3. CHAPTER III
THE NEW FORMS OF DEMOCRATIC BELIEF
1. The Conflict between Capital and Labour.
WHILE our legislators are reforming and legislating at hazard,
the natural evolution of the world is slowly pursuing its course.
New interests arise, the economic competition between nation and
nation increases in severity, the working-classes are bestirring
themselves, and on all sides we see the birth of formidable
problems which the harangues of the politicians will never
resolve.
Among these new problems one of the most complicated will
be the problem of the conflict between labour and capital. It is
becoming acute even in such a country of tradition as England.
Workingmen are ceasing to respect the collective contracts which
formerly constituted their charter, strikes are declared for
insignificant motives, and unemployment and pauperism are
attaining disquieting proportions.
In America these strikes would finally have affected all
industries but that the very excess of the evil created a remedy.
During the last ten years the industrial leaders have organised
great employers' federations, which have become powerful enough
to force the workers to submit to arbitration.
The labour question is complicated in France by
the intervention of numerous foreign workers, which the
stagnation of our population has rendered
necessary.
13 This
stagnation will also make it difficult for France to contend with
her rivals, whose soil will soon no longer be able to nourish its
inhabitants, who, following one of the oldest laws of history,
will necessarily invade the less densely peopled countries.
These conflicts between the workers and employers of the
same nation will be rendered still more acute by the increasing
economic struggle between the Asiatics, whose needs are small,
and who can therefore produce manufactured articles at very low
prices, and the Europeans, whose needs are many. For twenty-five
years I have laid stress upon this point. General Hamilton, ex-military attaché to the Japanese army, who foresaw the
Japanese victories long before the outbreak of hostilities,
writes as follows in an essay translated by General Langlois:—
“The Chinaman, such as I have seen him in Manchuria,
is capable of destroying the present type of worker of the white
races. He will drive him off the face of the earth. The
Socialists, who preach equality to the labourer, are far from
thinking what would be the practical result of carrying out their
theories. Is it, then, the destiny of the white races to
disappear in the long run? In my humble opinion
this destiny depends upon one single factor: Shall we or shall
we not have the good sense to close our ears to speeches which
present war and preparation for war as a useless evil?
“I believe the workers must choose. Given the present
constitution of the world, they must cultivate in their children
the military ideal, and accept gracefully the cost and trouble
which militarism entails, or they will be let in for a cruel
struggle for life with a rival worker of whose success there is
not the slightest doubt. There is only one means of refusing
Asiatics the right to emigrate, to lower wages by competition,
and to live in our midst, and that is the sword. If Americans
and Europeans forget that their privileged position is held only
by force of arms, Asia will soon have taken her revenge.”
We know that in America the invasion of Chinese and
Japanese, owing to the competition between them and the workers
of white race, has become a national calamity. In Europe the
invasion is commencing, but has not as yet gone far. But already
Chinese emigrants have formed important colonies in certain
centres—London, Cardiff, Liverpool, &c. They have provoked
several riots by working for low wages. Their appearance has
always lowered salaries.
But these problems belong to the future, and those of the
present are so disquieting that it is useless at the moment to
occupy ourselves with others.
2. The Evolution of the Working-Classes and the
Syndicalist Movement.
The most important democratic problem of the day will perhaps
result from the recent development of the
working-class engendered by the Syndicalist or Trades Union
movement.
The aggregation of similar interests known as Syndicalism
has rapidly assumed such enormous developments in all countries
that it may be called world-wide. Certain corporations have
budgets comparable to those of small States. Some German leagues
have been cited as having saved over three millions sterling in
subscriptions.
The extension of the labour movement in all countries
shows that it is not, like Socialism, a dream of Utopian
theorists, but the result of economic necessities. In its aim,
its means of action, and its tendencies, Syndicalism presents no
kinship with Socialism. Having sufficiently explained it in my
Political Psychology, it will suffice here to recall in a
few words the difference between the two doctrines.
Socialism would obtain possession of all industries, and
have them managed by the State, which would distribute the
products equally between the citizens. Syndicalism, on the other
hand, would entirely eliminate the action of the State, and
divide society into small professional groups which would be
self-governing.
Although despised by the Syndicalists and violently
attacked by them, the Socialists are trying to ignore the
conflict, but it is rapidly becoming too obvious to be concealed.
The political influence which the Socialists still possess will
soon escape them.
If Syndicalism is everywhere increasing at the expense of
Socialism, it is, I repeat, because this corporative movement,
although a renewal of the past,
synthetises certain needs born of the specialisation of modern
industry.
