001). For

what may be some of the consequences

Patterson,

The Vanishing Voter (New York: Vintage, 2003)

see

Thomas

&

Russell J Dalton, Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choice:

The

Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). For the ecological

context within which this seepage of interest

Harold Policy

L. Wilensky,

Rich Democracies:

& Performance

is

occurring see

Political

Economy, Public

(Berkeley, California: University of

California Press, 2002). 26.

For a particularly vivid example see Paul Ginsborg, Italy and

its

Discontents 1980-2001 (London: Penguin, 2001) 27.

Georges Sorel, Reflexions on Violence,

(New

York: Collier Books, 1961), 222.

tr

TE. Hulme

The

&

J.

Roth

whole of chapter 7,

'The Ethics of the Producers', remains a powerful indictment. 28.

Pierre Rosanvallon,

Le Sacre du Citoyen:

histoire

universel en France (Paris: Gallimard, 1992).

Athenian Democracy

in the

du

suffrage

Cf M.H. Hansen, The

Age of Demosthenes (Oxford:

Blackwell, 1991). 29.

Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000)

30.

Cf Thomas Hobbes, The Elements of Law, chapters

Human

(Hobbes,

Nature and De Corpore

Gaskin (Oxford: Oxford

and

for the strategic

Thomas

8

&

9

Politico, ed J.C.A.

University Press, 1994), 48-60, 138-39),

judgement which

issues

from

this vision

Hobbes, Leviathan, ed Richard Tuck (Cambridge:

Cambridge University

Press, 1991), chapter 11, p 70.

235

Democracy

31.

Cf

Adam

Sc A.L.

Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed D.D. Raphael

Macfie (Oxford: Clarendon

the order of egoism in privileged place

its

Press, 1976).

the cool eye of

heyday, the moral sentiments have

amongst other sentiments; and

or motivational pressure,

To

falls

no

their causal power,

plainly short of sundry other

sentiments. 32.

Francis Hutcheson,

Passions

An

Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the

and Affections with

(London: A. Ward

Ilustrations

etc, 1742). First

on the Moral Sense 3rd ed

ed 1728. The more sophisticated

diagnosticians of the order of egoism are disinclined to believe that there right.

is

a moral sense. There

is

good reason

to believe that they are

Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy

(London: Fontana, 1985); Shame and Necessity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). 33.

Robert

B.

Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).

Alan Ryan, John Dewey

and the High Tide of American Liberalism (London

34.

6c

New

York:

WW Norton,

1995).

Cf Geoff

Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in

Eley,

Europe 1850-2000 (New York: Oxford University

Democracy

Tocqueville,

36.

Hansen, The Athenian Democracy

in

Press, 2002)

America

35.

in the

Age of Demosthenes

(Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Marcel Detienne, Qui veut prendre

la

paroled (Paris: Seuil, 2003) 37.

John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government

38.

Paul Ginsborg, Silvio Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony

39.

Bernard Manin, The Principles of Representative Government

40.

David Butler &c Austin Ranney

(London: J.M. Dent, 1910), 180

(London: Verso, 2004)

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) (eds),

Referendums:

A

Comparative

Study of Practice and Theory (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1980) and Referendums around the World: The

Growing Use of Direct Democracy

236

(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994)

Notes

41.

Yannis Papadopoulos, Democratie Directe

42.

Amy Gutmann

&

Denis Thompson,

Why

(Paris:

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004);

James

Democracy and Deliberation (New Haven: Yale from

1991), accessible samples

Economica, 1998)

Democracyf

Deliberative

a very large

Fishkin,

S.

University Press,

body of recent

academic writing. 43.

Aristotle, Politics, tr

H. Rackham (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1932), 1281b-1284a, pp 220-41 (esp

& 44.

III, vii,

45.

4-10

12)

These remain intensely controversial

how

III, vi,

they could ever cease to be

criteria;

and

it is

hard to see

so.

Far the most elaborate and pertinacious attempt to think this idea

through has come

in the

massive oeuvre of Jiirgen Habermas. For

an impressively clear and sceptical assessment of the coherence see

Raymond

limits to

its

Geuss, The Idea of a Critical Theory

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). 46.

Thomas Hobbes, Elements of Law,

chapter 8

{Human

Nature,

48^9) 47.

John Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Empire 1878-1954 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979)

d>C

Aftermath of World War S.

Embracing Defeat: Japan II

in the

(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000); Alan

Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945-51

(London: Methuen, 1984) 48.

