De_Benoist - TOQv3n2_Democracy Revisited.pdf

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D
EMOCRACY
R
EVISITED
:
T
HE
A
NCIENTS
AND THE
M
ODERNS
A
LAIN DE
B
ENOIST
he defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy,”wrote
George Orwell.
1
This does not seem to be a recent phenomenon. Guizot
remarked in 1849: “So powerful is the sway of the word democracy, that
no government and no party dares to live, or thinks it can, without inscribing this
word on its banner.”
2
This is truer today than ever before. Not everybody is a
democrat, but everybody pretends to be one. There is no dictatorship that does not
regard itself as a democracy. The former communist countries of Eastern Europe
did not merely represent themselves as democratic, as attested by their
constitutions;
3
they vaunted themselves as the only real democracies, in contrast
to the “formal” democracies of the West.
The near unanimity on democracy as a word, albeit not always a fact, gives
the notion of democracy a moral and almost religious content, which, from the
very outset, discourages further discussion. Many authors have recognized
this problem. Thus, in 1939, T.S. Eliot declared: “When a word acquires a
universally sacred character . . . , as has today the word democracy, I begin to
wonder, whether, by all it attempts to mean, it still means anything at all.”
4
Bertrand de Jouvenel was even more explicit: “The discussion on democracy,
the arguments in its favor, or against it, point frequently to a degree of
intellectual shallowness, because it is not quite clear what this discussion is all
about.”
5
Giovanni Sartori added in 1962: “In a somewhat paradoxical vein,
democracy could be defined as a high-flown name for something which does
not exist.”
6
Julien Freund also noted, in a somewhat witty tone:
To claim to be a democrat means little, because one can be a democrat in a
contradictory manner either in the manner of the Americans or the English, or like
the East European communists, Congolese, or Cubans. It is perfectly natural that
under such circumstances I refuse to be a democrat, because my neighbor might
be an adherent of dictatorship while invoking the word democracy.
7
“
T
Thus we can see that the universal propagation of the term democracy does
not contribute much to clarifying the meaning of democracy. Undoubtedly, we
need to go a step further.
The first idea that needs to be dismissed—an idea still cherished by some—
is that democracy is a specific product of the modern era, and that democracy
corresponds to a “developed stage” in the history of political regimes.
8
This does
not seem to be substantiated by the facts. Democracy is neither more “modern”
nor more “evolved” than other forms of governance. Governments with
48
Vol. 3, No. 2
The Occidental Quarterly
democratic tendencies have appeared throughout history. We note that the
linear perspective used in this type of analysis can be particularly deceiving.
The idea of progress, when applied to a political regime, appears devoid of
meaning. If one subscribes to this type of linear reasoning, it is easy to advance
the argument of the “self-evidence” of democracy, which, according to liberals,
arises “spontaneously” in the realm of political affairs just as the market
“spontaneously” accords with the logic of demand and supply. Jean Baechler
notes:
If we accept the hypothesis that men, as an animal species(sic), aspire
spontaneously to a democratic regime which promises them security, prosperity,
and liberty, we must then also conclude that, the minute these requirements have
been met, the democratic experience automatically emerges, without ever needing
the framework of ideas.
9
What exactly are these “requirements” that produce democracy, in the
same manner as fire causes heat? They bear closer examination.
In contrast to the Orient, absolute despotism has always been rare in
Europe. Whether in ancient Rome, or in Homer’s Iliad, Vedantic India, or
among the Hittites, one can observe very early the existence of popular
assemblies, both military and civilian. In Indo-European societies kings were
usually elected; in fact, all ancient monarchies were first elective monarchies.
Tacitus relates that among the Germans chieftains were elected on account of
their valor, and kings on account of their noble birth (reges
ex nobilitate duces ex
virtute sumunt).
In France, for instance, the crown was long both elective and
hereditary. It was only with Pippin the Short that the king was chosen from
within the same family, and only after Hugh Capet that the principle of
primogeniture was adopted. In Scandinavia, the king was elected by a
provincial assembly; that election had then to be confirmed by the other
national assemblies.
Among the Germanic peoples the practice of “shielding”—or raising the
new king on his soldiers’ shields—was widespread.
