Experiencing Political Texts 1: Endings and Beginnings

While it is January that is named after a god who looks both forwards and backwards, for those of us working in educational establishments in the UK, the early autumn is also a good time for simultaneous reflection on the past and forward planning. In this spirit, this month's blogpost will look back to a project I have recently completed and offer a preview of a new project I am planning.

On 25 September Republicanism: An Introduction was published by Polity Press. As we approach the final month of the Presidential election campaign in a country that has long claimed to exemplify republican ideals, the United States, the questions: what is republican government? and what is required in order for it to function effectively? are more pertinent than ever. As I explain in my book, the older definition of a republic was a system in which government operated in the interests of the common or public good. The violent clashes that have taken place recently between Black Lives Matter protestors and Trump supporters throw doubt on any claim that there is a single, shared understanding of the common good in the US today. Of course, in the now more commonplace definition of republican government as the antonym of monarchy, it may seem that the US is unquestionably a republic, but can this judgement survive in the face of rule by a billionaire who wields far greater powers than any sitting monarch in the world and who gifts members of his own family positions of high office?

I explore these definitions more fully in a blogpost I have written for Polity Press. The book takes a chronological approach, starting with the ancient ideas and practices that formed the basis of later republican theories, before examining how those theories developed and were put into action in the context of the Renaissance, early modern Europe and the Enlightenment, and the English, American and French Revolutions. It then considers the ways in which republican ideas have been adopted by new groups, and adapted to new ends in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Overall, the book argues that republicanism is a dynamic, living language, the survival of which is predicated on its adaptability, and which retains the potential to offer answers to the pressing political issues of the twenty-first century.

Last month's blogpost on this site, which focused on the material culture of republican rule, was the last in a series about myths of republican government, exploring current political issues on which the history of republican thought offers useful insights. Yet that post simultaneously pointed towards my next project.

The cover of Thomas Hollis’s edition of James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana, Houghton Library, Harvard University: HOU GEN *EC65.H2381 656c (B) Lobby IV.2.18. I am grateful to staff at the Houghton for giving me permission to include this here and to Dr Mark Somos for his assistance. Note the owl on the front cover which indicates the wisdom of the text.

In early modern Europe, improvements in the mechanics of printing, rising literacy levels, and a series of political crises, combined to provide both the means and the market for an outpouring of political texts. Historians of political thought have paid great attention to the content or substance of those texts; analysing the language used, the arguments made, the debates to which they contributed, and the historical contexts out of which they emerged. Far less attention has been paid to the form of these texts, by which I mean both the genre(s) in which they were written and their physical or material aspects. There was no uniform genre for early modern political works, they could take the form of philosophical treatises, dialogues, travel literature, utopias, even poetry or drama. Moreover, many of them playfully blended fact and fiction. Similarly, the material dimensions of political texts - including their size, paper quality, frontispieces, typeface and binding - varied enormously and often provide clues as to their intended audiences and relate closely to the arguments they were designed to convey. Moreover understanding the ways in which those texts circulated as physical objects is also crucial to making sense of both the intentions of their authors and the ways in which they were received and used by readers.

Paying attention to these aspects of early modern political texts is crucial if we are to understand fully the functions of those texts. Often they were designed not merely to inform their readers and convince them of the validity of the arguments presented, but to prompt their readers' engagement with those arguments and even incite them to action. This was particularly important for republican texts, which were often explicitly concerned with provoking a shift from otium (contemplation) to negotium (action).

The elaborate frontispiece to John Toland’s edition of James Harrington’s The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington (London, 1737), Copy author’s own.

It was my work on James Harrington that first drew these neglected aspects of early modern political texts to my attention. Scholars have long found it difficult to explain why Harrington veiled his greatest work, The Commonwealth of Oceana, in a rather laboured utopian form. The common argument - that it was a way of avoiding censorship - is inadequate given that a work advocating commonwealth government was in line with the views of the authorities in 1656 and that he actually removed the utopian veil from the works he produced in 1659-60 - a much more dangerous moment to voice republican arguments with the return of the monarchy looking increasingly likely. Rather, as I argued in my book, Harrington used the utopian format to indicate that what he was offering in that work was an alternative vision of England's future - one that departed in crucial ways from the actual path that had started to be taken after the dissolution of the Rump Parliament in 1653. Moreover, the fictional elements were designed to give the impression to his readers that the events he was describing were actually taking place, thereby providing them with the opportunity to imagine his ideal commonwealth and effectively to try it on for size - albeit in their imaginations rather than in reality. This fitted with Harrington's underlying philosophy that people are more likely to be convinced of the viability of new systems and institutions if they experience them rather than just read about them. This strategy also extended beyond the genre of the work to its physical form, with the constitutional orders printed in black type to make them look to seventeenth-century readers like official proclamations issued by the Government.

