THREATS TO A FREE SOCIETY

The United States of America considers itself a free society.  There is a general awareness that freedom can be lost and must therefore be preserved.  The question then arises as to what a free people must do to preserve its freedom.  In the context of bitterly divisive politics in the United States, the answer often given is that the other political party is the danger and my political party knows and has the policies that will preserve freedom.  I propose here to look into the lessons of history for some possible insights. 

Socrates taught that there can be no intelligent discussion without defining terms.  We need to know about what we are speaking.  People often jump into political discourse without agreement on the subject.  The result is that neither party is communicating with the other because they are operating with different concepts in mind.

What is a free society?  It must stand in opposition to one that is not free.  Freedom implies the absence of restraint.  It is the absence of bondage that would restrain the freedom to think, speak, write, go places, or make and follow through with personal decisions.  Freedom is not license; it is not the right or ability to act irresponsibly.  Restraints on behavior that would damage others are not an impingement on freedom; they are the preservation of civilization.  Freedom thus implies some degree of responsibility to authority.

When we look back at history of civilizations, we shall note that free societies are not the norm.  They are unusual.  Most states have been governed by authorities that allow freedom arbitrarily if at all.  Such is freedom by permission rather than autonomous freedom.    Early Mesopotamian civilizations were absolute monarchies.  Egypt was an absolute monarchy. Alexander the Great and his Macedonian successors were authoritative monarchs. The Roman Empire was an autocracy.  Medieval Europe was ruled by nobles and kings, and the common people lacked any independent power unless granted by the lord.  In the Far East authoritarian empires were the rule.

Here we encounter an important aspect to our definition.  Whereas there are varying degrees of personal freedom to be found in civilized societies among those autocratic ones noted above, it is by the will of the governing power.  It is not inherent, autonomous freedom.  I want us to focus on those few societies where the people are sovereign and choose their rulers.  Aristotle gave such a definition of democracy in his The Politics.  He said that a democracy is a state in which the people are sovereign and free.  In such instances freedom is the basis and essence of the society and not a privilege granted by decree of the person or persons who actually hold the power.

Freedom, in the sense defined above, was born in Ionia in the eighth century B.C.  There independent city-states developed a system that involved political power being found in the hands of the common people.  In order to understand free societies, we should begin our quest in Ionia.

The earliest Greeks had kings, but sometime during their sojourn in Asia Minor the concept of autonomous freedom developed.  Scholars are not agreed as to why.  Perhaps it was the pleasant climate that allowed people to go outside and talk with each other.  Perhaps there was just something inherent in these people.  For whatever reason, these independent cities formed councils (gerousia) to govern the everyday activities and a general assembly (ekklesia) that included all citizens.  Administration was in the hands of officials either selected by lot or elected by the populace.

As Greek civilization revived in the Balkan Peninsula about 650 B.C. following the invasion that had driven most of the Greek people eastward to Asia Minor (1200-1000), they imported these ideas from across the Aegean Sea.  Earlier Greeks had been under a feudal system of kings, as we read in Homer’s accounts of the Trojan War.  After a long development from aristocracy to oligarchy in 594, the city of Athens moved beyond the Ionian pattern to place total power in the hands of the people in 508.  They simply rotated the offices among themselves by drawing names out of a clay pot.  Those selected were administrators, and all citizens formed the assembly which held ultimate decision-making power.  

Democracy in Athens survived for 350 years, and they spread their form of government to other cities.  The Democrats were resisted by the Oligarchs who believed that authority should be vested in a few wealthy people and common folk lacked the qualifications for running a city.  The Oligarchs would have preferred to return to the earlier constitution of Solon in 594 that granted them the ultimate political power.  Although the democracy continued, Athens eventually fell to the Macedonians and later to Rome.  

The Greeks loved their freedom and guarded it with ferocity as long as they could.  They were able to legislate, adjudicate, and run the affairs of state on their own.  People could say what they wanted, and took full advantage of that opportunity.  They could go where they wished.  Conflicting ideas were out there, but no one was forced to accept any one ideology.  People could work where they wished.  Generally the economy was strong enough that they could live decent lives.  Their participation in war was voluntary, except for Sparta.  

