Rousseau on War and Peace Stanley Hoffmann The American Political Science Review, Vol. 57, No. 2. (Jun.

, 1963), pp. 317-333.

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ROUSSEAU ON TITAR AND PEACE

STAR'LEY HOFFMANN
Harvard University

For many reasons Rousseau's writings on Rousseau's writings is relevant today because international relations should interest students of his awareness of a dilemma which also both of Rousseau and of world politics. The dominated Kant's thought and which has beformer have been celebrating the 200th anniver- come vital in any thinking about world politics sary of Emile and of The Social Contract. Those in the nuclear age. We can no longer afford to works, and the Discourse on Inequality have be preoccupied only with the issue to which been analyzcd incessantly and well. But political philosophers used to give most of their Rousseau's ideas on war and peace, dispersed in attention-the "conditions of a just peace" in various books and fragments, some of which domestic society, the search for the good state, are lostI1 have had only occasional attention, for the legitimate political regime. We are also and some of that is of the hit-and-miss ~ a r i e t y . ~(perhaps primarily) concerned with the condiIncomplete as his own treatment of the rela- tions of peace in international society, because tions between states remains, the frequency the very institution of the state-celebrated as and intensity of his references indicate the the source of order, liberty and morality for depth of his concern. citizens-has also turned out to be a source of Students in search of theories of international international chaos and consequently of physpolitics will also find Rousseau's views useful in ical danger and moral agony to them. How to the interconnected areas of empirical or causal be both a good citizen of a nation, and a good theory and of normative theory. I n the quest citizen of the world; how to prevent the state for models of state behavior or in the analysis from oppressing its subjects or from obliging of the nature and causes of war social scientists them to behave immorally toward outsiders, could do (and have often done) worse than take under the pressure of the international competiand test Rousseau's formulations: in Arnold tion, without meanwhile destroying the bond of Wolfers's words, they were "far removed from loyalty and the sense of identity which tie each amateurish guesswork" and "cannot fail to be citizen to his compatriots-these have become valuable to anyone seeking to understand what major issues for political thinkers today. makes the clock tick in international rela- Rousseau considered those issues a t some tions."3 Significantly, Rousseau's remarks point length, and thought he could resolve the dito the same conclusions as the exhaustive and lemma: the formula which he devised, in The systematic study of peace and war recently Social Contract, in order to rescue man from the completed by the most profound contemporary fall into which the passing of the state of nature For had plunged mankind, was also supposed to writer on the subject, Raymond A r ~ n . ~ today's revolutionary system of international put an end to international disorder. However, politics confirms the sharp and gloomy analysis the philosopher who was the sharpest critic of of Rousseau, whose pessimism was all too easily man's plight in society (both domestic and discounted in the moderate system which died international) provides "a may outJ1 of the international jungle he had so brilliantly dea t Sarajevo. More specifically, the normative aspect of scribed, only if "a way outJJmeans an escape, not a solution. See the strange story of Rousseau's manuscript on Confederations, in J . L. Windenberger, La Rdpublique confedbrative des petits Etats (Paris, Kenneth Waltz's admirable book5 has helped 1899), ch. 2. the understanding of world politics by distinThe most recent discussion, however, although guishing three "images" of the international incidental to a general analysis of Rousseau's competition. I a m not so sure he has similarly politics, is admirable: see Iring Fetscher, Rous- served the theories of some of the authors with Rousseau and Kant, seaus politische Philosophie (Neuwied, 1960), ch. whom he deals-Hobbes, in particular. Any sharp separation between 4. their conceptions of human nature, of the state a In Arnold Wolfers and Laurence W. Martin (eds.), The Anglo-American Tradition i n Foreign and of the international milieu, destroys the unity of their philosophy. At the risk of coverAffairs (New Ilaven, 1956), p. xiii. Paix et Guerre entre les Nations (Paris, 1962). ing very familiar ground, therefore, it needs to be See my review, "Minerva et Janus," in Critique, Man, The State and W a r (New York, 1959). Nos. 188 and 189 (Jan. and Feb. 1963).

