THE ABUSE OF GOVERNMENT AND ITS TENDENCY TO DEGENERATE
As the particular will acts constantly in opposition to the general
will, the government continually exerts itself against the Sovereignty.
The greater this exertion becomes, the more the constitution changes;
and, as there is in this case no other corporate will to create an
equilibrium by resisting the will of the prince, sooner or later the
prince must inevitably suppress the Sovereign and break the social
treaty. This is the unavoidable and inherent defect which, from the
very birth of the body politic, tends ceaselessly to destroy it, as age
and death end by destroying the human body.
There are two general courses by which government degenerates: _i.e._
when it undergoes contraction, or when the State is dissolved.
Government undergoes contraction when it passes from the many to the
few, that is, from democracy to aristocracy, and from aristocracy to
royalty. To do so is its natural propensity.[1] If it took the backward
course from the few to the many, it could be said that it was relaxed;
by this inverse sequence is impossible.
Indeed, governments never change their form except when their energy
is exhausted and leaves them too weak to keep what they have. If a
government at once extended its sphere and relaxed its stringency, its
force would become absolutely nil, and it would persist still less. It
is therefore necessary to wind up the spring and tighten the hold as it
gives way: or else the State it sustains will come to grief.
The dissolution of the State may come about in either of two ways.
First, when the prince ceases to administer the State in accordance
with the laws, and usurps the Sovereign power. A remarkable change then
occurs: not the government, but the State, undergoes contraction; I
mean that the great State is dissolved, and another is formed within
it, composed solely of the members of the government, which becomes for
the rest of the people merely master and tyrant. So that the moment the
government usurps the Sovereignty, the social compact is broken and
all private citizens recover by right their natural liberty, and are
forced, but not bound, to obey.
The same thing happens when the members of the government severally
usurp the power they should exercise only as a body; this is as great
an infraction of the laws, and results in even greater disorders. There
are then, so to speak, as many princes as there are magistrates, and
the State, no less divided than the government, either perishes or
changes its form.
When the State is dissolved, the abuse of government, whatever it
is, bears the common name of _anarchy_. To distinguish, democracy
degenerates into _ochlocracy_ and aristocracy into _oligarchy_ and I
would add that royalty degenerates into _tyranny_; but this last word
is ambiguous and needs explanation.
In vulgar usage, a tyrant is a king who governs violently and without
regard for justice and law. In the exact sense, a tyrant is an
individual who arrogates to himself the royal authority without having
a right to it. This is how the Greeks understood the word "tyrant":
they applied it indifferently to good and bad princes whose authority
was not legitimate.[2] _Tyrant_ and _usurper_ are thus perfectly
synonymous terms.
In order that I may give different things different names, I call
him who usurps the royal authority _tyrant_, and him who usurps the
sovereign power a _despot_. The tyrant is he who thrusts himself in
contrary to the laws to govern in accordance with the laws; the despot
is he who sets himself above the laws themselves. Thus the tyrant
cannot be a despot, but the despot is always a tyrant.
[1] The slow formation and the progress of the Republic of Venice in
its lagoons are a notable instance of this sequence; and it is most
astonishing that, after more than twelve hundred years' existence, the
Venetians seem to be still at the second stage, which they reached with
the _Serrar di Consiglio_ in 1198. As for the ancient Dukes who are
brought up against them, it is proved, whatever the _Squittinio della
libertà veneta_ may say of them, that they were in no sense Sovereigns.
A case certain to be cited against my view is that of the Roman
Republic, which, it will be said, followed exactly the opposite course,
and passed from monarchy to aristocracy and from aristocracy to
democracy. I by no means take this view of it.
What Romulus first set up was a mixed government, which soon
deteriorated into despotism. From special causes, the State died an
untimely death, as new-born children sometimes perish without reaching
manhood. The expulsion of the Tarquins was the real period of the birth
of the Republic. But at first it took on no constant form, because,
by not abolishing the patriciate, it left half its work undone. For,
by this means, hereditary aristocracy, the worst of all legitimate
forms of administration, remained in conflict with democracy, and the
form of the government, as Macchiavelli has proved, was only fixed
on the establishment of the tribunate: only then was there a true
government and a veritable democracy. In fact, the people was then not
only Sovereign, but also magistrate and judge; the senate was only a
subordinate tribunal, to temper and concentrate the government, and the
consuls themselves, though they were patricians, first magistrates, and
absolute generals in war, were in Rome itself no more than presidents
of the people.
From that point, the government followed its natural tendency,
and inclined strongly to aristocracy. The patriciate, we may say,
abolished itself, and the aristocracy was found no longer in the body
of patricians as at Venice and Genoa, but in the body of the senate,
which was composed of patricians and plebeians, and even in the body
of tribunes when they began to usurp an active function: for names do
not affect facts, and, when the people has rulers who govern for it,
whatever name they bear, the government is an aristocracy.
The abuse of aristocracy led to the civil wars and the triumvirate.
Sulla, Julius Cæsar and Augustus became in fact real monarchs; and
finally, under the despotism of Tiberius, the State was dissolved.
Roman history then confirms, instead of invalidating, the principle I
have laid down.
[2] Omnes enim et habentur et dicuntur tyranni, qui potestate utuntur
perpetua in ea civitate quæ libertate usa est (Cornelius Nepos, _Life
of Miltiades_). [For all those are called and considered tyrants,
who hold perpetual power in a State that has known liberty.] It is
true that Aristotle (_Nicomachean Ethics_, Book viii, chapter x)
distinguishes the tyrant from the king by the fact that the former
governs in his own interest, and the latter only for the good of his
subjects; but not only did all Greek authors in general use the word
_tyrant_ in a different sense, as appears most clearly in Xenophon's
_Hiero_, but also it would follow from Aristotle's distinction that,
from the very beginning of the world, there has not yet been a single
king.