Freedom's Progress?: A History of Political Thought,
by Gerard Casey
With the writings of Bodin,
Althusius, and Grotius, we have moved gradually but inexorably from the end of
the Middle Ages to modernity. Whatever lingering remnants of
medieval thought may attach to these writers, when we come to the writings of
Thomas Hobbes, we find ourselves in a very different intellectual world.
So these three writers seem rather important, occupying time in the
period between the Renaissance & Reformation on one end and the
Enlightenment on the other. I will cover the three, but not in the
order presented by Casey. His order gets in the way of my title, and
also doesn’t flow given my focus.
I will spend only a little time on the ugly and the bad, including these
only to give context to the good – while all three occupy generally the same
time and place, it is the ugly and bad that are remembered while the is good a
virtual unknown (even to my spellcheck).
The Ugly
Jean Bodin (1530 – 1596) wrote
in the time of great civil unrest in France, so perhaps his thoughts are
nothing more than a reaction to the time. Unfortunately, while the
context has not remained permanent, Bodin’s philosophy has survived: Bodin
wrote of the requirement that state authority be absolute and sovereign.
Bodin is famous for one thing
above all and that is his conception of sovereignty, an idea that political
theorists and indeed the general educated public now take for granted….
Such a concept, of course, did
not exist in the Middle Ages. If anything was considered
“sovereign,” it was the medieval law – with all men, including the king, under
it. Medieval political discourse revolved around the relationship of
– and sharing of power between – the spiritual powers and the
temporal powers.
No one in the Middle Ages asked
“what is a state and how is it constructed?” Instead the focus was
on who was the ruler and what is his power? The transition from this
decentralized governance structure to the full-blown state began in the fifteenth
century, with Casey identifying its full culmination – in his view, the end of
Christendom – with the Treaty of Westphalia and the end of the
Thirty Years’ War in 1648.
While Bodin saw the sovereign
as absolute, this was somewhat nuanced: the sovereign was not absolute over
divine or natural law. However, as there was little recourse for the
people to deal with the sovereign who abused this condition, it seems to be a
distinction without meaning.
What is this sovereignty
then? It is supreme power over subjects unrestrained by
positive or municipal law. It is perpetual rather
than limited in time. It is primary rather than
delegated. It cannot be alienated and cannot
be circumscribed by prescription. (Emphasis in original)
In other words, sovereign
meant sovereign – what we know today, albeit not as pervasive
given the surviving tradition of the times…and also given the lack of
technology.
What we see in Bodin is the
transition from no sovereign to a sovereign at least theoretically under divine
law. It isn’t too big a step to remove the “divine law” part and get
to tyranny – the “divine right of kings.”
The Bad
Hugo Grotius (1583 – 1645)
wrote voluminously, yet is described by Casey as a confused
thinker. So why does he hold such a high place for those who consider
political philosophy? He is said to be the one who developed a
theory for international law…but he didn’t! The Spanish jurists had
covered much of this ground before him. The Spanish, being Catholic,
however, were growing less acceptable to an ever-increasingly Protestant
Europe.
Grotius wrote at a time when it
was becoming quite obvious that the religious and political divisions of Europe
were permanent. Grotius wrote of just war as defensive war;
offensive wars can be just if to inflict punishment when deserved – such as for
violating a contract; third-party interventions can also justified – even if
the third-party is not a party to any dispute.
His view of defensive wars fits
very neatly into the libertarian non-aggression principle. Justifying
offensive wars is a slippery slope, but I find his justification of third-party
interventions as a road to hell – this sounds too close to the United Nations’
adopted “Responsibility to Protect,” which is nothing more than the right to
militarily intervene. Grotius desires to limit such interventions to
violations of the laws of nature, but we have seen the fruits of such thinking.
For Grotius, the sovereign is
not encumbered or burdened by any higher source, other than to the law of
nature. However, here again this distinction is meaningless as once
sovereignty is transferred from the people it cannot be reclaimed – it is
permanent and perpetual. Since Grotius sees voluntary slavery as
permissible, he finds no means by which the people can reclaim their
sovereignty. What is unaddressed is the fact that there is no
account taken of the descendants of these voluntary slaves.
Grotius lived in a time when
mathematics was gaining prominence and being inserted into the social sciences
– rationalism and certainty were ascendant.
‘My prime concern,’ writes
Grotius, ‘has been to base my examination of what belongs to the law of nature
on ideas which are so certain that nobody can deny them without doing violence
to their foundational being.’
A “certain” social and
political scientist. Perhaps the biggest curse ever placed on man.
