The respective duties of State and citizen vary according to the particular form taken by a State. These forms are not the same in what is known as an aristocracy, a democracy or a monarchy. It is therefore of importance to know what these different forms represent and what the origin and basis are of the one that is becoming fairly general in European societies. It is only on these terms that we can understand the origin and basis of our civic duties of the present day.
Ever since the time of Aristotle, States have been classified according to the number of those who have a part in the government. “When the people taken as a whole have sovereign power” says Montesquieu, “it is a democracy. When the sovereign power is in the hands of a section of the people, it is called an aristocracy.” (De l’Esprit des Lois, Bk II, ch. II.) The monarchic government is one in which a single individual governs. For Montesquieu, however, it is only a true monarchy if the king governs according to fixed and established laws. When, on the other hand, “a single individual, without law or statutes, drives all before him by his will and his caprices,” (Ibid, Bk. II, ch. I) the monarchy takes the name of despotism. Thus, apart from this matter of there being a constitution or not in existence, it is by the number of those governing that Montesquieu defines the form of a State.
It is true that later on in his book, when he examines the sentiment that is the mainspring of each of these kinds of government, such as honour, valour or fear, he shows that he had a sense of the qualitative differences seen in these varying types of State. For him, however, these qualitative differences are only the result of the purely quantitative differences which we referred to in the first instance and he derives the qualitative from the quantitative. The nature of the sentiment that has to act as driving force for the collective activity is determined by the very number of those governing and so are all the details of organization.
But this way of defining various political forms is as common as it is superficial. To begin with, what are we to understand by ‘the number of those governing’? Where does it begin and where end, this governmental organ whose varied forms are to determine the form of the State? Does this mean the aggregate of all those who are appointed to conduct the affairs in general of the country? But all these powers are never or almost never, concentrated in the hands of a single individual. Even though a ruler be absolute, he is always surrounded by advisers and ministers who share these functions for control by rule. Seen from this angle, there are only differences of degree between a monarchy and an aristocracy. A sovereign has always about him a host of officials and dignitaries often as powerful as himself or even more so. Should we consider for our purposes only the highest level of the government organ, the level where the supreme powers are concentrated? I mean those powers which—to use the old term of political theory—appertain to the sovereign. Is it the Head of State alone whom we have in mind? In that case, we should have to keep distinct the State with a single Head, the State with a council of individuals and the State where everyone takes a hand. By this reckoning, seventeenth century France, for example, and a centralized republic like our own present-day France or the United States Republic, would all come under the same heading and would all alike be classed as monarchies. In all these instances there is a single individual at the summit of the monarchy with its officials, and it is his title alone that varies according to the society.
On the other hand, what are we to understand by the words ‘to govern’? To govern, it is true, means to exercise a positive control over the course of public affairs. In this respect, a democracy may not be distinguishable from an aristocracy. Indeed, very often, it is the will of the majority that shapes the law, without the views of the minority having the slightest influence. A majority can be as oppressive as a caste. It may even very well happen that the minority is not represented at all in the government councils. Remember, too, that in any case, women, children and adolescents—all those who are prevented from voting for one reason or another—are kept off the electoral lists. The result is that the lists in fact comprise only the minority of the nation. And since those elected represent only the majority in these constituencies, they represent in fact a minority of the minority. In France, out of a population of 38 million, there were in 1893 only 10 million electors; out of these 10 million, 7 million alone made use of their voting rights, and the deputies elected by these 7 million represented only 4,592,000 votes. Taking the whole electorate, 5,930,000 voters were not represented, that is to say, a greater number of voters than those who had returned the deputies elected. Thus, if we confine ourselves to numbers, we have to admit that there has never been a democracy. At the very most we might say—to show where it differs from an aristocracy—that under an aristocratic system the governing minority are established once and for all, whereas in a democracy, the minority that carries the day may be beaten to-morrow and replaced by another. The difference, then, between them is only slight.
Apart from this rather dialectic treatment, there is one historical fact that throws some light on how inadequate these ordinary definitions are.
These definitions would indeed have us approximate types of States that lie, so to speak, at the opposite extremes of evolution. In fact we give the name democracy to those societies where everyone has a share in directing communal life and the word exactly suits the most inferior forms of political society known to us. This description applies to the structure that the English call tribal. A tribe is made up of a certain number of clans. Each clan is ruled by the group itself; when there is a chieftain, his powers are without much force, and the confederation is ruled by a council of representatives. In some respects it is the same system as our own. This resemblance has given weight to the argument that democracy is essentially archaic as a form of society and that an attempt to establish it in present-day societies would be throwing civilization back to its primitive beginnings and reversing the course of history. It is these lines of thought that are sometimes used to draw a parallel between socialist planning and the economic life of communism in the ancient world, in order to demonstrate its alleged futility. We must recognize that in both cases the conclusion would be justified if the postulate were right, that is, if the two forms of social structure here assumed to be the same, were in very fact identical. True, there is no form of government to which the same criticism might not apply, at least, if we confine ourselves to the foregoing definitions. Monarchy is hardly less archaic than democracy. Very often clans or federated tribes were brought together under the hand of an absolute ruler. The monarchy in Athens and in Rome came before the Republic, in time. All these ambiguities are merely a proof that the various types of State should be defined in some other way.
