Throughout this week, I’ve been reading de Jouvenel’s On Power: The Natural Growth of Its History. On Monday and Wednesday, I covered the first four parts or books of de Jouvenel’s work and today I will be reviewing the last two. The last two sections of de Jouvenel’s work cover Power’s unchanging nature across time and whether we can limit Power, and if we can, how we should. I found de Jouvenel’s work to be incredibly moving, and prescient, and all the while, I felt helpless once I finished it (which one should not take to be a bad thing). By this review’s end, I want to express why I do not think there are any ultimate solutions to the problem of Power, or Man’s inclination to produce tyrannies.
Power is driven by revolutionary movements. The toppling of authorities in a revolution’s name brings with it new authorities, who replace the old authorities; in the process, they establish an even more powerful state in the old civilization’s ruins (pp. 237-239). Thus, de Jouvenel argues a revolution’s historical function is to renovate Power (p. 240). For their foundation, these revolutions have the aristocracy's weaknesses (pp. 240-241). A weak aristocracy is defined by three qualities: indecision, an inability to defend itself from a stronger Power’s aggressions, and the loss of its constituency to the stronger party. For these reasons, Power’s revolutionary forces destroy feeble aristocracies and, by doing so, demonstrate Power’s authority (pp. 241-242).
De Jouvenel, as a Frenchman, finds in the French Revolution Power’s most horrific revolutionary tendencies. The French king, de Jouvenel would argue, set the stage for his downfall (pp. 249-245). He made himself subordinate to the nobles’ whims, and in effect, this made him their servant. However, these nobles were not interested in preserving the kingdom. Instead, they sought to preserve their wealth. The aristocracy bought their positions from the French Parliament and, thus relied on them to preserve their power, preventing the king from effectively enforcing his authority over his people (pp. 245-247). Because the statocrats controlled the French Parliament, they controlled the French king and nobles who depended on the French parliament, effectively making the statocrats sovereign. The French king had lost all legitimate authority.
Slowly, the statocrats founded a representative government, which they claimed voiced the people’s will. These were like jurists; they formed the law and executed it. Thus, the law was said to be representative of the general will. However, this will can effectively be whatever the representatives want it to be. The representative parliament used this power to oust the king and have him killed, installing a new tyranny (pp. 247-251). With this newfound authority, the revolutionary government broke apart the old, French communities in a horrifically mathematical fashion. In the end, all the communities were to work to support the central, French authority: The state (pp. 251-253).
For the revolutionaries, the old parliament needed to be destroyed. This destructive act was done in the people’s name; whose representatives took up residence in the old jurists’ place. These men capriciously and subjectively administered the law. As they administered justice, blood flowed in the streets. The nobles submitted to the state. Fear of an arbitrary death kept them in line (pp. 253-256). De Jouvenel argues this fear was the effect of the Constituent Assembly – the people’s representatives. Preserving Liberty for themselves, these men undermined the judiciary’s ability to check parliament's actions effectively, making the judiciary powerless; the Constituent Assembly’s arm, unable to prevent its masters from abusing the judiciary’s powers (pp. 256-267).
Out of this revolutionary example, which was never truly taken to heart by Marx, Engels, or Lenin, we see how the revolutionary spirit destroys the old Power in the people’s name only to give life to a new one. The likes of Lenin, contrary to Marx’s position (which was more anarchical) take the revolution one step further. Rather than tearing down oppression’s machine, they wish to seize it, believing it can serve their ends (pp. 257-260). If one were charitable, they might be inclined to say this idea is the fault of a naïve mind. Still, the cynic in me cannot help but to regard it as a conscious attempt to oppress the masses for one’s personal gain.
Still, perhaps we can create a society of impersonal laws.
De Jouvenel argues that people hope to seize the imperium (the sovereign state) for themselves because they think they can depersonalize its rule; i.e., incline the state to rule objectively (p. 262). To achieve this objective rule, the Enlightenment philosophers believed they needed a society constituted by laws, i.e., for the state to rule objectively rather than be subjected to a tyrant’s unbounded whims. However, as history is apt to show, ideas become subjected to men’s passions more easily than they constrain them (pp. 262-263). The law, from the Enlightenment’s perspective, was believed to be capable of freeing Man from his passions (pp. 263-265). But if laws are made by Man, and Man is a slave to his passions (as Hume would argue), then the laws will become a vehicle to satiate his passions. Power’s transfer from the sovereign to parliament made the people’s representatives and the lawgivers nothing more than vessels for private interests. These interests decided to shape the law in their image. Rather than freeing Man from his passions, the laws only served his passions (pp. 265-270).
