University of Virginia Library

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.