As my initial research has revealed, Harrington was by no means unique in using this sort of strategy. Examining the form of other early modern political texts therefore has the potential to enrich and expand our understanding of those texts, the arguments their authors were advocating, and the impact they were designed to elicit in their readers. Over the next few months I will offer a number of case studies of early modern political writers whose attention to form was central to their mission and purpose.

Exploring these methods and considering how effective they were in achieving their ends has implications for our reading of those texts today and for the ways in which they are presented to modern audiences. It raises questions, for example, about the relative advantages of accessing the text in its original form, in a modern paper edition, or in a digital version. It also prompts us to think about whether there may be ways of reflecting the material elements of a text (its size, paper quality etc.) in digital form. Finally, all of this raises questions about how political arguments are articulated today. Does the format in which we receive political information or opinion affect how we understand or approach it? How far does the layout of a text determine the extent to which we engage with or interact with it? Do we respond differently to political ideas that come to us in hard copy (in a newspaper or printed book) as compared with those that we access digitally? And how do different digital formats affect our understanding? In both these contexts, paying attention to form as well as to substance may yield some interesting observations.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 5: Republics are only suited to small states

Anonymous portrait of Montesquieu after Jacques-Antoine Dassier (c.1728). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

It was a commonplace in the eighteenth century that republics are suited only to small states. This idea was memorably articulated by two of the most significant political theorists of the eighteenth century the Frenchman the Baron de Montesquieu and the Genevan Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In The Spirit of the Laws Montesquieu declared:

It is in the nature of a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise, it can scarcely continue to exist. In a large republic, there are large fortunes, and consequently little moderation in spirits: the depositories are too large to put in the hands of a citizen; interests become particularised; at first a man feels he can be happy, great, and glorious without his homeland; and soon, that he can be great only on the ruins of his homeland.

In a large republic, the common good is sacrificed to a thousand considerations; it is subordinated to exceptions; it depends upon accidents. In a small one, the public good is better felt, better known, lies nearer to each citizen; abuses are less extensive there and consequently less protected (Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. A. Cohler, B. Miller and H. Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 124).

Statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau near the Pantheon in Paris. Image by Rachel Hammersley

Similarly, in The Social Contract Rousseau argued that a true republic was only possible in a small state, where the whole population could gather together on a regular basis: 'The Sovereign, having no other force than the legislative power, acts only by means of the laws, and the laws being nothing but the authentic acts of the general will, the Sovereign can only act when the people is assembled.' (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 100).

This myth relied on the fact that most republics both past and present had been small; operating in city-states rather than nation-states. Moreover, it was precisely the expansion of the Roman republic that was viewed by figures like Montesquieu as having caused its political and moral corruption, ultimately resulting in the shift to imperial rule (Montesquieu, Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire from The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu, translated from the French. London, 1777, pp. 61-66).

While there were a few exceptions in the form of the Dutch, Swiss, and English republics, all of which had emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these were generally seen as proving rather than challenging the rule. The Dutch and Swiss republics were confederacies or leagues bringing together several city-states rather than being single large republics. The English 'commonwealth and free state' of the mid-seventeenth century was a genuine exception, but its reputation as a short-lived, precarious, and contentious regime did more to hinder than to advance the cause of large republics.

It goes without saying that the idea that republics are only suited to small states does not remain a potent myth today. Most governments calling themselves republican now rule over states that are large in both population size and area. The republic that did more than any other to undermine the myth was the American one established following the Declaration of Independence of 1776.