The People’s rule, or the public’s rule, according to Rousseau, should have been a veto power. By this power, it was thought that the objective interests of the people could be made manifest and their subjective interests pushed aside (pp. 270-274). I.e., the law should have reflected the public’s objective interests (any group’s subjective interests undermined by right reason) and the public’s objective interests should have reflected the law. However, objective law never manifested. Popular sovereignty enabled Power to equivocate between its interests and the people’s. This equivocation caused the law to become amorphous, capricious, arbitrary, and a tool for those in control of it to serve their interests (pp. 274-276).
The sovereign’s (imperium’s) tendencies are subject to Power’s conditions. Whether power moves toward public or private interests will be contingent on Power’s interests, and the state simply gives Power a mechanism to act in the people’s name. In reality, only Power’s interests are served by the state (pp. 276-277).
It may be argued that a separation of powers checks the unlimited powers of either parliament, the executive, or the judiciary. Still, in time, the legislature must enforce itself somehow. To do this, it will seek the executive’s aid and, in the people’s name, delegate some of its authority to the executive. This precedent of executive legislation sets into motion the sovereign’s ascent. To boot, it’s all done in the people’s name. By the time the sovereign emerges, he will have every right to say the people willed him into being (pp. 277-288). Rather than checking Power, the law and legislative branch inevitably give birth to him.
Still, can Liberty not defeat the Sovereign’s tyranny?
The libertarian belief that all men ought to be treated with the same dignity and pride as the nobility – i.e., afforded equal Liberty – was believed to be capable of checking the people’s power. However, this conceit was used by Power to justify its rule (pp. 283-284). The libertarian belief that it can distribute rights equally amongst all people appears to be a utopian dream. The collective cannot be in command; only a minority can command; thus, the people’s liberties, i.e., their rights, are a veil for the minority’s or sovereign’s right to rule.
Federalization, which libertarians tend to advocate for, could be used to prevent a centralized authority from exerting its tyrannical rule. However, history has shown that this method is routinely overthrown by a centralized authority, e.g., the Union vs. the Confederacy. Power, thus, justifies itself in the people’s name, to preserve their rights. In doing so, it extends its tentacles in all directions, unifying a diversity of interests into a single whole: The People’s, or rather, the Sovereign’s (pp. 284-288). Society’s general interests tend to be homogenous in small communities but multiply as a society complexifies. Yet the legislature and executive see these interests (the specific and multiple) as one. In the people’s name, they act, cloaking their self-serving behaviors. It is also said that the people’s general interests keep people in check but these are used to deprive the people of their voice in some specialty group’s name (pp. 288-293). In time, a society can become so corrupt that a single despot takes hold of it. When the despot takes hold, the state, as a tool to serve the minority’s interests, becomes the plaything of absolute, unchecked power, for all of the state’s mechanisms serve his interests.
But couldn’t the people be saved by an educational system capable of ennobling and enlightening the ignorant? De Jouvenel argues against an enlightened aristocracy because it – a republic of the wise and intelligent – limits itself to the enlightened few. This standard excludes the majority of society's members. When a state acts exclusively, it allows Power to accrue elsewhere, which a clever player can harness to serve his interests. Through this process, a government can vent the public’s interests and resentment into a state apparatus, allowing Power to exert itself and preserve its nobility (pp. 293-297).
De Jouvenel does not love the federal and representative political machine, either.
The parties and representatives of a federalized government, in time, degrade. They represent a group’s or collection of groups’ interests. The representatives become the policies they vote for. These groups gain constituents by making them feel like they're part of a brotherly band (not by rational appeals). A representative can make his constituents feel like they’re part of a family by manipulating their emotions and desires and, in some sense, embodying them. There's a reason democracy and demon have the same root prefix. In time, the representatives come to reflect the kind of men more interested in satisfying their desires than rising above them, diminishing the state’s quality (pp. 297-301).
The parties, in some ways, act as military machines. Through propaganda, they emotionally manipulate their constituents. The party representatives are better served by passionate rhetoric than reasoned debate. This political mechanism lowers the quality of the party candidates further. Still, the party that can most effectively utilize the political machine can control the majority of legislative and executive agencies. This hegemony over governmental levers establishes a one-party rule, which tends to benefit only a minority group’s interests (pp. 301-305). If any of the party’s representatives dissent, because their only real skill is in representing their party (if they’re not well-connected), their removal will make them insignificant and worthless. This relative uselessness makes the representatives dependent on the minority party’s advocacy. Ultimately, this total control of the government’s levers results in despotic rule (pp. 305-306). The only sure way to secure the state is by organizing a minority capable of utilizing a group’s “folkways,” its “army” of constituents,” and its constituents’ representatives. Because this process is subject to extreme oscillations that can harm the public, and which hardly serve their interests, for a taste of certainty and consistency, the people are inclined to install a despot (pp. 308-309).
