Having defined the nature of democracy, we have seen that the concept and practice of it may be of a kind to change that nature seriously for the worse. In essence, it is a system where the State, whilst remaining distinct from the mass of the nation, is closely in communication with it and where its activity therefore reaches some degree of mobility. Now, we have seen that in some cases, this close communication may go so far as to be an almost complete fusion. Instead of being a well-defined organ, the centre of an original life of its own, the State then becomes merely an offprint of the life underlying it. It does no more than translate what individuals think and feel, in a different notation. Its role is no longer that of elaborating new ideas and new points of view—a task for which its framework fits it. No, its main functions consist of reckoning what the ideas and sentiments are that have the widest circulation, those of ‘the majority’, as they say. The State is the result of this very reckoning. The election of deputies simply means counting the supporters of certain opinions in the country. Such a concept is, however, contrary to the idea of a democratic State, since it eliminates almost entirely the very idea of the State. I say ‘almost entirely’, for the fusion is of course never complete. The very force of circumstances makes it impossible for the mandate given to a deputy to be framed in such definite terms as to bind him completely. Some slight lee-way of initiative must always remain. But at any rate there is the tendency to reduce that lee-way. It is in this sense that any such political system approximates to what we observe in primitive societies, for in both cases the governmental power is weak. But there is this vast difference, all the same, that in the one case the State does not yet exist, or exists only in embryo, whilst in this variant of democracy it is, on the contrary, quite often very far developed, with an extensive and complex structure. And it is just this twofold, contradictory aspect that best shows the abnormal character of the phenomenon. On the one hand we have a mechanism that is complex and ingenious, the multiple cogwheels of a vast administration; on the other, a concept of the part played by the State that represents a return to the most primitive of political forms. Hence, a strange mixture of inertia and activity. The State does not move of its own power, it has to follow in the wake of the obscure sentiments of the multitude. At the same time, however, the powerful means of action it possesses makes it capable of a heavy hand on the same individuals whose servant, otherwise, it still remains.
We have already said that this view of the concept and practice of democracy was still deeply rooted in French minds. Rousseau, whose philosophy put these ideas into systematic form, remains the devisor of our democratic theory. Indeed, there is no political philosophy which offers a better example of this dual, paradoxical aspect just described. If we look at it in one way, it is narrowly individualistic—the individual is the moving principle of the society, the society being only the sum total of individuals. We know on the other hand what authority Rousseau assigns to the State. Further, the proof that these ideas are actively current with us is seen in the whole spectacle of our political life. We cannot deny that, seen from without, and on the surface, it appears to have altogether excessive mutability. Change follows on change with unparalleled speed. It is many years now, since it has succeeded in steering any fixed course for long. As we have seen, that was bound to be the case from the moment that the driving force of the State came from a multitude of individuals who regulated its course with almost supreme power. At the same time, these surface changes mask an habitual stagnation. We must deplore the constant flux in political events and the all-powerful government offices with their inveterate clinging to tradition. They are a force against which we are powerless. This is because all these surface changes that go on in various directions cancel each other out: nothing remains except the fatigue and exhaustion that are a feature of these unceasing mutations. The result is that habits strongly entrenched and the routines that remain untouched by these changes, have all the greater sway, for they alone are effectual. Their power derives from the excessively fluid state of the rest. And we do not know whether to deplore this or to welcome it: for there is always a residue of organization that holds, a little stability and resolve, where they are needed for survival. Despite all its defects, it is quite possible the administrative machine is giving very valuable service at this time.
We have diagnosed the evil, but what is its source? It is a false concept, but false concepts have objective causes. There must be some element in our political constitution to explain this error.
What seems to have produced the error is the special character of our present structure, by virtue of which the State and the mass of individuals stand in direct contact and communication without any intermediary. The electorate is made up of the whole enfranchised population of the country and it is from it that the State derives—at least the vital organ of the State, that is, the deliberative assembly. So it is inevitable that a State made up in these conditions be, more or less, simply a reflection of the social mass and nothing more. Here we are confronted by two collective forces—one of vast proportions, made up as it is of all citizens together, the other extremely limited, because it includes only the representatives. So, by a physical law, it is inevitable that the weaker should follow in the wake of the greater. From the moment we have the individuals electing their representatives direct, the deputies are bound to confine themselves exclusively to faithfully interpreting the wishes of their constituents, and for these to claim their docility as an obligation. It is true it would be in the nature of higher policy to consider that those governing should enjoy a good deal of initiative, and that it is only on these terms they could carry out their task; that in the common interest they should see things differently from the individual—taken up as he is with his other social functions—and that therefore the State should be allowed to act according to its nature. But there is a force of circumstances against which even the best reasoning cannot prevail. As long as the political order brings the deputies in immediate contact with the unorganized mass of individuals, it is inevitable that the latter should make the laws. This direct contact does not allow the State to be itself.