Sunil Khilnani,

The Idea of India (London: Hamish Hamilton,

1997); Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru:

A

Biography 3 vols

(London: Jonathan Cape, 1975-84); Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966) 49.

John

K

Fairbank

(ed).

The Chinese World Order: Traditional

Chinas Foreign Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968) 50.

For a particularly illuminating discussion see

Adam

Przeworski,

Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge

237

Democracy

University Press, 1985). For a vivid sketch of a great political leader

deeply dedicated to this world and to the party as

central

its

form

of agency see Tony Judt, The Burden of Responsibility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 29-85 on

Leon Blum.

51.

Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

52.

Paul Ginsborg, Silvio Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony

(London: Verso, 2004) 53.

J.

Dunn,

'Situating

Democratic Accountability',

Manin

Przeworski, Susan C. Stokes 6c Bernard

in

Adam

(eds).

Democracy,

Accountability and Representation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 329-44 54.

J.

Dunn

(ed).

The Economic Limits

to

Modern

Politics

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Dunn, Cunning of

Unreason 55.

David Held, Global Covenant (Cambridge:

Democracy and 56.

It

Polity, 2004);

the Global Order (Cambridge: Polity, 1995)

asks in effect for the re-creation of the Garden of Eden, to

harbour the great and natural community of mankind (John Locke,

Two

Treatises

of Government,

one community...

some reason proves

all

the rest of

and natural community')

this great

punctilious shared observance of the that for

para 128, ed

II,

(London: J.M. Dent, 1993), 179; 'he and

Law

of Nature

Mark Goldie mankind

are

in

itself.

Or,

if

unavailable, for equally punctilious

spontaneous observance of 'known standing laws' which

raise

and

no

contentious issues of judgement in their interpretation and provoke

no quarrels

in their

Contemporary

enforcement.

Compare

Political Significance of

Civil Society', Sunil Khilnani

Society: History

and

&

238

Dunn, 'The

John Locke's Conception of

Sudipta Kaviraj (eds). Civil

Possibilities

University Press, 2001), 39-57.

J.

(Cambridge: Cambridge

INDEX

Adams, John 80

Babeuf, Gracchus 124, 126, 127,

Aemilianus, Scipio 55-6

129, 130, 136-7, 138, 139, 143,

Aeschylus 30

145, 150-52, 160-61, 169, 171,

Algeria 91

179

Alkibiades 44

Apology

(Plato)

Aquinas, St

Bartolus of Sassoferrato 58

Behemoth (Hobbes) 60

44

Thomas

Belgium 88-91

58

D'Argenson, Rene-Louis de Voyer

Pro Aris

de Paulmy, Marquis 93-7, 104

democracy

90-91, 111 48, 104

Bismarck, Otto von 153

Aristotle 30, 39-40, 41-2, 46-50,

Blair,

Tony

138, 150, 151, 184

Bolshevik Revolution 143

56,58,59, 151, 178 15, 16, 18, 21,

89

Berlusconi, Silvio 184

France 93, 96-100, 120

Aristophanes 30

Athens

in

Bentham, Jeremy

aristocracy 64, 87, 121, 125, 133 in

et Focis

Bosch, Andreu 59

24-^4, 68,

Boule 36, 57

113, 132, 151, 164-5, 167

Brabant 89, 90, 98

see also Greece

Brienne, Lomenie de 99

Austrian Netherlands see Belgium

Britain 13, 18,72, 102, 120, 153,

154

239

Democracy

and American War of

of Equals 123-4, 133, 143, 145,

Independence 71-2, 75

150-51, 157, 160

and colonialism 180 English Civil

War

Constant, Benjamin 63, 146, 165

41, 60, 70

constitution

American

political representation in 80

72, 73, 74, 81-2, 83,

Brunswick, Duke of 85, 88, 89

98,

Buonarroti, Filippo Michele

amendments

123-6, 127, 129-30, 136-7, 143,

Edmund

to 74

convention 75—6, 80

French 75-6, 80

145, 161, 185, 186

Burke,

125-6

102, 112-13

Constitution of Athens (Aristotle)

Bush, George W. 138, 140, 151,

30,40

158-9

Contrat Social (Rousseau) 120 Court, Johan de

la

59

capitalism 53, 149-50, 186-7

Court, Pieter de

la

59

Cavour, Count 153

Crito (Plato) 44

King

Charles

I,

Charles

II,

64, 142

Cultural Revolution 143

King 64

Chiaramonti, Cardinal Barnaba,

Declaration of the Rights of

and

Bishop of Imola 112, 113

the Citizen (France)