10
The Holy Roman
Emperor was also elected, and the importance of the role of the princely electors
in the history of Germany should not be neglected. By and large, it was only
with the beginning of the twelfth century in Europe that elective monarchy
gradually gave way to hereditary monarchy. Until the French Revolution,
kings ruled with the aid of parliaments which possessed considerable executive
powers. In almost all European communities it was long the status of freeman
that conferred political rights on the citizen. “Citizens” were constituent
members of free popular communes, which among other things possessed their
own municipal charters, and sovereign rulers were surrounded by councils in
the decision-making process. Moreover, the influence of customary law on
juridical practice was an index of popular “participation” in defining the laws.
In short, it cannot be stated that Europe’s old monarchies were devoid of
popular legitimacy.
Summer 2003 /
Benoist
49
The oldest parliament in the Western world, the althing, the federal
assembly of Iceland, whose members gathered yearly in the inspired setting of
Thingvellir, emerged as early as 930 A.D. Adam von Bremen wrote in 1076:
“They have no king, only the laws.” The thing, or local parliament, designated
both a location and the assembly where freemen with equal political rights
convened at a fixed date in order to legislate and render justice.
11
In Iceland the
freeman enjoyed two inalienable privileges: he had a right to bear arms and to
a seat in the thing. “The Icelanders,” writes Frederick Durand
created and experienced what one could call by some uncertain yet suggestive
analogy a kind of Nordic Hellas, i.e., a community of freemen who participated
actively in the affairs of the community. Those communities were surprisingly
well cultivated and intellectually productive, and, in addition, were united by
bonds based on esteem and respect.
12
“Scandinavian democracy is very old and one can trace its origins to the
Viking era,” observes Maurice Gravier.
13
In all of northern Europe this
“democratic” tradition was anchored in a very strong communitarian
sentiment, a propensity to “live together” (zusammenleben), which constantly
fostered the primacy of the common interest over that of the individual. Such
democracy, typically, included a certain hierarchical structure, which explains
why one could describe it as “aristo-democracy.” This tradition, based also on
the concept of mutual assistance and a sense of common responsibility, remains
alive in many countries today, for instance, in Switzerland.
The belief that the people were originally the possessor of power was
common throughout the Middle Ages. Whereas the clergy limited itself to the
proclamation
omnis potestas a Deo,
other theorists argued that power could
emanate from God only through the intercession of the people. The belief of the
“power of divine right” should therefore be seen in an indirect form, and not
excluding the reality of the people. Thus, Marsilius of Padua did not hesitate to
proclaim the concept of popular sovereignty; significantly, he did so in order to
defend the supremacy of the emperor (at the time, Ludwig of Bavaria) over the
Church. The idea of linking the principle of the people to its leaders was further
emphasized in the formula
populus et proceres
(the people and the nobles),
which appears frequently in old texts.
Here we should recall the democratic tendencies evident in ancient
Rome,
14
the republics of medieval Italy, the French and Flemish communes, the
Hanseatic municipalities, and the free Swiss cantons. Let us further note the
ancient
boerenvrijheid
(“peasants’ freedom”) that prevailed in medieval Frisian
provinces and whose equivalent could be found along the North Sea, in the
Low Lands, in Flanders, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Finally, it is worth mentioning the existence of important communal movements
based on free corporate structures, the function of which was to provide mutual
help and to pursue economic and political goals. Sometimes these movements
clashed with king and Church, which were supported by the burgeoning
50
Vol. 3, No. 2
The Occidental Quarterly
bourgeoisie. At other times, however, communal movements backed the
monarchy in its fight against the feudal lords, thus contributing to the rise of the
mercantile bourgeoisie.
15
In reality, most political regimes throughout history can be qualified as
mixed ones. “All ancient democracies,” writes François Perroux, “were
governed by a de facto or de jure aristocracy, unless they were governed by a
monarchical principle.”
16
According to Aristotle, Solon’s constitution was
oligarchic in terms of its Areopagus, aristocratic in terms of its magistrates, and
democratic in terms of the make-up of its tribunals. It combined the advantages
of each type of government. Similarly, Polybius argues that Rome was, in view
of the power of its consuls, an elective monarchy; in regard to the powers of the
Senate, an aristocracy; and regarding the rights of the people, a democracy.
