Gedachten
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Republicanism and Aristocracy
One of the most interesting aspects of the late Roman Republic, the period experienced by such famous writers as Cicero, is the way they refer to the past. To the politically active citizens, invariably of an at least upper middle class background, the Roman Republic was in a state of decline. The politicians of the time, they say, have no morals, are crooks, liars and populists; the people are dumb, cowardly and uninformed; immorality and profiteering run rampant to the detriment of the state. This opposed to the past, when (according to those writers) the Roman politicians were powerful and principled and they as well as the citizens full of civic virtue.
There is of course no historical basis whatsoever for such a black-and-white view of a country's history by its foremost political literators. Nevertheless, it is a pattern we see returning in several other places where a strong tradition of republicanism is pressured by the republic's increasing power and size. The United States, perhaps the best example of republicanism in today's world, is one of these places.
More and more American writers, politicians, activists (and bloggers) are complaining about the downfall of the country's strong republican and principled foundations. Politicians, they say, have no morals, are crooks, liars and populists; and the people are dumb, cowardly and uninformed. The interesting thing is that politically interested writers from all political sides are saying this; Greens, Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, anarchists, they all seem to feel witness to some slow decline in political virtue in their days, when compared with the past.
In the specific context of the United States that past is the mythical time of "the Founding Fathers and the early States", where brilliant and civically minded men like Washington and Jefferson overthrew the tyrannical regime of British King George III and proceeded to write an inspired Constitution that is a shining example of republicanism and republican principles. Because of this mythical ideal fundament for the country, its early years were marked by expansion both politically and economically, by a host of great minds as politicians and Presidents, and by a republican civic tradition where every citizen took his responsibility in the political process.
Of course there never was such an ideal time, and what's more, because people from all possible political sides refer to these specific republican principles as the ideal guiding light, they cannot really exist either. So what is it then about the spirit of republicanism in general, that causes political literators to see a moral degradation of the politics and civic life of the country where there is no clear degradation in any historical sense?
The answer, paradoxically, lies in the republican nature of these civic ideals themselves. To be more exact, it lies in the way it handles aristocracy.
The point is, people like Jefferson were aristocrats, and it is precisely this aristocracy that enabled them to be as civicly virtuous as they were. Consider the following: most republican states are, historically, formed in either small city-states or in larger rural areas. In both cases, the population is not very high and the economy is strongly focused on one particular branch (trade or agriculture, respectively). In such societies, there are simply very few people who can afford the expenditure of time and money for an education and a subsequent political career.
Because of that basic economic hurdle, the only ones capable of actually becoming writers, philosophers or politicians are those that have the free time and opportunity to be educated. In anything but a very well-developed capitalist society, it is the aristocracy and the aristocracy only who fits this bill.
This also enables the mythic figure of the principled and inspired leader, who guides the citizens by his civic virtue and his principled politics, all the while supporting their freedoms and not being corrupted by any offer of money or power. While this seems far-fetched to us, it is actually relatively simple for an aristocracy in a society like that to achieve this. After all, he can easily seem principled and virtuous, as he is one of the few who has had education in writing and debating, and so will be able to convey his message to people much more convincingly. He can easily support the freedoms of the citizens, as the citizens are those of his class, or those that his class controls by economic and social ties. He can easily not be corrupt, as no one but the aristocracy can even dream of posessing the funds that might sway him. And finally, it is easy for him not to be seduced by power, as regardless of how democratic this republic is, it will always be an aristocracy who has the power, and he is one of that class.
But as a republic progresses, its size and its power waxes, and time goes by. The republic has now grown great and powerful, a beacon of civilization in a barbaric world (or so its citizens see themselves). What the citizens of this later stage of the republic remember is not the daily life of the old times, the simple economic structure, the pyramidic shaped distribution of social power, the small world in which the citizens moved. No, they remember only the great deeds and the great writings and speeches of old, as those are the most memorable things of that time. And because the powerful late republic succeeded the simple early republic, it must be that these huge gains in power and level of civilization came because of the doers of these great deeds, the writers of these great writings and the speakers of these great speeches. And so they see their old aristocracy, forgetting its background, forgetting why it was these people and only these few that had such eminence: as pioneers of the republican spirit, as people who sacrifice for the civic ideals, as the champions of the common man. In short, as an ideal for citizens and especially the politicians of today and of tomorrow.
