1. To recap, Mosca has tried to show that the understanding of human societies can only be discovered through the study of history; that a ruling class exists in any society and recruits members with qualities that give moral prestige to them; that a society is founded upon a complex of religious and philosophical beliefs that explain its type of organization; and that differences in societies issue from the "political formula" that dominates the majority of minds in the society.
[T]he highest grade of juridical defense, the greatest respect for law and morals on the part of those in power, can be obtained only through the participation of many different political forces in government ad through their balancing one another.
2. Mosca now wants to investigate three problems: Will the existing "dogmatic religions" survive the drift towards revolution and rationalism? Will the current government by elected parliaments last very long? What is the future given how social democracy seems to be sweeping all before it?
Many people believe that science is bound to destroy dogma and the narratives of the Old and New Testaments, because people trained in science have an aversion to dogmatic doctrines and statements. But maybe religion responds not the the demands of reason, but other psychological needs. Maybe people need illusion.
It is notable that Catholic observance is falling off among the lower classes rather than the educated classes. But they have walked away from religion not because they have received and responded to scientific training.
They disbelieve, and they scoff, because they have been taught to disbelieve and to scoff. Instead of believing blindly in the priest they believe blindly in the revolutionary agitator. They pride themselves on being in the vanguard of civilization, and their minds are open to all sorts of superstitions and sophistries.
3. "What religion meets today... in large portions of the European masses, is not a positivism, or an agnosticism... but a vulgar imitative atheism." So religious beliefs might easily regain their footing.
It may well be that within a few generations socialist doctrines and revolutionary impulses with openly have declared their bankruptcy.
And what about a return of hard times. People don't much need religion when things are going well, but "need its hopes and its comforts very urgently" when things go wrong.
Christianity enjoyed a decisive triumph once before in history when the upper and middle classes of the ancient world were smitten with the appalling catastrophes and the unutterable sufferings that follows upon the final victories of the barbarians and the fall of the western Empire.
Mosca notes that in France "revivals of pietism" have tended to follow epidemics -- in 1832 -- and wars -- in 1870-71. The same might occur in "an era of depression and comparative poverty." Nor are the churches likely to be destroyed. When things go wrong the losing party "resigns itself to at least tacit acceptance." The Catholic Church has experienced a number of such reverses in its history.
4. But then there is the antagonism between science and religion. Although faith is old and science is new there were glimmerings of science in the ancient world, but between the glimmerings were centuries of darkness. Science was brighter in Greece and Rome but it too faded. Modern science did not get started till the sixteenth century and did not take hold till the eighteenth century. Naturally there was a struggle between science and religion with religion trying to strangle its new rival and science discrediting religion.
But many institutions are forced to get along with each other, and science and religion have different worlds.
Scientific thought deal with the human intelligence. Faith has hits basis in sentiment.
Science is accessible only to small numbers of people that have the opportunity and the ability to live intellectual lives. "Religion exerts its influence upon the masses."
Religions, that compete in the same field, sometimes "end up by tolerating each other." The Chinese were pretty relaxed about this. (Before Mao, of course).
Thus Mosca expects some mutual toleration between science and religion.
In the long run, a mutual toleration may be established between the positivism, or, rather, the scientific skepticism, of the better educated and the beliefs... [of the] masses and... the well-to-do classes by which sex, habit, education and temperament is more responsive to sentimental impulses.
Skeptics need to accept the need for religious beliefs among people without original views of their own, and the Christian leaders need to accept that science is now an inevitable "part of the life of civilized humanity."
All this is just possibility, and will require "real political sagacity" to bring about. And there is, of course, "the democratic-socialist current today [that] amounts virtually to another religion." It fiercely competes with Christianity.
It is well to remember that freedom and toleration are unusual. Mostly humans live "for centuries upon some system of beliefs to which they have sacrificed all liberty of discussion and thought." So "bigotry... conflict and persecution" are the norm. This is the history; the great civilizations all declined back into barbarism. And so our own era is likely to be the victim of some new political formula that ends up victorious.
5. Mosca now analyzes the "crisis that representative, and especially parliamentary, governments" are experiencing. He experiences two intellectual currents that brought representative and parliamentary governments into being.
The first is the "liberal current" based on Montesquieu, that "sought to set up a barrier against bureaucratic absolutism by means of a separation of powers."
The second is the "democratic current" whose parent was Rousseau, that proclaimed that "the legal basis of any sort of political power must be popular sovereignty." Originally, in The Social Contract, Rousseau was opposed to "any delegation of sovereignty." But in practice, representative democracy was the form implemented, partly from the English constitution that had "derived the principle of representation from its feudal origins." It has produced, in addition, the theories of modern social democracy.
