1. Humans typically view the past by its "century," and for Mosca, the nineteenth century ran from 1815 to 1914. It was the nineteenth century that created the world that Mosca has lived in.
2. The nineteenth century was a century that attempted to implement the ideas of the eighteenth century, the program of "liberty, equality, fraternity." Mosca proposes to evaluate that implementation.
The concept of liberty was inherited from classical Greece and Rome through the Renaissance and popularized by Rousseau and others. The concepts were implemented through the practical experience of England in the eighteenth century as brilliantly interpreted by Montesquieu.
The classical assembly of all citizens was converted into representative parliaments. But the election of various officials was not followed from the classical age, and high administrative and judicial posts were appointed or permanent professional employees of the bureaucracy.
Bureaucracies were expanded in the nineteenth century as governments took on new functions, and the parliaments contented themselves with the right of audit and critique, and heading the bureaucratic machine with members of the parliament.
Military systems underwent huge change and development, but retained the autocratic structure from the absolutist times, and retains a distinction between officers, who are typically professionals from the middle and upper classes, and men, who are typically conscripts with the ways of the working and peasant classes. It is notable that despite trusting the proletarians with arms the armies have remained "a conservative force, an element of social order and stability." This can be used, as by the Bolsheviks, to bind the corps of officers to the regime.
In Europe the conception of political liberty extends beyond representative government with institutions and laws to provide against violation of private property, protections against arrest and condemnation, freedom of religion, an uncensored press, freedom to discuss political matters and form associations "for moral, political, or professional ends." These are real limitations on state power, and they are ultimately guaranteed by the representative system.
The concept of equality is harder to put into practice, "for equality is contrary to the nature of things." The bourgeoisie abolished class privileges at the end of the eighteenth century.
But little could be done with natural inequalities, or with artificial inequalities... which result from family inheritance -- disparities in wealth, upbringing and education.
Equality ought to do away with classes, but in fact the gap between classes, "in ways of thinking, of manners of feeling and in tastes and inclinations" has never been greater. And never have "classes been less comprehensible to each other."
The middle classes gave the lower classes the vote, as a demonstration of their good conscience, and due to various factors, including increased prosperity, has made it possible to grant economic concessions to the "populous classes" without reducing private savings and placing burdens on large and moderate fortunes. Of course, agitators have taken credit for these improvements, in which "there is a small amount of truth and a large amount of falsehood."
It is perhaps in fraternity that the least progress has been made. Despite the professions of brotherhood among the great religions -- that only extend to co-religionists -- "the practice of fraternity was far from perfect."
The problem is, of course, that "rivalries and conflicts of interest are unavoidable in the struggle for preeminence." But man should never need to hate.
Unhappily, the human being's need for hating has at no time seemed very close to disappearing from his nature.
The failure to achieve equality must have contributed to the failure of fraternity, for "that disappointment has intensified rivalries between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the helpless, the happy and the unhappy."
3. Nevertheless, Mosca asserts that "the nineteenth century was one of the greatest and most magnificent of all the eras that humanity has traversed." The achievements are material, intellectual, scientific. And "our political system must necessarily have made its contribution." Despite its illusions and its failures in equality and fraternity, "the ranks of the ruling class have been held open," and
the development of the old absolutist state into the modern representative state has made it possible for almost all political forces, almost all social values, to participate in the political management of society.
The current ruling class is divided into two: "one issuing from popular suffrage and the other from bureaucratic appointment." This has allowed better use of individual capacities and also distributed the powers of the state. It was Montesquieu that showed us that "if a nation is to be free" it must be governed by law, and "not the arbitrary will of its rulers." It must have a government where "authority arrests and limits authority." This can only work when the political class is divided by function.
On the one hand the European nations have enjoyed a representative system that has allowed criticism of the rulers. It has also developed a strong state that can spend enormous amounts on public projects. It has left "sufficient vitality to achieve remarkable results in... the scientific, literary, and economic fields." And, it proved head and shoulders above the other countries of the world.
The center of gravity in European civilization is shifting towards the Americas, with their vast territories, great resources, and ability to support much bigger populations. But up to now the Americas needed European capital, and "the artistic and scientific culture of European countries is still considerably superior to the general level of culture in the Americas."
4. There are a number of seeds that were planted in the nineteenth century, seeds that could improve society, or dissolve it.
Europe has achieved a fair degree of individual liberty and restraint on arbitrary rulers, and remarkable material prosperity. But it has not realized equality. It is natural that there should be in the middle-class a movement devoted to realization of equality and empowering the masses, and it is not surprising that such a movement should believe that private property should be abolished. But the broader middle class has not fought the socialist movement that would seek to destroy it, partly because of general confidence in the "goodness of the human being" and the education of the masses, and a general belief in progress.
