Thursday Quote
Dave Price
"It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing the principles of Freedom to say that Government is a pact between those who govern and those who are governed; but this cannot be true, because it is putting the effect before the cause; for as man must have existed before Governments existed, there necessarily was a time when Governments did not exist, and consequently there could exist no governors to form such a pact with. The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a Government; and this is the only mode in which Governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist."
--Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (emphases in original)
-- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Much depends on what is meant by "government". If by government one means the society in which one finds onesself, we can say with some certainty that Paine was wrong. Human beings are social animals. We are not solitary hunters like cats. We require the society of our fellows to thrive and prosper and, along Burke's lines, that implies that attempting to divide human beings from government is fallacious and it is reasonable to believe that governments, too, have certain rights.
We may speak of good government and bad government, just or unjust government, efficient or inefficient government but it is psychologically, anthropologically, and historically unsound to speak of no government at all or, as Paine does, of government preceding individuals in any meaningful sense.
Paine argues the opposite, that individuals preceded government.
We are not solitary hunters like cats.
Not true. People function much more like individualist cats than pack animals like dogs; this is why community-property systems like Communism fail while individual property systems thrive. Like cats, we own territory/property as individuals, but form societies for hunting/food-gathering, mating, and social interaction.
and it is reasonable to believe that governments, too, have certain rights.
Governments are a convenient fiction, a pact between individuals, and such a construct cannot be said to have intrinsic rights, as it has no inherent existence. And as Paine correctly says, such a pact is the only principle by which they have a right to exist.
Actually, communal property systems work quite well on a small scale, which is why during most of the initial stages of human evolution, humans lived in tribal societies. More individualistic systems evolved, much later, out of very complex inherited customs. Burke (as well as other admirers of the British legal/political tradition like Blackstone) seems to have gotten this, while Paine, on the other hand, ignored this historical reality completely.
No, they work quite poorly. Compare the standard of living of Americans to any group living in a communal system.
Exactly! That it was a necessity meant it was better than any other system of property ownership given the conditions they faced. Yes, modern individualism has given humans more knowledge, more freedom to flourish. But that doesn't change the fact that there was no primordial individualistic society -- our current freedoms evolved, over a long period of time. Paine's model simply does not match reality.
But it seems likely, as the first individualist societies, such as the Greeks, were far superior to their contemporaries.
Paine's model works quite well in reality.
Paine wasn't saying there was a primordial individualist society, he's saying individuals must have formed government rather than inheriting it from the ether. The fact they did so quite poorly, giving away most of their rights as individuals, is something Paine would have readily acknowledged.
And the Greeks were far more technologically advanced than most tribal societies at the time they adopted more individualistic practices.
Similarly, an evolved understanding of how to conserve our natural rights did not arise for some time either.
To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin. In doing this we shall easily discover that governments must have arisen either out of the people or over the people. Mr. Burke has made no distinction. He investigates nothing to its source, and therefore he confounds everything; but he has signified his intention of undertaking, at some future opportunity, a comparison between the constitution of England and France. As he thus renders it a subject of controversy by throwing the gauntlet, I take him upon his own ground. It is in high challenges that high truths have the right of appearing; and I accept it with the more readiness because it affords me, at the same time, an opportunity of pursuing the subject with respect to governments arising out of society.
But it will be first necessary to define what is meant by a Constitution. It is not sufficient that we adopt the word; we must fix also a standard signification to it.
A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not an ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced in a visible form, there is none. A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting its government. It is the body of elements, to which you can refer, and quote article by article; and which contains the principles on which the government shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organised, the powers it shall have, the mode of elections, the duration of Parliaments, or by what other name such bodies may be called; the powers which the executive part of the government shall have; and in fine, everything that relates to the complete organisation of a civil government, and the principles on which it shall act, and by which it shall be bound. A constitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.
Can, then, Mr. Burke produce the English Constitution? If he cannot, we may fairly conclude that though it has been so much talked about, no such thing as a constitution exists, or ever did exist, and consequently that the people have yet a constitution to form.
As to the English constitution, read Blackstone, read Hayek... It's there, even if you can't put your finger on it.
I agree, but realize that when you toss in "likely to have evolved at the time" you render the whole argument over the merits of a system of individualism moot by specifically excluding it as a possibility.
It wasn't a great system, it was just the only one anyone had thought of yet. Later, we evolved better systems.
LOL And thus the mystic and the empiricist diverge again.
I agree 100%. But I wasn't trying to compare tribal communism and modern individualism; I have never held the former superior or equal to the latter. All I ever said was that there was some merit in the former. Proof of that merit is that it allowed for the continuation of the human race and the evolution of even better social systems.
That one must do an inductive survey of the whole of British common law (e.g. Blackstone's Commentaries) to derive the system's constitutional priciples, doesn't make the constitution "mystical".
A system derived from an inductive survey is a fairly mystical concept relative to being able to put one's finger on a document.
I don't doubt that this wonder has led some to postulate a sort of mystic force guiding the development of the British constitution, though I think Hayek (see Law, Legislation, and Liberty Vol. I) has properly identified these forces as regular evolutionary processes.
I should note that the system isn't derived from the inductive survey; the system, already in place, is rather identified by that survey.
Actually, it does matter in very concrete ways. As Paine points out, there's no Constitution that says, for example, how many years Parliamentarians can serve. They could pass a law saying they serve forever.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.