114-15

Chile 158

Chma

Man

Delft Free Corps 84-6

53, 176, 180-81

Christianity not Mysterious

democracy 13-19, 24-6,

42, 128-9,

168-79, 184-8

(Toland) 61

21,52-3, 149

citizenship 27, 35, 114—17, 163

capitalist 20,

coercion 132, 145, 188

Christian 112

Cold War 157

as

form of government

15, 17, 18,

Committee of Public Safety

19-21, 26-9, 31, 47-50, 66, 104,

(France) 116, 121, 161

130-32, 133, 137-9, 141-3, 150,

Common

Sense (Paine) 112

communism

Considerations sur

la

170-80, 183-8 global 181-8

le

gouvernement ancien de

152-5, 157-8, 160, 162-9,

143, 152, 157, 180

malignity of 41, 43-7, 50, 57, 61,

et present

France (D'Argenson) 93-6

103^,

18^5

conspiracy 129-30

240

128, 151, 173-4, 183,

Index

modern

and Romans 55-8

39, 40-42, 50-52, 63,

69-70, 71-188

in

opulence and 127-30, 151, 158,

98,113,125-8,129,135,140,

178-9

152, 155, 156,158-61, 180

order of egoism and 126-7, 134,

Democracy

137-8, 144-7, 156, 157, 158,

in

America

(Tocqueville) 73

160-61, 168, 170-71, 174, 178-9

Demosthenes 30

peacetime 68

in

United States 72-3, 77-84, 91,

Desmoulins, Camille 115

as political concept 15-16, 17-18,

Dewey, John 172

20-21, 27-38, 41-2, 46, 91, 114,

Dio, Cassius 55

116-18, 130-32, 134-6, 138,

Discours sur

140, 141-2, 149, 150, 151-2,

I'inegalite

157, 162, 171-4,

les origines

parmi

les

de

hommes

(Rousseau) 94

180-84, 188

Disraeli,

Benjamin 153

representative 63, 78-9, 104-5, 122, 160, 179-87

economies 134-5, 149-50, 158

terrorism and 158-9

word

capitalist 53, 149-50,

15, 16-17, 18, 19, 20-21,

23^,

34, 38, 46, 50-54, 57-8,

137-8, 144-7, 156, 157, 158,

160-61, 168, 170-71, 174,

59, 60-61, 71, 72, 125, 130-35,

178-9, 186, 188

137, 139, 141-2, 150, 151, 155,

equality 45, 69, 77, 81, 124-5, 126,

156-7, 159-64, 166-9, 175,

185-7 in

186-7

egoism, order of 126-7, 134,

128-30, 136, 137-8, 143-7, 150, 152-3, 170-71

Athens 15-44, 51, 68, 78-9,

Equals, Conspiracy of 123-4, 133,

113, 121, 132, 150, 151, 160,

143,145, 150-51,157,160,169

164-5, 167, 174-5, 183, 184 in

Belgium 90-91, 111

in

Europe 84-5,

in

France 86-9, 92-8, 110, 111-18,

in

Germany

Essai sur les privileges (Sieyes)