We see its manifestations under a great variety of
circumstances. In France its success has not as yet been as
great as elsewhere. Having taken the revolutionary form already
mentioned, it has fallen, at least for the time being, into the
hands of the anarchists, who care as little for Syndicalism as
for any sort of organisation, and are simply using the new
doctrine in an attempt to destroy modern society. Socialists,
Syndicalists, and anarchists, although directed by entirely
different conceptions, are thus collaborating in the same
eventual aim—the violent suppression of the ruling classes and
the pillage of their wealth.
The Syndicalist doctrine does not in any way derive from
the principles of Revolution. On many points it is entirely in
contradiction with the Revolution. Syndicalism represents rather
a return to certain forms of collective organisation similar to
the guilds or corporations proscribed by the Revolution. It thus
constitutes one of those federations which the Revolution
condemned. It entirely rejects the State centralisation which
the Revolution established.
Syndicalism cares nothing for the democratic principles of
liberty, equality, and fraternity. The Syndicalists demand of
their members an absolute discipline which eliminates all
liberty.
Not being as yet strong enough to exercise mutual tyranny,
the syndicates so far profess sentiments in respect of one
another which might by a stretch be called fraternal. But as
soon as they are sufficiently powerful, when their contrary
interests will necessarily
enter into conflict, as during the Syndicalist period of the old
Italian republics—Florence and Siena, for example—the present
fraternity will speedily be forgotten, and equality will be
replaced by the despotism of the most powerful.
Such a future seems near at hand. The new power is
increasing very rapidly, and finds the Governments powerless
before it, able to defend themselves only by yielding to every
demand—an odious policy, which may serve for the moment, but
which heavily compromises the future.
It was, however, to this poor recourse that the English
Government recently resorted in its struggle against the Miners'
Union, which threatened to suspend the industrial life of
England. The Union demanded a minimum wage for its members, but
they were not bound to furnish a minimum of work.
Although such a demand was inadmissible, the Government
agreed to propose to Parliament a law to sanction such a measure.
We may profitably read the weighty words pronounced by Mr.
Balfour before the House of Commons:—
“The country has never in its so long and varied
history had to face a danger of this nature and this importance.
“We are confronted with the strange and sinister
spectacle of a mere organisation threatening to paralyse—and
paralysing in a large measure—the commerce and manufactures of a
community which lives by commerce and manufacture.
“The power possessed by the miners is in the present
state of the law almost unlimited. Have we ever seen the like of
it? Did ever feudal baron exert
a comparable tyranny? Was there ever an American trust which
served the rights which it holds from the law with such contempt
of the general interest? The very degree of perfection to which
we have brought our laws, our social organisation, the mutual
relation between the various professions and industries, exposes
us more than our predecessors in ruder ages to the grave peril
which at present threatens society. . . . We are witnesses at
the present moment of the first manifestation of the power of
elements which, if we are not heedful, will submerge the whole of
society. . . . The attitude of the Government in yielding to the
injunction of the miners gives some appearance of reality to the
victory of those who are pitting themselves against society.”
3. Why certain modern Democratic Governments are
gradually being transformed into Governments by Administrative
Castes.
Anarchy and the social conflicts resulting from democratic
ideas are to-day impelling some Governments towards an unforeseen
course of evolution which will end by leaving them only a nominal
power. This development, of which I shall briefly denote the
effects, is effected spontaneously under the stress of those
imperious necessities which are still the chief controlling power
of events.
The Governments of democratic countries to-day consist of
the representatives elected by universal suffrage. They vote
laws, and appoint and dismiss ministers chosen from themselves,
and provisionally entrusted with the executive power. These
ministers are naturally often replaced, since a vote will do it.
Those who follow them, belonging to a different party, will
govern according to different principles.
It might at first seem that a country thus pulled to and
fro by various influences could have no continuity or stability.
But in spite of all these conditions of instability a democratic
Government like that of France works with fair regularity. How
explain such a phenomenon?
Its interpretation, which is very simple, results from the
fact that the ministers who have the appearance of governing
really govern the country only to a very limited extent.
Strictly limited and circumscribed, their power is exercised
principally in speeches which are hardly noticed and in a few
inorganic measures.
But behind the superficial authority of ministers, without
force or duration, the playthings of every demand of the
politician, an anonymous power is secretly at work whose might is
continually increasing the administrations. Possessing
traditions, a hierarchy, and continuity, they are a power against
which, as the ministers quickly realise, they are incapable of
struggling.14 Responsibility is so divided in
the administrative machine that a minister may never find himself
opposed by any person of importance. His momentary impulses are
checked by a network of regulations, customs, and decrees, which
are continually quoted to him, and which he knows so little that
he dare not infringe them.
