to a strictly negative role in society: “… the functions of government are purely negative. It should repress disorder, eliminate obstacles, in a word prevent evil from arising. Thereafter one can leave it to individuals to find the good.” “The functions of government are negative: it should repress evil, and let the good take care of itself.” These two statements are found near the beginning and end of the Commentary, respectively. They act as bookends for all that comes between. This is Constant’s political and economic credo, which finds expression in the Commentary in a variety of ways. Most of part one and much of the book as a whole is taken up with debunking Filangieri’s and by extension much of the Enlightenment’s and many of Constant’s (and our) contemporaries’ belief that legislation is all powerful, and that the legislator can single-handedly shape human societies in the desired way. The limits of legislation is a theme Constant repeatedly returns to, coupled with the corollary that in attempting to legislate for the good of humanity, despotism is often the unintended consequence. From legislation in general, Constant finds his way in part two to economic regulation in particular. The transition between politics (legislation) and economics passes through a relatively brief but ferocious denunciation of the evils of slavery and the slave trade in the French colonies. After this passionate plea in favor of government intervention (with the negative aim of preserving freedom), Constant proceeds to an extensive discussion of economic regulation. Here the first thing to be said is that Constant takes a resolutely liberal, laissez-faire et laissez-passer (a phrase he quotes, in whole or in part, on several occasions) view. The Commentary shows that in Constant’s case there is no distinction to be made between economic liberalism and political liberalism. They both derive from his commitment to individual freedom.6
Constant’s discussion of economic issues is broadly construed. Besides rejecting government intervention in the market, he discusses such related topics as Malthus’s theory of population, the problem of poverty, and taxation. He proclaims himself a reluctant convert to Malthus’s view of the inevitable growth of population up to and beyond the means of subsistence, but
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he rejects Malthus’s remedies. Constant shows a great deal more sympathy for the poor than Malthus, and he refuses to legally discourage the poor man from marrying, despite the advice of both Malthus and Sismondi (Constant compliments Sismondi’s New Principles of Political Economy on several occasions, but explicitly rejects it in this context). In the course of defending the poor person’s right to marry and have children Constant draws a picture of poverty that shows that he was by no means insensitive to its hardships:
It is not enough for you that the proletarian resign himself to have no part in any of the goods of which you possess a monopoly. It is not enough for you that he renounces fire, land, water, even air, for his condition obliges him to sometimes descend into the depths of the abyss, sometimes bury himself in workshops where he can barely breathe, and always to deprive himself of what he produces for you which he sees you enjoy at the price of his fatigue and sweat. One consolation remains to him, a consolation which Providence, touched by pity, has spread among all beings—you dispute his right to it. You want that that faculty given to all, of which the animals themselves are not deprived, be forbidden to your fellow because he is poor. I repeat, there is in this at least as much imprudence as iniquity.7
Constant’s solution to the problem of poverty is freedom. He rejects the English Poor Laws’ limitation on the freedom of the poor to move in search of work, as well as the restrictions on their right to enter a trade, requirements for expensive apprenticeships, etc.: “The poverty of the laboring class cannot be denied, and the laws of England are in this respect as absurd as they are atrocious. They weigh on indigence, they dispute its legitimate use of its faculties and its strength, they make its sufferings eternal, for they take from it every means of arriving at a more fortunate position.” Given this situation, “the poor tax, a tax so regrettable in many respects, and which England will suddenly free itself from by a return to the principles of industrial freedom, is a kind of restitution consented to by the monopoly in favor of those whom it deprives of their rights.” As a means of combating poverty in the long run, the Commentary goes on to champion parents’ right to bequeath their property freely, rejecting both English entail and the Napoleonic Code’s forced division of property among children: “When the disposition of property is free, it tends to division.” Once all land has been made freely alienable by abolishing
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entail, the actual cultivators of the land will be able to purchase it. This is important, because “when the poor man can acquire even one field, class no longer exists, every proletarian hopes by his labor to arrive at the same point, and wealth becomes in land as in industry a question of work and effort.”8
Freedom—of movement, of industry, of trade, of bequeathing one’s property—is always for Constant the best available remedy to any problem. A partisan of liberty, Constant is a partisan of a strictly limited government. But freedom can exist only with the aid of a government that is powerful in its proper sphere, which is negative yet crucial. Government naturally requires taxation, which for Constant is a necessary evil. He prefers taxes that “weigh equally on all, proportionally to their wealth.” His suggestions favor an element of progressive taxation, and a combination of direct taxation and consumption taxes. But one form of tax he absolutely rejects—taxing capital, because this means destroying future economic growth.9
Constant’s discussion of the justice system in part three raises many issues, some of them familiar to us, others less so. He devotes considerable effort to rejecting Filangieri’s contention that only private individuals, rather than government officials, ought to be allowed to prosecute those they consider criminals. One of the consequences of modern liberty’s preference for private life will mean that in this case too many crimes will go unprosecuted. He also defends the jury system. In an anticipation of William F. Buckley Jr.’s remark that he would rather be governed by the first four hundred names in the Cambridge phone book than by the faculty of Harvard, Constant says he would rather face a jury of twelve uneducated workers who owed nothing to the state and feared nothing from it, than one composed of twelve members of the Académie Française who all hoped for a government promotion. Curiously, his defense of the death penalty is based on consideration for jailors. Being a jailor, according to Constant, is inevitably morally corrupting. Being an executioner is worse, but we will need far fewer executioners than we otherwise would need jailors; therefore, better the death penalty than prison. Readers will be relieved to learn that Constant rejects the death penalty for crimes against property, and reserves it for crimes against persons.
The fourth part, shorter than the others, is divided between a discussion of
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education (comments on which are scattered through the work) and religion. Constant champions freedom in the educational sphere as well. He fears both government political indoctrination and incompetence in a state-run system. The extent to which he wishes to banish government from education is not entirely clear, however. On the one hand he states that “Education belongs to parents, to whom the education of children is confided by nature. If these parents prefer domestic education, the law cannot oppose it without being a usurper.”10 On the other hand he also says that “One can look at [education] as a means of transmitting to the rising generation the knowledge of all kinds acquired by preceding generations. From this perspective, it is within the competence of government. The preservation and increase of all knowledge is a positive good. The government should guarantee us its enjoyment.”11 His conclusion is that “Public education is beneficial in free countries above all. Men brought together at whatever age, and above all in their youth, contract by a natural effect of their mutual relations a feeling of justice and the habits of equality, which prepare them to become courageous citizens and enemies of arbitrary power. Even under despotism, we have seen schools dependent on the government generate, despite it, the germs of freedom which it tried in vain to smother.”12
Constant’s final