105-6, 108

88, 92, 111-14,

Estates General 99, 100, 103,

125, 130, 153, 154, 155-6, 180

105-6, 107-10, 114

119-25, 167 fascism 102, 156, 180

111

Federalist,

in Italy 111 in

Netherlands 59, 84-7, 111

First

241

The

75, 76, 78, 80, 128

World War

91, 139, 155

D e m o c ra c y

France

14,

democracy

16-17,91, 105, 153

in 111

aristocracy 93, 96-100, 120

Second World War 156

Committee of Public

Third Reich 156

Safety 116,

Girondins 125

121, 161

Conspiracy of Equals 123^,

Gladstone, William Ewart

government 19

143, 145, 150-51, 157

democracy

constitution 105, 115

democracy

in

form of

15, 17, 18,

130-32, 133, 137-9, 141-3, 150,

Estates General 99, 100, 103,

152-5, 157-8, 160, 162-9,

170-80, 183-8

105-6, 107-10, 114

Gracchus, Gaius 55

First Estate 98

Greece

98, 110

Third Estate 100, 107-10, 114

13, 14, 16, 17, 26, 31, 34-5,

46, 130

franchise 114-15

Franco-Prussian

as

19-21, 26-9, 31, 47-50, 66, 104,

86-9, 92-8, 110,

111-18, 119-25, 167

Second Estate

73^

forms of government

War

167

in 42, 121

see also Athens, Sparta

Jacobin Terror 63, 112, 115, 123,

Gregoire,

Abbe 115

Grote, George 40, 41

161

monarchy

72, 93-9, 100, 101,

Hamilton, Alexander 74-5,

111, 120

National Assembly 114, 125

82,

122, 128

republic 116-18, 120-21

Hannibal 56

Revolution 14, 16-17, 71-2, 74,

Harrington, James 61

86,89,90,97-118, 119-20,

Hellas see Greece

121^

Herodotus 30, 34

Second Empire 153

Histories (Polybius) 55

Thermidor

History (Thucydides) 25-7, 38,

92, 123, 125, 129, 151

Franco-Prussian

War

40,42

167

Free Political Propositions

and

Hitler,

Adolf 156

Hobbes, Thomas 41, 45, 48, 60,

Considerations of State (Van

den Enden) 59

61-2, 63-4, GG

Hogendorp, Gijsbert Karel van 87

Gaza 159

Germany

Holland see Netherlands

Hong Kong

140, 153, 180

242

180

Index

Huguenots 96

Hume, David

Kritias 44

132 labour, division of 173, 177

imperialism 53

Latrobe, Benjamin 83

India 180

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von 67

Indonesia 158

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich 152, 156

Iran 131

Leopold

Iraq 13, 23-4, 140-41

Levellers 60, 70

Ireland,

Northern 159

63>,

68-9, 73, 75,

76, 85, 101, 125, 146, 147

Louis XIV, King 72, 96

Isocrates 30

Italy

Emperor 90

liberty 45-6, 58,

Islam 58

Israel

II,

Louis XVI,

159

Kmg 99

58-9, 175

democracy

in

Mably, Gabriel Bonnot de 93

111

Macedon 34

Fascists 156

Madison, James 74-9,

113, 122, 128-9, 130, 134, 154,

Jacobin Terror 63, 102, 112, 115,

185

123, 161

James, Henry 83

Japan Jay,

Maistre, Joseph de 142

Marx, Karl

81, 140, 156, 180

Thomas

Joseph

Emperor

107, 123, 135

Mazzei, Philip 83

John 74-5, 80

Jefferson, II,

81, 82-3,

media 175

76, 80 88, 89, 90

Mill,

John Stuart 175

Milton, John 61

Joyeuse Entree 89

Mirabeau, Honore Gabriele

Kashmir 159

Riqueti,

Kent, James 83

Mitylene 38

Khatami, President 131

monarchy

Khmer Rouge

Comte de

93, 102

64, 113, 117, 133

French72,93-9, 100, 101, 111,

143

120

Kleisthenes 16, 33-4, 35, 43

Montesquieu, Charles Louis de

Korea

Secondat, Baron de 93

Democratic and Popular

Morocco 120

Republic of (North) 143

South 158

243

Democracy

politeia 47-8, 59

Nantes, Edict of 96

Napoleon, Emperor 63, 86-7,

92,

Politics (Aristotle) 40, 49, 56,

Necker, Jacques 99, 100

Pro Aris

Nemours, Dupont de 115

Ptolemy of Lucca 58

Netherlands 67, 68, 88, 120

Public Safety,

Delft Free

Corps 84-6

democracy

58

Polybius 55-7

111, 120, 153

et Focis

89

Committee of

116,

121, 161

in 59, 84-7, 111

House of Orange 84-5,

Quesnay, Francois 93

87, 89

Patriot Revolt 84-5, 89

Notes on the State of Virginia

Radicati di Passerano, Alberto 71 referenda 176-8

(Jefferson) 80

Renaissance 57 representation 78-80, 113

ochlocracy 57, 67 Oligarch, Old 27-9, 43, 130

democratic 63, 78-9, 104-5, 122, 160, 179-87

opulence 127-30, 132, 151, 158, 178-9, 188

legislative

Orange, House of 84-5, 87, 89

154

republic 75, 77-8, 116-17, 120-21,

133 Paine,

Tom

Republic (Plato) 42-3, 44-7

112-13, 114

Patriot Revolt (Netherlands) 84-5,

revolution 72

Bolshevik 143

89 Paullus, Aemilius 55

Peloponnesian

War

Cultural 143

French 14, 16-17, 71-2, 74, 86,

25, 27, 38, 41,

44

89, 90, 97-118, 119-20,

Revolutions de France

Pericles 25-7, 28-9, 32, 34, 35, 37,

persuasion 132-3

Rights of

Man, The

(Burke)

