/siberia/ - Off-topic

The German-centric view of these Historians & neofeudalists (& sometimes ancaps) who bash absolute monarchy in name of the nobility and their oligarchism – dates back to Alexis de Tocqueville.
>"The old European constitution was better preserved in Germany than France"
–The old European constitution = >Aristotle's City<.
Alexis de Tocqueville's Medevialism in rebuffing Absolutism was very German-centric as opposed to another Frenchman, Jean Bodin, who was more of a French chauvinist.
>"Whenever I discovered in the old legislation of Germany" recounts Alexis de Tocqueville.
That whole stigma Historians typically peddle towards Absolutism was originally in Alexis de Tocqueville's account:
>"Royalty had nothing in common with medieval royalty"
Again, what royalty? it's like John Cook hissed after the execution of Charles I: "Aristotle's King".

Alfredo Rocco in The Political Doctrine of Fascism also makes out a historical outlook sympathetic to monarchical absolutism:
>This innovating trend is not and cannot be a return to the Middle Ages. It is a common but an erroneous belief that the movement started by the Reformation and heightened by the French Revolution was directed against mediaeval ideas and institutions. Rather than as a negation, this movement should be looked upon as the development and fulfillment of the doctrines and practices of the Middle Ages. Socially and politically considered, the Middle Ages wrought disintegration and anarchy; they were characterized by the gradual weakening and ultimate extinction of the State, embodied in the Roman Empire, driven first to the East, then back to France, thence to Germany, a shadow of its former self; they were marked by the steady advance of the forces of usurpation, destructive of the State and reciprocally obnoxious; they bore the imprints of a triumphant particularism. Therefore the individualistic and anti-social movement of the 17th and 18th centuries was not directed against the Middle Ages, but rather against the restoration of the State by great national monarchies. If this movement destroyed mediaeval institutions that had survived the Middle Ages and had been grafted upon the new states, it was in consequence of the struggle primarily waged against the State. The spirit of the movement was decidedly mediaeval. The novelty consisted in the social surroundings in which it operated and in its relation to new economic developments. The individualism of the feudal lords, the particularism of the cities and of the corporations had been replaced by the individualism and the particularism of the bourgeoisie and of the popular classes.

Many traditionalists too prefer constitutionalism on the basis that it had precedence in the Middle Ages contrary to absolutism of the early modernity starting in the late 1500s. & ancaps today repeat the Tocquevillist mantra and see Medievalism and the Holy Roman Empire as an anarchy and decentralization they admire.

Alfredo Rocco brings up Dante Alighieri's De Monarchia & Aquinas De Regno:
>It was therefore natural that St. Thomas Aquinas the greatest political writer of the Middle Ages should emphasize the necessity of unity in the political field, the harm of plurality of rulers, the dangers and damaging effects of demagogy. The good of the State, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is unity. And who can procure unity more fittingly than he who is himself one? Moreover the government must follow, as far as possible, the course of nature and in nature power is always one. In the physical body only one organ is dominant—the heart; in the spirit only one faculty has sway—reason. Bees have one sole ruler; and the entire universe one sole sovereign—God. Experience shows that the countries, which are ruled by many, perish because of disc0rd while those that are ruled over by one enjoy peace, justice, and plenty. The states which are not ruled by one are troubled by dissensions, and toil unceasingly. On the contrary the states which are ruled over by one king enjoy peace, thrive in justice and are gladdened by affluence.

>Italy in the Middle Ages presented a curious phenomenon: while in practice the authority of the State was being dissolved into a multiplicity of competing sovereignties, the theory of State unity and authority was kept alive in the minds of thinkers by the memories of the Roman Imperial tradition. It was this memory that supported for centuries the fiction of the universal Roman Empire when in reality it existed no longer. Dante's De Monarchia deduced the theory of this empire conceived as the unity of a strong State. "Quod potest fieri per unum melius est per unum fieri quam plura," he says in the 14th chapter of the first book, and further on, considering the citizen as an instrument for the attainment of the ends of the State, he concludes that the individual must sacrifice himself for his country. "Si pars debet se exponere pro salute totius, cum homo siti pars quaedam civitatis … homo pro patria debet exponere se ipsum." (lib. II. 8).

The Tocquevillist Slander
Personally, I'm convinced it the decentralization / centralization babble in essence goes back to Plato and Aristotle.

Aristotle disagreed with Plato, stating contrary to Plato that economical and political do have a contrary character, whereas Plato confers that they are no different and aren't of a contrary character.

Because Aristotle asserts that political rule is the rule of constitutional freemen, and that democracy is freedom; but also that monarchy is the rule of a household, and monarchy is only concerned with staying in power – Aristotle sets the record that monarchy is despotism over constitutional freemen and ought to be one among equals or always to stay with popular convention of freemen and not like a master.

Prior to the 1700s, there wasn't much talk of decentralization vs centralization like with left or right politics that's a staple of our more contemporary political lexicon–albeit we know the rudiments for this discussion in the past and how they came to be. Of course there was party politics and divisions of land and their concentration and separation. But after the colonization and constitutional debates between Americans over their colonial territory, after the French Revolution, & about the time of Alexis de Tocqueville and Bastiat, the terms decentralization and centralization were introduced with much more gravity and weight. They are words with no bearing on the concept of sovereignty.

Imo, the pretense of decentralization has always been that: the independent rule of freemen, as Aristotle puts it, contrary to Plato: the idea that political and economical are of contrary characters, and that we must respect the political estate differently. That independent heads of houses are set apart from the city itself as freemen: but in this context it's not heads of households as freemen, but autonomous regions making the pretense against the notion of states and any wider authority.