Howard Chandler Christy, Signing of the Constitution of the United States (1940). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

Yet the extent to which the United States of America really was - or is now - a republic in the traditional sense of the term is open to challenge. One such challenge has been articulated in forceful terms by the historian Eric Nelson. In The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding (Cambridge - Massachusetts, 2014) Nelson argues that America's founding fathers owed as much to royalist arguments of the mid-seventeenth century as they did to republican ones. Far from opposing royal tyranny in 1776, many American revolutionaries were reacting against the actions of Parliament and what they saw as its usurpation of royal prerogative in relation to the colonies. Moreover, in doing so they drew on the arguments of those who had opposed Parliament's attack on the prerogative of Charles I in the mid-seventeenth century. When it came to designing new constitutions, these men argued for a strong, single executive holding sweeping prerogative powers. As a result the American president was assigned far greater power than any British monarch had wielded for over a century. The legacy of those decisions remain today in the considerable powers still afforded to the US president and his ability to take crucial decisions for good or ill - the consequences of which are currently on display.

A different challenge to America's status as a republic was raised by the political philosopher Michael J. Sandel. In Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge - Massachusetts, 1996) Sandel argued that while the original constitution was grounded in republican ideas, they had gradually been eroded. By the late twentieth century there was considerable discontent with public life, and in particular fears around the loss of self-government and the erosion of a sense of community or public spirit. Despite America's status as a republic, the dominant political philosophy, Sandel argued, was no longer republicanism but a version of liberalism which placed centre stage the idea that the government should remain neutral in regard to the moral and religious views of its citizens. These issues have been brought into sharp relief by the current crisis. One feature of this liberalism is the absence of a public health service in the US. In the current crisis this means that those without adequate private healthcare provision may be left to die and it has made a co-ordinated public response to the crisis difficult. This lack of co-ordination has been identified as one reason why cases have advanced more quickly in the US than in other countries - such as Germany - which have a stronger health and social security system.

Of course the shortcomings of the current US system do not prove the impossibility of large-state republics. Republican government operates today in a variety of large states - including Germany. Yet eighteenth-century concerns - and the US example - should serve to remind us of the need to think carefully about what is necessary in order for a republic to function effectively in a large state, and to warn us that such states must be closely monitored for evidence of decline. The establishment of representative government and a strong executive undoubtedly provided useful means of making large-state republics possible, but such states can only function effectively where there are robust processes in place to hold both representatives and executive officers (including the president) to account. In addition, careful attention must be paid to the nature of, and the means to achieve, the public good. After all, government in the service of the public interest was one of the early definitions of republicanism.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 4: Republican Government and Commercial Society

Justin Champion delivering the first annual Christopher Hill memorial lecture at the National Civil War Centre, Newark, November 2018.

This month's blogpost, the latest in a series I have written on the myths surrounding republican government, is dedicated to the memory of the inspirational historian Justin Champion, who died last month, and whose research has fed directly into my thinking on this issue - and so many others.

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has raised important questions regarding the role of the state - particularly in times of crisis. In the UK, government intervention has been crucial in the form of the furloughing scheme and in providing cash injections to support small and medium sized businesses. At the same time, the high death rate in this country and the difficulties faced by the NHS have been blamed on decades of underfunding. On a broader scale it is self-evident that at a time when there is a high demand for Personal Protective Equipment and coronavirus testing kits in countries across the world, a market economy will operate in the interests of the richest and most powerful countries at the expense of poorer ones, bringing increased risks for their citizens and for the world.

This therefore seems a good moment to pay attention to another 'myth' relating to republicanism: that it either has little to say about twenty-first century economic matters or that it offers an unrealistic approach to economics that is antagonistic towards the market - regarding it, in Gerald Gaus's words, as 'inherently unfree and immoral' (quoted in Richard Dagger, 'Neo-republicanism and the civic economy', Politics, Philosophy and Economics 5:2, 2006: 158). In the same vein Gordon Wood, the historian of revolutionary America, has described republicanism as 'essentially anti-capitalistic' (Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. Chapel Hill, 1969, p. 418). This attitude has led some to conclude that republicanism can have no place in the politics of the twenty-first century.

However, this is open to serious question. As is the case with many of these modern myths, its roots are to be found deep in history - or perhaps more accurately in historiography. In 1975 the great intellectual historian John Pocock produced a groundbreaking book The Machiavellian Moment, which traced the journey of republican ideas from the ancient world, via Renaissance Italy and early modern England, to their zenith in revolutionary America. Pocock paid particular attention to how those ideas faired in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain, highlighting the inevitable tension between the republican emphasis on virtue and the rise of commerce, and presenting republican authors as antagonistic to the new commercial society that was emerging around them. This fed into a wider argument about an incompatibility between liberalism and republicanism that was central to Pocock's book.