The Good
‘Only at the end of the first
century of the Reformation,’ writes Daniel Elazar, ‘did a political philosopher
emerge out of the Reformed tradition to build a systematic political philosophy
out of the Reformed experience by synthesizing the political experience of the
Holy Roman Empire with the political ideas of the covenant theology of Reformed
Protestantism.’
The reference is to Johannes
Althusius (1563 – 1638). He is referred to by Harvard professor Carl
Joachim Friedrich as “The most profound political philosopher between Bodin and
Hobbes.” Profound I will suggest only because he was unique for his
time: he described a governance scheme that emulated medieval governance…albeit
(importantly), without the Church.
While Althusius adopted Bodin’s
concept of sovereignty, he saw unalienable sovereignty to belong to the
people. But this
wasn’t shallow – as we see in today’s world (“…government of the people, by the
people, for the people…”). In what way?
As unusual and even startling as
Althusius’s theory might appear to be, it is, in fact, in many ways simply a
theoretical tidying-up of the de facto political arrangement that subsisted in
the Holy Roman Empire…
An “empire” (about as loosely
defined as can be) that lasted from about 800 until 1806, and gave us the best
of medieval law. Arbitration, not swift and unambiguous verdicts;
protests seen as a form of negotiation and aiding political stability; a
decentralized and flexible structure; auto-politics and self-regulation; a
system relying more on consensus than command. What are seen as
weaknesses by orthodox historians are precisely the strengths and virtues seen
by Althusius.
Althusius, a Calvinist, tried to capture the political structure of
Middle Ages and reintroduce it into a time when western Christianity was no
longer unified…kind of like today (only today even more
diverse).. Which is what makes Althusius so interesting to me.
Althusius is suggested to offer one of the
first theories of federalism based on the concept of
subsidiarity. It is believed that Althusius based his model on the
governance structure offered in the Old Testament – an interesting note: the
Latin for “federal,” foedius, translates as “covenant.”
This ancient federalism was built
specifically on a tribal and corporatist structure, whereas modern systems of
federalism only focus on the individual.
The Althusius model of federalism
is an attempt to combine the strengths and to eliminate the weaknesses of the
ancient and modern federalist conceptions. A postmodern federalism
must recognize both individuals and their rights and also groups. It
must be based on covenant; sovereignty must remain with the people as a whole;
there must be some minimal recognition of norms binding citizens and providing
a basis for trust and communication; the public and private realms must be
distinguished yet connected.
This statement paints the
picture that I envision in a decentralized, libertarian order. As
Elazar remarks: ‘to read Althusius is to discover how important his ideas are
for our times.’ To which, I can say (at least based on this
overview), I agree.
The term used to describe the
governance structure is “consociation”: the art of associating
men. A quality of group life characterized by piety and justice –
without which, Althusius believes, neither individual nor society can
endure. Men come together by agreement – whether explicit or
tacit. It is this “agreement” that is foundational to Althuisus’s
construct.
Althusius sees society
constituted by an ascending order of consociations, with family at the lowest
and the realm or commonwealth at the highest. The agreements are not
in perpetuity, but require initial and continuing consent. The
lowest form – family – would have a less explicit (in fact, primarily tacit)
agreement; the highest form – the commonwealth – would require an explicit
agreement. In every case, the consociation is voluntary.
Casey outlines the
consociations, from lowest to highest: the family (which could include more
than the nuclear family – relatives, in-laws, etc.); the collegium (voluntary
groupings such as guilds, corporations, societies, federations, conventions,
etc.); the city, or community (a public consociation of private consociations –
as groups, not individuals); the commonwealth or realm (with some common laws,
coming from the second table of the Decalogue: prohibiting homicide and the
inflicting of bodily injury, offenses against chastity, property and
reputation).
Althusius sees the commonwealth
also as having authority to defend religion – Calvinism in his
case. On the one hand, this is problematic. On the other,
as this consociation is voluntary, presumably a city – or even lower
consociation – can secede if desired. Althusius also comes out strongly
against tyrannicide, but, again, given the voluntary nature of the consociation
there are other alternatives to resolve such issues.
Conclusion
While Grotius came after
Althusius, he clearly represented a step backward for liberty.
Althusius, on the other hand,
has earned my interest. The model he offers is conceptually similar
to what is on my mind – a melding of libertarian and conservative
principles. However, without an authority on more or less equal
footing as the commonwealth, it is difficult to see what holds his highest
consociation in check. In the Middle Ages, the Church played this
role.
While I see no possibility of a unified Christendom, I do see a role
that must be played by Christian leaders today if we are to move toward
liberty: against war, against torture, against unconditional support of Israel,
against government spying, against the violence of “social justice,” against
the worst meaning of the term “tolerance.” All in accord with the
Gospel, all in accord with moving toward liberty.
Back to Althusius: I will do
some more reading (and writing) on his work.