What can be seen from these examples is that Power always exerts itself, no matter what governmental mechanisms are put in place. Power’s nature, as I’ve previously expressed at length, has dynamic but very stable nature that always reasserts itself. So, is there any way to check Power’s advances?
Viewing the terrors birthed out of the Middle Ages, men thought they could limit power by using their ability to reason (pp. 314-316). People believed the interests of varying parties could put a check on Power. They thought they could all use the ascending force of the legislature to push the sovereign into a corner. He would have to abide by the laws, customs, and beliefs of a people through a contract, they thought (pp. 316-319). The checks on Power established through the state’s laws limited only various groups’ powers within the nation. They also forced the people to participate in statecraft's anti-social power games. If not for the legislature, the various groups forced to participate in politics would have been invested in more personal affairs. The state enabled a single party to rule and made possible the rise of the totalitarian despot, whose access to the state gave him total control over the nation (pp. 319-322).
The law, established by some parliamentary form of government, in the people’s name, via the general will, might establish the kings of old, and perhaps someone even worse; for men’s passions drive the masses and these motivate their representatives, who in turn write laws to feed their unyielding passions rather than limiting them (pp. 322-325). It may seem as if I’m repeating myself, but I think the point needs to be made clear: laws cannot limit, in the end, men’s passions but instead become a vehicle to feed their hunger.
Some nations are spared this harsh reality, however (for a time). England, for example, avoided the continent’s misfortunes because of its foundations, which were rooted in its nobility’s landholdings. This culture, de Jouvenel argues, kept powers, especially the state’s powers, in check. Plus, they never deposed their king. Rather, they circumscribed him. This circumscription kept the royals in view, giving them a reason to appeal to a power greater than themselves and the general will, which is capricious and impassioned if it isn’t just an excuse to exert some minority’s interests (pp. 325-329). What de Jouvenel is saying is that a legislative system cannot be based on a set of principles that are not congruent with the realities and folkways of the people they’re intended to manage.
De Jouvenel identifies a consistent pattern by the end of his book: a government’s problems aren’t rooted in the tool of government used by Power or the people. A government that does not recognize that people have a nature, but rather believes human nature can be whatever a people will it to be, will consistently fail, produce social discord, and establish the conditions that give rise to a despot or totalitarian government (pp. 329-333).
De Jouvenel also appears to be a populist. He believes the minority will always give way to the majority. He analogizes the minority to a small group of men holding back a massive army from crossing a bridge. In time, the massive army – de Jouvenel argues – will overcome the minority. I cannot see how a disorganized majority will establish itself once it crosses the bridge, however. Wouldn’t it have to be the case that an organized minority must reconstitute itself to redirect the disorganized majority? I do not think he clearly showed how it is the majority that’s the problem and not the majority directed by an organized minority against another organized minority unable to defend itself.
Regardless, de Jouvenel’s point is as follows: Laws cannot preserve a people unless the people’s folkways and customs align with the law. An alien law imposed on a people will simply serve as a tool for Power’s interests.
However, it’s not clear if the law can constrain Power indefinitely. If the law is preserved or enforced by an authoritative system, and laws are also established by an authoritative system, then an authoritative system enforces its own laws. Power can capture this system and make the laws what he wills. (pp. 335-336). Law, thus, cannot preserve the people’s well-being ultimately.
Neither Hobbes’, Kant’s, nor Rousseau’s idea of law seems to be capable of preventing it from being captured. Hobbes, for example, seems to ignore the problem of laws harming the people judged by them. He circularly defines the sovereign as good so that all he does is good. Any resistance to the sovereign, by definition, cannot be good. If the sovereign’s law causes harm, the person it harmed must have deserved it. Kant falls prey to a similar problem by constructing a fictitious reality wherein his conception of the law resides. The three fictions Kant creates for himself: 1.) He believes people cannot cause harm to themselves through the law; even if they are given a voluntary position of authority, but this belief does not mean they can’t cause harm to themselves; 2.) not everyone can or does form the law and, as a result, some people if not most people can be negatively affected by laws they had no hand in producing; and 3.), not everyone is consulted on each law, which de Jouvenel takes to be the most significant fantasy Kant creates for himself. Thus, neither Hobbes’ nor Kant’s systems (which includes Rousseau’s) prevented the law from causing harm to the people (pp. 336-338).