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shon n first how Rousseau's trenchant critique of world politics a n d his "model" or image of states in conflict, derive from his most fundamental notions a b o u t man a n d society. For t h a t purpose, compare Rousseau's picture with t h a t of Thomas Hobbes, whom he constantly invokes a n d attacks. Rousseau's point of departure is just as individualistic or atomistic as Hobbes's. T h e y begin neither with God nor with society, nor do they s t a r t with man as a social a n d moral being; a n d Rousseau made it clear t h a t there was a t t h e outset no such thing as a general society of mankind.6 Both thus begin with man, a n a t o m in t h e s t a t e of n a t u r e n e i t h e r moral nor immoral, neither good nor bad. B u t Rousseau's conception of the state of nature is not like Hobbes's; his owes much t o Montesquieu's happier version.' Hobbes's men in t h e state of nature led a miserable life, for they were strong enough t o kill each other, too weak ever t o be safe, a n d driven into deadly competition for scarce goods b y a n infinity of desires a n d a n unlimited passion for securing what they want-an unlimited quest for power. Quite t h e opposite, Rousseau's s t a t e of nature was marked b y few men a n d graced b y a generous nature t h a t provided them with First draft of the Social Contract: C. E. Vaughan, The Polztical TT7ritings of J . J . Rousseau (Cambridge, 1915), Vol. I, pp. 447 ff. See L'Esprit des Lois. Book I. For a searching analysis of Montesquieu's conception of the state of nature and of 1an.s of reason prior to positive laws, see Raymond Aron, Les grandes doctrines de Sociologie Politique (Paris, Cours de Sorbonne, multigraph, l960), pp. 42-55. T a o important differences distinguish Rousseau's and Rlontesquieu's state of nature. (1) I n hfontesquieu's state of nature, l a m of reason xhich he calls "relations of justice prior to positive lan7s," and which are moral standards and goals for men, already exi~t-in addition to the "natural law" derived flom man's nature in the state of nature (self-presclvation, sociability, etc.). I n Rousseau's state of nature, only the latter exist (self-preservation and pity). I n this respect, lfontesquieu is closer to Locke, Rousseau to I-Iobbes. (2) For Montesquieu, the state of nature is just an early stage in man's development; for Rousseau, it represents a state of liberty and happiness which makes society appear as the cause of man's fall, snd which could only be recaptured under the thoroughly new guise of moral autonomy and good citizenship. Hobbes's state of nature, in contrast, expresses an analysis of human nature that remains valid in civil society; the latter entails neither moral progress, nor moral disgrace, just physical safety.

more goods t h a n they needed, a n d also with enough distance between men to prevent their desires from exceeding their needs.8 Consequently, if, b y accident, two men should happen t o clash over t h e same food, t h e most likely result would be flight not fight; or if they fought after all, i t would be just a minor brawLg Independence, indifference, abundance, amour de soi (i.e., a healthy concern with self-preservation limited to t h e fulfillment of basic needs), compassion: such a r e t h e key features of t h e idyll.lO Alan's life here m a y be solitary a n d brutish, b u t i t is pleasant just because of this. Rousseau shares hlontesquieu's concept of a state of nature which is both peaceful a n d unperturbed b y inequality, Montesquieu's belief t h a t trouble began when t h e s t a t e of nature faded, a n d hfontesquieu's distinction of three stages in man's development: a n original state of nature, a state of de facto society which is a ''fallen" s t a t e of nature, a n d a s t a t e of civil society; a n d Rousseau charges Hobbes with having mistakenly confused t h e first two stages. Nevertheless, Rousseau's idea of t h e genesis of civil society is very different from Montesquieu's. T h e latter, quite traditionally, saw in man a social animal: society is t h e outcome of a natural human drive,ll a n d even though its first effects a r e inequality, competition a n d war, this is only a temporary nuisance which the establishment of political communities endowed with laws is intended to eliminate. I n this respect, Lfontesquieu's analysis does not differ from Locke's. Rousseau, however, does not believe t h a t de jacto society resulted from man's sociability (a notion he discards),lZ b u t from a combination of accidents a n d physical necessities. It is t h e human "situation," not human nature which is responsible: nature's tricks a n d t h e growing needs of a growing population, not man's natural desires, bring men Discourse on Inequality; see Vaughan, I, 159
ff. and 203 ff.

Vaughan, I . 203 and 293-4 (E'cononlie Politique). l o Ibid., pp. 305-6. l1 L'Esprit des Lois. Bk. .I, end of ch. 2. Consequently, and paradoxically, the establishment of civil society is treated as beneficial both by Montesquieu and by Hobbes: the former sees in it both the outcome of man's social inclination and the remedy of early society's defects (cf. Locke); the latter sees in it man's chance of salvation from violent death. Rousseau, on the other hand, sees in most civil societies a perpetuation of man's fall. l2 Vaughan, I, 138.

