The Summary Cause for the
Stability or Downfall of Human Societies
CHAPTER 14
Three exclusive and therefore defective political systems: true political theory takes account of all elements
108. The three summary forces we have distinguished in the preceding chapter gave rise to three political systems, or rather to three ways of dealing with political science.
Many authors focused their whole attention on the importance to the social body of what we call a positive, favourable will. As a result they were principally engaged in showing how to direct public opinion. All political moralists of any kind belong to this group.
Others, who did not give too much direct importance to the strength of opinion, paid exclusive attention to everything that was external to human beings. These authors were principally anxious to deal with wealth and industry. They form the group known as political economists.
Finally, others, who considered opinion and external goods merely as accessories to political science, devoted themselves to the examination of the organism itself of the social machine, to the balance of powers which form it, and to the internal and external energy that results from this varying composition. These people are political theorists in the strict sense.
109. But from what we have said it is not difficult to understand that social science will never be complete as long as writers fix their biased, incorrect attention on only one of these three parts without considering the other two, or deal with the three parts as entirely separate without examining their relationships and factual unity.
110. Let us imagine that a government decides to take a certain step. Before doing this, it has to know if its decision will be opportune relative to the change it will induce in public spirit. In order to understand this, what has the government to consider?
111. It will certainly not be enough for the government, if it is wise, to know that the new disposition will better the spirit of a certain number or class of people. This would not enable the government to conclude that the step was truly useful. On the other hand, knowledge that the proposal would worsen the spirit of a certain number or class of people, should not be sufficient to dissuade it from action. The question has to be presented in another way if a well-advised judgment is to result. Thus we have to ask if, in taking the step under consideration, the government can make a probable calculation about the final good or bad effect of the favourable and unfavourable impressions that could be made on different spirits. In other words, will the public spirit grow better or worse, all things being considered? Moreover, if the effect on the spirit composing the society is bad rather than good, we still have to ask if the new arrangement is necessary to remove a greater evil. That is, if the step and its resultant disadvantage were avoided, would some even greater evil be expected?
112. Every question of political theory, therefore, is complicated and superior to normal forces. We are not asking about any particular good or evil, but about calculating a general good or evil. This explains the rashness of so many private judgments, as well as the unreality of almost all complaints springing from particular interests.
113. In the same way, it will never be possible to establish in political theory any general or a priori maxim as an answer to the question: `Must a government make use of severity and terror in dealing with certain kinds of criminals?’ Such terror may be useful in particular cases but harmful on a general level, or useful in general and harmful in particular according to the extent of depravity, crudity or culture in a given nation. And there are many other actual circumstances which are not considered by the question in the abstract.
The same can be said about other means which influence spirits. The opportuneness of these means can only be judged on the basis of knowledge of the real state of a nation. This is the only possible solid foundation on which to calculate the probable goodness or badness of the general effect, or the least bad effect which may be expected if such means are not taken.
114. If we apply the same reasoning to property, power and all other external goods, we shall find that every political question in their regard must be reduced to a general calculation of the good or bad effect resulting from what we intend in their regard. Everything is reduced to knowing `if the modification brought about in the distribution of wealth, or power, or any other good resulting from the new arrangement is of such a character that a general calculation shows it to be more useful than harmful.’
Every system, from that of an equitable distribution of property to that which attributes direct dominion over all property to the Sultan, can have its good and bad side. The defect of almost all writers of political science consists in demonstrating the benefits or defects of their imaginary system without bothering to strike a balance between good and bad. The aim at the end of the calculation would be to see which of the systems, in given circumstances, offers a more advantageous result; it is not a question of knowing which of the systems has no defects and contains every benefit.
115. Perfectionism, the system which believes in the possibility of perfection in human affairs and sacrifices present benefits for some imagined future perfection, is an effect of ignorance. It consists in overweening prejudice that prompts too favourable a judgment about human nature which it examines on the basis of pure hypothesis, of a postulate that cannot be granted, and with absolute lack of reflection on the natural limits of things.
Elsewhere I spoke about the great principle of the limitation of things, and I showed that THERE IS SOME GOOD WHOSE EXISTENCE WOULD BE ALTOGETHER IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT THE EXISTENCE OF SOME EVIL.(39) Divine Providence itself, although most wise and powerful, is necessitated by this eternal, ontological principle. I mean that it is bound to calculate the total effect of what is good and what is bad, and permit the latter when it draws in its wake greater good. In the same way, it is obliged to produce amongst every possible good only that which does not occasion greater evil or impede greater good.
Granted, therefore, the unshakeable principle `that occasionally the existence of some good necessarily impedes the existence of a greater good, and that the existence of some good is often connected with the existence of certain evils, just as the existence of some evil is connected with what is certainly good, it is clear that all human wisdom in government can only be based on the imitation of the wisdom of the One who from heaven rules the entire universe. Human wisdom can only aim at obtaining the greatest final good effect, that is, the total good, as a result of calculating all the good and evil that serve as indispensable co-causes of the effect producing the greatest good. If we now express the benefits and disadvantages as respectively numerator and denominator, we shall see that government expertise does not consist solely in increasing the number of benefits or decreasing the disadvantages, but in ensuring that while benefits increase, disadvantages do not increase even further. Similarly, steps have to be taken to ensure that excessive disadvantages do not naturally diminish benefits to the detriment of the whole. In other words, the value of the resulting fraction must go up rather than down.(40)
116. What has been said about public spirit and about the quantity and distribution of external means can also be said 1. about the different modes of existence of social organism and management, and, 2. about their different parts, which are final-ly the objects on which the action of the two preceding forces focuses.
117. All foresight consists in arranging matters so that the endeavour to better some part of this organism or social cohesion does not result in damage to another, more essential part. In a word, we need to look for the general good of the whole organisation without being excessively partial to one of its parts.
118. However, even this is not sufficient. What we have said about each of these three systems of powers, that is, public spirit, exterior benefits and social cohesion, has to be repeated about all three taken together. They are like three wheels on which revolve human social well-being. One influences another; one slows down or speeds up, collides with or helps another. None of them is so independent that it is free to act without reference to the damage it may cause the other two, if indeed it desires the harmony and the general welfare of the whole. In a word, the state and movement of each of the three wheels must accord with that of the other two, even if it loses something of its own action. And indeed we have seen more than once that excessive physical prosperity in a nation has caused its corruption and destruction. The notion that only some particular benefit in a nation need be considered, without reference to the rest, is fallacious in the extreme.
119. We conclude: the rule about substance and accident is transformed here into the rule which prescribes that wise governments should have a comprehensive vision which `keeps in view the good of the whole, not simply that of a part.’
Notes
(39) Saggio sulla divina Provvidenza nel governo de' beni e de' mali temporali, included in the Opuscoli Filosofici, vol. 1, p. 117, Milan, 1827.
(40) The thought I am trying to express will be more precise for those with some knowledge of mathematics if the benefits and disadvantages are expressed as two unknowns whose relationship is determined by any mutual function. The formula, f(x,y)=o, where x stands for something good, y for something disadvantageous, contains all possible values for x and y, and represents every possible relationship between these two quantities. As a result, it contains all laws about their relative increase and decrease.