The working classes are the best guarantee for Liberty and for Order
Liberty of thought and speech is enjoyed in France, and especially in Paris, to an extent impossible in any other country, and it is due principally to the intellectual emancipation of our workmen. They have rid themselves of theology in all its forms, and yet have not accepted any metaphysical system. At the same time, though totally devoid at present of systematic convictions, there is in them a submissiveness of mind which predisposes them to receive convictions combining reality with utility. In all other classes there is a tendency to use forcible measures in spreading their doctrines when discussion fails. It is only to the people that philosophers can look for the support and extension of Liberty, which is so essential to their objects; and from this they derive moral confidence far more reassuring than any legal security. However reactionary or stationary the views of particular leaders or sects may be, with such a population as that of Paris, no real oppression is possible. Of all the claims which France has to the leadership of Europe, this is the strongest. The resistance which is still offered to freedom of association and freedom of education will soon be overcome by the force of its liberal sympathies. A population of such strong social feeling as ours will certainly not allow itself to be permanently deprived of the power of meeting together freely in clubs; institutions most conducive both to its culture and to the protection of its interests. It will insist with equal force upon perfect liberty of teaching, feeling deeply the need of solid instruction, and the incapacity of metaphysicians and theologians to give it. Without popular pressure, the essential conditions of educational liberty will always be evaded.
And if Liberty depends upon popular support,Public Order, whether at home or abroad, depends upon it no less. The inclinations of the working classes are altogether on the side of peace. Their strong dislike of war is the principal reason of the present remarkable tranquillity of Europe. The foolish regret expressed by all the retrograde parties for the decline of the military spirit is a sufficient indication of what the popular feeling is; but even more significant is the necessity for compulsory enlistment, which began in France and has extended to other parts of Europe. There has been much factitious indignation on the subject, but at least it must be allowed, that in our armies the officers are the only volunteers. Again, the working class is more free than any other from international prejudices, which still disunite the great family of Western nations, although they are very much weaker than formerly. They are strongest in the middle classes, a fact principally due to industrial competition. But working men feel how similar their wants and their conditions are in all countries, and this feeling checks their animosity. And the consciousness of union will become far stronger, now that the great social problem of their incorporation into modern society is being raised everywhere. No errors that statesmen can commit, whether in matters of war or peace, can prevent this from becoming the preponderating question in every European country; and thus it tends to preserve their mutual concord.
Popular sympathies of this sort are, it may be said, less conducive to internal tranquillity than to pacific foreign relations. But the alarm which is naturally aroused by the spiritual anarchy around us must not blind us to the real guarantees for Order which popular tendencies, rightly interpreted, hold out. It is to the people that we must look for the ascendancy of central over localpower, which, as we have seen, is so indispensable to public order. The executive authority, provided only that it gives no cause to fear reaction, will always have their support when opposed by an assembly the prevalent tendencies of which will usually be adverse to their interests. They will always turn instinctively to the dictatorial rather than to the parliamentary branch of the administration; feeling that from its practical character and the directness of its action, it is more likely to meet their wants. Useless discussions on constitutional questions may suit ambitious members of the middle classes, by facilitating their arrival to power. But the people take very little interest in all this unmeaning agitation, and often treat it with merited contempt. They know that it can be of no use to them, and that its only result is to evade their real wants by undermining the only authority that can do them justice. Consequently the people are certain to give their support to every government that deserves it; especially in France, where political passions have already yielded to the superior and more permanent interest of social questions. And while strengthening the government they may do much to elevate its character; by confining it strictly to its practical function, and resisting any attempts that it may make to interfere with opinion. In all these respects the spontaneous influence of the working classes will be of material assistance in carrying out the systematic conceptions of social philosophy.
It is from them that we shall obtain the dictatorial power which is provisionally required
But a more striking proof of the political influence to be exercised by the people is this. The dictatorship which our transitional policy requires as long as the spiritual interregnum lasts must arise in the first instance from their ranks.
In the wordPeople, especially in the French language, there is a fortunate ambiguity, which may serve to remind us that the proletariate class is not, properly speaking, a class at all, but constitutes the body of society. From it proceed the various special classes, which we may regard as organs necessary to that body. Since the abolition of royalty, the last remnant of caste, our political leaders have been recruited, and will continue to be so, from the working class. In the normal state, however, it will be required as a preliminary condition, that the holder of dictatorial power shall have first received the political training which is given by the exercise of authority in his own business. In a settled state of society, Government, strictly so called, is a mere extension of civil influence. Ultimately, therefore, political power will fall into the hands of the great leaders of industry. As spiritual reorganization proceeds, they will gradually become more worthy of it than they are at present. Besides, the tenure of power will become less burdensome, because it will be confined to duties of a purely practical kind.
