1. By "juridical defense" Mosca means the social mechanisms (e.g., "respect for law, government by law") that regulate the disciplining of the "moral sense," institutions like religion and government that institutionalize respect and obedience for law and government. Or
juridical defense is the... respect for law and morals on the part of those in power. (p.244)
The question at the bottom of all human social existence is the "moral sense." What do we mean by the "moral sense?" How about
the mass of sentiments by which the natural propensity of human beings to develop their activities and capacities, to satisfy their appetites and impulses, to command and enjoy, is curbed by a natural compassion for the pain or harm that other people may experience from an indulgence of that propensity.
If this curb is based on affection for our nearest and dearest we call it "sympathy." If the curb is the "respect we owe other men, even strangers and enemies," we call it "justice." Even so, the admonition to "Love thy neighbor as thyself," is a maxim that can never be attained in real life. To get on in the world you have to look out for yourself before others.
But does the moral sense change? Buckle says that the loftiest principles have been known and proclaimed since forever, and therefor progress is mostly "intellectual and scientific, never moral;" modern evolutionists say that we progress as more altruistic societies come to replace the less altruistic.
2. Mosca examines both the evolutionist theory and finds it wanting. He finds that the evolution of moral sensibility or altruism is much less important than the consequence of people of average moral sense possessing "tenacity of purpose, self-confidence and, above all, activity."
In any case, "birth and family" are the best predictors of preeminence. And, it takes different qualities to "force the gates of an aristocracy" than to already be there. Still, the society will get on best whose individuals are equipped with moral sense and more trustful and more sacrificing.
3. It is clear that primitive societies have a moral sense; but developed ancient societies have "maxims and laws that denote an exquisite moral sense." Mosca suggests that the difference is between "the ethical systems of a child and an adult. The former is unconscious, the latter conscious."
Thus the acts, good and evil, of primitive humans are closer to "blind animal impulse," and those of civilized humans are more the product of "calculation and premeditation." There has been a progress of moral sense: a process of bringing it from unconscious to conscious.
By a long and slow process of elaboration... societies gradually develop the institutions that enable a universal morality to curb the expression of individual immorality in a certain number of public and private relationships.
Thus develops "public opinion, religion, law... as an expression of mass conscience... [with] the judge [as] the instrument of the mass moral sense" that curbs the evil individual.
In highly developed societies, with "more conscious, more perfect" moral instincts, and more disciplined political instincts, there are a few refractory and undisciplined persons, and a few superior people "of superior scruples and soundly molded characters" that need no curb.
But between these two extremes come the vast majority of men, who have average consciences, for whom fear of punishment, and the fact that they are to be held responsible for their conduct by other people who are neither their accomplices nor their subordinates, serve as most effective means for overcoming the thousand temptations to transgress the moral law that everyday living offers.
The social mechanisms that regulate this disciplining of the moral sense constitute what we call "juridical defense" (respect for law, government by law).
Of course, there are periods -- "after long wars or great revolutions" when all this breaks down and people "feel loosed from all moral restraints." The recovery from such breakdowns is, of course, slow.
Mosca states that he avoids "any speculation as to the origins of the moral or altruistic instincts." He merely notes that he opposes "the doctrine of Rousseau, that man is good by nature but that society makes him wicked and perverse."
We believe that social organization provides for the reciprocal restraint of human individuals by one another and so makes them better, not by destroying their wicked instincts but by accustoming them to controlling their wicked instincts.
4. In our time, we entrust the "disciplining of the moral sense not to religion only but to the whole legislative system." It is a question which is more effective, but Mosca thinks that "certain and speedy punishment" is more feared than one uncertain and remote in the next life. This is not to forget that extraordinary self-abnegation is often experienced, just as occasional "paroxysms of the base emotions." But most of the time, people do their duty and lend their services as expected.