Cicero, in his
De Republica,
advances a similar view. Monarchy need not
exclude democracy, as is shown by the example of contemporary constitutional
and parliamentary monarchies today. After all, it was the French monarchy in
1789 that convoked the Estates-General. “[D]emocracy, taken in the broad
sense, admits of various forms,” observed Pope Pius XII, “and can be realized
in monarchies as well as in republics.”
17
Let us add that the experience of modern times demonstrates that neither
government nor institutions need play a decisive role in shaping social life.
Comparable types of government may disguise different types of societies,
whereas different governmental forms may mask identical social realities.
(Western societies today have an extremely homogeneous structure even
though their institutions and constitutions sometimes offer substantial
differences.)
So now the task of defining democracy appears even more difficult. The
etymological approach has its limits. According to its original meaning,
democracy means “the power of the people.” Yet this power can be interpreted
in different ways. The most reasonable approach, therefore, seems to be the
historical approach—an approach that explains “genuine” democracy as first
of all the political system of that ancient people that simultaneously invented
the word and the fact.
The notion of democracy did not appear at all in modern political thought
until the eighteenth century. Even then its mention was sporadic, frequently
with a pejorative connotation. Prior to the French Revolution the most
“advanced” philosophers had fantasized about mixed regimes combining the
advantages of an “enlightened” monarchy and popular representation.
Montesquieu acknowledged that a people could have the right to control, but
not the right to rule. Not a single revolutionary constitution claimed to have
been inspired by “democratic” principles. Robespierre was, indeed, a rare
person for that epoch, who toward the end of his reign, explicitly mentioned
democracy (which did not however contribute to the strengthening of his
popularity in the years to come), a regime that he defined as a representative
Summer 2003 /
Benoist
51
form of government, i.e., “a state in which the sovereign people, guided by laws
which are of their own making, do for themselves all that they can do well, and
by their delegates do all that they cannot do themselves.”
18
It was in the United States that the word democracy first became
widespread, notably when the notion of “republic” was contrasted to the
notion of “democracy.” Its usage became current at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, especially with the advent of Jacksonian democracy and
the subsequent establishment of the Democratic Party. The word, in turn,
crossed the Atlantic again and became firmly implanted in Europe—to the
profit of the constitutional debates that filled the first half of the nineteenth
century. Tocqueville’s book
Democracy in America,
the success of which was
considerable, made the term a household word.
Despite numerous citations, inspired by antiquity, that adorned the
philosophical and political discourse of the eighteenth century, the genuine
legacy drawn from ancient democracy was at that time very weak. The
philosophers seemed more enthralled with the example of Sparta than Athens.
The debate “Sparta vs. Athens,” frequently distorted by bias or ignorance,
pitted the partisans of authoritarian egalitarianism against the tenets of
moderate liberalism.
19
Rousseau, for instance, who abominated Athens,
expressed sentiments that were rigorously pro-Spartiate. In his eyes, Sparta
was first and foremost the city of equals (hómoioi). By contrast, when Camille
Desmoulins thundered against Sparta, it was to denounce its excessive
egalitarianism. He attacked the Girondin Brissot, that pro-Lycurgian, “who
has rendered his citizens equal just as a tornado renders equal all those who are
about to drown.” All in all, this type of discourse remained rather shallow. The
cult of antiquity was primarily maintained as a metaphor for social
regeneration, as exemplified by Saint-Just’s words hurled at the Convention:
“The world has been empty since the Romans; their memory can replenish it
and it can augur liberty.”
20
If we wish now to continue our study of “genuine” democracy, we must
once again turn to Greek democracy rather than to those regimes that the
contemporary world designates by the word.
The comparison between ancient democracies and modern democracies
has frequently turned into an academic exercise.
21
It is generally emphasized
that the former were direct democracies, whereas the latter (due to larger areas
and populations) are representative democracies. Moreover, we are frequently
reminded that slaves were excluded from the Athenian democracy;
consequently, the idea emerged that Athens was not so democratic, after all.
These two affirmations fall somewhat short of satisfying answers.
Readied by political and social evolution during the sixth century
B
.
C
., as
well as by reforms made possible by Solon, Athenian democracy entered its
founding stage with the reforms of Cleisthenes, who returned from exile in 508
B
.
C
. Firmly established from 460
B
.
C
., it continued to thrive for the next one

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