The scientific conception of laws – always changing, ever imperfect – cannot prevent its abuse by power either. Instead, it enables power to shape the law into whatever form pleases him or is useful for him (pp. 339-391). What must be recognized about the law, if it is not to be a tool of an authority’s passion, is that Law defines the law; i.e., the law reflects Natural Law and is not a mere artifact of men's minds. Ultimately, it’s difficult to convince people to follow a path of tradition (in which law is derived from a source other than men’s minds), which de Jouvenel argues can ameliorate the problems caused by Man-made law, when Man-made law is so tempting. It enables men to channel their passions into it and secure their desires through it. Of course, this temptation is nothing but an illusion for the masses. Only Power can control law for its interests in the end. Every other interest only serves him (p. 343).
De Jouvenel likes the American legal system and believes it can avoid the problems caused by a legislative body that enforces its laws. However, his appeal to the Constitution as a traditional document, limiting the judiciary, is (in my contemporary opinion) short-sighted. If he is able, a judge can read into the Constitution what he pleases and is only limited by the principle of stare decisis (previous rulings), which reflect the discovered common law, habits, and customs of the people the judge represents. Yet, this appeal to precedent relies on interpretation, as well, enabling a judge to read his interests into the law rather than the people’s. This position can also be subjected to men’s political interests, making it another tool for Power to acquire (pp. 343-347).
The judiciary does stand as a minority against the majority, however, whose passions can be motivated by anything Power desires them to be. For this reason, the people tend to prefer the legislature if they want something done, according to de Jouvenel, because it makes them feel as if they have more say. While de Jouvenel argues that the justices defend the unshakable principles of society – their verities – I am skeptical of this claim. What if the judiciary has fallen so much that it does not know what truth is or cannot say (pp. 347-349)? As I see it, if the judge cannot acknowledge basic truths about reality, then they will be incapable of seeing or discovering the people’s intrinsic customs and beliefs and, for this reason, will only read into the law what they desire or what their interest groups want them to read into the law. The latter establishes a precedent that benefits those interest groups while the former benefits the judge primarily. In this way, the judiciary – if it does become a captured political institution (and I believe it has become one) – will be more affected by the latter than the former because the latter serves Power’s interests.
Still, de Jouvenel heavily supports a traditional foundation, and I agree that this is probably the best solution to an arbitrary and unbounded legal authority. Still, even as he advocates for the judiciary to be defined by the traditional worldview, I cannot help thinking that this is a sign of a judiciary already captured by traditionalists’ interests. In other words, it always was an institution capable of being captured by Power, even if it was bound by a traditional, Constitutional, or Biblical foundation (pp. 349-350). Without this foundation, however, we are subjected to an ambulatory legal system’s absolute horrors (p. 350).
For de Jouvenel, the law then fails when it confuses utility with moral goodness (p. 351). Yet, I am left with this question: whose conception of moral goodness?
What about Liberty; can it check power? De Jouvenel argues that men used to have Liberty, not all men, but a select few. It was asserted of itself, not granted by some state or king. Liberty, as de Jouvenel implies, comes from and is held by the aristocracy (p. 354). Families and clans were this old Liberty’s foundation. The best, most numerous, well-armed, and capable families could preserve their liberties. (pp. 355-356). The nobility secured these by heavily emphasizing Responsibility, Ritual, and Folkways (p. 356). However, the yokes these place upon men’s shoulders are extremely heavy, and not all men can bear them, leading some to reduce their burden by submitting or appealing to Power.
Liberty’s heavy burden meant that not all men could be called freemen. They were in a class of their own – ingenuus. The idea of a freeman contradicts the conceit that all men can be free men. If a society is to be composed of freemen, the people who constitute that society cannot mean to say that all men within that society are free. If some people must be held responsible for their choices, some of them – at least – will find themselves enslaved or severely limited on account of their actions. If this means the majority of a society of freemen isn’t free, this does not negate the fact that the society is defined by freemen (pp. 358-360). Some philosophers, de Jouvenel argues, wonder if there can really be a society of freemen that does not include the enslavement of some men for their choices.