This is why Alexis de Tocqueville in the pretext of his work on the Old Regime sets it apart as the pretense of Liberty vs Despotism: that Liberty must prevail of Despotism. And despotism is the idea that the character of the political and economical are no different, like we say, back to Plato.

The followers of Tocqueville and his political legacy, like Hoppe and De Jouvenel, tend to be aristocratic apologists.

Alexis de Tocqueville in his study of the Ancien Regime brings up, however, that his study of the Middle Ages in search of the Old European Constitution is related largely to Germany / HRE (which, as we all know, muh border gore). It's what Ancaps and neofeuds always appeal to.

Jean Bodin classifies the HRE / Germany to be an Aristocracy or kind of Oligarchy, so while Alexis de Tocqueville starts his analysis for the Old Constitution of Europe and his appeal to decentralization – it's important to note how it begins with a form of state that had been recognized as aristocratic or oligarchical. Because Alexis de Tocqueville's big blurt is about centralization and decentralization: his entire critique is standing upon this chair, and if you kick this chair from beneath the feat of Alexis de Tocqueville – he will collapse and break his bones.

Alexis de Tocqueville notes in his work how any centralization is a move away from Aristocracy (Oligarchy/few), and decentralization only possible by Aristocracy (Oligarchy/few)

Which is important to see how this is related to his study of Germany and the Prussian influence.

Now I would babble about how these words decentralization / centralization are anathema to sovereignty and our political understanding, but suffice to say, that this pretense begins with Aristotle saying that the economy has a different character from the political will suffice enough, esp. when it comes to his idea of freemen (which Hobbes criticizes duly). A lot we see with American exceptionalism and democracy in terms of freedom and constitutionalism goes back to Aristotle. For a mixed constitution, it is largely attributed to Aristotle and Polybius, particularly Aristotle since Aristotle views whatever is whole to be a composite.

The doctrine of absolutism that Tocqueville slanders as the mother of all modern socialism has been acknowledged beforehand numerous times. He only begrudgingly admits that it had origins in the feudal system and his only pretense is the courts never admitted it – but if you read there's plenty of testimony behind the doctrine. – What I hate about Tocqueville here is the appeal to the Middle Ages and making a huff about how medieval royalism was different to renaissance and early modern royalism kinda originates with him and ancaps and anarcho-monarchists annoy me with it like Tocqueville does.


Alexander Hamilton, for instance, says this:

Alexander Hamilton
>Were there any room to doubt, that the sole right of the territories in America was vested in the crown, a convincing argument might be drawn from the principle of English tenure… By means of the feudal system, the King became, and still continues to be, in a legal sense, the original proprietor, or lord paramount, of all the lands in England.*—Agreeable to this rule, he must have been the original proprietor of all the lands in America, and was, therefore, authorized to dispose of them in what manner he thought proper.

>When a nation abolishes aristocracy, centralization follows as a matter of course.
-Alexis de Tocqueville

How do I see Tocqueville's political legacy today?

Tocqueville & Bastiat -→ De Jouvenel & Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn -→ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

A big influence on right libertarians w/ these names.

The pretense of Medievalism and Germany (muh HRE) and muh decentralization that's constantly hurled at us absolute monarchists by ancaps and traditionalists these days – it originates with Alexis de Tocqueville.

He appeals to the so-called Old Constitution of Europe which to really say is Germany – which as we know Jean Bodin said was no less a sovereign state no less than others (despite the pretenses of decentralization), but an oligarchy of a few persons. That's partially why Tocquevillism has its strong pro-noble sensibilities: they're a kind of crypto-oligarchist. It's why Hoppe isn't a monarchist: Hoppe has Tocquevillist reservations about Monarchy.

Historians will show you a map like this and spout so-and-so about decentralization.
They conceptualize >Aristotle's City< on a map.
Aristotle, Aristotle, Aristotle; frankly, that is the chair Alexis de Tocqueville is really standing upon w/ his appeals to decentralization: Aristotle
Except instead of the City & its laws as a concord of the plurality of Estates & their heads constituting bound in virtue – it is regions
Like Alfred Rocco recounts, the Middle Ages were the age of Aristotle.
So remember, when they appeal to decentralization, it's an appeal to >Aristotle's City<, when they point to these maps, it is the same idea; what with regions instead of houses or estates of The City.
Though many people don't know the politics 101 and nature of states. They are confused. Have a weak conception of it and its origins with civics.
So when they see maps like these, they think Anarchy or no correspondence at all; unable to see the forest for the trees.
Absolutists see it a different way; we interpret politics differently. We see the forest for the trees.

There is a fine line between having a Monarchy with a Nobility and having an Aristocracy or Oligarchy with a petty king involved.

<Jean Bodin / Lacedemonians and cities of Gauls - Oligarchy
>"So also might we say of the state of Lacedemonians, which was a pure Oligarchy, wherein were two kings, without any sovereignty at all, being indeed nothing but Captains and Generals for the managing of their wars: and for that cause were by the other magistrates of the state, sometimes for their faults condemned to fines… And such were in ancient times the kings of the cities of the Gauls, whom Caesar for this cause oftentimes called Regulos, that is to say little kings: being themselves subjects, and justiciable unto the Nobility, who had all the sovereignty.