IZOUSSEAU ON TVA4R-4XD PEACE

319

together.13 And he sees de jacto society not as a mere nuisance hut as a genuine fall which affects mankind after settlements have appeared, as communications and contacts develop, property spreads, and inequality sets in.14 Thus, his analysis of man in de jacto society comes close to I-Iobbesls image of man in the state of nature. IT-e have a picture of fear, waste, want and war; in both instances, the springs of conflict are defined as competition, diffidence and glory. Thus a close, if superficial, resemblance marks Hobbes's and Rousseau's accounts of the establishment of civil society: the former sees in it a necessary escape from general war, a liberation from fear and want; the latter concedes that this was indeed the purpose of the enterprise l5 Here however, the resemblance ends. Rousseau's judgment of the efects of civil society differs from Hobbes's, because their similar descriptions of man's predicament before the appearance of the state conceal conflicting notions on the origins of this predicament, and a totally different emphasis on what is evil in it. Hobbes finds the causes of conflict in man's nature; consequently, those causes will remain latent and repressed in man-under-laws: what can be ruled out (at least within the state) is only violence. Hobbes's concern and supreme value are safety; consequently, civil society, which makes safety possible, is a blessing. IIobbesls obsession is with the use of force, which can be managed, whereas its causes cannot. Thus, entry into civil society does not change man's nature, it merely transforms his possibilities of action (i.e., i t suppresses wme, and as a result it increases and protects others). Rousseau's analysis of violence is very different. He is more concerned with its roots than with its manifestations: not because he does not care for peace, but because he denies that the roots are in man's nature, and because his supreme concern is man's freedom, conscience and virtue, nhich require that those roots be torn out. To him, de jacto society is evil not just because it is a state of war, but because it is a state of moral contradiction and disgrace, of which viole~icc is merely the outcome, and which corrupts man's peaceful nature. For entry into society effects a mutation in Rousseau's man. On the one hand, through contacts with other human beings, he gains a moral sense
l3 Ibid., pp, 173 ff. See also the Essai sur llOrigine des Lnngues (Oeuvres Co?nplktes, Paris, 1905, Vol. I). l4 This, again, is very close to >Zontesqilieu, (L'Esprit des Lois, Bk. T, rh. 3). l5 V;iughan, 1 , 179 ff.

and becomes capable of conceiving dimly the ideal of force put a t the service of a law that ~ ~ o ube l dhis own. This is the ideal of a positive definition of freedom, consisting not merely in the absence of hindrances to action (as it is for Hobbes, and also in Rousseau's state of nature) but in the capacity to be one's on-n master. On the other hand, man has lost his original independence and innocence. Such a condition is the worst of all possible worlds, for man enjoys in i t neither the old, negative freedom which is lost forever, nor the new, positive one to which he can aspire. He is capable of nloral understanding, but not of moral fulfillment. The old "natural law" based not on reason but on the instincts of self-preservation and compassion is dying; however, the very forces which killed it prevent the new natural law, understood as the moral dictates of reason, from acquiring sufficient strengt1i.l6 The passions bred by inequality, the inflation of desires fostered by society, gradually starve out conlpassion and submerge I'anzour de soi under I'amour-propre-a concern for oneself which comes not from the natural desire for self-preservation, but from an artificial reaction to other people's judgments, opinions, attitudes and actions toward oneself. Thus n-hat makes of man in de jacto society so miserable a being is not just the violence t o ~vhich he is exposed: i t is what triggers violence, i.e., a n insecurity which did not exist in the state of nature, ~vllichstems not from man's nature but from man's cupiditp,l? which is not so much physical as psychological-the need to compare oneself to others, the fall from dtre to paraftre, from original indolence to social restlessness-and which is evil even if it does not lead to the actual use of force. Thus, when Rousseau and Hobbes envisage the effects of civil society, they agree on one point only: civil society rules out violence among the citizens. However, whereas Hobbes's ideal state is the Leviathan in which man submits to the force which protects his life, removes external hindrances to his action, and leaves him free to indulge in all the drives and desires which motivate and move him (as long as he does so peaceably), a civil society based exclusively on self-preservation is a n absurd one lVIbicZ., 448-9 (first draft of the Social Contract). 17 Vaughnn, I, 447. Property, which Rousseau singles out in the second Discorirse as a crucial factor in inequality, and consequently in violence, should not be seen as a cause of war but as a Consequence of the "cupidity" and insecurity which dominate rnc.rl once their original iqolation comes to an end.