To find an appropriate definition, let us look back to what has been said of the nature of the State in general. The State, we said, is the organ of social thought. That does not mean that all social thought springs from the State. But there are two kinds. One comes from the collective mass of society and is diffused throughout that mass; it is made up of those sentiments, ideals, beliefs that the society has worked out collectively and with time, and that are strewn in the consciousness of each one. The other is worked out in the special organ called the State or government. The two are closely related. The vaguely diffused sentiments that float about the whole expanse of society affect the decisions made by the State, and conversely, those decisions made by the State, the ideas expounded in the Chamber, the speeches made there and the measures agreed upon by the ministries, all have an echo in the whole of the society and modify the ideas strewn there. Granted that this action and reaction are a reality, there are even so two very different forms of collective psychic life. The one is diffused, the other has a structure and is centralized. The one, because of this diffusion, stays in the half-light of the sub-conscious. We cannot with certainty account for all these collective preconceptions we are subject to from childhood, all these currents of public opinion that form here and there and sway us this way and that. There is nothing deliberately thought out in all this activity. There is something spontaneous, automatic, something unconsidered, about this whole form of life. Deliberation and reflection, on the other hand, are features of all that goes on in the organ of government. This is truly an organ of reflection: although still in a rudimentary stage, it has a future of progressive development. There all is organized and, above all, organized increasingly to prevent changes being made without due consideration. The debates in the assemblies—a process analogous to thought in the individual—have the precise object of keeping minds very clear and forcing them to become aware of the motives that sway them this way or that and to account for what they are doing. There is something childish in the reproaches directed at deliberative assemblies as institutions. They are the sole instruments that the collectivity has to prevent any action that is unconsidered or automatic or blind. Therefore there exists the same contrast between the psychic life diffused throughout society and the parallel life concentrated and worked out especially in governmental organs, as exists between the diffused psychic life of the individual and his clear consciousness. Within every one of us, then, there is at all times a host of ideas, tendencies and habits that act upon us without our knowing exactly how or wherefore. To us they are hardly perceptible and we are unable to make out their differences properly. They lie in the subconscious. They do however affect our conduct and there are even individuals who are moved solely by these motives. But in the part of us that is reflective there is something more. The ego that it is, the conscious personality that it represents, does not allow itself to follow in the wake of all the obscure currents that may form in the depths of our being. We react against these currents; we wish to act with full knowledge of the facts, and it is for this reason that we reflect and deliberate. Thus, in the centre of our consciousness, there is an inner circle upon which we attempt to concentrate light. We are more clearly aware of what is going on there, at least of what is going on in the underlying regions. This central and relatively clear consciousness stands to the nameless and indistinct representations that form the sub-stratum of our mind, as does the scattered collective consciousness of the society to the consciousness lying in the government. Once we have grasped what the special features of this consciousness are and that it is not merely a reflexion of the obscure collective consciousness, the difference between the various forms taken by the State is easily recognized.
And so we perceive that this government consciousness may be concentrated in the organs that have rather limited scope, or again, may be spread through the society as a whole. Where the government organ is jealously guarded from the eyes of the many, all that happens within it remains unknown. The dense mass of society receives the effect of its actions without taking part, even at a distance, in its discussions and without perceiving the motives that decide those who govern on the measures they decree. As a result, what we have called the government consciousness remains strictly localized in these particular spheres, that are never very extensive. But it sometimes happens that these, as it were, watertight bulkheads that separate this particular milieu from the rest of the society are less impervious. It does occur that a great deal of the action taken in this milieu is done in the full light of day and that the debates there may be so conducted as to be heard by all. Then, everyone is able to realize the problems set and the circumstances of the setting and the at least apparent reasons that determine the decisions made. In this case, the ideas, sentiments, decisions, worked out within the governmental organs do not remain locked away there; this whole psychic life, so long as it frees itself, has a chain of reactions throughout the country. Every one is thus able to share in this consciousness sui generis and asks himself the questions those governing ask themselves; every one ponders them, or is able to. Then, by a natural reversal, all the scattered reflections that ensue in this way, react on the governmental thought which was their source. From the moment that the people set themselves the same questions as the State, the State, in solving them, can no longer disregard what the people are thinking. It must be taken into account. Hence the need for a measure of consultation, regular or periodic. It is not because the custom of such consultations had become established that governmental life was communicated the more to the citizens, taken as a whole. It is because such communication had previously become established of itself that these consultations became imperative. And the fact that has given rise to such communication is that the State has ceased more and more to be what it was over a long era; that is, a kind of mysterious being to whom the ordinary man dared not lift his eyes and whom he even, more often than not, represented to himself as a religious symbol. The representatives of the State bore the stamp of a sacred character and, as such, were set apart from the commonalty. But by the gradual flow of ideas the State has little by little lost this kind of transcendence that isolated it within itself. It drew nearer to men and men came to meet it. Communications became closer and thus, by degrees, this circuit—just described—was set up. The governmental power, instead of remaining withdrawn within itself, penetrated down into the deep layers of the society, there received a new turn of elaboration and returned to its point of departure. All that happens in the milieux called political is observed and checked by every one, and the result of this observing and checking and of the reflections they provoke, reacts on the government milieux. By these signs we recognize one of the distinctive features of what is usually called democracy.