Every movement away from Nobility / Aristocracy, Tocqueville calls centralization; every movement towards Nobility / Aristocracy, – decentralization. (The latter is where is stress is – so the Nobility is stressed above Monarchy and Democracy to achieve this aim, but not stressed on Monarchy itself which he dubs centralization).
…
De Jouvenel also stressed, following the lead of De Tocqueville, "Liberty's Aristocratic Roots" & against Caesarism (Monarchy) which he linked with Monarchy itself.
Following Tocqueville's lead, De Jouvenel placed all liberty and appeals to the Nobility and rule of a few.

<De Jouvenel / Monarchical vs Senatorial
>According to which of these two hypotheses is adopted, the conclusion is reached that the "natural" government is either the monarchical or the senatorial. But from the time that Locke utterly smashed up Filmer's fragile structure, the earliest political authority was considere to be the senate composed of fathers of families, using the word "families" in the widest sense.
>Society must, therefore, have presented two degrees of authority, which were quite different in kind.
<On the one hand is the head of the family, exercising the most imperious sway over all who were within the family circle.
>On the other are the heads of families in council, taking decisions in concert, tied to each other only by consent, submitting only to what has been determined in common, and assembling their retainers, who have outside themselves, neither law nor master, to execute their will.
As you see here, De Jouvenel takes the Aristotelian view that political & economical differ with his distinction here^
…
<De Jouvenel / Securitarian vs Libertarian
>The conclusion is that there never was a time in any society whatsoever when some individuals did not feel themselves to be insufficiently protected, and others did not feel themselves to be insufficiently free. The former I call "securitarians" and the latter "libertarians".

De Jouvenel also tackled the issues I pointed out earlier about Plato (& where the more unitary vs pluralistic views of State come into being – Aristotle, for his part, is more senatorial and many of the like appeals De Jouvenel makes are found in Aristotle's City, which is the senatorial kind of assemblage of heads of estates and of families – the political constitution stresses the estates of the city rather than the unity of the city itself under one head like a family – I touched on this issue with the doctrine that political and economical don't differ).
In my sincere opinion, De Jouvenel obviously appeals to the "old republic" and those senatorial ideals – it doesn't matter if it be a landed, hereditary nobility with their estates OR a bunch of senators in one room – we are simply adjusting the scale from Aristotle's City projected onto nobles and their estates spread apart like in Aristotle's City the various estates of the city converging.
–So this is why I look at Tocquevillism with immense annoyance when so many monarchists, be it constitutional monarchists and right libertarians and ancaps, spurn absolute monarchy in order to achieve "decentralization" and "liberty" as ascribed here, because it bears that stamp of the heads of the estates which are always few and resemble an oligarchical form.
Why is this like rocket science to explain to other monarchists? I don't think, but I believe it is because they don't take Monarchy seriously or believe what Darius says in the Herodotus Debate or Homer's monarchist maxim in the Iliad. They've been collectively taught to embrace the Nobility as opposed to Absolute Monarchy on these grounds of decentralization and libertarian ideals… this sentiment permeates the monarchist community so thoroughly and is everywhere and is unanimous for these monarchists whether constitutionalist or libertarian, but it's very popular with traditionalists.

>De Jouvenel covering Plato's politics
>…Hegel turned it to good account: recalling that Plato in his Republic had rigorously stressed the importance of the citizens remaining undifferentiated and had seen in that the essential condition of social unity, Hegel asserted that the characteristic of the modern state was, contrarywise, to allow a process of differentiation, by which an ever growing diversity could be rangedd within an ever richer unity.

>But there would be grave dangers in so avowedly normative an approach as this. It would in the first place build an ivory tower which was so remote from reality that advice issuing from it would be unable to influence the citizens of the real world: so it was with Plato's Republic, which was built on just these foundations. Worse still, the attraction exercised by pretty pictures of this kind lures men into importing them into reality and leads them on to tyrannical actions to achieve their ideals: there is a tyranny in the womb of every Utopia.

>(Footnotes): For a denunciation of the oppressive character of the institutions conceived by Plato, see my Power, Book III, ch. VII. Almost simultaneously there appeared in London a work of vast erudition and great intellectual vigour by Professor Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies. The ideas developed in the present chapter often join hands with those of Professor Popper's fine book.

While it's true that we are critical of Plato ourselves, we do have this view of the State as a unitary being (which Plato calls in his organicism of all members of society acting like one man) and that political and economical don't differ. You've seen how De Jouvenel is opposed to these unitary views. And when it comes to Monarchy itself, the stress on the chiefs and senatorial view is akin to Aristotle's City and notion of Politics. You could say, however, that I am misrepresenting De Jouvenel and I'd be fine if anyone would say so, but the overall sentiment I feel from the Tocquevillists (De Jouvenel & Alexis de Tocqueville) is this stress on the Nobility and for all the aforementioned reasons I disapprove of it and wish monarchists would stop with their Tocquevillism and with the influx of right libertarians and constitutional monarchists in agreement with those right libertarians and all this flirtation with the traditionalists about the clerical estate, have turned themselves into a hate train against absolute monarchy. I deal with their snubbing way too often and can't stand the majority of the monarchist community because they're drunk with it. The same with NeoAbsolutists who formed a cult around De Jouvenel with their blogs (but thankfully died down when Von Hallerism took over). I swear the monarchist community is so stupid.

De Jouvenel - Republic of Old
>The republic of old had no state apparatus. It needed no machinery for imposing the public will on all the citizens, who would have had none of such a thing. The citizens, with their own wills and their own resources – these latter small at first but continuously growing – decide by adjusting their wills and execute by pooling their resources.

>We do not find anywhere in the ancient republic a directing will so armed with its own weapons that it can use force. There were the consults, I may be told. But to start with there were two of them, and it was an essential feature of the office that they could block one another's activities.

