Harper, Machiavelli and Sparta

Anyone who has paid attention to the Canadian political scene since Stephen Harper became prime minister in 2006 would have noticed the emergence of so-called Spartan ‘virtues’ across the country.  Harper’s own self-discipline and robotic dryness, the government’s austerity measures in the light of a militant drive to balance the budget, the shift towards a rather boisterous – as opposed to ‘fair minded’ - Canadian foreign policy, and the pervasive sense of “war psychology” are all key indicators of a country being remade in a Spartan image.

Where does this picture come from?  The answer is: Machiavelli.

While this is not the place to give a full exposition of Machiavelli’s works, it is clear that there is much that Harper has learned from him: for example, “war psychology” and the problem of “evil” (Machiavelli was tortured as a diplomat in his day).[1]   Machiavelli (and Hobbes) look to the art of politics as a secular “science”, a distinct turn towards realism away from the Church dominated Middle Ages (however, Harper’s own indebtedness to Calvinism is a form of Renaissance revisionism – or “Reform-ation” in the Conservative sense).  Looking to the cycles of history, Machiavelli - and Hobbes again, who is more directly influenced by Copernicus - provide similar explanations for the Conservative Government’s constant campaigning: “all human things are kept in perpetual movement, and can never remain stable, states either naturally rise or decline …”[2]

Writing during the period of the Italian Renaissance, Machiavelli turned the dial back beyond the Middle Ages - and the so-called Dark Ages before them - to the time of the Roman Republic, and then to Sparta.  In fact his admiration of Lycurgus, the legendary law-giver of Sparta, goes unmatched:

Some have had at the very beginning, or soon after, a legislator, who, like Lycurgus with the Lacedaemonians, gave them by a single act all the laws they needed.  Others have owed theirs to chance and to events, and have received their laws at different times, as Rome did.  It is a great good fortune for a republic to have a legislator sufficiently wise to give her laws so regulated that, without the necessity of correcting them, they afford security to those who live under them.  Sparta observed her laws for more than eight hundred years without altering them and without experiencing a single dangerous disturbance.[3]

Here Machiavelli goes to some length to praise Sparta’s (dubious) 800 year history, but there is little mention of Athens in either The Prince (1513) or The Discourses on Livy (1517).  In The Prince Machiavelli does give a quick nod to Theseus, the mythical founder of Athens who “could never have exercised his energy [virtu] if he had not found the Athenians in confusion.”[4]  But there is no mention of Athen’s famous lawgiver Solon (circa. 600 BC), known for his “middle way” policies between the uber-wealthy and the poor.[5]  In fact Machiavelli seems to expunge Solon (and with him Aristotle) from the history books when he writes “a precise middle course cannot be maintained”.[6] Again, these thoughts against the middle - or the alleged golden mean - are later echoed by Hobbes, and Harper.

Harper, the consummate tactician who borders on being an autocrat, is steeped in quintessential Machiavellianism, wrestling with incumbent Fortune by “slicing and dicing” and giving bread away to the voters, not unlike the Romans.  Electoral success (in the light of, for example, the “Fair” Elections Act and the consequent voter suppression of non-desirables) is reduced to nasty Party science (the only science that counts in Canada these days, by the way).  And it was Machiavelli who was inspired by the ‘virtuous’ model of Sparta (vir being Latin for ‘man’, whose potential is (re)discovered in the Renaissance - meanwhile Canadians suffer under the persona-less rule of one, champion of the light-armoured vehicle).  Go figure that Canada is now largely being remodelled according to Renaissance ideas of Sparta generated from conflict-ridden Italy.

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[1] See J. Bronowski and Bruce Mazlish, The Western Intellectual Tradition: from Leonardo to Hegel (New York: Harper, 1975), pp. 28-43.  This blog entry was inspired by Bronowski and Mazlish’s chapter on Machiavelli.  And by the “Harper Government”.  For the reference to “war psychology” see page 38.

[2] Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius in The Prince, 2^nd ed., Robert M. Adams ed. and tr. (New York: Norton, 1977), p. 97.

[3] Ibid., pp. 91,92.

[4] Machiavelli, The Prince, 2^nd. ed., Robert M. Adams ed. and tr. (New York: Norton, 1977), pp. 16, 17. 

[5] Paul Cartledge, Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 52, 53. See Bronowski and Mazlish, The Western Intellectual Tradition, p. 37.

[6] Machiavelli, Discourses, p. 98.