Thus the concept of democracy was introduced into the world.  However, Athens was conquered by Sparta in 404 B.C., and the entire Greek world was thrown into chaos for several years until Philip II of Macedon conquered them at the battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C.  While the conquerors allowed the democratic constitution to continue, it was clear that Athens was subject to foreign overlords. 

We need to stop and examine some of the weaknesses in the Athenian system of autonomous freedom from which we can learn lessons today that possibly could help in preserving our own system of freedom.  First, the plan of placing ultimate political power in the hands of all the people proved unwise.  All citizens of Athens did not possess equally the ability and qualifications to assume the administration of the city.  Nor did they possess the wisdom to make legislative decisions.

During the war with Sparta, the Peloponnesian War which dragged on for thirty years, the democratic assembly, composed of whoever came to the Pnyx that day to make the decisions for the city, made some very irresponsible ones.  For instance, they put to death Pericles’ sons for a weather-related naval tragedy.  They vacillated on whether to recall or re-commission the capable general Alcibiades. They opted for the continuation of the war when an advantageous peace was at hand.

The lesson to be learned is that when the people are sovereign under a democracy, they still need to select qualified people to make the laws, administer, and enforce them.  A complete democracy is a very delicate matter.  It can be done, but only when the people as a whole are well-informed and responsible.  Towns in Switzerland and New England (in former times) manifested this kind of capable democratic politics.  Of course, full democracy can exist only when the populace is small and homogenous.  Often it is pointed out that Athens was never a real democracy in that women and slaves were excluded from the process.  That is true.  Women were citizens but did not participate in politics in Athens, although they did in Sparta.  

A second weakness in the Athenian democratic constitution was its failure to incorporate and provide for the dissidents.  I noted earlier that the Oligarchs were always discontent, and as the common people had felt disenfranchised by the oligarchic constitution, now the Oligarchs felt disenfranchised by the democratic constitution.  A weakness in full democracies is the proclivity of the masses to become tyrants…the tyranny of the majority.  In such cases, true freedom of those disagreeing is compromised.  

Let us leave Athens now for Rome, the second example.  And here we find some lessons closer to home because the government of the United States of America is patterned after that of the Roman Republic.  The Romans drove out the Etruscans in 509 B.C., one year before Cleisthenes introduced the democratic constitution in Athens.  The Romans wisely considered that each and every citizen was not equally qualified to serve in office, and thus they decided on a representative form of government where citizens vote for their magistrates on a yearly basis.

The Roman Republic falls under our definition of a free society, because ultimately the common people held the power by means of the vote.  Their constitution was excellent and serves as the model for the American constitution.  It was a living document that was capable of being amended and expanded as Rome grew. 

Administrative and military power was vested in the hands of two consuls who, like all but one of the other magistrates, were elected yearly.  They were assisted by eight praetors, an office added later which gave them judicial and military power (under the consuls or in absence of the consuls).  Finances were handled by twenty quaestors, and the common people were represented by ten tribunes.  Two censors were elected for five-year terms to update citizen rolls, determine who were qualified to stand for office, and control public contracts.  An upper assembly called the Senate made the laws and controlled finances, and a lower house, the Tribal Assembly, represented the commons.  They later gained the power to introduce legislation which had to be approved by the Senate before becoming law.  Obviously, the original magistrates were from the noble class.  However, as pressure increased for more representation for the common people, the constitution was expanded to accommodate those demands.

Rome prospered for four hundred years under the Republican constitution.  The nation was at peace within itself, and in such unity aggressively moved to conquer the Mediterranean.  After driving out the Etruscans, Rome went on to take south Italy, then in three wars conquered the great African empire of Carthage, and in four wars conquered or acquired three out of four of the Macedonian kingdoms.  The fourth, Egypt, would fall to Rome in 31 B.C.

But by 31 B.C. the Republic was dead.  How did it die and what caused its demise?   I discussed the fall of the Roman Republic to some extent in my previous blog on “Contentious Politics,” so I will not repeat the story here.  Suffice it to say that after the foreign wars a century-long and bloody civil war erupted that left Rome an autocratic, monarchical empire.

In that article I mentioned the tension between the privileged and the underprivileged, the need for understanding each other, and the necessity for compromise.  Obviously, Rome’s failure to do those things contributed to the fall of their republic.  There are, however, some other factors to consider.