There are three objections to representative government in general. First, the endless "prattlings" and long-winded speeches with which parliaments busy themselves. Secondly, from the socialists, that parliaments only represent the interests of the wealthy classes. Thirdly, that the parliaments and especially individual member interfere in "the courts, in public administration" and in the distribution of wealth in various ways, including "banks, great industrial speculations and in public charities."
Obviously, the "continuous pottering, interloping and officiousness" of parliaments is a very "baneful thing." It has been called "parliamentarism."
6. Mosca suggests that these objections only appear grave to those "convinced that is possible for a country to have a political system that is exempt from the weaknesses inherent in human nature itself." Compared with what? Perhaps they are the "merest trifles" compared to an "absolute" or "exclusively bureaucratic" regime. Mosca hangs his hat on "the dangers and drawbacks involved in giving absolute predominance to a single political force" not subject to any limits, e.g., czarist Russia, or France under the old regime.
We take for granted the advantages of a system where the government's actions are subject to public discussion. The alternative is "violations of juridical defense, of justice, of everything that we commonly call 'liberty.'"
Nor is it accurate to say that a parliament is a "mob." They typically contain men of long experience who are a block against rash action. Indeed, the delays and confusions of representative assemblies are often beneficial.
Socialists and anarchists object to representative systems because of its subservience to organized interests and money. And this makes it difficult for the system to respond to the majority of "the people" as required by Rousseau. But for Mosca, the only important demand is that all social values shall have a part in the political system. Not an equal part, but a part, and the opportunity to "limit the influence of other social forces and the influence of bureaucracy in particular."
The limited influence of majorities does not depend on present social inequalities, but on the fact of the inevitable domination of "organized minorities over disorganized majorities." And those elected to office would always be people "actively devoted to political life."
The real problem with representative government is
[the] constant... contradiction between the duty and the interest of the man who governs, and of the man who should judge and limit governmental action, the bureaucracy and the elective elements, which... end up corrupting and denaturing each other.
7. If we do nothing about the problems of parliamentarism, what will happen? The current beneficiaries of the system would embed themselves deeper.
The scions of today's celebrities in parliament, bank and governmental positions would in fact attain with increased ease the posts that are now occupied by the fathers... [creating]... a clique of influential families, into which it would be hard for newcomers to make their way.
As occurred in republican Rome and pre-Reform Bill England. The oligarchy "would drift farther and farther away from the sentiments and passions of the people" meaning both the poor and the "economic and intellectual" middle class.
So nothing would get solved by doing nothing. But what would improve things? Mosca investigates two remedies.
First, he proposes Increased independence of judges and make high ranking officials responsible to "really independent administrative tribunals." But nobody should doubt the difficulty of such an effort.
Second, he proposes a return to a "constitutional" system, where prime ministers do not resign when defeated in a chamber of representatives. The current system in England only got started in the middle of the eighteenth century. This would curb the irresponsible power of the legislature, but it would lead to more autocratic systems and would "leave the all-absorbing bureaucratic organization intact."
8. The best way of curing the "evils of parliamentarism would be extensive and organic decentralization.
It would imply shifting prerogatives from central bureaucracies to provincial bureaucracies, and from national parliaments to local assemblies. It would imply transferring many of the functions that are now exercised by bureaucracies and elective bodies to the class of public-spirited citizens.
These would be educated and unsalaried officials that do not seek posts in the civil service and do not run for parliament.
The problem is the "shameful and hypocritical traffic in reciprocal indulgences and mutual favors, which is a veritable running sore in most European countries."
So a special class of volunteer unsalaried officials could be developed, with certain educational qualifications, and over time this group would develop "group cohesion and pride," eager to devote a part of their time to public business. Some would object to this as being no better than juries. But Mosca has in mind a better class of citizens than common jurors. It is, of course, arbitrary to select people of a certain education for volunteer public service, but we make arbitrary distinctions all the time, for instance, in defining the age at which a person becomes an adult.
But then we select politicians from a class with "a certain ease and a certain amount of education" that pass "through a ruinous process of selection downward" which bars from public life those
who will not buy votes or cannot buy them, men who are of too high a character to sacrifice dignity to ambition, or men who are too sincere and honest to throw out to left and right promises which they know they cannot keep, or an keep only by sacrificing the public welfare to private advantage.
A more serious objection is the "present economic situation in many European countries [after World War I]." There just are not enough people with the education and the means to serve as unpaid public servants, for in "many countries the middle classes can hardly maintain the margin of economic well-being which is indispensable if one it to acquire a higher education merely for reasons of personal dignity family standing, or social usefulness.
And even if these difficulties could be overcome, the idea of volunteer citizens engaged in public business comes up against the democratic philosophy "which recognizes no political act, no political prerogative, as legitimate unless it emanates directly or indirectly from popular suffrage."
Next: Collectivism
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