Saturday, November 19, 2011

Demos & res publica.

Ever since they urbanised and developed, human societies have been subjected to tyranny, to the right of might, to weapons in the hands of a few. The alternative that occasionally manifests itself is the right of law, a set of rules that applies to all, rich and poor, weak and strong. For this to happen, oral traditions are not sufficient. The process needs writing and, more specifically, the wide-spread literacy that occurs when the spoken idiom is written using a phonetic alphabet. It took place in Babylon (Hammurabi’s code, 1700BC), in Jerusalem (Josiah’s Deuteronomy, 620BC), in Athens (Draco’s laws, 620BC) and in Rome (the decemviri’s Twelve Tables, 450BC), but not in Memphis. And it began again, after a long Dark Age, thanks to printing and the ample circulation of written idioms. Universal literacy and the rule of law seem to be closely connected. To insure their application, rights, duties and prohibitions need to be written down for all to see.

The passage from memory to written archives completely transforms a society. If writing is controlled by a few, its effect is conservative and will become totalitarian. If reading and writing can be practiced by all, something else happens. Top-down information is stale, forbids initiative and ends up congealed. Whereas the criss-cross of information that occurs when everyone participates nurtures creative thinking in every domain. Information technology can be used to oppress or to liberate. It leads to dogmatic rigidity or to imaginative cacophony. The freedom to read, think and write does not necessarily accompany the means that make them possible. It depends on access and on social equality.

In one of his dialogs, the Meno, Plato has Socrates discuss with a boy who is an illiterate slave. Socrates explains how to construct a square B that has twice the surface of square A. And Plato’s purpose seems to be the demonstration that logic transcends knowledge. Plato recognised the young slave’s humanity but, in a world where slaves were the motors of society, bred and programmed for certain tasks, he never envisaged the end of slavery. This fatalism dominated imaginations until mechanical devices powered by fossil energies began replacing muscle power. Then abolition became possible and even inevitable, as land enclosures throughout Europe provoked mass migrations of very cheap labour.

When the ancients wrote of liberty and equality, they excluded women, children, slaves and foreigners, human groups who might or might not have had rights to accompany their duties. Social inequality originated in a society that resulted from raids, wars and conquests, where the defeated were condemned to bondage or death. Slavery became unnecessary when machines replaced muscle power, and when there was nowhere to escape from “working for the man”. The bond of slavery was replaced by working class wages, and not having to buy the work force allowed for capital investments in machines. The end of bondage (slavery, serfdom) pulled up and pushed down. This was most obvious in the US, where whites, disliking the idea of competing for jobs with emancipated black slaves, installed segregation to keep the two communities apart. The new class divide, which began with the industrial revolution and seems associated to it, is between capital and labour, between proprietors and workers.

Previously, freedom, property and citizenship had been synonymous, but this excluded a large part of society. Then, freedom and citizenship were extended to include almost all of society, while property was set aside as though it no longer belonged to the social sphere. Civil rights and the possibility to influence legislature by speech and ballot were disconnected from the ownership of property, creating the illusion that politics and the distribution of wealth were separate, that government and market were different autonomous entities. Ancient Athenians widened their political base by granting land and citizenship to emancipated slaves and resident foreigners – they also bailed out bankrupt farmers and changed the rules of succession to break up big property ownership – but the barrier of slavery stopped further progress. Ancient Romans did not go that far, as the patricians kept a firm hold on their vast Latium estates right through republic and empire. The plebeian voters were mostly propertyless and their tribunes did not count for much in the city’s government. Political change was only achieved by open rebellion, which led to militarism and empire. The Roman republic had a two party system, a party of wealth and a people’s party that fluctuated between corrupt compromise and civil war. Athenians divided their territory into boroughs (demes) that were part urban, part rural and part maritime. A form of gerrymandering that assembled all social activities into a political unit whose representatives were chosen by lottery. Athenians invented the word demagogue to designate someone who could lead the people, show them the way, and convince the assembly with words, as did the poet Solon and Pericles with his “Olympian” voice. Romans were just as appreciative of eloquence but their orators seldom addressed the forum and, anyway, most conflicts were settled by armed force. The legionary’s loyalty to one of the two parties would finally tip the balance, which made the legions the determinant factor in Roman politics.