>Only those decisions were possible on which there was general agreement, and, in the absence of any state apparatus, their execution depended solely on the cooperation of the public. The army was but the people in arms, and the revenues were but the sums gifted by the citizens, which could not have been raised except by voluntary subscriptions. There was not, to come down to the essential point, an administrative corps.

>In the city of old, no public office is found filled by a member of a permanent staff who holds his place from Power; the method of appointment is election for a short period, usually a year, and often by the drawing of lots, which was called by Aristotle the true democratic method.

>It thus appears that the rulers do not form, as in our modern society, a coherent body which, from the minister of state down to the policeman, moves as one piece. On the contrary, the magistrates, great and small, discharge their duties in a way which verges on independence….

>How was a regime of this kind able to function at all? Only be great moral cohesion and the inter-availability of private citizens for public office….

…So De Jouvenel espouses anti-monarchical, Aristotelian political pluralism against state corporatism / absolute monarchy, just like Aristotle did…

Like Aristotle, along with rejecting the rule of a wise man like Plato's philosopher kings, also counterpoised a strong middle class and that an oligarchy would invite the poor into assembly to help preserve the oligarchy and pass any conflicts, but keeping the main advantage.
Tocqueville thought the same with a middle class.
Aristotle also acknowledged the advent of the middle class as the decline of monarchies and that is where that meme comes from… like in that interview with the Shah of Iran asking him about whether there are other hereditary monarchies in the world and how he expects to rule when people get wealthier.

<De Jouvenel on Middle Class
<How can men whose authority rests on Power's guarantee oppose to it the proud independence which honourably distinguished the ancient aristocracy? Lacking now all strength of their own, they no longer uphold Power; no longer upholding Power, they have become incapable of limiting it. The notions of aristocracy and liberty have parted company.
>The heirs of their libertarian aspirations are the middle class. We will define the middle class, if we must, as composed of those who have enough social strength to stand in no need of any special protection and to desire the largest measure of liberty, but have on the other hand not enough strength to make their liberties oppressive to others.

De Jouvenel on chiefs of clans
>However it may be with these conjectures, it is a certain point of historical development we meet with the ambitious king who aims at extending his own prerogative at the expense of the chiefs of clans –"the absolute monarchs of their families," as Vico calls them–and is jealous of their independence.

Rather, Aristotle paints the other picture around – of a usurping middle class and oligarchy not standing the pre-eminence of one person like an absolute monarch.

Aristotle – No longer bearing the pre-eminence of one
>The first governments were kingships, probably for this reason, because of old, when cities were small, men of eminent virtue were few. Further, they were made kings because they were benefactors, and benefits can only be bestowed by good men.
>But when many persons equal in merit arose, no longer enduring the pre-eminence of one, they desired to have a commonwealth, and set up a constitution.
And this Aristotle reins in as the inevitable decline of monarchy with chiefs of equal merit wanting a constitution and aristocracy.

Now remember De Jouvenel is famous for his HLvM (Monarchy + Democracy vs Aristocracy) where Power advances by this conflict of the High meeting with the Low to screw over the Middle. This is the paradigm that many in the right libertarian circles see: and De Jouvenel himself goes along with the narrative that Marx has that absolute monarchy merged with the bourgeois to institute itself. So be mindful of that.
This is something we see in the advent of NRx terms like BioLeninism: where those in power usurp the superiors with the degenerates for their slave loyalty.

<De Jouvenel - Absolutist work of Monarchy vs libertarian work of Aristocracy
>Will historians, in their passion for libertarian and anti-absolutist institutions, admire the resistance of aristocracy to the formation of absolutism? Sismondi, for instance, states that in the Middle Ages "all the real advances made in independence of character, in the safeguarding of rights, and in the limitations forced by discussion on the caprices and vices of absolute Power, were due to the hereditary aristocracy."

<De Jouvenel – The only thing Caesarism fears, right libertarians
>In this way is removed the only obstacle that Caesarism has to fear–a movement of libertarian resistance, emanating from a people with subjective rights to defend and under the natural leadership of eminent men whom their credit qualifies and whom the insolence of wealth does not disqualify.

De Jouvenel - Monarchy First Instituted Power
>We see then that the monarchical period established in the body of society a distinct organ: this was Power, which has its own life, its own interests, its own characteristics, its own ends. It needs studying under this aspect.
(I believe this was after De Jouvenel's talk of the old republic).

