Individualism, Nation, and State in the Era of Revolution
Unit 10: Old Regime and Revolution: Change and Persistence
10.1. On the Bourgeois Revolution
In the context of the French Revolution, the goal was to build a new individual and new ways of organizing society. The English Revolution sought to recover old English forms. In contrast, during the second half of the eighteenth century, popular discourse focused on ruptures linked to the American Revolution. Revolution emerged as an abrupt and disorderly change in public affairs. Both traditional and novel meanings attended the scene of the French Revolution (1789), and the revolutionaries grappled with the meaning of their revolution. France lacked a constitution, and the revolution aimed to break with the past, not to recover an old constitution, but to create a new one. It was now thought of as a form of order. Revolution can be understood as the substitution process leading from the old order to a new political and legal constitutional status. This new order is characterized by individualism, class society, and the constitutional state, marking the beginning of modernity. It features the abandonment of many traditional themes: the particular for the universal, the local for the general, the temporal for the timeless. Revolutions develop projects and seek a process of social and economic transformation based on these themes. Thus, modernity implies adopting a method of thinking free from any contextual reference.
10.2. Individual, Nation, State
10.2.1. Class of Individual and Society: The Sole Subject of Law
In contrast to the estates and corporate society, the basic unit now becomes the free and equal individual within a society organized in economic terms (class society). This involves discussing the genealogy of individualism, which has several origins. Hobbes is the first author to articulate this idea clearly. Among various positions, the most convincing locates the first glimpse of the individual concept in Franciscan scholasticism of the mid-fourteenth century. Here, the discussion of universals—qualities predicated of an unspecified number of individuals—is revived. This concept develops into the seventeenth century with the thought of Hobbes (the free and equal individual subject to his natural impulses). From the standpoint of law, this means all individuals are juridically equal; there is a single subject of law: the individual. It is the sole subject of predication of law, hence the term individualism. This has important implications. The idea of a single subject of law has significant consequences for understanding political power. The old order disappears, replaced by a collection of isolated individuals without order. For law, this implies a decisive factor. On this basis, law is only necessary when establishing a class society because differences between individuals cannot be established and consecrated by law. Otherwise, we return to an estate society, a time necessary for establishing the abolition of all inequalities. It is the free play of economic relations. Possessive individualism refers to the individual who thinks of himself as the owner of his capabilities and what he gains by exercising them. Freedom is conceived as property itself. The individual thus conceived, and therefore the related property, becomes the center of the economy and society.
10.2.2. Property as Freedom: Possessive Individualism
Property and freedom involve projecting the subject’s freedom. This represents a remarkable change from the ancien régime, where property was conceived from the thing (reicentrism, the thing at the center). Consequently, it was perfectly conceivable that multiple entitlements of dominion over the thing could be configured in response to its utilities. Now, things are conceived differently, a shift with a long history. The first subjective conception of property appears in discussions within Franciscan scholasticism, focusing on the subject’s ownership of the domain. This idea also fructifies in seventeenth-century rationalism with Locke. The idea of property is built on the subject with three characteristics: 1. Simplicity, because distinctions regarding the subject are eliminated. 2. Abstraction from the thing. 3. Configuration as an absolute right of a subject over an object. In the Old Regime, contracts were understood as pertaining to the thing; now, the thing is understood in relation to the subject. In summary, property and freedom include the right to capitalize on wealth, so property becomes the instrument of freedom. Implementing this transformation was not easy. Transforming the legal status of land involved three converging measures:
- Abolition of the feudal system: This involved converting old jurisdictional lords into owners, separating proprietary rights from jurisdictional rights.
- Untying of entail: Entailments were removed, making property freely transferable.
- Confiscation: This affected assets held in mortmain, such as those of the Church or municipalities. It involved a two-step transfer of ownership: nationalization of the property (making the nation the owner) and sale at public auction to the highest bidder.
These three measures were accompanied by others to liberalize trade.
10.2.3. Theoretical Elements of the Liberal State
These elements are found in rationalist natural law. A Natural Law model can encompass all these authors. The old model, which Bobbio calls the Aristotelian model, starts from the idea that society is an aggregate of smaller, natural companies. The natural law model starts from the isolated individual, who lacks a social nature. Individuals are self-centered and divisive, hindering the construction of order. It seeks to discover universal rules of conduct through the study of human nature using reason. This model has three basic elements: the state of nature, the social contract, and civil society. Hobbes in Leviathan is the first author to conceive of things in these terms for politically relevant effects. This thought is perfected by Locke, and further developed by Rousseau, Spinoza, and Kant.
- The state of nature: This is an anti-political state because individuals are isolated. Three points to consider: 1. It is an imaginary state, a hypothesis of reason. 2. For Hobbes, it is a state of war. Other authors see it as a potential state of war because there is no authority to make rules. In short, it is a negative state to be escaped. 3. In this state, individuals are unrelated; there are no links between them.
- The social contract: This is the only way out of the undesirable state of nature. All individuals pool their freedom. Under this model, the only legitimation of political society is the agreement among men—the pact, the social contract. Western authors consider it a truth of reason, not something that actually existed. Consequence: the ruler should act as if their power derived from a contract among all men subject to it. This pact is designed as a double agreement: first, a social pact, and second, a securing pact involving the constitution of political power from the society thus formed. However, some authors, like Hobbes, understand that there is only one covenant, the covenant of association: each individual in the multitude cedes to a third party the right to govern that they possess in the state of nature, so that others do the same. Thus, in the same act, the multitude of free individuals is transformed into a society. It is the agreement for the establishment of a common power. The pact involves the transfer to the State of all or some of the rights that individuals hold in the state of nature.
- The social and political state: This is artificial, unlike in the Old Regime. It is artificial because it is a product of the will of men. According to Rousseau’s democratic thought, it is conceived in absolute terms. The general will is the only entity entitled to make laws. Since laws are the expression of the will of all, all who are governed obey themselves. Most authors conceive of this power in absolute terms. Locke, Montesquieu, and Kant propose limiting and dividing the exercise of power (separation of powers). It is a power that can be resisted if established limits are transgressed. For Locke, the abuse of power is the denial of individual rights, and therefore he devises a power of resistance.
Conclusions
This is a theoretical model of reasoning. It is a rational theory of the state and also a theory of the rational state, and states are the only legitimate construct for individuals. The key points can be summarized as follows:
- The natural law model is a dichotomous model: state of nature vs. social and political state. In the state of nature, there are as many sovereigns as there are individuals, each governing themselves; while in the resulting state, there is a single sovereign constructed by all.
- The only principle legitimizing political society is consent, an act of will among individuals. Political power has an artificial origin. Therefore, order arises from disorder through consent.
- Political representation is critical.