This diminution of the power of democratic Governments
can only develop. One of the most constant laws of history is
that of which I have already spoken: Immediately any one class
becomes preponderant—nobles, clergy, army, or the people—it
speedily tends to enslave others. Such were the Roman armies,
which finally appointed and overthrew the emperors; such were the
clergy, against whom the kings of old could hardly struggle; such
were the States General, which at the moment of Revolution
speedily absorbed all the powers of government, and supplanted
the monarchy.
The caste of functionaries is destined to furnish a fresh
proof of the truth of this law. Preponderant already, they are
beginning to speak loudly, to make threats, and even to indulge
in strikes, such as that of the postmen, which was quickly
followed by that of the Government railway employees. The
administrative power thus forms a little State within the State,
and if its present rate of revolution continues it will soon
constitute the only power in the State. Under a Socialist
Government there would be no other power. All our revolutions
would then have resulted in stripping the king of his powers and
his throne in order to bestow them upon the irresponsible,
anonymous and despotic class of Government clerks.
To foresee the issue of all the conflicts which threaten
to cloud the future is impossible. We must steer clear of
pessimism as of optimism; all we can say is that necessity will
always finally bring things to an equilibrium. The world pursues
its way without bothering itself with our speeches, and sooner or
later we manage to adapt ourselves to the variations of our
environment. The difficulty is to do so without too
much friction, and above all to resist the chimerical conceptions
of dreamers. Always powerless to re-organise the world, they
have often contrived to upset it.
Athens, Rome, Florence, and many other cities which
formerly shone in history, were victims of these terrible
theorists. The results of their influence has always been the
same—anarchy, dictatorship, and decadence.
But such lessons will not affect the numerous Catilines of
the present day. They do not yet see that the movements
unchained by their ambitions threaten to submerge them. All
these Utopians have awakened impossible hopes in the mind of the
crowd, excited their appetites, and sapped the dykes which have
been slowly erected during the centuries to restrain them.
The struggle of the blind multitudes against the elect is
one of the continuous facts of history, and the triumph of
popular sovereignties without counterpoise has already marked the
end of more than one civilisation. The elect create, the plebs
destroys. As soon as the first lose their hold the latter begins
its precious work.
The great civilisations have only prospered by dominating
their lower elements. It is not only in Greece that anarchy,
dictatorship, invasion, and, finally, the loss of independence
has resulted from the despotism of a democracy. Individual
tyranny is always born of collective tyranny. It ended the first
cycle of the greatness of Rome; the Barbarians achieved the
second.
CONCLUSIONS
THE principal revolutions of history have been studied in this
volume. But we have dealt more especially with the most
important of all—that which for more than twenty years
overwhelmed all Europe, and whose echoes are still to be heard.
The French Revolution is an inexhaustible mine of
psychological documents. No period of the life of humanity has
presented such a mass of experience, accumulated in so short a
time.
On each page of this great drama we have found numerous
applications of the principles expounded in my various works,
concerning the transitory mentality of crowds and the permanent
soul of the peoples, the action of beliefs, the influence of
mystic, affective, and collective elements, and the conflict
between the various forms of logic.
The Revolutionary Assemblies illustrate all the known laws
of the psychology of crowds. Impulsive and timid, they are
dominated by a small number of leaders, and usually act in a
sense contrary to the wishes of their individual members.
The Royalist Constituent Assembly destroyed an ancient
monarchy; the humanitarian Legislative Assembly allowed the
massacres of September. The same pacific body led France into
the most formidable campaigns.
There were similar contradictions during the Convention.
The immense majority of its members abhorred violence.
Sentimental philosophers, they exalted equality, fraternity, and
liberty, yet ended by exerting the most terrible despotism.
The same contradictions were visible during the Directory.
Extremely moderate in their intentions at the outset, the
Assemblies were continually effecting bloodthirsty coups
d'état. They wished to re-establish religious peace,
and finally sent thousands of priests into imprisonment. They
wished to repair the ruins which covered France, and only
succeeded in adding to them.
Thus there was always a complete contradiction between the
individual wills of the men of the revolutionary period and the
deeds of the Assemblies of which they were units.
The truth is that they obeyed invisible forces of which
they were not the masters. Believing that they acted in the name
of pure reason, they were really subject to mystic, affective,
and collective influences, incomprehensible to them, and which we
are only to-day beginning to understand.
Intelligence has progressed in the course of the ages, and
has opened a marvellous outlook to man, although his character,
the real foundation of his mind, and the sure motive of his
actions, has scarcely changed. Overthrown one moment, it re-appears the next. Human nature must be accepted as it is.