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for Rousseau. For, in it, all the vices that marred de facto society would be perpetuated, except one-violence among the citizens-but with the addition of two new, and huge evils: international wars, and tyranny. If civil society, which replaces man's natural independence with its network of conventions, makes man the permanent toy of others, it is a curse. Only the society which makes man autonomous is good. I n other words, the philosopher's quest cannot stop with the elimination of violence, it must be pursued until the origins of conflict themselves have been eliminated. The absence of violence is not the supreme good: violence is a symptom; its causes must be cured-and they can be, since, in Rousseau's view, they do not lie in human nature. The Social Contract provides the formula through which a civil society call be c~tablished,in which it is not only violence, but the "evil propensities" of man-insociety that will be purged, in which his inevitable passions will be turned toward the common good and "rational natural law" can flourish thnnks to the civil laws decreed by the general n ill. The differences between I-Iobbes and Rousseau on the subject of world politics are as serious, and rather paradoxical. Hobbes had little to say on the subject; but what he says is that the interilntional state of nature is less intolerable thnn the "individual" state of nature. To be sure, both are marked by the same quest for power, and for the same reasons.18 Both show inserurity and conflict-consequently states have to be armed and prepared. Both show the same deficiency of law: in the absence of superior p o ~ r e r the , "la~vsof nature" are mere precepts of self-interest whose application depends on their perpetually uncertain observance by others. EIowever, Hobbes explains why insecurity incites men to crswl out of their state of nature and to set up the Leviathan, but he does not invite the Leviathans to follow suit. Here is the key of the paradox: in the international competition, it is the state itself a hich serves as a cushion. Even though, in the absence of constraining power, international politics is not a state of peace, even though it is a condition in which the nasty features of human nature (repressed, within civil society, by the setting up of the Leviathan) can, so to speak, reemerge a t their worst, nevertheless the international state of Bar is bearable. I t is the intolerable aspect of the "individua,lH state of war which drives men to sacrifice their "right of nature" so as to preserve their existence; but there are two reasons which make the interna'8

tional state of nature less atrocious. First, states are stronger than men in the state of nature: their "security dilemma," their fear of annihilation, is less pressing.lg Secondly, the very existence of the state is a guarantee for the security of the citizens: no man is safe in the state of nature, whereas interstate war does not affect the daily lives of all men. Consequently, the "laws of nature" ic la Hobbes have a greater chance of being observed in the interilational state of nature: since there is greater force behind the partners to an interstate compact than there is behind individual signatories of a contract, the risk of violation will be smaller: the idea of reciprocity of interests, on ahich the solidity of international law does indeed depend, emerges here. bloreover, each state has a n essentially domestic interest in self-restraint, since, should it implicate its population in allout wars of extermination, the duty of obedience of the subjects to the state would disappear. Thus Hobbes, surprisingly enough, ends by differing not too much from Ivlontesquieu, who thought that just as the establishment of the state restored peace among men, the development of international law among states would allow then1 to live in a state of merely troubled peace, but not permanent war.20TI-e can see in Hobbes the father of utilitarian theories of international law and relations, and we can extrapolate, for policy guidance, the notion of the balance of power: it is fragile, by definition, but it is a relatively efficient technique for enforcing the "laws of nature," since it corresponds to the interests all actors have in keeping the competition moderate. TTTe could also extrapolate that, should the "security dilemma" worsen, should the competition become more intense, should the risk of total destruction, affecting all citizens, become intolerable, Hobbes's relative complacency would lose its justification; and the same arguments he used to justify the Leviathan would have to be applied to the establishment of a worldwide one. Rousseau's vieas are far less reassurin~.He and Hobbes both recognize that the criterion which distinguishes world politics from the politics of a civil society is the ever-present both possibility of violence in the former, ~vhich term a "state of war" (ahether war itself is actually in progress or not);?' and it is obvious Ibid., ch. 13. LIEsprit des Lois, Bk. I, ch. 3. For Rousseau, see Vaughnn, I, 300; for Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13.
l9

Leviathan, chs. 13 and 17.