We must therefore not say that democracy is the political form of a society governing itself, in which the government is spread throughout the milieu of the nation. Such a definition is a contradiction in terms. It would be almost as if we said that democracy is a political society without a State. In fact, the State is nothing if it is not an organ distinct from the rest of society. If the State is everywhere, it is nowhere. The State comes into existence by a process of concentration that detaches a certain group of individuals from the collective mass. In that group the social thought is subjected to elaboration of a special kind and reaches a very high degree of clarity. Where there is no such concentration and where the social thought remains entirely diffused, it also remains obscure and the distinctive feature of the political society will be lacking. Nevertheless, communications between this especial organ and the other social organs may be either close or less close, either continuous or intermittent. Certainly in this respect there can only be differences of degree. There is no State with such absolute power that those governing will sever all contact with the mass of its subjects. Still, the differences of degree may be of significance, and they increase in the exterior sense with the existence or non-existence of certain institutions intended to establish the contact, or according to the institutions’ being either more or less rudimentary or more or less developed in character. It is these institutions that enable the people to follow the working of government (national assembly—parliament, official journals, education intended to equip the citizen to one day carry out his duties—and so on …) and also to communicate the result of their reflections (organ for rights of franchise or electoral machinery) to the organs of government, directly or indirectly. But what we have to decline at all costs is to admit a concept which (by eliminating the State entirely) opens a wide door to criticism. In this sense, democracy is just what we see when societies were first taking shape. If every one is to govern, it means in fact that there is no government. It is collective sentiments, diffused, vague and obscure as they may be, that sway the people. No clear thought of any kind governs the life of peoples. Societies of this description are like individuals whose actions are prompted by routine alone and by preconception. This means they could not be put forward as representing a definite stage in progress: rather, they are a starting point. If we agree to reserve the name democracy for political societies, it must not be applied to tribes without definite form, which so far have no claim to being a State and are not political societies. The difference, then, is quite wide, in spite of apparent likeness. It is true that in both cases—and this gives the likeness—the whole society takes part in public life but they do this in very different ways. The difference lies in the fact that in one case there is a State and in the other there is none.
This primary feature, however, is not enough. There is another, inseparable from it. In societies where it is narrowly localised, the government consciousness has, too, only a limited number of objects within its range. This part of public consciousness that is clear is entirely enclosed within a little group of individuals and it is in itself also only of small compass. There are all sorts of customs, traditions and rules which work automatically without the State itself being aware of it and which therefore are beyond its action. In a society such as the monarchy of the seventeenth century the number of things on which government deliberations have any bearing is very small. The whole question of religion was outside its province and along with religion, every kind of collective prejudice and bias: any absolute power would soon have come to grief if it had attempted to destroy them. Nowadays, on the other hand, we do not admit there is anything in public organization lying beyond the arm of the State. In principle, we lay down that everything may for ever remain open to question, that everything may be examined, and that in so far as decisions have to be taken, we are not tied to the past. The State has really a far greater sphere of influence nowadays than in other times, because the sphere of the clear consciousness has widened. All those obscure sentiments which are diffusive by nature, the many habits acquired, resist any change precisely because they are obscure. What cannot be seen is not easily modified. All these states of mind shift, steal away, cannot be grasped, precisely because they are in the shadows. On the other hand, the more the light penetrates the depths of social life, the more can changes be introduced. This is why those of cultivated mind, who are conscious of themselves, can change more easily and more profoundly than those of uncultivated mind. Then there is another feature of democratic societies. They are more malleable and more flexible, and this advantage they owe to the government consciousness, that in widening has come to hold more and more objects. By the same token, resistance is far more sharply defined in societies that have been unorganized from the start, or pseudo-democracies. They have wholly yielded to the yoke of tradition. Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries, too, are a good example of this resistance.
To sum up, there is not, strictly speaking, any inherent difference between the various forms of government; but they all lie intermediate between two contrasting schemes. At one extreme, the government consciousness is as isolated as possible from the rest of the society and has a minimum range … [sic]
A difficulty comes perhaps in distinguishing between the two kinds of society, aristocratic and monarchic. The closer communication becomes between the government consciousness and the rest of society, and the more this consciousness expands and the more things it takes in, the more democratic the character of the society will be. The concept of democracy is best seen in the extension of this consciousness to its maximum and it is this process that determines the communication.