Athenians had a citizen’s army, an army of conscripts who would vote on their own conscription (they only hired mercenaries when the toll of war had halved the male population). Their “boroughcracy” included all social categories into each political unit, and their representation by lottery brought everyone into the decision making process. The districts of Rome did not encourage social mingling. Plebeians and patricians kept to their own quarters. Athens had two powerful neighbours, Corinth and Sparta. Governed by tyranny and gerontocracy, they were threatened at home by the Athenian regime of debate and vote, and abroad by enterprising Athenian merchants who controlled the Aegean and the Hellespont. This led to war with intervals of inconclusive peace, to the decline of the three cities and the rise of Macedonia. The Romans were to submit their neighbours in ever widening circles, the Etruscans, the Samnites, the Greeks of Taranto, then Syracuse, Carthage and the world. Athenians enjoyed the theatre, Romans preferred the circus.

When, thanks to the printing-press, the written idiom began circulating again, when spreading literacy and egalitarian aspirations strived towards legislations applicable to all, the Athenian and Roman experiences were the main sources of inspiration. (The Bible had some influence on Protestant nations, but the Deuteronomy is a very peculiar antiquated kind of legislation, and the Gospels’ precepts are not the material constitutions are made of.) With hind sight, the Enlightenment scrutinised both systems, the aristocratic republic with its militarism and the popular democracy with its demagogues. When this theorising was applied to the practicalities of constitutional government, it produced a form of syncretism, a sterile hybrid. The elected demagogues were subjected to the aristocratic rule of a military-industrial complex. The people’s representative was an emperor…with no cloths.

The 19th and 20th centuries saw the literate industrial nations fluctuate between centralised production and deregulated laissez-faire, between big and small government. The propertied classes (those who own land, money, tools, patents and copy rights) rely on governments for the security of their interests at home and abroad, and for the education and health of their work force. Security is a priority, as militarism is at the heart of the system. Education and health are more optional, as too much of both threatens the class divide. However, the experience of total war during WW2 modified the balance. Mobilising and uniting the nation for a war brings demagogues to the fore, and gives them unusual powers. Total war nurtures absolute power. To conscript the nation, the leader must convince the people that their divisions no longer exist, that they are as one in the face of adversity, and that he constitutes their unity. This discourse reached its optimal signification with the standardisation of Government Issues.

At the end of the Second World War an egalitarian spirit pervaded the victorious nations. It was the equality of campaigning armies where all ranks have similar living conditions, and of the shared austerity that war imposes on civilians. This sentiment was distracted from matters of representation and wealth distribution by the welfare state. The social hierarchy of power and income mirrored the military, but even the humblest conscript was fed, dressed, housed and kept healthy. His acceptance of discipline was linked to these provisions, and so it would be when he returned to civilian life, bread, circus games and conformity. During the 20th century, successive hot and cold wars favoured the Roman model of a permanently mobilised nation, with governments redistributing incomes to the needy and leaving property in the hands of a few. A model built around a professional army and predestined to universal empire, eschatology, decline and fall.

Twice, history has preferred a commonwealth held by a few, and has disconnected property and citizenship to avoid any real representation of the many. Twice, the military-industrial complex has prevailed, whereas the Athenian experiment in the distribution of property and political influence has always been interrupted by bellicose neighbours who did not share these egalitarian aspirations. The wars that followed imposed militarization and, whatever the outcome, the Roman model was victorious. The sword is mightier than the pen, when property is concerned. The ideal of equality concerning incomes and decision making persists however, as a humanistic utopia and, occasionally and briefly, as an alternative to the ferocious competition of market economics, party politics and national warmongering. But, beyond an intimate circle, empathy and sharing are not spontaneous sentiments, least of all among the few who have the most. And the moment of generosity – usually a youthful middle-class movement – is short and inconsequential.

Athenian democracy used the redistribution of land to increase the number of its citizens, and to reduce the dominion of the Eupatrid aristocracy, a positive discrimination that laid the bases of meritocracy. The Roman republic did not follow the same course. The Plebeian class remained dependant on patronage and public hand-outs, so that the only social ladder was the army. This led inevitably to military dictatorship and empire. The class divide can be reduced by a redistribution of property, creating a level playing field where individual merit determines social status. When it is not reduced, social tensions lead to conflict, to civil and colonial wars, and to a vast security industry, which seems the dominant trend. The republic resolves conflict by force, democracy relies on the word’s power of conviction, Robocop vs. debate and argument. The urgency of perpetual war favours the first, an open network of communications favours the second. But the distribution of wealth is really what is at stake. Will demagogues take the power to redistribute property, or will emperors be the toys of the security complex?