The Jacobins:
Alive and Well?
Carl Johan Ljungberg
The New Jacobinism: Can Democracy Survive? by Claes G . Ryn,
Washington, D. C.: National Humanities Institute, 1991. 102 pp. $8.95.
I
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I
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CANFORMER SOCIALISTSpraise capitalism and
yet retain parts of their old ideological
vision? Can the free market and democracy be conceived in such a manner that
they advance some of the aims of the
abandoned Marxism? That this is indeed
possible is one of the provocative conclusions reached by Professor Claes C.
Ryn in his most recent book: The New
Jacobinism.
The old Jacobins were the French fanatics who had a blueprint for a new
society and wanted to uproot the old
order. Do they have followers today?Not
in name perhaps, but their spirit lives on,
Ryn contends. Calls for “democracy”and
“capitalism”today often manifest a utopian drive to remake the world. Even
many people labeled “conservative,”
notably the late Allan Bloom, advocate
the universal applicability of certain abstract ideas. They are losing an older
sense of history and of the limits imposed by circumstance and human nature itself. As it embraces ideological
panaceas, the Right begins to resemble
the Left of yesterday.
Although informed by wide-ranging
philosophical scholarship, The New Ju-
cobinism is no ponderous tract. The
book’s style is at oncevigorous and graceful, and its argument is succinctly presented. It is a small book but filled with
ideas. The bookis highlytopical, and the
lucidity of its reasoning makes it accessible beyond academic circles. It is,
among other things, apowerful challenge
to all of those-e.g., Norman Podhoretz,
Charles Krauthammer, William Bennett,
and Michael Novak-who want the pursuit of aNew World Order to beacrusade
for “democracy”and “capitalism.”Ryn’s
argument has been warmly greeted by
former President Richard Nixon, who
calls the book “a much-needed antidote
t o some of the fatuous assessments of
the New World Order.”
Is Ryn anti-democratic? Not necessarily. Democracy, he insists, can assume
radically different forms. What he calls
majoritarian, plebiscitary democracy
drastically centralizes and expands government and is destructive of community and civilized life. What he calls constitutional democracy, by contrast, is
potentially a highly admirable form of
government. But for that form to be possible the citizenry and their leaders must
show a high degree of ethical restraint
and responsibility. Democracy destroys
itself when superficial media opinions,
self-indulgent majorities, and politicians
who pander to both get the upper hand
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in government and in shaping society’s
moral and cultural standards.
Like Edmund Burke, Ryn stresses that
no values, however good, can be realized
without regard to circumstances. Can a
tribal African society be expected to
master the niceties of democratic citizenship or business contracting in a short
time? Is it even desirable? And must not
reforms intended to expand freedom in
Eastern Europe consider old cultural,
religious, regional, and national identities and take into account the debilitating effectsof ingrained totalitarian ways?
Without going into detail on particular
cases, Ryn demonstrates the danger of
ahistorical political a n d economic
schemes.
In a striking and intriguing chapter,
Ryn asks if the Jacobin and Marxist hatred of the old Western society is not
resurfacing in some of today’s calls for a
free economy. Marx believed that capitalism had to be replaced by socialism,
but he greatly admired its productive
capacity. H e also saw capitalism as effectively destroying traditional civilization,
and thus as preparing the way for the
new world order. Are not many of today’s
proponents of capitalism, including some
libertarians and neoconservatives, enamored of it partly because they see it as
liberating humanity from an “authoritarian,” religiously rooted, non-egalitarian
society?
Ryn is himself a defender of the free
market, but he stresses that capitalism,
like democracy, can mean wholly different things: “In the market place the content of supply and demand, the manner
of competition, and the organization of
business will be different depending on
the outlookand character of the persons
who produce and consume.” A sound
economy has moral and cultural prerequisites and norms. Ryn approvingly
quotes the late German economist
Wilhelm Roepke.