But the socialist gospel openly "fans feelings of class hatred."
Today there is hardly a factory worker who does not believe... that the wealth of his employer, of of the shareholders who have supplied capital for his factory, has been amassed by depriving workingmen of some of the wages that were due to them.
Meanwhile the extreme "division of labor and specialization in production" has made every individual utterly dependent on the functioning of the whole.
If any single member, any single essential organ, should stop doing its duty, the brain and all the nervous centers that depend on it would be paralyzed.
E.g., unions going on strike.
To prevent breakdown, the ruling class must prevent the growth of intermediate loyalties, such as the vassal gave to his baron, and not to his king, in the Middle Ages. Thus,
it is absolutely indispensable that the heads of our present governments should at all times receive greater obedience from the members of the unions than the heads of the unions themselves receive. Devotion to the national interests must always be stronger than devotion to class interests.
With the decline in religion, patriotism is left as "the chief factor of moral and intellectual cohesion within the various countries of Europe... It satisfies... a yearning of the human soul to love the group to which it belongs above all other groups."
Of course, love of country "often goes hand in hand with diffidence towards other countries and sometimes with hatred of them." As was proved in World War I.
5. The World War visited enormous dislocation and suffering upon the peoples of Europe, most particularly upon the middle class with its modest savings. Not surprisingly, many have called for a radical change in the inherited institutions. There are, Mosca thinks, three such radical solutions. One is the Bolshevik "dictatorship of the proletariat" in Russia and its experiment in communism. Another is a return to bureaucratic absolutism. The third would be syndicalism, "replacing individual representation by class representation in legislative assemblies."
The violent implementation of communism in Russia has divided socialists, between those favoring a violent implementation and those advocating a "slow and gradual application." The implementation of communism in Russia "brought about a rapid and complete disorganization of every sort of production, and want and famine came in its wake." The same would likely accompany any similar attempt in Europe.
[T]he new Russian ruling class has had to govern tyrannically, override all scruples and enforce obedience by terror... In Russia the old bourgeoisie has been replaced... by the Jewish petty-bourgeoisie and by... elements such as Letts, Armenians, and Mohammedan Tatars.
"Moderate socialism" in Europe would have less of a chance of lasting than a dictatorship. It would degenerate into pure communism or convert the current economic system into a bureaucratic and military dictatorship.
This last system would correspond to the second solution mentioned above. It would be a sort of "Caesarism" such as prevailed in France under the Napoleons with the supremacy of permanent bureaucracies. This would seriously hamper liberties, for the lack of representative assemblies combined with the much larger resources commanded by the modern state would have the power to "shatter all individual and collective resistance.
The third radical solution would be the syndicalist solution with a class assembly, and would create a "possible basis for the organization of sovereignty intermediate between the individual and state" which Mosca regards as the most serious present threat to our political life.
In view of the importance that separate classes have acquired in the economic life of every civilized country, it is not far-fetched to assume that the syndicalist chamber would easily prevail over others.
In a syndicalist assembly the better-educated elements, such as scholars, lawyers, and engineers, would not be able to balance the power of railway men, seamen, stevedores and miners: for what counts is numbers. If the unions, inspired with Marxist doctrines, should work together, "they would be able to seize control of the state outright" -- and then start to quarrel with each other, leading to economic disorganization and political anarchy.
6. Any of the three radical solutions of the post -WWI crisis in Europe would result in a less perfect, more primitive political system than the pre-war one. But if Europe can overcome its difficulties then it would prepare the ground "for other political systems that may be far preferable to any now existing."
But, to get its house in order, Europe needs a period of peace and prosperity as was enjoyed in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Mosca advises "the rising generation to restore and conserve the political system which it inherited from its fathers." And the first task is to cool off the class and national hatreds that the Marxians and the wars have encouraged.
Mosca proposes some improvements. The first is to make writers responsible for their writing and not the publisher's agent, the "responsible manager." Another issue is freedom of assembly and association, about which present laws are vague, allowing authoritarian governments to suppress any sort of association and weak governments to submit to violent elements. Another question is the limitation of suffrage, which Mosca supports but realizes would be impossible.
But the main thing Mosca wants is for the ruling class to raise its game, improve its political competence and understanding, and try "to see a little beyond its immediate interest." To be worthy of high political office it is not enough to have a university degree, or run a business, or fought in the trenches. "Long study and great devotion are also necessary."
Every generation produces some "generous souls who are capable of loving all that is, or seems to be, noble and beautiful" and working to improve society, even while the "best" people have no definite and clear perception of the needs of their times.
Let us hope that that that clear perception will not be wanting today in the nobler elements among our youth, and that it may so enlighten their minds and quicken their hearts that they can think and act in peace as resolutely and courageously as they fought in war.
Back to Contents.
No comments:
Post a Comment