ROUSSEAU ON WAR A N D PEACE

32 1

that, for both, the fragmentation of power in thc international system is the immediate cause of the state of war. Both, to use JJTaltz's useful cl:~ssification,are "third image" writers to this extent Hon ever, Hobbes's and Rousseau's agreement stops here. On four main points, they are in conflict. First, they differ in their judgment on the nature of international violence. For Hobbes, violence is an expression of human nature, whenever it is not repressed by a Leviathan; international war remains inevitable because man is an asocial animal, even after the establishment of civil societies. For Rousseau, war is not a human necessity or drive, because man is not social by nature. "One kills in order to win; no man is so ferocious that he tries to win in order to \liar is a social institution: hence Rousseau's famous insistence on the idea that wars are, by nature, contests between states (i.e., artificial bodies) but not between individuals, and corlsequently ought to be waged as such. This idea was directly inspired by Montesquieu's writings;23but Rousseau formulated it more categorically, so as to make clear that man, dknatui-S by bad social institutions, is alienated man, whose acts spring not from his true self but from a distorted self which society has manufactured and for which society alone is responsible. Since nothing in human nature forces a man to kill another, the objects of wars are always far removed from the citizens' lives: the stakes of war are not man's needs, but the frills and fancies grafted on those needs by society.24 Second, Rousseau does not share Hobbes's belief that the state is a relatively mitigating force in international conflict. The same reasons which made man miserable in de facto society (or make him so in inadequate civil societies) are a t work among the nations. He singles out especially t \ \ o factors of insecurity. One is mutual dependence. Just as insecurity among men grows because each one is a t the mercy of others' services or opinions, the relations of states are plagued by such entanglements. I n both cases, lie denounces economic dependence most azidly, as if it were the serpent's apple. Here we find one of Rousseau's deepest insights, one which shatters a large part of the liberal vision of world affairs: for Rousseau, irlterdepcndrnce breeds not accommodation and harmony, but suspicion and incompatibilVaughan, I, 313. L'Esprit rles Lois. Rk. I, ch. 3 and Bk. X, chs. Vauyhar~,I, 312-3.

it^.^& Another cause of insecurity among men is inequality, t h a t inbgalite' de combinaison which results from division of labor and multiplies the ~~ effects of natural i n e q ~ a l i t y .Similarly, the unevenness of states is the fuel of world conflict.27 Hobbes had stressed natural equality as the main incentive to competition, and assumed that all men (and all states in the international state of nature) were equally driven by their nature toward power and co~iflict. Rousseau remarks instead that (just as it is enough for one man to say: "this thing is mine," and then property claims will mushroom) the emergecce of one state is enough to force all other human settlements to choose between annihilation and resistance, which means the establishment of other states in a kind of chain reaction. Once again, very rightly, the blame must be put on the dynamics of the situation; even if most states wanted to live in peace, they could not do so as long as a few major delinquents made trouble in the world. Rloreover, international quarrels are in many respects far worse than the competition among nlen before the establishment of civil society. States, far from dampening violence, amplify it. (i) There is a difference in the scope of violence. Rousseau makes a fundamental distinction between kinds of violent conflicts: only organized violence among consolidated groups deserves to be called war. War is "a permanent state which requires constant relations." Throughout most of the period that precedes civil society, the relations between men were too unsettled for genuine wars to develop: insecurity resulted merely in "fights" and "murders."28 Only after the appearance of states, in which l a m are made that delimit the rights and duties of the nation, and often promote close relations with other nations, can real wars break out-not, of course, among the citizens, but among states. One may object that according to Rousseau himself, just before the emergence of civil society, human oettle25 Vaughan, I. 203 ff, 447 ff., and 11, 308 ff. (Project for Corszca). 28 Vaughan, I. 178. 2 7 Zbid., pp. 178 and 297. Strangely enough, Proudhon-who spent so much time attacking Rousseau-follo~~~s IZousseau's analysis very closely in Vol. I1 of his book, Ln Guerre et la P a i r ; it is the same attack on greed, property and inequality as in the second L)iscourse; war is seen as the result of c1rshr.s over mealth, due both to the end of primeval abundance and to the "somber rapacity" that grips societies vi!len man's original temperance fades aw7ay. 28 Vaughnn, I, 180 and 291; 11, 29.