Still, these freemen are not heartless or uncharitable. The freemen of Rome, for example, incorporated potential freemen into their families; men who exhibited the qualities of the freemen forming the nobility. These were formed from the people or “plebs.” However, through this process, the character of Liberty changed. Its heavy burden was lightened through the addition of people incapable of facing their choices’ harsh consequences yet who were still useful to the nobility (pp. 361-362). The plebiscites used their governmental authority through the tribunates’ powers to pass laws for their own sake, based on their passions and needs (pleb scita). This legislative machine eventually eroded Liberty and brought about Rome's dictators (pp. 362-364). Ironically, Brutus’ dagger wasn’t defending democracy, it was defending Liberty as defined by Roman aristocrats.
What De Jouvenel takes from this historical example is the following condition: A Libertarian regime cannot be maintained unless the majority of people want to preserve their inviolable rights. Significant class distinctions inspire resentment. This resentment causes the majority to see their inviolable rights as nothing more than privileges sustaining the freemen’s aristocracy. Thus, they will not want to maintain their inviolable rights, leading to Liberty’s dissolution (pp. 365-367). When the people do not want to uphold their inviolable rights, causing the libertarian regime to collapse, there are two possible directions to take. 1.) Arrange the society, so each member can effectively enjoy “independence and autonomy,” i.e., so the wealthy and poor can both feel as if Liberty is worth defending. Or 2.), install a public authority to manage the people’s affairs on their behalf because there’s no resolving the problems that cause people to become disillusioned with their inviolable rights (pp. 366-367). If the people choose path 2.), the people become dependent on the state, i.e., they become the state’s slaves. To boot, when path 2.) is chosen, the state becomes an empire (p. 368).
This scenario does not lack historical examples either. In America, T. Roosevelt made the first choice his priority. Inevitably, choice 1 didn’t appeal to the masses. F. Roosevelt, on the other hand, settled on choice 2 and, in the process, made the people dependent on the state (p. 368). It is ironic that, in attempting to overthrow the aristocrats (whose wealth and privilege outweigh the masses) the masses favor the state’s and its administrators' rule who – established by the freemen to manage their affairs (generally) – enslave the masses by making them dependent on their authority. The masses simply trade one master for another and lose their liberties in the process (pp. 369-370).
To present how this imperial state can be avoided, de Jouvenel makes an example of the English once more. He argues that, because they preserved their king, they were able to maintain their nobility (p. 370). De Jouvenel argues that the developmental and historical differences between people predispose them to autocracy or Liberty (p. 372). What this statement implies is that the tool – as I’ve previously said – used to get the job done is less important than the tool’s ability to match the people’s character it's used on if you want a desired reality. Ignoring the historical and natural differences between people while enforcing a political system on them is a sure way to fail.
Usually, this inability to implement a system of laws, beliefs, and customs for a people of a specific nature or historical character results in Caesarism. De Jouvenel’s Caesarism is defined by three necessary conditions: 1.) a desire to remove and overthrow the old ruling class; 2.) the need to benefit a select class by enriching them (these novo-rich lack moral authority and become wealthy through the people that become dependent on them); and 3.) the state must make the masses, through their consent – and thus via coercion – dependent on the state (p. 374).
But what causes the people to take the course of tyranny rather than picking up Liberty’s heavy but fulfilling yoke?
Liberty tends to advance in at least one of two ways. Firstly, men are slowly freed from their chains through the struggle that takes place between their masters and the political authority. Secondly, men can use the state’s power, the political authority, to achieve what they want by making it their servant, typically through democratic means (p. 375). The old regime’s overthrow also occurs spiritually and puts men in the divine’s thrown – obviously, this spiritual revolution does not end well. In the voids left by liberalism’s wake, Power finds a new home. The state, rather than serving the people’s interests, makes them dependent on it. (p. 376). Why do liberals and their followers do this, de Jouvenel asks?
Men are terrified of disasters. Disasters cause them to run towards a master instead of facing a disaster’s consequences for themselves. They do not want to face their choice’s consequences. They are less equipped to weigh the costs of a disaster or its likelihood, as well, generally speaking, and out of a fear caused by their inability to quantify the effects of a disastrous choice, they turn to the state to resolve their problems for them (pp. 376-378). Those who prefer security tend to be intellectuals unwilling to take the necessary risks to liberate themselves. This action, which common folk can express too, is rooted in the intellectual fear of the unknown. As matters get riskier, the number of state dependents will increase (pp. 378-380).