This is why some thinkers demand that members of the political assemblies should be nominated by vote in two or more stages. It is indeed quite certain that the only means of releasing the government is to devise intermediaries between it and the rest of the society. It is true there must be continuous communication between government and all the other social organs, but this must not go so far as to make the State lose its identity. The State must have relationship with the nation without being absorbed in it, and therefore they must not be in immediate contact. The only means of preventing a lesser force from falling within the orbit of a stronger is to intercalate between the two, some resistant bodies which will temper the action that has the greater force. From the moment that the State emerges less immediately from the mass of the people, so much the less is it subject to the action of that mass: it is able to belong to itself all the more. Obscure tendencies, dimly at work in the country, no longer exercise the same influence over its efforts and no longer have the effect of curbing its decisions so closely. This result, however, can only be fully reached if the groupings thus intercalated between the greater number of the citizens and the State are natural and enduring. It is not enough, as sometimes believed, to simply intercalate artificial intermediaries, created solely for the occasion. We might, for instance, be satisfied to set up (one by one, by means of electoral bodies comprising the sum total of the electorate), a more limited body which—either direct or by the intermediary of a still smaller body—would nominate those to govern. This body, its task once carried out, would pass out of existence and the State, set up by these means, might well enjoy a certain independence; but it would no longer adequately fulfil the other condition that goes with a democracy: it would no longer be in close communication with the country as a whole. For once it had come to life, and the main intermediary and the lesser ones which had served to form it had ceased to exist, there would be a vacuum between it and the mass of the people. There would not be those constant exchanges between one and the other which are so essential. It is important that the State should not be under the dominance of individuals, but that does not mean it should ever lose contact with them. This inadequate communication with the people as a whole is what makes for the weakness of any deliberative assembly recruited in this way. This would be too out of touch with popular needs and sentiments, which cannot be brought into its notice with proper continuity. Thus, one of the elements vital to its deliberations is lacking.
In order that contact should never be lost, the intermediary bodies thus intercalated should not be merely set up temporarily but should remain continuously in operation. In other words, they must be natural and normal organs of the social body. There are two kinds of intermediary which could play this part. First, the secondary councils that have charge of administering regional areas. We can imagine, for instance, that the councils of the départements or provinces, whether elected by direct or indirect vote, might be called upon to take over this function. It would be for them to nominate members of the government councils and of deliberative assemblies that are genuinely political.
It is roughly this idea that served as the basis for organizing our present-day Senate. What makes us doubt whether such an arrangement would be the best suited to the constitution of the great European States, is that regional sub-divisions of countries are losing their significance to an increasing extent. As long as every district, commune, area or province had its own peculiar features, its traditional morals, its customs and its special interests, the councils set up to administer them were essential cogwheels in political life. It was in those councils that the ideas and aspirations that stir the masses concentrated direct, without any medium. But nowadays, the links that bind each one of us to a particular spot in an area where we live are incalculably frail and can be broken with the greatest ease. We are here one day and elsewhere the next. We feel as much at home in one province as another, or at least, the special affinities of a regional origin are quite secondary and no longer have any great influence on our life. Even though we remain attached to the same place, our interests go far and away beyond the administrative limits of the area where we happen to be living. The way of life immediately surrounding us is not even the life that is of the deepest concern to us. Whatever I may be—professor, manufacturer, engineer or artist—it is not the events that happen in my own commune or département that concern me most directly and excite me. I can even live my every-day life and know nothing of them at all.
What matters far more to us, according to the functions we have to fulfil, is what goes on at scientific conferences, what is being published, what is being said in the great centres of production; the new events in the world of art in the big cities of France or abroad have an interest that is very different for the painter or sculptor from, say, municipal affairs. We might say the same of the manufacturer who has connexions with all sorts of industries and trading concerns throughout his own region and even far afield in the world. No one will deny that the grouping that is merely regional is rapidly declining. But then, the councils in charge of administering these groups are not able to concentrate and give expression to the general life of the country, for the way in which this life is dispersed and organized does not, as a rule at least, reflect the regional division of the country. And what is the reason that these councils lose their standing, why is there less canvassing for the honour of a seat on them, and why do the enterprising minds, the men of talent, seek a different field of activity? It is because they are organs that are indeed rather on the wane. A political assembly resting on such a basis can only give an imperfect picture of a society’s structure or of the relation between the various social forces.