The founders of the Revolution did not resign themselves
to the facts of human nature. For the
first time in the history of humanity they attempted to transform
men and society in the name of reason.
Never was any undertaking commenced with such chances of
success. The theorists, who claimed to effect it, had a power in
their hands greater than that of any despot.
Yet, despite this power, despite the success of the
armies, despite Draconian laws and repeated coups
d'état, the Revolution merely heaped ruin upon ruin,
and ended in a dictatorship.
Such an attempt was not useless, since experience is
necessary to the education of the peoples. Without the
Revolution it would have been difficult to prove that pure reason
does not enable us to change human nature, and, consequently,
that no society can be rebuilt by the will of legislators,
however absolute their power.
Commenced by the middle classes for their own profit, the
Revolution speedily became a popular movement, and at the same
time a struggle of the instinctive against the rational, a revolt
against all the constraints which make civilisation out of
barbarism. It was by relying on the principle of popular
sovereignty that the reformers attempted to impose their
doctrines. Guided by leaders, the people intervened incessantly
in the deliberations of the Assemblies, and committed the most
sanguinary acts of violence.
The history of the multitudes during the Revolution is
eminently instructive. It shows the error of the politicians who
attribute all the virtues to the popular soul.
The facts of the Revolution teach us, on the contrary,
that a people freed from social constraints, the foundations of
civilisation, and abandoned to its instinctive impulses, speedily
relapses into its ancestral savagery. Every popular revolution
which succeeds in triumphing is a temporary return to barbarism.
If the Commune of 1871 had lasted, it would have repeated the
Terror. Not having the power to kill so many people, it had to
confine itself to burning the principal monuments of the capital.
The Revolution represents the conflict of psychological
forces liberated from the bonds whose function it is to restrain
them. Popular instincts, Jacobin beliefs, ancestral influences,
appetites, and passions unloosed, all these various influences
engaged in a furious mutual conflict for the space of ten years,
during which time they soaked France in blood and covered the
land with ruins.
Seen from a distance, this seems to be the whole upshot of
the Revolution. There was nothing homogeneous about it. One
must resort to analysis before one can understand and grasp the
great drama and display the impulses which continually actuated
its heroes. In normal times we are guided by the various forms
of logic—rational, affective, collective, and mystic—which more
or less perfectly balance one another. During seasons of
upheaval they enter into conflict, and man is no longer himself.
We have by no means undervalued in this work the
importance of certain acquisitions of the Revolution in respect
of the rights of the people. But with many
other historians, we are forced to admit that the prize gained at
the cost of such ruin and bloodshed would have been obtained at a
later date without effort, by the mere progress of civilisation.
For a few years gained, what a load of material disaster, what
moral disintegration! We are still suffering as a result of the
latter. These brutal pages in the book of history will take long
to efface: they are not effaced as yet.
Our young men of to-day seem to prefer action to thought.
Disdaining the sterile dissertations of the philosophers, they
take no interest in vain speculation concerning matters whose
essential nature remains unknown.
Action is certainly an excellent thing, and all real
progress is a result of action, but it is only useful when
properly directed. The men of the Revolution were assuredly men
of action, yet the illusions which they accepted as guides led
them to disaster.
Action is always hurtful when, despising realities, it
professes violently to change the course of events. One cannot
experiment with society as with apparatus in a laboratory. Our
political upheavals show us what such social errors may cost.
Although the lesson of the Revolution was extremely
categorical, many unpractical spirits, hallucinated by their
dreams, are hoping to recommence it. Socialism, the modern
synthesis of this hope, would be a regression to lower forms of
evolution, for it would paralyse the greatest sources of our
activity. By replacing individual initiative and responsibility
by collective initiative and responsibility mankind would descend
several steps on the scale of human values.
The present time is hardly favourable to such experiments.
While dreamers are pursuing their dreams, exciting appetites and
the passions of the multitude, the peoples are every day arming
themselves more powerfully. All feel that amid the universal
competition of the present time there is no room for weak
nations.
In the centre of Europe a formidable military Power is
increasing in strength, and aspiring to dominate the world, in
order to find outlets for its goods, and for an increasing
population, which it will soon be unable to nourish.
If we continue to shatter our cohesion by intestine
struggles, party rivalries, base religious persecutions, and laws
which fetter industrial development, our part in the world will
soon be over. We shall have to make room for peoples more
solidly knit, who have been able to adapt themselves to natural
necessities instead of pretending to turn back upon their course.
The present does not repeat the past, and the details of history
are full of unforeseen consequences; but in their main lines
events are conditioned by eternal laws.