Article — Vermeersch, Questions on Justice
Article V. On the Worst and the Best Commonwealth
561. The commonwealth is corrupted when it is administered not for the common good but for the private good of those governing: whether of one, as in tyranny; of a few, as in oligarchy; or of many, for example, of a dominant faction, as in pseudo-democracy.1 Concerning this matter St. Thomas offers this excellent statement: the government of a tyrant is the worst of all because, “since the many are nearer to the whole than the few, and the few than one alone, there is the greatest departure from the common good in tyranny,” in which the good of one alone is sought.
1 St. Thomas uses the word democracy to designate this, while a rightly constituted popular State is distinguished by him with the name polity.
562. Concerning the best commonwealth philosophers have disputed at length, from the ancient Greeks down to the socialists of today. Innumerable manners of speaking seem capable of being reduced to these few genera.
1. Either the commonwealth is proclaimed the most excellent of things: whether you make the utilities of the citizens and the State coincide, or consider in the State a certain most noble Being by which every virtue and every progress is informed. The Greek philosophers followed the former rationale: they commended even the heaviest yoke of the State to private persons as the happiest condition, taking care only that at the same time the greatest equality be preserved among citizens. The narrow boundaries of the States and the small number of those who were counted among the citizens in Greece seem to have contributed not a little to this persuasion. Therefore, certain worshipers of the State think very wrongly of transferring these things to our extensive commonwealths. The other rationale pleased several philosophers of Germany, who said that all things were to be devoted to this abstract good. Thus Hegel2 and his disciples. The fictitious rationale of a moral person, as is probable, contributed not a little to this error.
2 Werke, vol. 8, p. 258.
2. By a contrary rationale, others, who favored the tenets of the economists or of Rousseau and Kant, see in the public action of the State rather a necessary evil so that the rights of several can subsist. Therefore, they reduced the functions of the Prince, so that they referred everything back to the protection of rights. Yet, by a strange fact, they not rarely permitted public oppression in moral and religious matters, while in the economic order they allowed all things to remain at the discretion of private persons.
3. To the third genus we ascribe all those who, more wisely, hold that the rationales of the citizens and of the commonwealth are conjoined per se, provided public power is contained within its proper limits and injuries against citizens and families—toward which ambitious governors of the State, by their nature, easily incline—are prevented by the very constitution of society and the virtue of the citizens.
The Roman commonwealth already approached this rationale to some extent, perhaps on account of the very magnitude of the empire and the various peoples of which it consisted.3 The same also seems more conformable to Germanic customs, and is promoted especially by Catholic principles concerning the rights of the Church, plainly distinct from the State, and the supernatural dignity of men.
3 Hence Cicero seems to have disputed concerning the commonwealth far better than the Greeks.
But, what must not be ignored, only in the more recent age, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, did theologians begin to write and dispute accurately concerning political rationales, so that in this matter we rely less upon the support and authority of the Scholastics of the Middle Ages.
But leaving this general rationale, the following is of the greatest importance for daily use: contrary to the opinion of many, especially haters of the Church, who always strive to enlarge the province of supreme power and do not permit the administration of localities and regions to be possessed of its own right, this must be firmly held: a State is not to be judged better because its public power can and per se does more things; rather, that commonwealth is preferable per se which has known how to stimulate more the action or endeavors of municipalities, associations, and citizens.