State Corporatism is a unitary politics with the State as one personhood, a living organism, a higher personality and being; not to be confused with a collection of private corporations.
The ideology of State Corporatism traces its lineage back to Plato's Republic, Hobbes' Leviathan, and the formation of one-party States and Fascism.
In Plato's Republic is State Corporatism:
>That the other citizens too must be sent to the task for which their natures were fitted, one man to one work, in order that each of them fulfilling his own function may be not many men, but one, and so the entire city may come to be not a multiplicity but a unity.
In Hobbes' Leviathan is State Corporatism:
>And in him consisteth the Essence of the Common-wealth; which (to define it,) is "One Person, of whose Acts a great Multitude, by mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the Author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and Common Defence.”
In Italian Fascism is State Corporatism:
Gentile
>It is the State that possesses a concrete will & must be considered a person.
Giuseppe Bottai
>However, in speaking of the corporative State, it must not be understood as meaning only all that which pertains to the relations between employers and workers – relations based on a principle of collaboration rather than upon a struggle of classes. Fascism with its new arrangements aims at a more complex end. This, summed up in a few words, is "to reassert the sovereignty of the State over those syndicates, which, whether of an economic or social kind, when left to themselves broke out at one time against the State, subjecting the will of the individual to their own arbitrary decision, almost musing the rise of judicial provisions alien to the legal order of the State, opposing their own right to the right of the State, subordinating to their own interests the defenceless classes, and even the general interest, of which the State is naturally the judge, champion and avenger."
A brief disclaimer: this is the what the corporatism of Fascism is, State Corporatism, and not to be mistaken with the corporative system itself which act as internal organs of this higher personality. Those corporate bodies are limited and are organs, and that kind of corporatism is more analogous to guilds, the primary corporatism of Fascism is State Corporatism, these are corporations are organs and limited internally in relation to "The State" (which in this connotation refers to State Corporatism especially).
Mario Palmieri:
>To make this discipline possible, and the sovereignty effective in practice as well as in theory, Fascism has devised the “Corporazione,” an instrument of social life destined to exercise the most far-reaching influence upon the economic development of Fascist States. (The Italian word “Corporazione” which is currently translated into English by the apparently analogous word “Corporation,” means, more exactly in the Italian language, what the word “Guild” means in English; that is: associations of persons engaged in kindred pursuits. We shall nevertheless follow the general usage to obviate the danger of misunderstandings.)
>Within the Corporations the interests of producers and consumers, employers and employees, individuals and associations are interlocked and integrated in a unique and univocal way, while all types of interests are brought under the aegis of the State.
Fausto Pitigliani
>That the Corporation has no legal independent personality but is an organ of the State Administration.
>To these organs, which take the name of Corporations and link the various productive activities of the country as members of one body
>The Corporations constitute the unitary organisation of the forces of production and represent all their interests.
>In virtue of this integral representation, and in view of the fact that the interests of production are the interests of the Nation, the law recognises the Corporations as State organs.
For clarity, Hobbes Leviathan also takes this stance on the limitation of subordinate corporations and the sovereign relationship of the state corporation:
>Of Regular, some are Absolute, and Independent, subject to none but their own Representative: such are only Common-wealths [or States]; Of which I have spoken already in the 5. last preceding chapters. Others are Dependent; that is to say, Subordinate to some Soveraign Power, to which every one, as also their Representative is Subject.
>Of Systemes subordinate, some are Politicall, and some Private. Politicall (otherwise Called Bodies Politique, and Persons In Law,) are those, which are made by authority from the Soveraign Power of the Common-wealth. Private, are those, which are constituted by Subjects amongst themselves, or by authoritie from a stranger. For no authority derived from forraign power, within the Dominion of another, is Publique there, but Private.
>In All Bodies Politique [Any Corporation under the State] The Power of The Representative is Limited.
>In Bodies Politique, the power of the Representative is always Limited: And that which prescribes the limits thereof, is the Power Sovereign. For Power Unlimited, is absolute Sovereignty. And the Sovereign, in every Commonwealth, is the absolute Representative of all the Subjects.
Jean Bodin also adds.
>Provided that they [the family] are joined together by the legitimate and limited rule of the father.
>I have said "limited", since this fact chiefly distinguishes the Family from the State.
>That the latter [The State] has the final and public authority.
>The former [The Family or Household] limited and private rule.

State Corporatism is anything but Aristotelian.
Where Plato praises it, Aristotle condemns it.
Aristotle Politics
>For the people becomes a monarch, and is many in one; and the many have the power in their hands, not as individuals, but collectively. Homer says that ‘it is not good to have a rule of many,’ but whether he means this corporate rule, or the rule of many individuals, is uncertain. At all events this sort of democracy, which is now a monarch and no longer under the control of law, seeks to exercise monarchical sway, and grows into a despot; the flatterer is held in honor; this sort of democracy being relatively to other democracies what tyranny is to other forms of monarchy. The spirit of both is the same, and they alike exercise a despotic rule over the better citizens.
Contrast this with Plato again.
>That the other citizens too must be sent to the task for which their natures were fitted, one man to one work, in order that each of them fulfilling his own function may be not many men, but one, and so the entire city may come to be not a multiplicity but a unity.
As you can see, Plato supports many in one, but Aristotle condemns it.
The taboo in the West against one-party States (for leftist vanguardism AND fascism) originates with Aristotle, and Aristotle condemns it for the same reason Aristotle condemns an absolute monarchy: it is seen as a tyranny over constitutionalism and the multi-parties and estates.

Benito ᴉuᴉlossnW:
Speech of the Ascension, May 26, 1927
The Unitary State
>But in the meantime I come to an essential point of my speech: perhaps the most important. What have we Fascists done in these last five years? We did something huge, monumental, centuries in the making. What have we made? We have created the Italian Unitary State. Consider that from the time of the Empire onward, Italy was no longer a unitary State. Here we solemnly reaffirm our doctrine concerning the State; here I reaffirm my formula in the speech I delivered at La Scala in Milan: "Everything within the State, nothing against the State". I do not even think anyone in the 20th century can live outside the State, unless they are in a state of barbarism, a state of savagery.

>It is only the State that gives people a consciousness of itself. If the people are not organized, if the people are not a State, they are simply a population that will be at the mercy of the first group of internal adventurers or external invaders. Because, dear gentlemen, only the State with its juridical organization, with its military force, prepared at all times, can defend the national collectivity; but if the human collectivity is broken up and reduced to the mere nucleus of the family, a few hundred Normans will suffice to conquer Puglia.

>What was the State – that State which we took over as it was breathing its last breath, gnawed by constitutional crises, debased by its organic impotence? The State which we conquered at the time of the March on Rome was the one which has been handed down from 1850 onward. It was not a State, but a system of badly organized prefectures, in which the prefect had but one preoccupation: that of being an efficient electoral errand boy.