112-13

Physiocrats 93 Pius VII, Pope see Cardinal

Robespierre, Maximilien 92, 102,

Barnaba Chiaramonti

39^0, 41-7,

de

Brabant, Les 115

43, 130, 132-3, 166-7, 184

Plato 27, 30,

et

121^

103, 112, 114, 115-18, 119-22, 125, 138, 150,

103,

160, 161, 185

145, 151, 174, 183

Romans

Poland 111

244

53-7, 58

Index

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 93, 94,

Switzerland 96, 177

120, 124

Taiwan

Russia 159, 160, 180 see also

USSR

158, 176

taxation 146 terrorism 158-9

Saint-Just, Louis

Antoine 161

Thailand 120

Saudi Arabia 163

Thermidor

Schumpeter,Joseph 133, 165, 184

Third Reich 102, 156

Second World War 91, 139, 155,

Thucydides 25-7, 28-9, 30, 38,

39^2, 133

156, 180 Sidney,

Algernon 68

Sieyes,

Emmanuel Joseph

Tiberius 55 Tocqueville, Alexis de 73, 126,

96,

102-11, 113, 114, 122, 134, 169,

161, 174

Toland, John 61, 71

185

Tractatus Politicus (Spinoza) 65, 67

slavery in

Greece 27, 35

in

United States 81, 82, 84, 126

Smith,

Adam

Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Spinoza) 65

103, 104, 134

Social

Democrats 157

social

mechanics 103, 105

Turgot,

23

Socrates 43-4

United States of America

Solon 32-3

18, 26, 53, 102, 140,

Union

see

Bill

USSR

civil

of Rights 74

war

74, 82

constitution of 72, 73, 74, 81-2,

Sparta 34 see also Greece

83, 98,

125-6

amendments

Spinoza, Benedict de 59, 61, 64-8 Stalin,

13, 14,

182

aftermath of 9/11 158-9

Georges 166-7

South Africa 129 Soviet

Anne Robert Jacques 93

United Nations Security Council

socialism 156-7

Sorel,

92, 123, 125, 129, 151

to 74

convention 75-6, 80

Joseph 102

democracy and 72-3, 77-84,

stewardship 165-6

91,

Stolypin, Pyotr 160

98, 113, 125-8, 129, 135, 140,

Swarzenegger, Arnold 184

152, 155,

Sweden

156, 158-61, 180

120, 130

245

Democracy

Victoria,

equality in 81, 126

independence

14, 76, 98,

112-13

Views of the Executive Means (Sieyes) 104, 105

declaration of 76

war of

14,

71-5

invasion of Iraq and 13, 23,

Queen 73

virtue 118

Vonck 89-91 Vietnam, South 158

140-41 Judiciary Act 74 legislature 80, 126

presential

campaigns 168

Washington, George 82

West Bank 159

What

referenda 177

USSR

Wilhelmina, Princess of Orange

85,87

156-8

democracy

the Third Estate? (Sieyes)

108, 110-11

as republic 75, 77-8, 82 slavery in 81, 82, 84, 126

is

in

157

disintegration of 140, 157,

180-81

William of Moerbeke, Friar 58 Wilson, Witt,

see also Russia

Woodrow

Johan de

women,

155

67, 68

exclusion of 27, 35, 65^

114-15, 136, 154, 163, 170

Van den Enden, Franciscus 59

Van der Noot

89, 90

Xenophon

246

see

Old Oligarch

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s

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its

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its

slow but insistent metamorroots in ancient

overwhelming triumph

A

Democracy:

account of

History this

is

Greece

to

its

in the years since 1945, a

unique and

brilliant

extraordinary idea and

its

evolution.

1

.^.V.,|

^r^

A is

Fellow of King's College,

JOHN DUNN

professor of political theory at

University.

He

is

Cambridge

the author of TAe Cunning of

Unreason and Western Political Theory in of the Future.

;/*''

Jacket design by Daniel Rembcrt Author photograph by Ruth Scurr

Atlantic

Monthly Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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