Fearful tendencies, thus, create two categories of people: Libertarians and Securitarians. These categories promote the formation of classes with securitarians tending toward the society’s bottom and libertarians towards its peak. The free movement of libertarians and securitarians will establish an equilibrium. However, the desire to preserve one’s status may limit this free movement. When this kind of social stultification occurs, society inverts. Libertarians predominate in the society’s lower classes while securitarians the top classes. This inversion causes the society to collapse. When people at the top wish to preserve their wealth while those at the bottom are willing to risk much to acquire more, but only the former is preserved in the upper class’s ranks, a society’s institutions cannot hold (pp. 380-382).
The upper class can reinvigorate itself by inviting the most competent and qualified men into its ranks, however. Still, the aristocracy’s hold on the society is weakened by this uptake of lower-class individuals. Soon, the progressives predominately hold positions in a society’s upper classes until their wealth grows; then, they leave the upper classes (pp. 382-383). An aristocracy weakens itself as it adds new additions to its ranks because many of them remain characteristically servile. De Jouvenel argues that this uptake of servile men makes the aristocracy “tame and spiritless” (p. 383), as was the case in pre-Revolutionary France.
For both the aristocracy and Power, the middle class is their main source of protection and revivification. Without them, the lower classes amass, increasing the likelihood of a tyranny. The middle class preserves the aristocrat’s Liberty and prevents the lower classes from feeling like their inviolable rights are not worth upholding (pp. 383-385). The middle class gives the upper classes a reservoir of potential freemen who are more inclined to be free than servile and it also shows the lower classes the benefits of Liberty.
When a new class acquires Power, it has two different choices before it: First, Power can secure his authority and create a tiered system while allowing for the addition of new, quality recruits into its ranks; or secondly, it can provide its liberties (i.e., the nobility’s liberties) to all while depriving the securitarians and lower classes the protections they received from Power (p. 385). The former denies lower-class men the risks associated with Liberty and, thus, the ability to accrue wealth for one’s self. Unfortunately, the former is often chosen.
Capitalists are not free from securitarian effects either. Like Burnham, de Jouvenel sees the capitalists as having a hand in their downfall. They accrue wealth through Fox-like tendencies, and, as a result, weaken the upper classes. In time, these weak men become dependent on the state to save them because they’ve secured their wealth by appealing to Power and the state (pp. 386-387).
Once a securitarian state arises, the only secure positions remaining – though few – are administrative or managerial. The lower-class’s members soon become extremely interested in these managerial positions. Most of their productive, technical, or creative jobs – by this civilizational stage – are insecure and cannot sustain them. In time, the importance placed on these administrative and managerial institutions saps creative and productive potential from a society, ensuring its collapse because it cannot maintain itself without those forces (pp. 387-388).
The psychology of men who agree to the pactum subjectionis is a fearful one. These men cannot look upon the cruel vicissitudes of existence and see that, as was the case in the past, men are naturally responsible for some of their hellish conditions. Instead, to avoid this pain and suffering, or to avoid even seeing it, these pusillanimous men turn to an authority who protects them at the cost of their Liberty (pp. 380-390).
Still, is Knowledge incapable of saving us from this fate?
Men’s instincts for pleasure and authority drive them into the manager’s hands. Man believes that, with the right knowledge, he can build whatever he wishes through the state. Yet, as a man, his knowledge is limited, he is limited, and – for this reason – his dreams made manifest will only cause destruction and unhappiness, his intent’s antitheses, because he can never account for all the necessary variables (pp. 392-394). Contemporarily, this machine has immense strength and few can overthrow it. To obfuscate this lack of control, men turn to the police and propaganda, the latter of which enables the state to spread its ideology or religion. Most men will wish to use this machine to manifest their ideal worlds. And because they cannot, in the process, they create wars – internal and external (pp. 394-395). No man can wield the one Ring but Power; everyone else only can serve Power’s interests.
Through his work, I think what de Jouvenel is trying to express is that the Liberal, Enlightenment ideal was unachievable for it was founded on a significant misunderstanding about Man’s nature. To clarify, he provides his readers with the concept of “liberal negation.” The liberal negation is to, essentially, see society as nothing more than a series of contracts that can be negotiated. In the contractual society, why should any interest be more important than another? The liberal will argue that the society’s conception of competency is arbitrary; its traditions antiquated and due for revising; and that its internal order is nothing more than a mirage. The liberal takes the established claims by the ruling class and flips them on their head (pp. 397-398). Still, when the claims made by the liberal are examined, they cannot sustain themselves. No one can ever ensure absolute internal order, an unchanging, normal, and objective culture (let’s just go back to the 90s, bro), or a system established on conceptions of competency that are not contingent upon the society they’re expressed from. The liberal’s ideas, de Jouvenel argues, are utopian, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.