The first factor was violation of the constitution.  The Roman Republican constitution was well constructed and flexible enough to expand through addition of new offices as the empire grew.  There were checks and balances in place that prevented abuse of power by any one group.  However, when the wars ended in 146 B.C. and troops returned home to find their farm lands bought up by operators of large plantations, they went to Rome to form a large, unemployed urban mob.  This situation was untenable, and the Senate, under control of the aristocratic Optimates, refused to do anything about it.

When the government would not act, a democratic tribune from an aristocratic background took matters into his own hands.  Tiberius Gracchus in 133 B.C. was elected on a platform of agrarian reform.  He proposed a bill in the Tribal Assembly that would enforce an old law still on the books that restricted the amount of public (government) land that a squatter could hold to 500 iugera or about 500 acres.  The lower house passed the bill, but the upper house would not consider it.

Tiberius flaunted the constitution by declaring his bill to be law based only on its passing the lower house, and proceeded to set up a land commission to carry it out.  Land taken from the squatters would then be given to the ex-military so that they could return to farming.  The Senate controlled appropriation, thus they refused to fund the bill, thinking they would thus kill it.  Tiberius did not let that stop him.  The king of Pergamum, Attalus III, willed his kingdom to Rome before his death.  Tiberius appropriated the Pergamum treasury on behalf of the Roman people.  The Senate cried “foul.”

Unquestionably the constitution had been violated by this tribune who had no legal right to by-pass the Senate in enacting legislation.  At this point the Senate had the option of preserving the constitution by dealing with their grievances against Tiberius according to law, but when Tiberius stood for re-election the next year, and was elected; a senator assassinated Tiberius.  By law a tribune was immune from prosecution and his person was sacrosanct.  Those who stood for preserving the constitution had violated it.  Violations occurred on both Democratic and Republican sides.

Once the constitution was violated, it lost its authority.  Soon the military stepped in to assume the sovereign authority in the state and fill the vacuum left by the slow and steady demise of the Republican constitution.  From that point on, about 100 B.C. and the time of Marius, the military was the real power in Rome, and whoever controlled the military could control the state.  That was the fatal secret of the Roman Empire.  And with military control, freedom, as we have defined it, was gone.  There followed a century-long civil war in which Democratic generals, Republican generals and generals who were “independent” committed horrible atrocities against political leaders and people in general, leaving eventually only one person to assume control as the emperor…with support of the military.

Also, we should note that the assassination of the tribune Tiberius Gracchus introduced violence into Roman politics.  Violence continued and escalated.  Once violence enters the scene and is viewed as a means to settle political grievances, it is very difficult to end it.  Eventually it will end, but by then freedom will long have fallen by the wayside.

Finally, the Roman people lost the will to maintain the Republic.  There were die-hard Republicans who wished for a return to the old system, but the people no longer cared.  They were satisfied with a stable government, strong economy, peace in the land, and high standard of living.  The cost of freedom was too high, and people were unwilling to expend the effort to restore it.  Freedom is a quality that once lost is very difficult to replace.

To sum up, we have defined six reasons for the death of a free society, defining a free society as one in which the people make the ultimate decisions and have the freedom to think, speak, and act without restraint from any source.  They are willing to put into place the self-restraints that allow all to be free.  Two of these factors are derived from the Athenian experiment in democracy and four from the Roman Republic.

1.       Unqualified and inexperienced leadership

2.       Internal disunity (These were the weaknesses in the Athenian democratic system.  I find it strange that Aristotle claimed that democracies are usually free of internal factions, but in Athens there was always tension between Oligarchs and Democrats. )

3.       From Rome we find disrespect and violation of the constitution from both major factions.

4.       The military assuming control of the state in the absence of constitutional authority.

5.       The introduction of violence into politics as a means of settling differences.

6.       The people of Rome (Athens as well) losing the will to maintain freedom as we defined it.

There may be lessons from Athens and Rome that would be helpful to free societies today, although circumstances are never exactly the same.  Any people must ask if freedom is worth preserving, what they must do to preserve it, and if they are willing to take the necessary steps to do so.

-David Lawrence