22
23

2, 3.
24

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ments had become sufficiently stable-and the growth of human greed, dependence and inequality sufficiently disastrous-for a real "state of war" to break out among men." Also, Rousseau himself defines war as arising from "links between things rather than between men":30 specifically, contests over "things" (such as possessions) had already developed in de facto societies. This is true; however, violence within and among them remained less devastating than wars among states. The root of the older kind of war is individual greed, the rapacity of the rich, the envy of the poor-in other words, inequality among men (even if those men were beginning to be organized, for instance, in "gangs of bandits"). The root of interstate war is inequality among nations; and the inequality of men has sharper limits than the inequality of states. For the size of a state is always relative: "it is forced to compare itself in order to know itself"; its "absolute size" is ineaningless, for its rank depends on what the others are, plan and do. Thus, by definition, each state is always totally dependent on all the others.3' I t s security dilemma affords no escape: if the state is strong, its power makes it a danger to peace; if it is weak, i t becomes a tempting pawn. Restlessness is a t its worst on the world scene. (ii) Consrquently, a difference in the stakes also makes the state of war among states far worse than the state of war among men. I n de facto society, the stakes of fighting remained essentially individualistic and therefore limited. -4s against hit-and-run raids to steal some land or goods, interstate war offers clashes about territory, resources and manpower on a grand scale. (iii) Another difference is the intensify of war. Hobbes's Leviathan, in accordance t\-ith the philosopher's mechanistic conception of society, was made of the sum total of the citizens. This Rousseau denies; he points out that the state is always weaker than the sum total of the citizens' "particular forces."32 Paradoxically, whereas Hobbes nevertheless believed that the impact of war on the citizens n-ould he limited, Rousseau came to the opposite conclusion. For he saw that the state must try to compensate the deficiency in collective force with an overdose of passion-the one element Robbes had left out. Prophetically, Rousseau warned that the body politic was moved, not by a cold reason of state, but by
29

passions: hence the ferocity of wars. For the passions which throw man against man before the appearance of civil society remained somehobv dampened by what was left of human compassion; the passions which states mobilize against one another ignore such a restraint. Here TT-efind another deep insight: what makes of states, in Kietzsche's terms, the coldest of cold monsters, is not reason of state, but the very horror of passions which commiseration does not assuage. (iv) Consequently, the effects of international conflict are far more "nefarious" than those of conflicts among men. States being more powerful than individual men (even though the state's might may be less than the cumulative strength of the citizens), their antagonisms produce greater upheavals than the clashes of individuals: there are more murders in one day of battle than there had been for centuries during the state of nature.33 A third major area of difference between Hobbes's and Rousseau's approach to world politics concerns ethics in international relations. I n Hobbes' case, the problem of ethical action in politics can hardly be called import a n t : it is a pure matter of definition, since human nature does not change after man's entry illto society. Moral action in the Leviathan consists simply of obeying the sovereign's law. In international politics, there is no such law, and consequently we are left with the clash and occasional convergence of different national moralities. Rousseau could not be satisfied with such simple amorality; in all his works, he treated ethics and politics as one and the same thing. To him, the "state of war" which prevails among states is a moral scandal because it is the mark, and indeed to a considerable extent the cause, of man's failure to fulfill his morsl development in civil society. As he described it in the second Discourse, men entered civil society in order to live under laws, so as not only to escape from the murders and fights of de facto society, but also to be able t o follo~ the dictates of "rational natural law" which cannot have any force unless they are protected by the civil laws of society. But instead of the reconciliation of ethics and politics
aa Ibid., p. 182. I t can be seen from what precedes that Rousseau finds the causes of war not only (1) in the structure of a milieu of clashing sovereignties, but also (2) in the corrupt nature of existing states, and (3) in the "evil propensities" of man, due not to his original nittnre but to the "fall" that society has entailed a n d almost all states have perpetuated.

ao

Vaughan, I, 180. Vaughan, 11, 29. Vaughan, I, 297-8 (L'Etat de Guerre)

Ihid., pp. 298-9.