But why does Liberalism result in despotism? To answer this question, we must examine how governmental institutions are conceived.
For a start, a government’s institutions can take two different forms: Legalitarian and Providential. De Jouvenel defines the former as a government “buttress[ed] with [fixed sanctions] and relatively unchangeable laws, [seeing] to their exact execution, while treat[ing] with respect whatever consequences they have.” The latter he defines as a government that takes “occasional interventions and bring[s] to each situation as it arises its own remedy, with the result that there are no longer fixed laws but rather an uninterrupted series of ‘miracles’ or arbitrary acts” (p. 399). These governmental concepts are rooted in a conception of natural and civil law. The former is unchangeable and necessary while the latter is volitional and contingent on the interests of men. For example, a man thrown from a high tower is subject to gravity’s natural laws while a man whose fields become desolate may have to move if he wants to live but may choose to remain (pp. 399-400). Moral laws are of the former variety but are also volitional; there’s just no escaping their effects. The latter, civil laws, are regarded as the laws of men and are produced by men more for their utility than their moral goodness. For de Jouvenel, this distinction creates the following definitional statement: Moral laws, being that they are good for society, are useful, but a useful law does not make a moral law. To say that a law is moral because it is useful is to confuse what is sufficient with what is necessary (p. 400). Ultimately, de Jouvenel does not think that a government of law, a contractual society as the liberal is apt to define it, is realizable (p. 400). However, he does think that it’s a good ideal. He states that it’s the “best” ideal, suggesting he cannot think of anything better to strive for.
Whether we’d like it to be the case, a society inevitably decays. When this decay occurs, men will search for a supernatural force to intervene on their behalf. This intervening force is useful for them, but would it be good? Again, as a man’s society disintegrates around him, he will mistake the useful for the good, which Power will use to his advantage. Essentially, man makes a wish, and Power provides him with his wish, at great cost. Power entices Man to become dependent on him by satiating his desires (p. 401-402). De Jouvenel makes clear that this is no myth either and provides us with the following logical chain:
The problems people are facing are real (there’s a failure to correct for social inequalities); the laws that are proposed to resolve the people’s problems only feed their passions; these produce arbitrary decisions because they are derived from Man’s passions and not their wisdom and intellect; arbitrary power leads to despotism; this breeds ambition because everyone will want the despot’s power; the conflict produced by competing ambitions generates disorder on a gigantic, worldwide scale (pp. 402-403). In short: people are making their personal problems global problems.
Man recognizes that he is part of a networked society of interdependent units and that his success requires the success of his neighbors, generally speaking. However, the question the liberal has been unable to resolve, at least at the time de Jouvenel was writing, is: how does he mend the ties as they unravel without increasing the state’s tyranny? In part, the solution de Jouvenel provides us is the power of concepts. Still, which concepts?
If a society can regulate itself and resolve the problems caused by social inequalities, which unravel the necessary ties that preserve the social order, it must be understood as the complex, dynamic, and psychologically rich environment society is. The liberal’s solution to Man’s problems is, more often than not, based on economics, according to de Jouvenel. Economic theories do not account for the dynamic and psychological richness of societies. Therefore, economic theories cannot regulate or resolve the social problems caused by social inequalities. (pp. 408-410). De Jouvenel argues that it is Man’s conceptual understanding of his environment that must be updated to ensure social regulation (pp. 410-411), which means man must understand himself as the dynamic, complex, and psychologically profound creature he is. Men cannot, generally speaking, achieve this task on their own. They require an authority or guide, a master, to teach them. Once again, Power finds a role for himself.
A society based on utility, which is a society whose solutions are purely economical, de Jouvenel argues, cannot properly regulate itself because it mistakes the useful for the morally good, as well (pp. 411-414). Men obsessed with utility are unbound (p. 414). A society rooted in utility rather than moral goodness, which I think de Jouvenel shows throughout his work is the obsession of the Enlightened liberal (and his downfall through totalitarianism), breeds corruption. A corrupt society inevitably produces dysregulation and this turns people to Power so that he can resolve their problems for them (p. 416). They raise their voices to the sky and call down a savior who establishes his kingdom on Earth. If only the image were so pleasant. Rather, they tear at the ground and bring forth a demon from hell’s depths to terrorize and subjugate them.
