Book III, Chapter X: The Abuse Of The Government And Its Tendency
TO DEGENERATE.
As the particular will acts incessantly against the general will, so the government makes a continual effort against the sovereignty. The more this effort is increased, the more is the constitution aitered ; and as there is here no other corporate will which, by resisting that of the Prince, may produce equilibrium with it, it must happen sooner or later that the Prince at length oppresses the sovereign and violates the social treaty. Therein is the inherent and inevitable vice which, from the birth of the body politic, tends without intermission to destroy it, just as old age and death at length destroy the human body.
There are two general ways by which a government degenerates, viz. when it contracts, or when the State is dissolved.
The government contracts when it passes from the majority to the minority, that is, from democracy to aristocracy, and from aristocracy to royalty. That is its natural tendency. If it
People will not fail to bring forward as an objection to my views the Roman Republic, which followed, it will be said, a course quite contrary, passing from Monarchy to aristocracy, and from aristocracy to democracy. I am very far from regarding it in this way.
The first institution of Romulus was a mixed government, which speedily degenerated into despotism. From peculiar causes the State perished before its time, as we see a new-born babe die before attaining manhood. ‘The expulsion of the Tarquins was the real epoch of the birth of the Republic. But it did not at first assume a regular form, because, through not abolishing the patrician order, only a half of the work was done. For, in tis way, the hereditary aristocracy,
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retrograded from the minority to the majority, it might be said to relax ; but this inverse progress is impossible.
In reality, the government never changes its form except when its exhausted energy leaves it too weak to preserve itself ; and if it becomes still more relaxed as it extends, its force will be annihilated, and it will no longer subsist. We must therefore concentrate the energy as it dwindles; otherwise the State which it sustains will fall into ruin.
The dissolution of the State may occur in two ways.
Firstly, when the Prince no longer administers the State in accordance with the laws and effects a usurpation of the sovereign power. Then a remarkable change takes place—the State, and not the government, contracts; I mean that the State dissolves, and that another is formed within it, which is composed only of the members of the government, and which is to the rest of the people nothing more than their master and their tyrant. So that as soon as the government usurps the sovereignty, the social compact is broken, and all the ordinary citizens, rightfully regaining their natural liberty, are forced, but not morally bound, to obey.
The same thing occurs also when the members of the governwhich is the worst of legitimate administrations, remaining in conflict with the democracy, the form of the government, always uncertain and fluctuating, was fixed, as Machiavelli has shown, only on the institution of the tribunes ; not till then was there a real government and a true democracy. Indeed, the people then were not only sovereign, but also magistrates and judges ; the Senate was only a subordinate tribunal for moderating and concentrating the government ; and the consuls themselves, although patricians, although chief magistrates, although generals with absolute authority in war, were in Rome only the presidents of the people.
From that time, moreover, the government seemed to follow its natural inclination, and tend strongly to aristocracy. The patriciate abolishing itself as it were, the aristocracy was no longer in the body of patricians as it is at Venice and Genoa, but in the body of the Senate, composed of patricians and plebeians, and also in the body of tribunes when they began to usurp an active power ; for words make no difference in things, and when a nation has chiefs to govern for them, whatever name those chiefs bear, they always form. an aristocracy.
From the abuse of aristocracy sprang the civil wars and the triumvirate. Sylla, Julius Cesar, Augustus, became in fact real monarchs ; and at length, under the despotism of Tiberius, the State was broken up Roman history, then, does not belie my principle, but confirms it.
ment usurp separately the power which they ought to exercise only collectively ; which is no less a violation of the laws, and occasions still greater disorder. Then there are, so to speak, as many Princes as magistrates ; and the State, not less divided than the government, perishes or changes its form.
When the State is broken up, the abuse of the government, whatever it may be, takes the common name of anarchy. To distinguish, democracy degenerates into ochlocracy,’ aristocracy into o/igarchy ; I should add that royalty degenerates into ¢yranmy ; but this last word is equivocal and requires explanation.
In the vulgar sense a tyrant is aking who governs with violence and without regard to justice and the laws. In the strict sense, a tyrant is a private person who arrogates to himself the royal authority without having a right to it. It is in this sense that the Greeks understood the word tyrant ; 48 they bestowed it indifferently on good and bad princes whose authority was not legitimate. Thus ¢yrant and usurper are two words perfectly synonymous.
To give different names to different things, I call the usurper of royal authority a ¢yran¢, and the usurper of sovereign power a despot. ‘The tyrant is he who, contrary to the laws, takes upon himself to govern according to 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.