POBEDONOSTSEV ON DEMOCRACY

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POBEDONOSTSEV ON DEMOCRACY
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bet | 34/43 | Sana | 22.11.2020 | Hajmi | 0,7 Mb. | | #12762 |
33. POBEDONOSTSEV ON DEMOCRACY
Although a belief in democracy was almost universal by now in the West, in some countries it was not obviously a success. Thus in France and Italy governments succeeded each other with bewildering rapidity. German autocracy looked both more stable and more prosperous…
In his article "The New Democracy", Pobedonostsev expounded the view that modern democracy differed essentially from ancient democracy.
In the ancient city-states, the suffrage was far from universal, and the de facto rulers were those who were best suited to govern the State. In modern democracy, by contrast, the new aristocracy of the nouveaux riches buys power by bribing and manipulating the masses. "In broadening its foundation, the newest democracy places universal suffrage as the goal closest to its heart. This is a fatal error, one of the most striking in the history of mankind. The political power which democracy tries to attain so passionately is splintered in this form into a multitude of particles, and each citizen acquires an infinitely small part of this right."458
"History witnesses that the most essential and fruitful and stable measures and transformations for the people have proceeded from the central will of statesmen or from a minority enlightened by a great idea and deep knowledge. By contrast, with the broadening of the suffrage a lowering of State thought and a vulgarisation of opinion in the mass of the electors has taken place. This broadening in large States has either been introduced with the secret aim of concentrating power, or has itself led to dictatorship. In France universal suffrage was removed at the end of the last century with the cessation of the terror; but afterwards it was restored twice in order confirm the absolute rule in it of the two Napoleons. In Germany the introduction of universal suffrage was undoubtedly aimed at confirming the central power of the famous ruler [Bismarck] who acquired great popularity by the huge successes of his politics. What will happen after him, God only knows.
"The game of collecting votes under the banner of democracy has become a common phenomenon in our time in almost all the European States, and it would seem that its lie has been displayed before all. However, nobody dares to rise up openly against this lie. The unfortunate people bears the burden, while the newspapers - the heralds of what is supposed to be public opinion - drown the cries of the people with their own shouts: 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians!' But for the unprejudiced mind it is clear that the whole of this game is nothing other than a struggle and fight of parties and a juggling with numbers and names. The votes - in themselves negligible quantities - receive a price in the hands of skilful agents. Their value is realized by various means and first of all by bribery in the various forms - from small cash and material payments to the handing out of profitable posts in excise and financial administration and in the civil service. Little by little a whole contingent of voters is formed, voters that are accustomed to sell their votes or their agents. It reaches the point, for example in France, where serious citizens, right-thinking and hard-working, turn away in huge numbers from the elections, feeling the complete impossibility of struggling with the gang of political agents. Besides bribery, violence and threats are put into play, and electoral terror is organized, by means of which the gang puts forward its candidate by force: we know the stormy pictures of electoral meetings at which weapons are taken up and killed and wounded remain on the field of battle."459
In the new democracy, "the great lie of our age", reasoned argumentation is not needed to convince a mainly uneducated electorate. More important is the slick slogan. "The art of making generalizations serves for them [political activists pushing for power] as a most handy weapon. Every generalization comes about through a process of abstraction: out of a multitude of facts, some that do not serve the purpose are put aside completely, while others that do are grouped together and out of them a general formula is extracted. It is evident that the whole worthiness, that is, truthfulness and reliability, of this formula depends on the degree to which the facts from which it is drawn are of decisive importance, and the degree to which the facts which have been set aside as unsuitable are unimportant. The speed and facility with which general conclusions are drawn in our time are explained by the extremely cavalier way in which suitable facts are selected and generalized in this process. Hence the huge success of political orators and the striking influence of the general phrases on the masses into which they are cast. The crowd is quickly diverted by platitudes dressed up in loud phrases; it does not think to check them, for it is not able to do that: in this way unanimity in opinions is formed, a seeming, spectral unanimity. Nevertheless, it produces a striking result. This is called the voice of the people, with the addition - the voice of God. A sad and pitiful error! The facility with which [the people] is diverted by platitudes leads everywhere to the extreme demoralization of social thought, and to the weakening of the political nous of the whole nation. Present-day France presents a vivid example of this weakening. But even England is infected with the same illness.460
"The basic principle of democracy is the equality of the citizens. But this word alone explains nothing. It is good if this equality is an equality of the right to serve one's country: each man is obliged to carry out this service according to his abilities and means, and participates to the degree that he is needed in administrative activity. That is how this concept was understood in the ancient democracies, especially in small States in which people could know each other, and public matters were discussed in the square. For the sake of self-preservation amidst the endless wars with neighbours, it was necessary to summon the best people to the government, and the best people were the most capable. Rome, which from the very beginning became a conquering republic, had to follow this same path, and its Senate became a gathering of the best people, who held in their hands the destinies of the State.