5. Juridical defense, of course, depends on honest government; a corrupt government -- "in the name of God or in the name of the people"-- will not provide a good juridical defense, no matter its public devotion to lofty principles. Some explain the differences in probity to racial difference, and others to "level of civilization." Civilization is necessary, but not sufficient. Political habits of honest government arise in some places and not in others. Moral habits change, slowly, both for better and for worse. But the when and the why remain unsolved.
6. A dominant single political force is the essential element in despotism, whether based on divine right or popular sovereignty.
When the leaders of the governing class are the exclusive interpreters of the will of God or the will of the people... there can be no resistance... to restrain... those who stand at the head of the social order to abuse their power.
Such an absolute power involves a real "moral degeneration" and its effects "are communicated downwards to the whole political structure." As Dostoyevsky said: "Tyranny is a habit. In the end it becomes a disease." And it does no good that the head of the despotic state is personally "opposed to administrative corruption." But at lease despotism is preferable to anarchy.
7. In the ancient world despotism was sometimes restrained by mixed government, "that combined traits of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy" so that one political force did not prevail over the others. Montesquieu, studying the English, determined that "if a country was to be free, power should curb power." But that should go beyond merely separate branches of government, and provide that each branch represented a political force, "the organized expression of a social influence and a social authority" in the community. Otherwise, for instance, senates that are made up of "pensioned officials... who have retired from militant political life" will will not "represent important social forces."
8. Of course, a vital requirement for effective juridical defense "is that the secular and ecclesiastical power should be separated" and that temporal authority is not wholly invested with the sacred. This separation is not possible in the Hindu caste system or in Islam where "the sovereign is almost always a caliph" -- combining civil and religious leadership. In Christianity, fortunately, this unity of secular and religious has never been achieved. And though the Catholic Church has been interested in power its celibacy has made it difficult to establish "dynasties of abbots and bishops." "The most complete despotisms" in Christianity occurred in Byzantium and Russia, where secular rulers completely dominated the church.
9. Next after separation of church and state is "the way in which wealth is distributed... and in which the military forces are organized." In feudal states, where wealth and military power is vested in the barons, there seems to be a limit to tyranny.
But when the class that monopolizes wealth and arms embodies its power in a centralized bureaucracy and an irresistible standing army, we get despotism in its worst form: an omnipotent standing army and a "too great concentration of wealth in the hands of a portion of the ruling class." In such societies, universal suffrage is meaningless.
The more the state absorbs and distributes a large portion of the public wealth, the more "the leaders of the ruling class [can] command their subordinates... and evade control."
If... all instruments of production pass into the hands of the government... we get a more powerful oligarchy, a more all-embracing "racket," than has ever been seen in a society of advanced civilization.
A society is most likely to develop a superior political organization "when it contains a large class of people whose economic position is virtually independent of those those who hold supreme power." Alternatively or additionally, a class of small but self-sufficient property owners. Both England and the United States have such a class.
Where the class is inadequate to its task, because of deficiencies in cultivation or in education or in wealth, parliamentary government bears its worst fruits[.]
10. An advanced civilization develops more social forces come into being alongside religion and landed property, such as money and commerce and education, science, freedom of the press. Each is capable of influencing politics but only if it gets organized. Thus different classes exert disproportionate influences. Typically a weakening power, long established is more feared than "a rising vogue" that has not yet reached full power.
Then there is money. A very small number of individuals can control the banks, transportation, public corporations and defense related industries and use that power to threaten and cajole. But the hosts of small industries have little power to influence. Meanwhile the owners of real property do not have much influence, so that "industrial protection appeared in advance of agrarian protection."
11. When the whole political class is organized on a single principle it becomes difficult for all social forces to participate in public life. For instance, in the Roman Empire the imperial bureaucracy got bigger and bigger so that "municipal autonomy became extinct almost everywhere, and a gigantic all-embracing bureaucratic network extended over the whole empire." Likewise the bureaucratic absolutism in Russia.
In the United States the checks and balances of the Constitution of 1787 have been worn down by universal suffrage, so that "all the powers that should balance and supplement each other emanate from a single caucus or committee." But the question of suffrage and social forces are discussed in the next chapter.
Next: Suffrage and Social Forces
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