Society And its Purpose
Book 4 - Psychological Laws and the End of Civil Societies
CHAPTER 36
The influence of governments on the lawful and unlawful desires of subjects
844. We shall now sum up. We have spoken about the varied rapidity of development of human desires and activities, and we have seen that:
1. The imperfection of society depends upon the low level of development of its desire and activities.
2. The development of desires can be lawful and natural. In this case, society is led through development to degrees of ever higher perfection.
3. The development of desires can be unlawful. In this case society degenerates and falls into a state much worse than that of its initial imperfection.
845. We have distinguished four classes of desires.
The first embraces what we called `unsatisfiable desires’. These are essentially absurd and immoral. They distance people from contentment (the end of society) and constitute the state of unhappiness.
The second embraces those desires through which we desire finite good. This good, however, exceeds available means and industry and cannot, therefore, be attained (these desires differ from the unsatisfiable desires of the first class which set out to attain an infinite good with finite means). Unsatisfied desires of this kind do not properly speaking form the state of unhappiness, but that of non-contentment. They deprive society of its end, and draw it towards incalculable harm, as we have seen in the case of the Indians of North America.
The third embraces those desires with which we long for the good for which both means and industry are sufficient. These desires are normally satisfied, although they bring pain and disquiet to the human spirit every time their satisfaction fails. In these cases, they are morally defective; they are too absolute; they are unchecked and unconditioned. In a word, they do not confirm to truth and the reality of things. The harm caused by these desires affects individuals more than society; the activity they arouse in people is sometimes useful in general and for the future, even if they have no immediate, particular utility. Nevertheless, even these desires are defective and in part opposed to the end of society.
The fourth embraces those desires which harmonise wonderfully well in human beings with the contentment of their spirit. They include moral desires, both for the object they propose and for their upright measure; and desires which generate totally beneficial activity that leads individuals and society to attain ever more perfectly their noble end, that is, good, contentment and happiness.
846. Governmental wisdom must be devoted to promoting positively this last class of desires. Every civil government can influence and does influence beyond all belief everything that concerns the desires of the members of society. There is not perhaps a single governmental enactment, whatever it may be, which does not produce a good or bad effect on the spirits of the members relative to the desires that the philosophy of government ought to foresee and calculate.
847. Normally, the harmful immorality of different desires are like the links of a chain. The desires of the third class, which are less harmful and immoral than the desires of the other two classes, degenerate and change into desires of the second class. The desires of the second class, which are less harmful and immoral than the desires of the first class, continue to deteriorate and become desires of the first class.
848. It frequently happens that active people, longing to advance, fall into the most profound depravation when circumstances thwart all their efforts. Their desires originally pertain to the second or third class, but soon take on the harmful characteristics of the first class, and become unsatisfiable capacities.
The opposite also occurs. These people can find themselves in other circumstances where they are as rich and as honoured as they desired. At this point, they return to sound principles, their unhappy, angry hearts are calmed, and they set out once more on the path of uprightness and good conduct which they had abandoned. This is a fairly common case in America where peoples, nurtured in Europe, flourished. In the main, desires found satisfaction, while passions did not overflow into the blind anger of unsatisfiable capacities.(360)
849. Inequality (relative rather than absolute) is normally an ample source of desires. When laws and usages establish various de iure and de facto inequalities amongst individuals, or more generally amongst the inhabitants of a region, people desire more, and find more reasons for comparing themselves with those who possess or enjoy more than they do. If the inhabitants of a region subject to the same government are divided into distinct classes definitively separated from one another and carefully determined and accepted as part of daily living, people compare themselves with those of their own class. They rarely make a comparison between themselves and those of a higher class. Their desires aim for relative equality among their neighbours, not for absolute equality, that is, equality between all human beings of whatever class. The constant separation of classes leads to limited desires. It is true that too absolute a separation keeps society overlong in a state of imperfection, but it is also true that it distances the danger of a lapse into corruption. A government watching over equality amongst members of the same class has done everything possible for security in the society and a great deal for contentment of spirit.