On Conservatives, Roman History and the "Gothic balance"

Recently Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail published an interesting column: “Political scholars fiddle while Rome burns.”[1]  While there is some merit to the fact that Canada’s scholars are not playing as big a role in our national debates as they used to, I wish to draw attention to the “Roman” metaphor considered apart from the familiar allusion to Nero’s role during the great fire of AD 64. It is in fact Canada’s Conservative Party, once aided by  Tom Flanagan (since fallen from public grace) that has pushed the references to Roman history; any number of Professor Flanagan’s Globe and Mail op-ed contributions drew examples from the Roman period. But are Conservative Party principles consistent with Roman history?

A reading of the philosopher- historian R.G. Collingwood would imply some consistency but is not flattering. He explains in The New Leviathan: “although the word ‘legislation’ is one we owe to the Romans, the Romans did not clearly distinguish in their own minds between what we call legislation and the enactment of an executive decree.”[2]  This is clearly the problem with the Harper’s very troubling use of numerous “omnibus bills” (amounting to hundreds of pages in length each) which mask the executive as the legislative.   Another significant historical parallel are the Enabling Acts, beginning in Weimar Germany in October 1923, which gave Cabinet the power to “enact such measures as it deems advisable and urgent in the financial, economic and social spheres.”[3]  Does the reasoning not sound familiar?  Germany had previously engaged in four years of trench warfare and was at the time enduring hyper-inflation.  In a recent statement the incoming Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, described recovery from the 2008-09 financial crises in excessive terms as “post-war reconstruction.”  For the “Harper Government” in other words, history implies a Roman legacy of executive decrees – or war.

Another thing the Romans gave us was the rule of law, which by inversion meant that everyone is equal before the law.[4]  However, this central principle suggests that Conservative Party thinking is not in agreement with Roman history.  In Canada everyone is equal before the law, except for the “Harper Government” which rules as if there is no reciprocity in political life, because expanding one’s power is considered more important than Parliament.  A corollary of this is Harper’s definitive refutation of Friedrich Engels (the close collaborator with Karl Marx) who famously claimed that “the state is not ‘abolished,’ it withers away.”[5] Harper’s anti-statism is only party pretension, and we can see that in his current interference with the CBC, which should be at arm’s length from the government of the day.  In Canada the state shall not wither away, because the Conservative Party has now become the country’s ruling class.[6]

The Romans also gave us the secret ballot, and here is James Harrington on the topic in The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656), aided by his reading of Cicero:  “the tablet or ballot of the people of Rome (who gave their votes by throwing tablets or little pieces of wood secretly into urns marked for the negative or affirmative) was a welcome constitution of the people, as that which, not impairing the assurance of their brows, increased the freedom of their judgement.”[7]  Given the implicit role of some unknown people in the Conservative Party behind the “robo-call” affair, and given the continuous brow-beating of negative party advertising, one wonders how “free” the vote is in Canada.  Again, the Conservative Party does not compare well with this Roman example.

Finally, it is worth noting that the Parliament buildings in Ottawa are not “Roman,” or “neo-classical” (as in Washington, which definitely has a more than a touch of Versailles to it); rather, they are neo-Gothic, modelled after the Houses of Parliament in England, which burned to the ground in 1834, after standing for 800 years, only to be rebuilt.  And keep in mind that the average Gothic window has only three points to it, likely inspired by St. Augustine’s Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, a theme that I have developed elsewhere in this blog.  This three-fold nature is also known as the “Gothic balance”: there is an implicit sense of mediation, reconciliation and reciprocity – in other words, a notion of “the middle”.[8]  These are not intrinsically Roman values (despite the moderating influences of Cicero and Horace); they are Medieval ones, aided as I have said elsewhere by St. Augustine and, of course, Aristotle.  By preoccupying themselves with various aspects of Roman history, the Conservative Party may have missed the boat on essential Canadian history and culture.  In other words, under Harper there is no sense of “Gothic balance”. This essay is an attempt to clarify a very un-Canadian problem.

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[1] The Globe and Mail, Tuesday June 4, 2013, p. A11.

[2] R. G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan, or Man, Society, Civilization and Barbarism. Revised ed. by David Boucher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005) p. 217.

[3] Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944 (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2009), p. 25.

[4] Collingwood, The New Leviathan, pp. 329,331.

[5] Friedrich Engels, Anti-dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science, tr. Emile Burns, ed. C.P. Dutt (New York: International Publishers, nd [Nabu Press, USA, Reprint, 2010]), p. 315 (Part 3, Chapter 2).

[6] See R.G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan, p. 277.

[7] James Harrington, “Oceana” in Ideal Commonwealths, Intro. Henry Morley (New York: The Colonial Press, 1901), p. 205.  Harrington first published The Commonwealth of Oceana in 1656.

