The destiny of modern democracies is already written in the history of ancient democracies. It was the struggle between the rich and the poor which destroyed them, just as it will destroy modern societies, unless they guard against it. In Greece, equal rights were granted to all the citizens. But ancient legislators did not fail to recognize the fundamental truth, so constantly repeated by Aristotle, that liberty and democracy cannot exist without equality of conditions. To maintain this equality they had recourse to all kinds of expedients; inalienability of patrimonies, limitations on the right of succession, maintenance of collective ownership as applied to forests and pasturage, public banquets in which all took part, -- the sussitia and copis so often mentioned in ancient writers. But all these precautions were insufficient to check the progress of inequality; and then the social struggle began, pitting against each other the two classes almost as far separate in their interests as two rival nations, just as we see it in England and Germany at the present day. Note the ominous words of Plato ( Repub . IV.): "Each of the Greek states is not really a single state, but comprises at least two;one composed of the rich, the other of the poor."As the poor enjoyed political rights, they sought to turn them to account to establish equality: at one time they imposed all the taxes on the rich, at another they confiscated the goods of the latter, and condemned the owners to death or exile; often they abolished debts, and sometimes they went so far as to carry out an equal division of all property. The wealthy classes naturally took every means to defend themselves, even having recourse to arms. Hence there were constant social wars. Polybius sums up this lamentable history in a sentence: "In every civil war, the object was to displace fortunes." "The Greek cities," says M. Fustel de Coulanges in his excellent work, La Cité Antique , "were always fluctuating between two revolutions, the one to despoil the rich, the other to reinstate them in possession of their fortune. This lasted from the Peloponnesian war to the conquest of Greece by the Romans." Boeckh, in his work on the Political Economy of the Athenians, expresses himself in nearly the same terms. (7)Inequality, therefore, was the cause of the downfall of democracy in Greece.
Rome presents the same picture. From the beginning of the republic the two classes, the plebs and the aristocracy, were at issue. The plebs from time to time acquired political rights, but were gradually deprived of property; and thus, at the same time as equality of rights was established, the inequality of conditions became extreme. Licinius Stolo, the Gracchi, and other tribunes of the people endeavoured, by means of agrarian laws, to re-establish equality, and proposed the distribution of the ager publicus . To no purpose however; for on one hand extended the great domains, and on the other slavery. A disinherited proletariate replaces the class of small citizen-proprietors, who were the very marrow of the republic. There was no longer a Roman nation: there remained but the rich and the poor attacking and execrating each other. Finally, out of the enmity of classes rose, as is always the case, despotism. Pliny presents the whole drama to us in one sentence, which explains all ancient history: Latifundia perdidere Italiam . At Rome, as in Greece, inequality, after stifling liberty, destroyed the State itself.
M. H. Passy published a work, Des formes de gouvernement , to shew that republics may be transformed into monarchies, but that a monarchy cannot develop into a durable republic, because class enmities prevent the regular establishment of democratic institutions. Events in Spain and France seem to bear him out.
At the present moment modern societies are met by the problem, which antiquity failed to solve; and we scarcely seem to comprehend its gravity, in spite of the sinister events occurring around us. (8) The situation, however, is far more critical now-a-days than ever it was in Greece or Rome. There are two causes which aggravate it immensely, --one economic, the other moral. Formerly, as labour was executed by slaves, who, generally speaking: took no part in the social struggles, dissensions between the rich and the poor were no hindrance to the production of wealth.
While the struggle went on in the Agora, slave labour was continued without check to support the two parties engaged in the strife. But, now-a-days, the labourers themselves come down into the arena, and the battle is fought out on the field of labour. Social struggles could not therefore he prolonged without entailing the impoverishment and disorganization of society.
Then, again, a higher ideal of justice aggravates the danger. The ancients, not admitting the natural equality of all men, did not recognize in them all the same rights. The slave who guided the plough and drove the shuttle, was in their eyes a beast of burden; he had therefore no claim, either to suffrage or property. The social difficulty was thus wonderfully simplified.
But we have not the same resource. With us the quality of all men is an established dogma, and we grant the same rights to whites and negroes.
Christianity is an equalizing religion. The Gospel is the good tidings brought to the poor, and Christ is not the friend of the rich. His doctrine verges on communism; and his immediate disciples and the religious orders who sought to follow his teaching strictly, lived in community. If Christianity were taught and understood conformably to the spirit of its founder, the existing social organization could not last a day.
