For, from the moment that the essential conditions
of power--that is, authority, property, hierarchy--are preserved,
the suffrage of the people is nothing but the consent of the
people to their oppression,--which is the silliest charlatanism.
In the system of authority, whatever its origin, monarchical or
democratic, power is the noble organ of society; by it society
lives and moves; all initiative emanates from it; order and
perfection are wholly its work. According to the definitions of
economic science, on the contrary,--definitions which harmonize
with the reality of things,-- power is the series of
non-producers which social organization must tend to indefinitely
reduce. How, then, with the principle of authority so dear to
democrats, shall the aspiration of political economy, an
aspiration which is also that of the people, be realized? How
shall the government, which by the hypothesis is everything,
become an obedient servant, a subordinate organ? Why should the
prince have received power simply to weaken it, and why should he
labor, with a view to order, for his own elimination? Why should
he not try rather to fortify himself, to add to his courtiers, to
continually obtain new subsidies, and finally to free himself
from dependence on the people, the inevitable goal of all power
originating in the people?
It is said that the people, naming its legislators and through
them making its will known to power, will always be in a position
to arrest its invasions; that thus the people will fill at once
the role of prince and that of sovereign.
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