De Jouvenel states that it is the liberal’s obsession with Individualism that manifests totalitarianism’s evils (pp. 415-417). Individualism tears down the noble order, undermining its ability to prevent Power from becoming totalitarian. The noble order produces a noble inequality because, if it is not based on nepotism or corruption but on real Liberty as de Jouvenel has described it, the noble order rightly deserves to be the only group of freemen within a free society. The liberal cannot stand this; it horrifies him – it’s not equal, it’s unfair, he shouts. Thus, he tears the freemen down and, in the process, makes himself a slave to tyranny.
Before proceeding to my final discussion on de Jouvenel’s work, I’d like to end with a quote on liberalism by de Jouvenel:
“[The Liberal’s] metaphysic refused to see in society anything by the state and the individual. It disregarded the role of the spiritual authorities and of all those intermediate social forces which enframe, protect, and control the life of man, thereby obviating and preventing the intervention of Power. It did not foresee that the overthrow of all these barriers and bulwarks would unleash a disorderly rout of egotistical interests and blind passions leading to the fatal and inauspicious coming of tyranny.” (p. 417).
De Jouvenel did not see Liberalism as a solution to the horrors he witnessed. Rather, he sees it as the cause of the 20th Century’s monsters.
Power, as I made clear at this paper’s beginning, is an insoluble problem. It is rooted in Man’s heart, in his essence and nature, and this nature is unchangeable. We can alter Man’s environmental conditions, and we can deny his historical, developmental, and biological origins, but we can never remove Power from our lives for he exists within us; our desire for him gives him form, and in form, he is raised up and placed on authority’s throne. There, he subjugates us all.
De Jouvenel appeals to tradition as if we can bind Power with textual interpretation and precedent. But whose textual interpretation is it, which precedent, and whose reading of that precedent? Power will inevitably find his way into these positions, as well. Rather than binding Power, the appeal to traditional modes simply gives him the conditions to build a new throne for himself on the old throne’s ruins. The Constitution, no matter if I think it is a compelling legal document, cannot escape these realities as is made evident by the struggles between textualists, originalists, and pragmatists.
I think de Jouvenel brilliantly demonstrates Liberalism’s inability to resolve the problem of tyranny that emerges so rapaciously from its institutions. Its appeals to Equality, Individuality, Human Rights, and Universal Liberties seed Power’s soil and give him cause. They inspirit in men unimaginable ideals and tear down the elite, freemen preventing the yearning hordes from turning their noble, social apparatuses into Power’s enslaving tools. Less than a solution to despotism, Liberalism is its handmaiden.
What de Jouvenel’s historical review of the managerial state’s rise paints for us is its downfall as well. The managerial state is run by people who make their subjects dependent on them. In time, the only people they can well up from the lower classes will be those people dependent on the system. This dependency creates a negative feedback loop where the people in charge of sustaining the state’s apparatuses are also dependent on them for their survival, causing the state to wither away and die. The state and its managers inevitably consume themselves.
De Jouvenel’s appeal to “new blood,” which is used to reinvigorate the aristocratic class of freemen, as a metaphor, seems to be perverted by the contemporary state. Rather than ennobling their society’s best members, contemporary elites purchase their stations (like the pre-revolutionary French aristocracy did) by virtue signaling how inclusive they are. They will dole out managerial and administrative positions in their institutions based on the qualitative identity of their charge rather than his works’ or mind’s quality. By preserving their power through virtue signaling, they install servile managers and ensure the state’s decay.
While I stand by my claim that de Jouvenel’s work has made me feel helpless, I do not consider this helpless feeling to be a bad thing. Some things cannot be helped. It is for delusional and monstrous men to provide answers to the problems caused by Power. Power, I cannot blame. The dreaming men, who have failed to grasp Power’s reality; who weave ideals that leave naught but fire, death, and decay in their wake; who deny Man’s nature, because they are too emotionally immature to sit in the uncomfortable place Power’s existence leaves us; who blame the tool rather than their own hands, deserve all the scorn Power receives. These weakhearted and cowardly men, who fear Liberty’s true burden, deserve the collapse they will manifest. For those of us too pessimistic to provide some hopeful solution to this reality, perhaps it is enough to find solace in the liberal’s and progressive’s fate.
We can, however, live our lives. We can build families, create, and do our best to dismantle the concepts upholding the state as a tool of enslavement. But we should not utterly believe the state’s dissolution can relieve us of Power's presence. He will always be there and, if the Sensible Right wants to succeed in the future, they should consider giving him a place at their table to restrain him. In the process, they might also end up preserving themselves.
Bibliography:
De Jouvenel, B. (1945). On Power: The Natural History of its Growth. Liberty Fund.