For this rationale of the State is more congruent with its natural end, which does not tend to suppress the actions of individuals but to perfect them, so that they can now avail for more things. This, moreover, makes citizens better and happier. For where almost all things are furnished by public action, liberty is diminished, since all depend upon public power in more matters, and those who by their very office are under the dominion of the rulers increase in number—I mean officials (fonctionnaires); virtue is diminished, since citizens, trusting in public providence, become more idle and inert; life is diminished, for it implies spontaneous movement, whereas here they learn to attempt almost nothing, but to expect from public power the things to be used for their own advantage. And while other undertakings lose esteem, competition for offices and ambition increase; hence party passions are multiplied and become fiercer, and public peace itself receives no slight detriment. Then, things undertaken publicly are done at greater expense and with the danger of a more serious error, since the mistake of the one directing can then ruin everything. Thus, while the State prescribes rules for the instruction of youth, whatever is defined erroneously—as we know has happened not rarely—infects the instruction of all youth, and, with emulation suppressed, no experience is had of another rationale which is perhaps better. What of the fact that, while the Prince is distracted by many unnecessary cares, he can be less diligent in administering his proper province? But if stimuli are added to the endeavors of private persons, citizens will rejoice more in the goods possessed as having been acquired by their own industry, and will become more prepared to administer the commonwealth itself well and to bring assistance to the more fit rulers.
Nor should you say that the more one a society is, the better it will be.
For this can be said only of that unity which is adapted to the nature of the thing. Hence the unity of concord is to be desired, by which all are well affected toward the common good; it is also to be desired that those things which are to be done by all as a whole be effectively commanded by one. But, with the administration of the commonwealth remaining unimpaired, it is by no means to be desired that private affairs be unable to be freely administered by private persons or municipal affairs by municipalities. Indeed, on the contrary, as Aristotle had already observed, the greatest unity would destroy the State, since a State implies families and a multitude, which would perish if they were reduced to one man.
Moreover, the present rationale of States, in which supreme power is so often in the power of a faction, deters us still more from commending a government under which all things would be subject to tyrannical power.
This principle, therefore, is to be employed: when the matter concerns things truly common, such as public peace and the administration of justice, the Prince must have the power to establish or govern them effectively; but if the matters are of a less general order, for example domestic matters or particular administrations, families are to be presumed more fit to administer them, and public action, unless it is demonstrated to be necessary, is not per se legitimate or salutary.
563. Although we have praised the political reflections of the ancients little, nevertheless it is pleasing to borrow from Cicero the following things excellently thought and said.
He thus elegantly depicts the end of the State:4 “For as a favorable course is proposed to a helmsman, health to a physician, and victory to a commander, so a blessed life of the citizens is proposed to this governor of the commonwealth: that it may be firm in resources, abundant in means, ample in glory, and honorable in virtue; for they wish him to be the perfecter of this greatest and best work among men.”
4 To Atticus, bk. 8, chap. 11.
Concerning the popular vote he judges thus:5 “It must always be maintained in a commonwealth that the greatest number not have the greatest power.”
5 On the Commonwealth, bk. 2, chap. 22.
He rejects the tyranny of the people in these words:6 “When affairs are said to be conducted through the people and all things to be in the power of the people; when the multitude takes punishment from whomever it wills; when they drive, plunder, hold, and dissipate whatever they will—can you then, Laelius, deny that this is a commonwealth, since all things belong to the people, because indeed we wish a commonwealth to be the affair of the people?” Then Laelius: “Indeed, you would more readily deny that this is a commonwealth than any other.... Nor do I see how the name of commonwealth appears more in the dominion of the multitude, because, first, to me there is no people, as you defined it most excellently, Scipio, except one which is held together by a consensus of right; but that assembly is as much a tyrant as if it were one man, and indeed more loathsome, because nothing is more monstrous than that beast which imitates the appearance and name of the people.”
6 On the Commonwealth, bk. 3, chap. 33.
Finally, let him be heard concerning the variety and harmony of orders:7 “For as in stringed instruments or flutes, and as in song itself and voices, a certain harmony must be maintained from distinct sounds—a harmony which educated ears cannot endure when altered or discordant—and as that harmony is nevertheless rendered concordant and congruous by the moderation of most dissimilar voices, so the State, from the highest, lowest, and intermediate orders, as from sounds, harmonizes by a measured proportion through the agreement of those most dissimilar; and what is called harmony by musicians in song is concord in the State, the closest and best bond of safety in every commonwealth, and it can in no way exist without justice.”
7 On the Commonwealth, bk. 2, chap. 42.