The Ponte Vecchio which spans the Arno river in Florence and has been the location for shops since the thirteenth century. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

While the distinction between liberalism and republicanism was challenged from the outset, the notion of republican virtue as inherently at odds with commercial society and a market economy proved more persistent. Nonetheless, recent research has begun to reveal it too to be a false dichotomy.

In a 2001 article Mark Jurdjevic took issue with Pocock's account of Renaissance Italy, arguing that Florentine civic humanism (the underpinning of the republican arguments of that time) was in fact the ideology of an 'ascendant merchant class'. He went on to suggest that commerce and private wealth were not a threat to the republic, but rather were crucial to its survival (Mark Jurdjevic, 'Virtue, Commerce, and the Enduring Florentine Republican Moment: Reintegrating Italy into the Atlantic Republican Debate', Journal of the History of Ideas, 62:4, 2001: 721-43).

The dedicatory letter at the beginning of John Toland’s edition of The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington (London, 1737), one of the texts cited in Justin Champion’s article. Here Toland celebrates the wealth and riches of London, which he attributes to English liberty, and likens Harrington’s constitution to that of the Bank of England. Copy author’s own.

Jurdjevic's conclusion chimes with the findings of Steve Pincus on seventeenth-century England, which at that time was already experiencing an expansion of trade. Pocock had focused on figures like James Harrington and John Milton who were hostile to commercial culture. Yet, as Pincus shows, there were plenty of supporters of commonwealth government prepared to defend the new commercial society (Steve Pincus, 'Neither Machiavellian Moment nor Possessive Individualism: Commercial Society and the Defenders of the English Commonwealth', The American Historical Review, 103:3, 1998: 705-36). The author of The Grand Concernments of England, for example, declared that 'trade is the very life and spirits of a common-wealth' (Anon., The Grand Concernments of England Ensured... London, 1659, p. 32).

Justin Champion has gone even further, drawing on little known published writings and unpublished manuscripts produced by John Toland and Robert Molesworth to show that these eighteenth-century 'commonwealthsmen' had a more subtle and sophisticated attitude to commerce than they have been given credit for. While they were certainly worried about the corruption that might be introduced by speculation, paper stocks, and credit, they drew an important distinction between schemes in which these mechanisms served only private interests and those that operated for the benefit of the public. While they condemned the former, they accepted that the latter could perform an important function in a well-organised republican state (Justin Champion, '"Mysterious politicks": land, credit and Commonwealth political economy, 1656-1722' in Money and Political Economy in the Enlightenment, ed. Daniel Carey. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2014, pp. 117-62).

Thomas Paine, copy by Auguste Millière after an engraving by William Sharp, after George Romney, c.1876, based on a work of 1792. Reproduced under a creative commons license from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, NPG 897.

Could that notion of an economy operating in the interests of the public good, rather than in private interests, provide the basis for a republican political economy in the twenty-first century? The political philosopher Richard Dagger certainly thinks so. In a 2006 article he sketched out the key features of a neo-republican economy where the market would be preserved but be directed towards the service of the public good. This would require that certain values be allowed to trump the unfettered operation of the market. Efficiency in the production and distribution of goods and services would certainly be valued, but the interests and well-being of citizens would be deemed more important. For example, there would be constraints on managerial decision-making and institutional guarantees for workers to be able to contest managerial directives. Similarly, the market would be curbed to secure the protection and flourishing of communities, which might mean giving careful consideration to the impact of economic decisions on the environment or on particular groups within society. Dagger also proposes several mechanisms designed to secure greater financial equality and a better redistribution of wealth among citizens. These include a robust inheritance tax, a progressive consumption tax, and a minimum level of financial support for all citizens to help make financial security - and therefore self-government - possible for all, regardless of background. Options for the delivery of this financial support could include a basic income, of the kind advocated recently by the economist Guy Standing, or a basic capital grant, an idea originally proposed by the eighteenth-century revolutionary Thomas Paine in The Rights of Man.

If Dagger is right then perhaps it would be possible to build on republican arguments of the past to develop an economic system in which the market can be directed towards advancing the public good. The current crisis provides an incentive for us to do so, and perhaps also the opportunity.