The Ancient Regime

by Hippolyte Taine

IV. Birth Of Socialist Theory, Its Two Sides.

The second result.—The new theory leads to despotism.—
Precedents for this theory.—Administrative centralization.—
The Utopia of the Economists.—Invalidity of preceding
rights.—Collateral associations not tolerated.—Complete
alienation of the individual from the community.—Rights of
the State in relation to property, education and religion.—
The State a Spartan convent.

For this theory has two aspects; whereas one side leads towards the perpetual demolition of government, the other results in the unlimited dictatorship of the State. The new social contract is not a historic pact, like the English Declaration of Rights in 1688, or the Dutch federation in 1579, entered into by actual and living individuals, admitting acquired situations, groups already formed, established positions, and drawn up to recognize, define, guarantee and complete anterior rights. Antecedent to the social contract no veritable right exist; for veritable rights are born solely out of the social contract, the only valid one, since it is the only one agreed upon between beings perfectly equal and perfectly free, so many abstract creatures, so many species of mathematical units, all of the same value, all playing the same part and whose inequality or constraint never disturbs the common understanding. Hence at the moment of its completion, all other facts are nullified. Property, family, church, no ancient institution may invoke any right against the new State. The area on which it is built up must be considered vacant; if old structures are partly allowed to remain it is only in its name and for its benefit, to be enclosed within its barriers and appropriated to its use; the entire soil of humanity is its property. On the other hand it is not, according to the American doctrine, an association for mutual protection, a society like other societies, circumscribed in its purpose, restricted to its office, limited in its powers, and by which individuals reserving to themselves the better portion of their property and persons, assess each other for the maintenance of an army, a police, tribunals, highways, schools, in short, the major instruments of public safety and utility, at the same time withholding the remainder of local, general, spiritual and material services in favor of private initiative and of spontaneous associations that may arise as occasion or necessity calls for them. Our State is not to be a simple utilitarian machine, a convenient, handy implement, of which the workman avails himself without abandoning the free use of his hand, or the simultaneous use of other implements. Being elder born, the only son and sole representative of Reason it must, to ensure its sway, leave nothing beyond its grasp.—In this respect the old régime paves the way for the new one, while the established system inclines minds beforehand to the budding theory. Through administrative centralization the State already, for a long time, has its hands everywhere.[3419]

"You must know," says Law to the Marquis d'Argenson, "that the kingdom of France is governed by thirty intendants. You have neither parliaments, assemblies or governors, simply thirty masters of requests, provincial clerks, on whom depends the happiness or misery, the fruitfulness or sterility of these provinces."

The king, in fact, sovereign, father, and universal guardian, manages local affairs through his delegates, and intervenes in private affairs through his favors or lettres-de-cachet (royal orders of imprisonment). Such an example and such a course followed for fifty years excites the imagination. No other instrument is more useful for carrying large reforms out at one time. Hence, far from restricting the central power the economists are desirous of extending its action. Instead of setting up new dikes against it they interest themselves only in destroying what is left of the old dikes still interfering with it. "The system of counter-forces in a government," says Quesnay and his disciples, "is a fatal idea. . . The speculations on which the system of counter-balance is founded are chimerical. . . . Let the government have a full comprehension of its duties and be left free. . . The State must govern according to the essential laws of order, and in this case unlimited power is requisite." On the approach of the Revolution the same doctrine reappears, except in the substitution of one term for another term. In the place of the sovereignty of the king the "Contrat social" substitutes the sovereignty of the people. The latter, however, is much more absolute than the former, and, in the democratic convent which Rousseau constructs, on Spartan and Roman model, the individual is nothing and the State everything.

In effect, "the clauses of the social contract reduce themselves to one, namely, the total transfer of each associate with all his rights to the community."[3420] Every one surrenders himself entirely, "just as he stands, he and all his forces, of which his property forms a portion." There is no exception nor reservation; whatever he may have been previously and whatever may have belonged to him is no longer his own. Henceforth whatever he becomes or whatever he may possess devolves on him only through the delegation of the social body, the universal proprietor and absolute master. All rights must be vested in the State and none in the individual; otherwise there would be litigation between them, and, "as there is no common superior to decide between them" their litigation would never end. One the contrary, through the complete donation which each one makes of himself, "the unity is as perfect as possible;" having renounced himself "he has no further claim to make."

This being admitted let us trace the consequences.—

In the first place, I enjoy my property only through tolerance and at second-hand; for, according to the social contract, I have surrendered it;[3421] "it now forms a portion of the national estate;" If I retain the use of its for the time being it is through a concession of the State which makes me a "depositary" of it. And this favor must not be considered as restitution. "Far from accepting the property of individuals society despoils them of it, simply converting the usurpation into a veritable right, the enjoyment of it into proprietorship." Previous to the social contract I was possessor not by right but in fact and even unjustly if I had large possessions; for, "every man has naturally a right to whatever he needs," and I have robbed other men of all that I possessed beyond my subsistence. Hence, so far from the State being under obligation to me, I am under obligation to it, the property which it returns to me not being mine but that with which the State favors me. It follows, accordingly, that the State may impose conditions on its gift, limit the use I may make of it, according to its fancy, restrict and regulate my disposition of it, my right to bequeath it. "According to nature,[3422] the right of property does not extend beyond the life of its owner; the moment he dies his possessions are no longer his own. Thus, to prescribe the conditions on which he may dispose of it is really less to change his right in appearance than to extend it in effect." In any event as my title is an effect of the social contract it is precarious like the contract itself; a new stipulation suffices to limit it or to destroy it. "The sovereign[3423] may legitimately appropriate to himself all property, as was done in Sparta in the time of Lycurgus." In our lay convent whatever each monk possesses is only a revocable gift by the convent.

In the second place, this convent is a seminary. I have no right to bring up my children in my own house and in my own way.

"As the reason of each man[3424] must not be the sole arbiter of his rights, so much less should the education of children, which is of more consequence to the State than to fathers, be left to the intelligence and prejudice of their fathers." "If public authority, by taking the place of fathers, by assuming this important function, then acquires their rights through fulfilling their duties, they have so much the less reason to complain inasmuch as they merely undergo a change of name, and, under the title of citizens, exercise in common the same authority over their children that they have separately exercised under the title of fathers."