Professional life, on the other hand, takes on increasing importance, as labour goes on splitting up into divisions. There is therefore reason to believe that it is this professional life that is destined to form the basis of our political structure. The idea is already gaining ground that the professional association is the true electoral unit, and because the links attaching us to one another derive from our calling rather than from any regional bonds of loyalty, it is natural that the political structure should reflect the way in which we ourselves form into groups of our own accord. Let us imagine the guilds or corporative bodies established or revived according to the plan we have outlined: each would have at its head a council to direct it and govern its internal affairs. Would these various councils not be wonderfully appropriate to play this part of intermediary electoral units, which are at present served only feebly by the regional groups? Professional life is never interrupted and is never at a standstill. The corporative body or guild and its organs are always in action and therefore the governmental assemblies that would issue from them would never lose touch with the councils of a society: they would, too, never run the risk of being isolated within themselves, or of not feeling quickly and vividly enough the changes that happen to occur in the deep-lying strata of the population. Independence would be ensured without any interruption in communication.
Such a combination would also have two other advantages worth noting. Universal suffrage, as it is in practice to-day, has often been blamed for being inadequate for its purpose. It is said, not unjustly, that a deputy could never be armed with enough facts to settle the countless questions laid before him. But this incompetence of the deputy only reflects that of the elector and this inadequacy is the more serious thing. For since the deputy has a mandate from the electors and is expressly charged with conveying the views of those he represents, these individuals must equally consider the same problems and thus themselves assume the very same general competence. In fact, whenever consulted, the elector makes up his mind on all vital questions that arise in the deliberative assemblies and the election takes the form of a numerical return of all the individual opinions that find expression in this way. We need not stress the fact that they could not be well-informed. It would be different if the voting were organized on the basis of corporative bodies. As far as the interests of the professions are concerned, every active member there is competent in his own line. It would, then, be most appropriate to choose those who are best at conducting the general business of the corporative body. Moreover, the delegate sent by these people to the political assemblies would go armed with their own particular proficiencies; and since the main task of these assemblies would be to regulate inter-professional relations, they would be made up in the most suitable way for solving such problems. The councils of government would then be genuinely what the brain is to the human organism—a reflexion of the social body. All the living forces, all the vital organs would be represented there according to their relative importance. In the group thus formed, the society would truly gain consciousness of itself and of its unity; this unity would follow naturally from the relations that would develop amongst those representing the different professions thus placed in close contact.
In the second place, there is one defect inherent in the framing of any democratic State. Since individuals alone form the living, active substance of society, it follows that the State, in one sense, can be the business only of individuals; in spite of this, the State has to give expression to something quite different from individual sentiments. The State must derive from the individuals and at the same time it has to go beyond them. How then is this paradox to be resolved, which Rousseau in vain wrestled with? The only way of making anything more of individuals than merely themselves is to put them in contact and to group them in a lasting way. The only sentiments rising above individual feelings are those that come about from actions and reactions amongst individuals in association. Let us apply the idea to political organization. If each individual, independently, comes along with his vote to set up the State or the organs which are to serve in giving it definite form; if each one makes his choice in isolation, it is almost impossible for such votes to be inspired by anything except personal and egotistic motives: these will predominate, at any rate, and an individualistic particularism will lie at the base of the whole structure. But let us suppose that such nominations were made as a result of long, collective preparation, and their character would be quite different. For when men think in common, their thought is partly the work of the community. It acts upon them, weighs upon them with all its authority, restraining egotistic whims and setting minds on a common course. Therefore if votes are to be an expression of something more than individuals and if they are to be animated by a collective mind, the ordinary voting electorate should not be made up of individuals brought together solely for this exceptional occasion; they do not know one another, they have not contributed to forming each other’s opinions and they merely go along in single file to the ballot box. No, on the contrary, it must be an established group that has cohesion and permanence, that does not just take shape for the moment on polling day. The guild or corporative body corresponds clearly to this desired end. The sentiments of the members who form it are evolved in common and express the community because they are constantly and closely in contact.
Our political malaise thus has the same origin as the social malaise we are suffering from. It too is due to the lack of secondary organs intercalated between the State and the rest of the society. We have already seen that these organs seem necessary to prevent the State from tyrannizing over individuals: it is now plain that they are equally essential to prevent individuals from absorbing the State. They liberate the two confronted forces, whilst linking them at the same time. We can see how serious this lack of internal organization is, which we have noted so often: this is because it involves in fact something of a profound loosening and an enervation, so to speak, of our whole social and political structure. The social forms that used to serve as a framework for individuals and a skeleton for the society, either no longer exist or are in course of being effaced, and no new forms are taking their place. So that nothing remains but the fluid mass of individuals. For the State itself has been reabsorbed by them. Only the administrative machine has kept its stability and goes on operating with the same automatic regularity.