850. This observation explains the political reason for castes, and their great duration amongst Eastern nations. It also clarifies the origin of the great difficulties facing governments which, animated by a spirit of humanity, want to enfranchise slaves (once these have become very numerous). It would seem highly probable that the following reflection was made on the difficulty to be experienced in freeing the great number of slaves in the southern States of America:(361)
| There is deeply impressed in the human heart an extraordinary principle of relative justice. People are touched far more by inequality within the same class than by the inequalities noted between different classes. Slavery is easy enough to comprehend, but how can one conceive the existence of many millions of citizens perpetually subject to the brand of infamy and abandoned to misery that lasts from generation to generation? |
Slavery makes people resigned to not desiring the good of freedom. Once the law has set them free, however, their desires and pretensions are endless. They no longer compare themselves with their fellow-slaves, but want to be on a par with freemen. As a result government, with a single law, immediately releases within them an incredible number of desires. Such is the kind of influence government, through its enactments, can exercise on the human spirit!(362)
851. Desires increase as competition for all social classes and responsibilities becomes more universal. Sometimes this competition is open to all equally by laws and custom. In fact, it is then impeded by the great numbers who trample one another down in the rush to fame and fortune. In this case, only a few manage to satisfy the desires and activity they share with the many. The majority look upon their fortunate rivals, with whom they have compared themselves so often, and see themselves at the bottom of the heap. Such numerous, frustrated desires and painful comparisons are normally the source of great harm to public morality and cause immense evils in society.
| The materialism of ordinary persons in socially developed countries does not come simply from their poverty and ignorance, but from finding themselves in daily contact, poor and ignorant as they are, with learned, wealthy people. They see their own lot and weakness and contrast it every day with the lot and power of some of their fellows. This must arouse within them a feeling of inferiority and dependence which upsets and humiliates them. This interior state is reproduced in their external life and in their language; they are insolent and base at one and the same time. This deplorable effect of such contrasting conditions is not found amongst savages. American Indians are all ignorant and poor, but all equal and free |
— hence their virtues and simple contentment of spirit.
852. Examining all the circumstances which influence desires, and hence have power to modify the state of society by modifying spirits, does indeed provide an inexhaustible subject for discussion — an obligatory subject of meditation for legislators and public rulers before they decide on some law or pass some enactment. They must ask themselves: `What effect will this law or enactment have on the human SPIRIT??’ This question is equivalent to another: `Will this law or enactment draw society nearer to or further from from its end?’
Notes
(360) A. Toqueville describes a celebrated radical whom he had met in America. After the man had made his fortune, he became totally different from what he had been forty years previously. He himself attributed this to the extraordinary change for good which had made him wealthy: `I was poor, and now I am rich. If only well-being, in acting on my conduct, had left my judgment free! But that was not the case. My opinions have changed with my fortune, and in the happy state which I now enjoy, I have truly found the determining reason which I had previously lacked.' De la Démocratie en Amérique, vol. 2, 59.
(361) In 1830, the state of Maine had one black for every three hundred inhabitants; Massachusetts one for every hundred; the State of New York two; Pennsylvania three; Maryland thirty-four; Virginia forty-two; South Carolina fifty-five. — In the northern States, where slavery has been abolished, whites number 6,565,434, blacks 120,520; in the States where slavery exists 3,960,814 whites, 2,208,102 blacks. — The black population in the five united southern States increased with greater rapidity than the white population. From 1790 to 1830, whites increased 80%, blacks 112%. — In certain parts of southern America, slaves are much more numerous than freemen. For example, in 1835 the island of Martinique numbered 78,076 slaves and only 37,955 freemen. Before the revolutionary wars, the disproportion between slaves and freemen was even greater: in 1790, freemen numbered 16,000, slaves 83,000.
(362) The dangers that governments foresee in effecting the liberation of slaves does not justify the immorality they commit by permitting and legalising those elements contained in modern slavery which are contrary to human rights and Christian rights. All governments have at least the following duties towards slaves which must be satisfied without any excuse and without delay of any sort, even if it is not possible to remove with immediate effect the hateful word `slavery' from the laws.
Governments have the sacred duty: 1. to acknowledge the personship of slaves, and those inalienable, imprescriptible rights which spring from their personship; 2. to determine these rights by law in the clearest and most solemn way; 3. to take slaves into their care, considering them as minors and defending them against the abuse their masters make of the dominion they have over their work; 4. of granting them the right to claim compensation for injury to their rights in the presence of competent tribunals charged with the responsibility of doing them fair, loyal justice; 5. of rendering this right effective by providing the means to make use of it, and putting these means in charge of someone who can make use of them in the name of the slaves; 6. of removing all obstacles to their intellectual-moral progress, which they should indeed encourage in every way compatible with the work slaves owe to their masters so that a way may be prepared towards full freedom. — Christianity destroyed the slavery of antiquity precisely by strongly reproving everything about it that was immoral and opposed to human dignity.
Constantine, Christian that he was, forbade the hanging of slaves, their being thrown from heights, death by introducing poison into their veins, burning over a slow fire, abandonment to death by starvation and other horrors of this kind. Other emperors after him added further prohibitions (Cod. Theod, 9: 12). The Church condemned everything that showed slaves as other than brothers to freemen. The very word `slave', and its legal connotations, disappeared in their own time. This is the way to make slaves free: first destroy the reality, then the word.