As yet, however, the case is very different; and therefore the wealthy, though ultimately they will be the administrators of power, are not those to whom it should as a rule be entrusted in our present condition. Special departments may be given to them with advantage, as we have seen proved recently, and that in cases where the functions to be performed had no relation whatever to industrial skill. But they are not competent as yet for dictatorial power, the power which has to supply the place of royalty. Individual exceptions, of course, there may be, though none have appeared hitherto, and at least they are not enough for our provisional system to rely on. As yet the wealthy classes have shown themselves too debased inthought and feeling for an office of such importance. Nor do we find greater aptitude for it outside the industrial class. Scientific men are most assuredly unfit for it, especially in France, where the system of Academies has narrowed the mind, withered the feelings, and enervated the character to such an extent, that most of them fail in the conduct of common life, and are utterly unworthy of the smallest post of authority, even in their own department.
All other classes failing us, we have to look to the working class, which has been left more free to form broad views, and in which the sense of duty has been better cultivated. On historical grounds I feel convinced that the workmen of France are more likely than any other class to supply men competent for supreme power, as long as the spiritual interregnum lasts; that is, for at least one generation.
On looking at this question calmly and without scholastic or aristocratic prejudice, it will be seen, as I pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, that the working class is better situated than any other with respect to generality of views and generosity of feeling. In knowledge and experience of administration they would ordinarily be deficient; they would therefore not be fit for the work of any special department. But this is no disqualification for the supreme power, or indeed for any of the higher offices for which breadth of view rather than special knowledge is required. These may be filled by working men, whose good sense and modesty will at once lead them to choose their agents for special departments from the classes who have usually furnished them before. The practical character and progressive spirit of such a government being beyond suspicion, special talent of whatever kind may be made available, even in the case of men who, ifthey had been placed in a higher position, would have proved thoroughly hostile to republican institutions. Of all the diversified elements of modern society, there is not one which may not be of real service in assisting the transition. Among soldiers and magistrates, for instance, there are many who will join the popular movement, and become sincere supporters of republicanism. A government of this kind would tranquillize the people, would obviate the necessity for violent compressive measures, and would at the same time have a most beneficial influence on the capitalist class. It would show them the necessity of attaining to greater purity of feeling and greater breadth of view, if they are to become worthy of the position for which they are ultimately destined.
Thus, whether we look at the interests of Public Order, or at those of Liberty, it appears necessary as a provisional measure, during the continuance of our spiritual interregnum, that the holders of dictatorial power shall be chosen from the working class. The success of a few working men in the pursuit of wealth has exercised an unsettling influence on the rest; but in the present instance we need not fear this result. It will be obvious that the career of a proletary governor is a rare exception, and one which requires peculiar endowments.
In examining the mode in which this anomalous policy should be carried out, we must bear in mind the object with which it was instituted. It is most important to get rid of the custom, based on motives of self-interest, which has grown up during the last generation, of insisting on parliamentary experience as an apprenticeship for executive power; executive power being always the real object of ambition. We have found from experience what we might have anticipated on theoretical grounds,that this plan excludes all except mere talkers of the Girondin type, men totally devoid of statesman-like qualities. To working men it offers almost insurmountable obstacles; and even supposing these obstacles to be overcome, we may be sure that they would lose the straightforwardness and native vigour which constitute their best claim to the exceptional position proposed for them.
It is best, then, that they should reach the position assigned to them at once, without the circuitous process of a parliamentary career. Our transition towards the normal state will then exhibit its true character. It will be tranquil and yet decisive; for it will rest on the combined action of philosophers without political ambition, and dictators adverse to spiritual encroachment. The teacher who attempts to govern, the governor who attempts to educate, will both incur severe public censure, as enemies alike of peace and progress. The whole result will be a change in our revolutionary condition identical with that which the Convention would have realized, if, as its founders contemplated, it had lasted till the Peace.
Such, then, is the nature of the compact into which all true philosophers should enter with the leading members of the proletary class. Their object is to direct the organic and final phase through which the Great Revolution is now passing. What they have to do is carefully to prolong the provisional system adopted by the Convention, and to ignore, as far as possible, the traditions of all succeeding governments, whether stationary or retrograde. Comprehensiveness of view and social sympathy predominate alike in both members of this great alliance; and it is thus a guarantee for our present state of transition, and a sure earnest of the normal future. The people are the spontaneous representatives of this alliance; thephilosophers its systematic organ. The intellectual deficiencies of the former will easily be remedied by philosophers, who will show them how essential it is on social grounds that they should understand the true meaning of history; since otherwise their conception of the union of mankind must be limited to the present generation, ignoring the more important truth of the continuity of the Present with the Past and the Future. A far greater obstacle is the moral deficiency of most philosophers of our time. But the wholesome influence of the people upon them, combined with a deep philosophic conviction of the preponderance of Feeling in every subject of thought, will do much to overcome the ambitious instincts which weaken and distract their energies in the common cause of social renovation.