Fascism and Democracy
>In that State, until 1922, the proletariat – what shall I say? the entire people – was absent, refractory, hostile. Today we announce to the world the creation of the powerful Unitary Italian State from the Alps to Sicily. And this State expresses itself in a centralized, organized, unitary democracy in which the people move about at ease, because, gentlemen, either you place the people within the citadel of the State, and they will defend it, or they will be outside, and they will assault it.

Hobbes Elements of Law
http://www.public-library.uk/ebooks/31/91.pdf
>And as this union into a city or body politic, is instituted with common power over all the particular persons, or members thereof, to the common good of them all; so also may there be amongst a multitude of those members, instituted a subordinate union of certain men, for certain common actions to be done by those men for some common benefit of theirs, or of the whole city; as for subordinate government, for counsel, for trade, and the like. And these subordinate bodies politic are usually called CORPORATIONS; and their power such over the particulars of their own society, as the whole city whereof they are members have allowed them.

>In all cities or bodies politic not subordinate, but independent, that one man or one council, to whom the particular members have given that common power, is called their SOVEREIGN, and his power the sovereign power. which consisteth in the power and the strength that every of the members have transferred to him from themselves, by covenant. And because it is impossible for any man really to transfer his own strength to another, or for that other to receive it; it is to be understood: that to transfer a man's power and strength, is no more but to lay by or relinquish his own right of resisting him to whom he so transferreth it. And every member of the body politic, is called a SUBJECT, (viz.) to the sovereign
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>The error concerning mixed government has proceeded from want of understanding of what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifies not the concord, but the union of many men.
>The other error in this his first argument is that he says the members of every Commonwealth, as of a natural body, depend one of another. It is true they cohere together, but they depend only on the sovereign, which is the soul of the Commonwealth

>And though in the charters of subordinate corporations, a corporation be declared to be one person in law, yet the same hath not been taken notice of in the body of a commonwealth or city, nor have any of those innumerable writers of politics observed any such union.

<Plato / There won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household & the bulk of a small city
>Visitor: Well then, surely there won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household, on the one hand, and the bulk of a small city on the other? – Young Socrates: None. – It's clear that there is one sort of expert knowledge concerned with all these things; whether someone gives this the name of kingship, or statesmanship, or household management, let's not pick any quarrel with him.

<Bodin / A household or family, the true model of a Commonwealth
>So that Aristotle following Xenophon, seems to me without any probable cause, to have divided the Economical government from the Political, and a City from a Family; which can no otherwise be done, than if we should pull the members from the body; or go about to build a City without houses… Wherefore as a family well and wisely ordered, is the true image of a City, and the domestical government, in sort, like unto the sovereignty in a Commonwealth: so also is the manner of the government of a house or family, the true model for the government of a Commonwealth… And whilest every particular member of the body does his duty, we live in good and perfect health; so also where every family is kept in order, the whole city shall be well and peaceably governed.

<Filmer / Political & Economic, No Different
>Aristotle gives the lie to Plato, and those that say that political and economical societies are all one, and do not differ specie, but only multitudine et paucitate, as if there were 'no difference betwixt a great house and a little city'. All the argument I find he brings against them is this: 'The community of man and wife differs from the community of master and servant, because they have several ends. The intention of nature, by conjunction of male and female, is generation. But the scope of master and servant is only preservation, so that a wife and a servant are by nature distinguished. Because nature does not work like the cutlers at Delphos, for she makes but one thing for one use.' If we allow this argument to be sound, nothing doth follow but only this, that conjugal and despotical [lordly / master] communities do differ. But it is no consequence that therefore economical and political societies do the like. For, though it prove a family to consist of two distinct communities, yet it follows not that a family and a commonwealth are distinct, because, as well in the commonweal as in the family, both these communities are found.

>Suarez proceeds, and tells us that 'in process of time Adam had complete economical power'. I know not what he means by this complete economical power, nor how or in what it doth really and essentially differ from political. If Adam did or might exercise in his family the same jurisdiction which a King doth now in a commonweal, then the kinds of power are not distinct. And though they may receive an accidental difference by the amplitude or extent of the bounds of the one beyond the other, yet since the like difference is also found in political estates, it follows that economical and political power differ no otherwise than a little commonweal differs from a great one. Next, saith Suarez, 'community did not begin at the creation of Adam'. It is true, because he had nobody to communicate with. Yet community did presently follow his creation, and that by his will alone, for it was in his power only, who was lord of all, to appoint what his sons have in proper and what in common. So propriety and community of goods did follow originally from him, and it is the duty of a Father to provide as well for the common good of his children as for their particular.

<Hobbes / That a Family is a little City
>"Propriety receiv'd its beginning, What's objected by some, That the propriety of goods, even before the constitution of Cities, was found in the Fathers of Families, that objection is vain, because I have already declar'd, That a Family is a little City. For the Sons of a Family have propriety of their goods granted them by their Father, distinguisht indeed from the rest of the Sons of the same Family, but not from the propriety of the Father himself; but the Fathers of diverse Families, who are subject neither to any common Father, nor Lord, have a common Right in all things."