"But in modern democracies equality means the right of each and everyone to rule the affairs of his country - the right of a whole population of a large country to take part in the administration. On this is based the existing system of elections according to universal suffrage: in big States this leads to the preponderance of the masses, who belong to the least educated class and do not have a clear idea of State affairs, or of the people who are capable of administering them. It is evident that under this order the worthiness and ability of the elected person loses its significance: this is the essential difference between the new democracy and the old, and it is this that threatens destruction for the former. At the same time one should bear in mind that this mechanism of democracy is called to function in an epoch of an exceptional and unheard-of increase in the complexity of human affairs and relationships. Even one hundred years ago people did not dream of the present development of trade, industry and mechanisation, or of the present development of literature and the press with its huge significance, or of the present speed of communications, news and rumours of every kind. One can imagine how complicated all the functions of governmental and financial power, and the conditions in which they have to work, have become, and the innumerable quantity of facts and new ideas which the legislative power now has to reckon with.
"In this condition of society democracy has a frightening task which it cannot cope with. On taking up the supreme power, it must take upon itself the affairs of the supreme power, and the most important of these is the choosing of men for posts and responsibilities. Everything depends on this; if it fails in this, every law, whatever it may be, loses its significance, and the fundamental order of the whole State institution is deprived of trust and wavers. For the people the government is an abstract idea insofar as it is not incarnated in agents of power who are in direct contact with the people and its justified needs: if these agents are chosen haphazardly or for wrong reasons, then the whole of their activity becomes a burning subject of rumours that disturb the opinion of the people, and a weapon in the hands of all opponents of firm authority, whatever it may be.
"And so we see that from the time that the historical idea of people being called to State service in accordance with their estate and social position has lost all significance in democracy, service appointments have become a weapon in the hands of political parties which strengthen themselves by handing out posts. At the same time the number of posts increases exponentially, and this does not benefit, but burdens the people, since they serve not so much the general good as their own interests. But amidst general dissatisfaction, a passionate striving grows among the people to get well-paid and profitable posts. Everybody can see a picture of this fall in the new democracies in France, in Italy and in the United States. This fall is particularly evident in the higher and in the elective posts that have a political significance, sometimes even governors and members of legislative assemblies. Elective posts have a representative significance; administrative posts, by contrast, must in their essence be foreign to any such significance. But from the time of the French revolution the idea of this distinction has been completely muddied in the new democracy, and the contrary idea has become popular that administrative posts serve as a reward for people who have served this or that powerful party or who have this or that variety of opinions. Moreover, people do not ask whether the person is capable or not capable of carrying out the particular duties of his post. In the past everyone thought and believed that the ruler must be better than those whom he rules, and the experience of history has confirmed that all the achievements of civilization have been attained by the desires of the most capable people in spite of the opposition of the environment in which they had to work. But in the new democracy, in spite of this undoubted truth, the opinion has become entrenched that even a large State can be successfully administered by anyone, even someone unworthy. All this leads to demoralization, thanks to which the private interests of a party or company of people acquires a preponderant significance in society at the cost of the public interest.
"A natural consequence of all this is the complete collapse of legislative assemblies or democratic parliaments [in contemporary France and Italy, for example]. According to the democratic theory the elected representative of the people is called to vote, not for what he recognizes to be useful for the people or reasonable and just, but for what the people of the party which has elected and sent him considers to be best and needed, even if this does not agree with his personal opinion. Thus the election of representative is turned into a game of parties, which is just as passionate as any competitive game - a game governed by intrigue, false promises and bribery. Thus even the legislature falls into the hands of unenlightened, undiscriminating, and often avaricious people, or people who are indifferent to everything that is not bound up with the interests of the party.461 Little by little all the people of straight thinking, honourable spirit and higher culture withdraw from participating in this game, especially when each of them has in his hands the work of his own special calling. Parliament is turned into a machine pushing out of itself a mass of laws that have not been thought through or worked out, which contradict each other and are completely unnecessary, which do not protect freedom, but constrict it in the interests of one part or one company.
"Everybody to a greater or lesser degree feels and recognizes that the present democratic system of legislation is completely incoherent and based on a lie; and when a lie lies at the base of this institution, what is society to expect if not destruction? Democracy itself, we can say, has lost faith in its parliament, but is forced to be reconciled with it, because it has nothing to replace it with, and because everything that stood before has been destroyed, while democracy rejects in principle every idea of dictatorship. It is obvious to all that the falsely constructed building is wavering, is already shaking. But when and how it will fall, and what will arise on its ruins - that is the task of the sphinx that stands on the threshold of the twentieth century."462
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