It is true the situation has many parallels in history. When a society is forming or being revived it passes through a similar phase. Indeed, in the final analysis, it is from the actions and reactions through direct exchanges amongst individuals that the whole system of social and political organization has been evolved. Therefore when it occurs that a system is carried away by time without any other taking its place as it disintegrates, it is inevitable that social life must go back in some degree to its primary source, that is, to the individuals, to be elaborated afresh. Since they stand alone, it is through them direct that the society has to operate. It is they who dispense the functions that once pertained to the organs that no longer exist or that will form part of those that are still needed. They themselves have to make good the organization that is lacking. That is our situation at present, and although there is a remedy, and one may see in it a necessary phase of evolution, we cannot disguise the critical element in it. A society made of a substance so unstable is liable to disintegrate if it suffers the least shock. There is nothing to protect it against things from without or within.
All these considerations have been necessary in order to explain in what spirit the various civic duties should be understood, put into practice and taught. First, we have the duty that commands us to respect the law, and the one that prescribes our taking part in the elaboration of the laws of the land through our vote, or in more general terms, taking part in public life.
It has been said that respect for the law, in a democracy, has derived from the fact that the law expressed the will of the citizens. We should submit to it because we have willed it to be the law. But how could this hold good for the minority? Yet it is this minority which has the greatest need to practise that duty. Moreover we have seen that, in fact, the number of those who, direct or indirect, have willed any given law, represents only an insignificant part of the country, at any time. But without stressing the reckoning, this way of justifying the respect due to the law is the least suited to instil it. How does the fact of having willed a certain law make it worthy of my own particular respect? What my will has done, my will can undo. Mutable as it is in its nature, it cannot serve as a foundation for anything stable. We are sometimes surprised that the reverence for legality should be so slightly rooted in our consciousness and that we are always so ready to abandon it. But how can there be any reverence for any legal fiat that can be replaced from one day to the next by a different fiat on a single decision of a certain number of individual wills? How can we respect a law which may cease to be the law as soon as it ceases to be willed to be so?
The true source of respect for the law lies in its clearly expressing the natural inter-relation of things; the individual, especially in a democracy, will respect it only in the degree to which he recognizes it as having this quality. It is not because we have made a certain law or because it has been willed by so many votes, that we submit to it; it is because it is a good one—that is, appropriate to the nature of the facts, because it is all it ought to be and because we have confidence in it. And this confidence depends equally on that inspired by the organs that have the task of preparing it. What matters, then, is the way in which the law is made, the competence of those whose function it is to make it and the nature of the particular agency that has to make this particular function work. Respect for the law depends on the quality of the legislators and the quality of the political system. Here, the particular advantage of a democracy is that, owing to the communication set up between those governing and the citizens, the latter are able to judge of the way in which those governing carry out their task, and knowing the facts more fully, are able to give or withhold their confidence. Nothing can be more mistaken than the idea that the democracy has a right to our respect only in so far as it is pledged to the drafting of laws.
There remains the second point—the duty of voting. We need not here consider what this duty might become in some vague future and in societies better organized than our own. Quite possibly it may lose its importance. It is possible there will be a time when the appointments necessary to control political organs may come about, as it were, automatically, by the pressure of public opinion, and without, properly speaking, any definite reference to the electorate.
At the present time, however, the situation is quite different. We have studied its abnormal aspects, and indeed it calls for duties of a particular kind for this very reason. It is on the mass of individuals that the whole weight of the society rests. It has no other support.
It is therefore legitimate for every citizen to some extent to turn into a statesman. We cannot insulate ourselves in our professional callings merely because public life, for the moment, no longer has any agents to make it work except the manifold individual energies. But the very reasons that make this task necessary give it definition, too. The task is due to a lawless condition that has to be, not subdued, but treated to bring it to an end. Instead of offering this absence of organization, wrongly called democracy, as an ideal, a limit should be set to that condition. Instead of clinging to a jealous preserving of these rights and privileges, a cure has to be applied to the evil that makes them inevitable for the time being. In other words, the primary duty is to work out something that can relieve us by degrees of a role for which the individual is not cast. To do this, our political action must be to establish these secondary organs which, as they take shape, will release the individual from the State and vice versa, and release the individual, too, from a task for which he is not fitted.