Thomas Hobbes
>And though in the charters of subordinate corporations, a corporation be declared to be one person in law, yet the same has not been taken notice of in the body of a commonwealth [state] or city, nor have any of those innumerable writers of politics observed any such union
&
>A great Family if it be not part of some Commonwealth, is of it self, as to the Rights of Sovereignty, a little Monarchy; whether that Family consist of a man and his children; or of a man and his servants; or of a man, and his children, and servants together: wherein the Father or Master is the Sovereign.
&
>And as small Familyes did then; so now do Cities and Kingdomes which are but greater Families

<Rousseau / Royalist political writing likens civil government to domestic government
>Royalist political writing likens civil government to domestic government… With the help of this supposition, it is easy to make out that royal government is preferable to all others, because it is unquestionably the strongest; and in addition to that, all it needs to be the best but doesn't have – is a corporate will that is more in conformity with the general will.

<Giuseppe Bottai
>All modern history, that is, all contemporaneous life, leads to the corporative conception of the State with the inclusion of Economics within the State or the identification of Economics with Politics.

<Kim Il Sung Aphorism - Family & Nation
>If a family is to manage its household affairs well only one member of the family should control its finances. Likewise, if a nation is to manage its economic life properly it must use its finances on the principle of a single management system.

I think a good illustration between the stress of absolute monarchy & "neofeudalists"/some constitutional monarchists is between the Catholic Church's Ultramontanism/Papal Primacy versus Orthodoxy's autocephalous churches.
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Papalism has a unitary/corporate structure.
Orthodoxy has Aristotle's partnership of clans, numerous churches and their primates, with Constantinople being the first among equals in honors.
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Jean Bodin considered Papalism to really be Conciliarism either way, but the pretense of Papalism is basically unitary.
Those two samples is a good illustration for why absolute monarchy of the 16th-19th centuries is more earnest monarchism than the pretenses of Medievalists with their De Jouvenel and "traditional monarchy"–(they're just looking out for Papalism at the end of the day).
Anyways, all Christians are monarchists for Jesus no matter the Church organization–so keep this in mind too.

Thomas Hobbes
>The error concerning mixed government [constitutionalism] has proceeded from want of understanding of what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifies not the concord, but the union of many men.
…
>The other error in this his first argument is that he says the members of every Commonwealth, as of a natural body, depend one of another. It is true they cohere together, but they depend only on the sovereign, which is the soul of the Commonwealth
…
>They who compare a City and its Citizens, with a man and his members, almost all say, that he who hath the supreme power in the City, is the relation to the whole City, such as the head is to the whole man. But it appears by what has been already said, that he who is endued with such a power (whether it be a man, or a Court) has a relation to the City, not as that of the head, but of the soul to the body. For it is the soul by which a man has a will, that is, can either will, or nill.

This is the assessment of Jean Bodin, Louis XIV, & Voltaire–the Popes (in respect to the Orthodox bishops)–& also Gaius Caligula said, "Let there be one lord, one king" to all his vassal kings at a banquet–so I agree with them.
…Monarchists… on the other hand… are always snarling at absolute monarchy, the vast majority of them being constitutional monarchists… and bickering about centralization/decentralization, and arguing on behalf of Aristotle's notion of a partnership of clans, either for the Nobility of estates (without the preeminence of one royal estate) or for multi-party democracy (without the preeminence of one party corporatism…)

Emperor Tiberius often used a phrase – Auribus teneo lupum – "holding a wolf by the ears" to describe ruling the Roman Empire.
A great deal of people think a ruler is overthrown on account of good or bad of a ruler, but there is a great indifference overall, and like the standpoint of Hobbes… the tongue of a man is a trumpet of war and sedition – no matter how good or bad of a ruler – and civilization is not something to be taken for granted, but may easily be broken – no matter how integral – and dashed to pieces.

Don't take anyone's loyalty for their word or think it will come naturally with the gentle breeze. It takes a lot of effort. And even then… By default, don't consider people reliable that way. Seek out the opportunity, but definitely don't take anything for granted.
Like Machiavelli suggests, there are many counterfeit loyalties. When the heat is on, people bail.
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As for revolting, Tempest Shadow (from the MLP movie) & Hobbes are more accurate: people revolt either when it is opportune or when their discontent foments from personal harm to them directly as to kill them. They don't revolt because it is their duty. Their natural state might as well be revolt (war of all against all)–no need for Aquinas to tell them.
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People don't care. –They don't really care if USA is bombing and killing other people far away or if others they barely know suffer–and they'll bring up the suffering to take advantage of it against their opponents to shame them, not out of compassion for the suffering.
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When it comes to resistance theory, and in particular Aquinas, another factor Hobbes has over them is that while they anticipate people will revolt when there is injustice – I think what Hobbes has over Aquinas here is that civilization is not a free gift of the human spirit, or a political animal, and that people are naturally inclined to stick together for the benefit of their body-politic – rather, ruling the people is like ruling wolves, who are ready to pounce and bite at any instance, unjustly or justly, they'll pounce if you stick your neck out and give them the opportunity… and among the reasons they don't revolt is because there is an influx of doggy treats holds off discontent and fear for their livelihood if they do–but this view, that people are predisposed to revolt, basically unravels pulls the rug from underneath resistance theory by changing the perspective, as Hobbes says, that the tongue of a man is like a trumpet of war, and this pessimistic tone that civilization is fragile and can fracture at any moment puts more stress on security and stability in spite of this.
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I'm not altogether sure I would say people are totally motivated by self-interest/life preservation, but I agree with Hobbes that people aren't born apt for political society (which Hobbes states against Aristotle) – at least, if anything, people aren't born ready for royal monarchy – instead they have to be reared and educated consistently – like Xenophon says, don't think loyal followers grow like grass in the field.
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Civilization might easily fall apart like a jenga tower: If there is anything I agree with Hobbes about is how fragile it is–it takes incredible effort and education to keep a political organism alive, and it might fall even at the best of times–that is how fickle it all is.
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That is what you see today: plenty of compulsory education to keep people in line, and routines prescribed like that–people might not think the tongue of a man is a trumpet of war, but that is because all the civic education and the cult of personality of these states makes it the norm, and pretty much domesticates people, and keeps the influx of treats going.