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what has happened is a new and worse moral facto society, minus internal wars but plzts tyranny-the contradiction between nostalgia dilemma for the citizen. On the one hand, the very effort of men to for the independence man has lost and the assure order, peace and justice domestically (by yearning for moral and political autonomy. setting up the state) has provoked chaos and Therefore v a r does more than curtail the scope conflict on the international level, since the of such autonomy: it threatens to make its nations have remained in a "state of nature" achievement within the state impossible. Presimilar to the fallen state which had been cisely because of this peril, Kant put the imman's tragic lot just before civil society was perative of peace a t the center of his philfounded. "We have prevented particular wars osophy. Rut Kant noted that the increasing only so as to start general ones which arc a costs of war would oblige rulers "not to hinder thousand times worseJJ;"all the horrors of war the weak and slow independent efforts of their stem from menJs efforts to prevent it."34 Con- people'' toward constitutional g ~ v e r n m e n t . ~ ~ sequently, the citizen is caught in what Rous- The experience of this century has confirmed seau calls a systkrne vnixte35-torn between the Rousseau's gloom rather than Kant's hopes. RousseauJs study of international relations laws of the domestic social order, and the violence that results from the sovereignty of raised the question whether it mould not be states in the world state of nature. Kow, to be better to have no civil society in the world a t morally divided is the greatest misery, and to all than to have many, for the systdnze nzixte is be "dragged by nature and by men into oppo- the worst of all. Not only is the present state site directions" obliges man to "end his life far bloodier than the fallen state of nature: it is without having been able to come to terms also one in which-although the causes of war with himself."36 Rousseau implies that the are ever more remote from the citizens' liveschance for autonomy which exists in the domes- killing has become a duty taught by the state.40 tic order-where the citizen can aspire to the The moral tragedy is that "by uniting with unity of force and of a law that would be his some men we have really become the enemies of own-does not exist in the international (dis)- mankindJJ-which man had never been b e f ~ r e . ~ l order because of the fragmentation of sover- I n his summary of the Abbe de Saint Pierre's eignties. Thus, even the citizen of the ideal peace plan, Rousseau analyzed the special state may find no opportunity for moral action bonds which history, legal institutions and beyond the limits of the state as long as the religion have forged among European nations. world competition lasts: the human conscience He then remarked t h a t precisely because of these bonds, the condition of those nations was may remain unhappy. But, on the other hand, that competition worse than if no European society existed a t does more than thwart moral action beyond all.42 I t is always the same concern for moral the state: the very existence of world conflict oneness, the same insight that it is better to be gives political leaders a good pretext for putting isolated-and thus not to experience the agonor keeping man "in chains.,, Even the establish- ies of moral choice-than t o be dependent on ment of the first civil societies is described as a others, and so unable because of competition or sort of trick by which the rich ensnared the inequality to practice the moral virtues which poor and consolidated inequality under the society both engenders and frustrates. A fourth crucial difference between Hobbes pretext of mutual protection against outsiders.37 Later, princes are able to stunt and Rousseau relates to the techniques for domestic efforts toward self-government and mitigating international conflict. Hobbes, as to perpetuate tyranny because of the "neces- already noted, assumed implicitly t h a t the sities" that war entails.38 Thus international different "reasons of stateJJcould converge on insecurity and tyranny reinforce each other. common interests. Rousseau demolishes this Consequently, man is not merely caught be39 Kant, "Idea for a Universal History," in: tween domestic order and external chaos, but torn by two contradictions: the one just men- The Phzlosophy of Kant, C. J. Friedrich, ed. (New York, 1959), p. 128. tioned, and also, within civil society-whose 40 Vaughan, I, 182. order, being corrupt, preserves the evils of de 4 1 Zbid., p. 365. Man was not the "enemy of mankind" either in the original state of nature, 34 Zbid., p. 365 and p. 295. T I hen he was a peaceful being, or even in de jacto 35 Zbid., pp. 304-6; 11, 158 (L'Emile). society, when his contacts vith others may have 36 Vaughan, 11, 147. been bloody, but limited in scope; see ibid., p. 37 Vaughan, I, 179-81. 38 Zbzd., 11p. 389 ff. (Critique of St. Pierre's 453. 42 Zbid., p. 374. Project).

