Of people and things.

In the past rulers were preoccupied by the government of people. Be it the sheer power of the sword used by kings to subdue their feudal vassals, or the more subtle Machiavellian relations between princes and burghers during the Renaissance, a monarch’s role was to dominate his subjects by fair means or foul. But another aspect of rule was growing in importance and would soon compare with the first. States were having to organise the administration of things. Trade and industry needed ports, roads, canals, raw materials, the protection of ramparts and enforced customs barriers. Coincidently with this rapid expansion, though the two do not seem to be directly linked, the state’s government of people began to be questioned. It was argued that people could and should govern themselves, at least by representation. Absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings were no longer acceptable.

Self-government or, more precisely, the alternation of two governing parties replaced arbitrary rule with the rule of law. People governed their legislation by electing representatives and giving them a mandate. However, there remained the administration of things and primarily of war, which became an independent structure, perpetuating itself through academies and co-optation. The total war waged by Napoleon and theorised by Clausewitz was the model for two world wars and mobilised all the resources of belligerent nations, both people and things. Total war put the state back in control, freedom of speech was abolished and obedience obtained by coercion. War concentrates power, whereas peace diffuses it. One is centripetal, the other is centrifugal. After the Second World War people wanted to claim back their governance, but this movement was deviated towards the administration of things. Because the containment policy of the Cold War was not peace, the state kept up its ideological intrusiveness and its top down decision making, whereas the Free Enterprise that distinguished the two adversaries could only be encouraged. It maintained a tight control of people and left things in the “invisible hand” of private capitalism.

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) had fought in America alongside the insurgents and had supported the French revolutionaries, but he opposed the Jacobin extremists, Napoleon’s empire and the royalist restoration. He was one of the first to propose that the state administer things under a mandate granted by the people. He influenced Marx as well as Proudhon, inspired cooperative movements and is still referred to by French socialists, who prefer to ignore how far they have strayed. Under the cover of a perpetual menace from terrorists, insurgencies, immigrants and rogue states, the governing parties have increased their prerogatives and emancipated themselves from electoral mandates. They represent their own interests, not those of the people. At the same time they have abandoned the administration of production through rampant deregulation and privatisations. The state has taken control of politics and ideology (TINA), and oversees a citizen’s every move, thought and expression. And it has entrusted making and doing to members of an oligarchy obsessed by their own personal wealth. Two centuries after Saint-Simon’s great humanist idea, violence and greed still outweigh the best intentions.

P.S. Alice Miller’s description of childhood traumas and their resultant psychoses, and her demystification of “dark pedagogy” offer an enlightening explanation for these fundamental human contradictions.