The Lie of Sovereignty

Even when it is "We The People..."

I’m going to blame Nietzsche, even though the poor soul did nothing but make me think. So in some previous writing, I discussed politics¹ as decision making and in particular decision making that is binding on those that didn’t even participate in the decision. This is important because our entire system of government is premised on the consent of the governed, yet there is no good argument about when that consent was (or is) granted. If you’re naturalized as a citizen, there is a clear demarcation about when you chose to give your consent - you immigrated, resided and applied for that citizenship; you passed a test and swore allegiance. That is as clear a sign of consent as can be imagined. But if you are born here, your consent is implied², in a not entirely different manner as one was born into slavery (prior to the Civil War and Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments); which doesn’t cast citizenship in such a glorious light. While you are not prohibited from leaving (as with slavery), doing so requires the permission of the nation-state to which you might remove yourself (just as legally immigrating to this country does). You can only renounce your citizenship once you have left (and presumably taken on an alternative citizenship, and thus consenting to the governance of your new residence).

When this country was founded, the authority of government was already assumed to simply exist, though we did add a somewhat radical spin on it in that we argued the fundamental nature of government is that it is instituted amongst the people, who thus grant it sovereignty. Prior to this Enlightenment conceit, Sovereignty was arguably granted by God [without any great explication as to the mechanism] to kings (and properly only to the male descendants of monarchs, queens being regnant only until proper order could be restored). Hobbes³ argued that it wasn’t so much God, as the People desperate to escape the war of all against all that characterized the state of nature, that granted sovereignty. Once established this sovereignty was then captured in the person of the king, and his descendants, unless he failed in his duty to his people (at which point the people were legitimately to rebel and bargain for a new monarch). So our revolution really only changed the recipient of this power, republican/representative legislature vice monarch.

The question elided by both Hobbes and our Founders - just where does this sovereignty actually arise? How can this power (and make no mistake, that is all we are talking about here is power) that doesn’t exist in any one of us, exist amongst all of us? I cannot compel you, under the threat of death, to do my bidding - nor in the reverse can you do so to I. So if neither of us can do so (at least with any legitimacy⁴), how do the both of us have the grounds to do so to anyone else? Or, they to us? Lacking this property in ourselves, it is impossible for us to grant it to anyone else to use in our name. Sovereignty of the people is thus a sham, just as much as a king claiming the divine right to rule.

Nietzsche did consider this and answered it thus - we all have the will to power, the desire to dominate others. It is innate and only restrained by morality, in particular the slave morality which demonizes this will except as exercised by the priestly caste (or at least in accordance with their values). In a master morality, dominating others is treated as an expression of what is good, and Nietzsche was fond of pointing to classical Roman culture for this. I don’t think Nietzsche was quite right about this, but he also wasn’t entirely wrong, and I’ll return to this thought shortly.

Unfortunately there is one brand of political thinker that actually has an answer: the fascists. Power doesn’t arise from the individual (the weak reed, easily broken), it is an emergent property from the collective (the bundle of those reeds, tightly lashed together). It is important to understand the nature and heritage of fascism - it is an outgrowth of Marxism⁵. It is exceedingly difficult to point to any fascist that wasn’t first, at least a little bit, a Marxist. Marxism itself is an outgrowth of Rousseau and his conceit about the General Will⁶, filtered through Hegel. This clearly answers the objection to consent of the governed based on their assignment of a power they do not individually possess - at least on the assumption that we reject the use of coercion between individuals. The power arises because of their numbers, or in the alternate formulation - might makes right. Even worse, this isn’t wrong, because it is those who win wars that rule and write the histories glorifying their deeds. This isn’t some principle or logic, it is just reality. The clever demagogue (or as Hoffer calls him The True Believer) doesn’t draw people to him, he finds a mob nearing critical mass - which has a gravitational attraction to demagogues; the mob is begging for leadership and far too undiscerning about how their numbers will be put to use. The True Believer knows how to use that latent power.

Of course emergent properties are difficult things since they defy our deconstructionist view of social mechanics. There is also the matter of how all organizations operate, and that is that the leaders have authority (and make decisions for the organization as a whole). There is a significant break though between authority and power. Authority actually does operate on consent of the members of the organization, and that consent can be withdrawn. Power doesn’t recognize consent, just obedience, and demands a degree of compliance generally beyond what mere authority may command.

There is nothing existential about the nation-state as a necessary aspect of human life. We existed for millennia without it and just a few centuries with it. Even less is there any reason to believe that a single world government is either achievable or desirable. Nor can government cease to exist by virtue of some revolution (as promised under Marxist theory). If government, in particular the nation-state, is ever to be replaced it will be based on evolution and historical contingency - the same forces that gave rise to it in the first place.

Government can only be reduced in importance (i.e. scope) when the people governed stop asking government for solutions. And make no mistake, government does exist because people demand that it exist. There are benefits of at least some minimal government, just in terms of consistency and efficiency in some key areas of natural human conflict. We aren’t utterly irrational in having government, but we aren’t nearly rational enough in understanding where the limits to it should lie. It is amazing to contemplate just how much faith exists in governing.

For all of the attention that Nietzsche focused on the morality of coercion, and that a master morality and slave morality represents the great split between the employers of coercion and those oppressed by coercion, he barely noticed the dichotomy of coercion and cooperation. This is the signal difference between power and authority - the former maps to coercion and the latter to cooperation. The vast majority of human life is marked by cooperation, not coercion⁷, but ironically our largest current institution of human life is the one based on coercion. Authority is also more easily checked through accountability than is power. To forthrightly express domination, as Nietzsche presumes is a fundamental part of us, power is far preferable to authority (though both aligned is an even more powerful combination). The catch is that the desire to dominate isn’t really part of post-Roman Western values (which as Judeo-Christian, are a slave morality per Nietzsche). This is one reason he argued for the transvaluation of all values (just as the J-C transvaluation had overthrown the classic Roman values that had fueled the centuries of Roman expansion and domination).

Now you may ask yourself, this is interesting but how is it relevant. It once again demonstrates that reality doesn’t care about theory. The theory of government is just a fancy justification for doing things we can’t do individually, but can do when none of us is actually responsible for the outcome. Now, ask yourself, how on earth is that something you could ever trust?

1. Here and here.

2. Lysander Spooner, No Treason Vol VI The Constitution of No Authority is a pretty thorough demolition of consent and the tissue thin premise of a social contract.

3. Hobbes was as influential in the positive as he was the negative - drawing Rousseau’s great (and greatly mistaken) effort in his Second Discourse.

4. There is of course the Mario Puzo formulation of “an offer he couldn’t refuse”, and though that may exist in some cases it fails the legitimacy aspect that is necessary for society-wide acceptance.

5. In truly Hegelian terms fascism could be viewed as the synthesis of the liberal-capitalist thesis and Marxian antithesis. Which in turn becomes a thesis for a subsequent antithesis and some future, to be defined, synthesis. Hegel originally conceived this as a tool of analyzing history, not predicting the future.

6. Itself a contradiction to the grounds established in his Second Discourse. Rousseau was anything but consistent, even if he was consistently in error.

7. Here is the real refutation of Hobbes (and thus Rousseau) - the vast majority of human interaction is cooperative and not cut-throat.