Opinion on work / life balance
Ideally, on the level of comfort, you wouldn't have to work constantly to survive, but have some level of subsistence if you wanted a break.
My friend had a nice life / work balance by occasionally working every few months to rake up money, then after his job… taking his own time off to have free time.
He could only get away with this lifestyle thanks to living with his parents.
Work probably wouldn't be as grating if it wasn't something you were shackled into by a number of forces like make you have to stick to the grind.
If people had security to join and leave the workforce every once in a while and bide their time, kind of like a part time worker, that would be better.

>Would it solve all humanity's problem?
It's not only for profit and necessity that people are constantly working.
Government begins with the economy and workplace itself. That is where the business of government takes place, to tidy you up, and begin to influence your life. It is really like the 2nd layer after compulsory education in a long series of events to rake people in and discipline them and take time to preach whatever the regime wants to teach the populace, which also happens through employment because the government can also have its gospel carried down through the employers to teach the employees how to behave… is one way employers and the government work together to enforce an agenda in coordinating how the public is taught to behave.
There is a saying, Unworked hands are dangerous hands.
If people were unemployed, a concern is they'd take time to break into rebellion or commit petty crime constantly like hoodlums. That is another reason why from the governor's perspective it is better to have the general populace working, since ample leisure time not only inhibits their capacity to discipline and mold you, but also generally speaking gives people time to rebel and do petty crime, especially if they aren't hooked, and a plethora of other problems if people are interacting more.

>It is also in the interests of the tyrant to make his subjects poor [so they keep working]… the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting [or revolution]

• Aristotle, Politics
  
  

I honestly agree more with Hobbes than Aristotle… people are more inclined to bitterly fight and compete against one another than be kept by ties of companionship, so fundamentally a concord of hosts or partnership of clans fails to take heed and deference ultimately goes to an arbiter to keep the wheels turning functionally.
That is nothing to parade about, but do people revolt for justice or injustice?
–No, they revolt when it is opportune or due to harm–people do not revolt when it is their duty, but again when it is opportune or they are in harm's way.
If people revolted because it was their duty, which many people are mistaken to think is the case, and that the masses are incorruptible judges… well… they would have moved to overthrow during the Epstein files–the reality is people just don't give a fuck in general. They don't care if the US bombs brown people or atrocities are committed, and they gladly also eat the spoils of war like fledgling birds with their mouths open.
People are also far easier to play divide and conquer with–than to unite–and naturally, any government (not only a dictatorship or tyranny, lest you only scruple them) has a keen interest keeping the general populace employed enough to not revolt, as is the case not only for so-called tyrants but republics and democracies like our own.
The natural state of people is already a revolt… that what keeps that revolt at bay is an influx of dog treats… and subsistence… it takes layers upon layers of training to achieve the state of society to keep the people's loyalty not only to a regime, but also loyalty amongst themselves, and they are far from born loyal, but have to be reared and taught like Xenophon says,
>But never think that loyal hearts grow up by nature as the grass grows in the field

Hobbes writes, in denial of Aristotle:
>1st. For first among them there is a contestation of honour and preferment; among beasts [such as ants or bees] there is none: whence hatred and envy, out of which arise sedition and war, is among men; among beasts no such matter.
People are prone to fight for honor and rewards, they envy the wealth and riches of each other, and class conflict is re-occuring–many redpilled anons romanticize an aristocracy of nobles as a class of rigid men who keep the moral code, but what you get is a more competition, in-fighting, and division of people like multi-party democracies do, with their political parties, dividing the public against each other, making people mutual enemies rather than mutual friends or family…

>3rd. Thirdly, those creatures which are void of reason, see no defect, or think they see none, in the administration of their Commonweales; but in a multitude of men there are many who supposing themselves wiser than others, endeavour to innovate, and diverse Innovators innovate diverse ways, which is a mere distraction, and civil war.
So they tend to fracture into many political parties and factionalism.

>4th. Fourthly, these brute creatures, howsoever they may have the use of their voice to signify their affections to each other, yet want they that same art of words which is necessarily required to those motions in the mind, whereby good is represented to it as being better, and evil as worse than in truth it is; But the tongue of man is a trumpet of war, and sedition; and it is reported of Pericles, that he sometimes by his elegant speeches thundered, and lightened, and confounded whole Greece itself.
It's easier for people to break into drama like they do feuding like what notoriously happens on a Disc0rdcuck server.

>5th. Fifthly, they cannot distinguish between injury and harm; Thence it happens that as long as it is well with them, they blame not their fellowes: But those men are of most trouble to the Republique, who have most leisure to be idle; for they use not to contend for publique places before they have gotten the victory over hunger, and cold.
So even in the moments of peace, men are searching for conflict.

That is why I agree more with the modern outlook, that is Machiavellian or Hobbesian, than Aristotle's. And fear of an enemy works to keep people together. If fear of an enemy disappears, the people fight amongst themselves.

…Quotations…

TGD

>>791785
There will be more art of Alunya being a house cat.

The more art of Alunya like this… the more I need to come up with pictures to fire back…

Alunya WILL be a class traitor and the #1 Grace loyalist and sycophant.

Alunya is going to be a lickspittle, a domestic house cat, a simp, and a monarchist, grumble, just wait…

Kill yourself obsessed faggot