[8] For “Gothic balance” see Harrington in Ibid., pp. 216 or 217.

Montesquieu on political liberty - and Harper

The French man of letters, Montesquieu, is best known for his famous work The Spirit of the Laws (1748), where he develops the idea that political liberty follows from the separation of powers – the legislative, executive and the judicial.  Montesquieu had studied and admired England’s mixed system of constitutional government – the Houses of Parliament, the Crown, the king’s minister (Walpole), and the respective checking of power.  His work had an enormous influence on the American founders of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, and he was referred to extensively in May 1789 at the Meeting of the Estates General, considered the start of the French Revolution.[1]  (His influence waned as the Revolution became more extreme). It is worth noting that Montesquieu dictated The Spirit of the Laws to any number of secretaries over 20 years as the author was becoming blind.  It was placed on the Pope’s Index of Prohibited Books in 1751

Here is an excerpt from Montesquieu’s text, and it has bearing on Harper’s Canada:

Democracy and aristocracy are not free states by their nature.  Political liberty is only found in moderate governments.  But it is not always in moderate states.  It is present only when power is not abused, but it has eternally been observed that any man who has power is led to abuse it; he continues until he finds limits.  Who would think of it!  Even virtue has need of limits.

     So that one cannot abuse power, power must check power by the arrangement of things. …[2]

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[1]Judith N. Shklar, Montesquieu. Past Masters. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 111.

[2] Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, eds.and trs. Anne Cohler, Basia Miller and Harold Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 155 (Part 2, Book 11, Chapter 4).

CBC Freedom - or else

Once again the CBC is under attack.  This time it is worse than ever – and all Canadians should be concerned, regardless of (democratic) stripe.   Yet another omnibus bill has been introduced to the House of Commons, and in Budget Bill C-60 a sneaky provision has been added to give the Conservative government essential control of collective bargaining at the CBC.  In other words, Harper is converting our national “public” broadcaster into a “state” facility, adding to his ability to influence the news and its journalists. Our political ‘leader’ wants to be virtual ‘master’ of the CBC airwaves, bringing with him a heightened level of personal rule which is not often found in a modern Western democracy. The potential unity of thought will be profoundly debilitating to the nation.

In a nutshell, Canada is undergoing a revolution, one that is taking us back to the USSR.  The Puritan forefathers of Canada’s Conservative Party bear an uncanny historical resemblance to the Bolsheviks – both were radical ideologues and rather oppressive.  If the Canadian state takes control of the CBC it will fulfill Harper’s dream of ‘holy discipline’ familiar to Calvin’s Church.  Also of some inspiration to Harper are the Romans, and if only they had today’s broadcasting technology, for they too held to a ‘religion of order’.  Canadians cannot afford to be indifferent to the fate of the CBC, as Harper already controls the realm.

798 years ago, in the year 1215, King John signed the Magna Carta, and he was forced to do so, because English Barons challenged his centralization of power.  Essentially the document implied that the King was not above the law. Unfortunately, Harper does not see himself as a servant of the law (as represented by Parliament). And he has no sense of the people’s inherent rights, which is why he is tyrannical with the CBC. Borrowing from the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, Harper can easily be described as having “perpetual and restless desire for power after power.”  And if we consider Plato, who says that “The measure of a man is what he does with power,” one finds ludicrous ‘leadership’ misguided by a puritanical sense of being ‘the elect’.  Certainly, we can all agree that the Prime Minister requires several degrees of restraint on the CBC, public or otherwise - and immediately so.

Joerge Dyrkton de silentio

On Harper and Hobbes, Trade Secrets with China, and Ancient Canadian Wisdom

This is to let Canadians know that Stephen Harper actually does adhere to a system of thought, albeit a very short-sighted one.  His political philosophy borrows most not from Machiavelli but from Thomas Hobbes, in particular his book Leviathan (1651) written in the wake of England’s Civil War. King Charles was executed in 1649, the House of Lords was abolished shortly thereafter, and the Puritan regime of Cromwell began organizing a new state, known as the Commonwealth. Meanwhile continental Europe terminated the Thirty Years’ War with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