Contrary to fashionable opinion, the
book argues that Western democracy is
in ominous decline. A partisanship of
special interests, ranging from official
“victim” groups to labor unions and to
industries that defend their turf against
economic competition and creativity, has
become blatant and grasping. At the same
time, popular sovereignty is understood
in such a way that it becomes incompatible with upholding high moral, intellectual, and cultural standards. Persons who
voice more than nominal opposition to
this erosion of civilization are often ostracized. Ryn shows how falling standards result in personal irresponsibility,
political opportunism and demagoguery,
and short-sighted, superficial public opinion. Social decay is evident in the destruction of the family, in drug traffic and
other crime, in deteriorating schools and
universities, and in the decline of art,
theatre, literature, and film. Bad taste is
conspicuouslyembodied in public architecture. A telling symptom of the decadence of the Western World is the pathetic and pervasive role of public “entertainment,” which is consumed at all
hours of the day.
With astonishing frankness Ryn airs
the acute problems of the United States,
a country that is often seen by champions of the free market in Europe and
elsewhere as a shining example. He regards the problems ofAmerican society
as havingcounterparts all over the Western world. For Ryn it is a sign of both
escapism and cynicism that a Jacobin
drive to change the world should be
flourishing at a time when Americans
and Europeans urgently need to attend
to the crumbling foundation of their own
societies.
Ryn defends cultural cosmopolitanism. He also recognizes that a country
like the United States must bear heavy
international responsibilities. But, considering his stress on the need for national self-improvement and self-restraint, and also his warnings against
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ideological imperialism and interventionism, one wonders if he would have joined
those who argued against war with Iraq.
Be that as it may, in his strictures against
international adventurism he appears as
a worthy successor to Walter Lippmann.
The New Jacobinism will perhaps be
enigmatic to those who are used to seeing today’s Right as profoundly different
from the Left. What contrast could be
sharper than one between a belief in
“freedom,”“capitalism,”and “individualism,” on the one side, and a belief in
“collectivism,” on the other? But Ryn
convincingly shows that the methods
and institutions of a free economy, like
those of democracy, are never mere instrumentalities operating in an ethically
neutral fashion. Whether they will advance or undermine civilized society
depends on the values, character traits,
reward structure, and views of human
nature that dominate society and give
the methods and institutions their concrete shape. Sometimes a desire for free
competition and equal opportunity expresses social envy and a wish to abolish
civilized discriminations-the same feelings that inspired socialism and that were
strongly in the commercial classes that
supported the French Revolution.
“The shift from being a Marxist to
becoming a missionary for capitalism
may be far less drastic than commonly
assumed.” It is necessary, Ryn suggests,
to ask particular advocates of “the market” if what they like about it is its capacity, in one possible form, to uproot traditional beliefs and related sociopolitical
structures. Marx regarded capitalism as
a progressive force. It created a cultural
tabula M S Q , preparing the way for the
final liberation of mankind. Do not many
likecapitalism today because, in their conception of it, it accomplishes anti-traditional goals without socialist revolution?
A warm friend of the original American Constitution and of the generosity
and neighborliness of traditional Ameri-
can society, Ryn views the gathering
clouds with worry and sadness. “The
gradual disappearance from Western
society of the type of moral self-control
and discrimination on which constitutional democracy depends has produced
increasingly blatant partisanship and
general socio-political fragmentation.
The law, once regarded as an attempt to
transcend mere power politics, is perceived more and more by lawmakers and
voters alike as an instrument of partisan
ambition.” These are tough words, indeed.
It is evidence of Ryn’s appreciation of
the personal element in history that he
finds the ultimate source of the problems of Western society not in external
socio-economic factors, but in a decline
of individual character and insight, especially in society’s leaders. Ryn here follows in the footsteps of the great American literary scholar and cultural critic
Irving Babbitt. Indispensable to popular
rule is the ability and willingness of leaders to state unpopular truths and to press
for needed action, even when these cause
personal discomfort and political defeat.
By definition, civilized society is held
together by consensus, but consensus is
very different from uniformity. Ryn rejects the Jacobin notion of virtuous equality. Sound culture and politics need diversity and even tension.
Comparing the democratic politics of
today with the past, Ryn notes that in the
old decentralized and community-oriented society “itwas assumed that people
worthy of special political influence
would prove themselves in concrete action within their own sphere of life and
work. They would have a good reputation built on long observation by peers.”
In today’s centralized mass democracies,
aspiring leaders present themselves to
the voters through the mass media and
from such a great distance that voters
are unable to judge their characters.
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