While Hobbes can be seen to be in league with Cromwell, he was in fact a Royalist (even when England’s Kings were Catholic). But his political philosophy was indeed considered a “scientific” response to the apparent need for legitimacy of authority while preserving liberty (the latter being a dubious success). Hobbes’s central premise is that man is anti-social, and that man in the state of nature (“where there is no common power”) is approximately equal but always at war (“every man against every man”).[1]  Fear in the state of nature is commonplace, which is why people lock their doors at night, and the life of man is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (which perhaps sounds like aspects of  Africa - to which Harper has reduced foreign aid).[2]  Man’s (natural) liberty, the anti-social, or individualistic, assumption of the nature of man is the key reason why Harper is no friend of ‘socialist schemes’ (like the Kyoto Accord) or the United Nations, as well preferring the company of pandas to people.[3]

Hobbes’s solution to man’s disorder in the state of nature is to unite the multitude in awe of one person, otherwise known as a “COMMONWEALTH”, or in Latin “CIVITAS”, better known as the “great LEVIATHAN”.[4]  One of the purposes behind the concept of the great Leviathan was to convert the crowds into an undivided people, and here we see some roots to Harper’s nationalism.[5]  Despite the fact that Hobbes was considered “scientific”, inspired by Euclid and a friend to Galileo (late in his life), and respected for his own mathematical often geometrical mind, which he saw as a means of lifting mankind from the chaos of conflict, Hobbes actually reinvents feudalism on a state scale, arguing for an (in effect, unequal) “relation between Protection and Obedience”.[6]  Similarly he seems to argue with logic, but the sovereign Leviathan is a great source of fear nonetheless, not unlike in Canada today where citizens are afraid to speak out against their great “Protector”.[7]

What Hobbes lacks in his political thinking is precisely what is missing in Harper: the idea of social reciprocity.  In other words Hobbes attempts to rebut Aristotle, in particular his idea that “man is by nature a political animal” (and that we each have a soul), arguing instead that man can be apolitical, or passive, opening up room for deterministic dominance by the Leviathan, Canada’s problem today.[8] Hobbes’s case for “every man against every man” is also a seedbed for Harper’s prevalent use of Game Theory and the classic problem of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, which suggests that it is rational not to cooperate, which in turn is at the root of Negative Political Advertising (because it works, at least in the short run).[9]  Hobbes (unlike Montaigne) also has no appreciation for the game of tennis (and he says so), because in tennis one is expected to “serve” and “return”.[10]  Similarly Harper does not respect Parliament (whose etymological root word is the French parler – “to talk”).  When Harper prorogued Parliament (twice), he turned to Hobbes who answered: “Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.”[11]

Canada’s Leviathan is again at work, and here perhaps I digress but get to today’s point. The rather unannounced comprehensive trade agreement with China (FIPA), signed in Russia on 9 September 2012 by Harper (note the signatory context of two other countries with their own great Leviathans), granting China “Foreign Investment Protection and Promotion” in Canada is now on the floor of the House of Commons – no thanks to the Prime Minister.  If Harper succeeds, Canada loses – and China gains, true to our resource-based colonial status.  Canada’s current federal Conservative Party (true to its anti-social form) was born in 2003 on a broken contract, a scrap piece of paper gone awry.  Ten years later Canada’s Conservative Leviathan shows unwillingness to make public in Parliament a 31 year written contract with China (with no chance for abrogation until the 15^th year) – Harper can do business with the Chinese state but not speak to Canadians.  Why the slyness?

Parliament is no protection, and the great Leviathan is busy protecting himself and China, but is he actually protecting Canadians? Does this “Protector” in all his considerable secrecy really deserve “Obedience” – or is Harper (borrowing from Descartes) a “Great Deceiver”?    Here is a point by Hobbes that Harper clearly has missed: “The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last … no longer than the power lasts by which he is able to protect them.”[12]  In other words, there really needs to be a “relationship” between the Canadian public and their Leviathan, quite possibly an institutional one too, certainly if there is going to be any “Protection”, a central flaw in both Hobbes’s and Harper’s thinking.[13]

Finally, in pursuit of this sense of “reciprocity” may I suggest sporting lessons for our great Leviathan - not hockey, not Game Theory, not tennis but canoeing lessons.  The canoe has traversed Canada like nothing else over the centuries, from our First Nations, to our French and British explorers, to our Scouts and recreational groups and families today.[14]  So let’s add to this and borrow not from Hobbes but from Hume who makes the well-known case for two men rowing a boat in his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals in 1751, an exact century after Leviathan was first published, for the essence of the metaphor resonates especially well for this country.[15]  In other words canoeing is primarily about equilibrium, balance, stability, agreement, convention and “common measures of exchange” – all vital to Canada’s history and its original state of nature – and to Canadians today.[16]  It sounds like co-operation in Canada is even natural, and this idea would be of benefit to one individual in particular. Are you listening, great Leviathan?

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[1] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. A.P. Martinich (Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2002),p. 97 (xiii, 13); p. 95 (xiii, 8)

[2] Ibid., p. 96 (xiii,9).

[3] Christian Nadeau, Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is Remaking Canada by Stealth, tr. Bob Chodoas, Eric Hamovitch and Susan Joanis (Toronto: Lorimer, 2011), p. 110.  Nadeau is apparently the first to write on the link between Hobbes and Harper, but I find the work generally uninspired.

[4] Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 129 (xvii,13)

[5] Quentin Skinner “Hobbes on Persons, Authors and Representatives” in Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan, ed. Patricia Springborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 163.

[6] Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 523 (“Review and Conclusion”, 17)

[7] Johan Tralau, “Leviathan, the Beast of Myth: Medusa, Dionysos, and the Riddle of Hobbes’s Sovereign Monster” in Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan, p. 77.

[8] See Tom Sorrell “Hobbes’s Moral Philosophy” and Cees Leijenhorst “Sense and Nonsense about Sense: Hobbes and the Aristotelians on Sense Perception and Imagination” in Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. See also Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Modern Library, 2001), p. 1129 [Aristotle, Politics, Book 1, Chapter 2].

[9] For Hobbes and Game Theory see Jean Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

[10] For Hobbes on tennis, see Leviathan, p. 156 (xx,19).  It would appear that Hobbes is writing with Montaigne in mind.

[11] Ibid., p. 97 (xiii,13)

[12] Ibid., p. 166 (xxi,21)

[13] Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, p. 203.

[14] See for example Bruce Hodgins, John Jennings, Doreen Small (eds), The Canoe in Canadian Cultures (2001).

[15] David Hume, Hume’s Moral and Political Philosophy, ed. and intro. Henry D. Aiken (New York: Hafner Press/Macmillan, 1948), p. 278.

[16] Ibid.

The G20 Summit in Toronto ... and Hegel (and Harper)

Here is some insight in Realpolitik by the German philosopher Hegel (1770-1831), one of the most formidable thinkers of the nineteenth century.  The following quotation is from his Philosophy of Right (1821) and has bearing on Toronto's G20 Summit:

In times of war, for example, various things which are otherwise harmless must be regarded as harmful.  Because of these aspects of contingency and arbitrary personality, the police take on a certain character of maliciousness.  When reflection is highly developed, the police may tend to draw everything it can into its sphere of influence, for it is possible to discover some potentially harmful aspect in everything. On such occasions, the police may procede very pedantically and disrupt the ordinary life of individuals.

Source: G.W.F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right.  Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. Allen W. Wood, tr. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 261 (Section 234).

For other comments on the G20 Summit, please see my "Response to the Prime Minister's Christmas Message," Jan. 2011)

Prorogation for the nation. Harper's exercises in selective democracy.

So Harper has done it again, with one phone call and no public appearance. Happy New Year, Canada! We have Orwell's "1984" in 2010. Parliament is prorogued for the second time in two years. Apparently Harper has nothing to hide, but detains our elected members. Now we can all watch the Olympics in Peace and Harmony, feeding on political pablum, laced with illiberalism and unaccountability.

I am a liberal to the extent that I value our Parliament and its institutional history, or, rather, what remains of it. Harper is so illiberal he makes a mockery of democracy, and for once I agree with Andrew Coyne, who blogs that Parliament should meet somewhere else. (See his "What's at stake.") The last time our Parliament was prorogued I suggested they meet at a Tennis Court, a reference to the beginning of the French Revolution. Ostensibly they should meet in "half" a Tennis Court to show a government in abeyance, if not arbitrary and beyond acceptance.

Harper's New Year's gift to Canadians puts the ill-fated Dion-led coalition in a much better light. It failed because the Canadian public was not willing to accept a coalition that was not "elected" as such, a spurious notion in a minority parliament. The minority government is illegitimate because we did not vote to prorogue (or let's say detain) our national institition, for opportune periods (another "time-out"?). He has no mandate to close down, at his cynical convenience, on our elected representatives, their committees and our conventions - on our Parliament - and we are now on the slippery slope.

As the Olympic torch drives its way across Canada, I am reminded of another modern-day torch relay begun (yes, the first) in 1936, Hitler's Germany - and the Berlin Olympics. That nation was not much bothered by pesky politics and parliament because the Reichstag, too, had been torched. The only time Canada's Parliament went up in flames was in the height of World War One - and we blamed the Germans. If our House of Commons gets destroyed, I think we'll have to blame the Prime Minister: he loves playing with fire. And I can just imagine the Ottawa headlines: "Harper fingers piano as Parliament burns."