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other major part of the liberal (or neo-liberalI mean "realist") ideology of international politics. His arguments on this point are of enormous importance for the theory of international politics. (i) First, he deals with what might be called restraints through explicit or tacit agreements. Neither international law nor the balance of power can be real restraints on the international competition. Though not instances of actual war, they are tactics in the strategy of the state of war, i.e., the permanent hostility among states.43The balance of power may block major conquests; but it perpetuates instability and preswves or aggravates each participant's disati is faction.^^ Interrlational law is both weak and dangerous. Its fragility is due to its nature and to the basis of obligation. I t is but the expression of the "law of nature," superseded within the state by civil laws, though still operative among states. I t consists neither of the commands of self-preservation and pity, which have faded since the fall of the original state of nature, nor of the dictates of moral reason, nhich have force only within the ideal state. Instead, i t is the law of corrupted nature: the law of amour-propre and corrupted nature: the law of amour-propre and competition, merely tempered by the attempt to replace compassion with conventions. This is a weak substitute indeed, for the basis of obligation is shaky: nothing guarantees the efficacy of international law but the particular s Moreinterest of the state to which i t a p p l i e ~ . ~ over, such law is often worse t h a t fragile. Alliances and treaties (like the laws of imperfect ~~ States states) merely perpetuate i n e q ~ a l i t y . often use international law as an instrument against one another in the international state of war: not only are peace treaties nothing but stratagems, but recognition and the regulation of foreign trade also can be diplomatic weapo n ~ Peacetime . ~ ~ politics, of which international law is an aspect, is but the continuation of war by other means. The foundation of Rousseau's reasoning is his conviction that in a competitive situation as fierce as that of nations common interests are both evanescent and hardly significant. Each player in the game is after his own separate interest. Consequently, one must distinguish the real from the apparent interest of the
'3
44
46

players.48 Rousseau calls the apparent interest what the scholar-who superimposes on the competitive situation a fictitious community independent of the playersJ moves-is normally tenipted to call the real interest-i.e., the common interest in self-restraint. Something close to a miracle, Rousseau thought, would be needed to make the separate calculations of individual advantage converge on a solution favorable to Furthermore, advantages are appreciated only "by their differences": if they are common to all, they will be real to nobody.5o I t is easy to see how so gloomy an analysis applies to contemporary schemes of arms control. They are based on the assumption that the main powers have a common interest in peace which could be strengthened by the adoption of measures that would preserve existing advantages (i.e., the possession of national armaments) and add new ones (such as guarantees against surprise attack). These efforts have foundered until now, precisely because of the asymmetries in the positions of the main powers; each tries to annihilate the enemy's advantages while keeping its own factors of ~uperiority.5~ Each major power ackno~ledges a risk of war, but remains unwilling to deprive itself of the freedom of action which the unfettered right to use (or threaten to use) its weapons gives it. Each is confident it can handle the danger of war by unilateral measures of restraint.@ Rousseau wrote that princes who make war do so not because they are unaware of the perils, but because they are confident in their wisdom.63 His refutation of the "common interest" argument, and his conviction that commerce only exacerbates greed and the competition among nations as well as among men, thus led him to reject also a vie~v which Kant and liberals in the 18th and 19th centuries found too attractive to resist-the idea that commerce breeds peace.s4 (ii) If restraints based on common interests are fictitious, what about the chances of selfrestraint, resulting from each state's own effort Ibid., p. 389. Ibid., p. 392. Ibid., p. 391. 6' E.g.,the U-2 affair in 1960, the U. S. insistence on piercing the Soviet mall of secrecy, the Soviet inclusion in all disarmament plans of proposals aiming a t the dismantling of America's foreign bases. 6 " e e the author's "Les regles du jeu," in Les Cahiers de la Rkpublique, March, 1962. Sa Vaughan, I, 390-1. 64 Ibid., p. 391.
49

Ibid., p. 300. Ibid., pp. 371 ff. Ibid., pp. 304-5. Compare Aron, op cit., ch. Vaughan, 11, 308. Vaughan, I, 299.

23.

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to define a rational line of conduct, as one can define a rational strategy for a firm? Rousseau's analysis shows why i t is futile, as a way of reducing the risk and uncertainty in international affairs, to try to define a rational foreign policy.65 On the one hand, economic competition has the simplifying feature of a currency in which all gains and losses can be calculatedmoney. Rousseau realized t h a t the various stakes in international competition cannot all be converted into monetary units, or into any quantity a t all:56 land, men, spoils, prestige and "degrees of power." He had no clear idea of an ideological competition, although his remark about the passions of states can easily be extended to it. Such a competition is even less "quantifiableJJ than those he had in mind. On the other hand, the "rules of the game" are too fluid, its purely psychological elements too important to allow for a meaningful definition of rationality: in the absence of a law subordinating the separate interests, or of legal procedures to channel them, states are condemned to the hazards of En F o r t u n e by their very independence. (iii) Any analyst of international relations who sees world politics as a state of permanent war without permanent restraints and threatening the freedom and security of men, is tempted to propose radical remedies-to suggest that men and states leap out of the cave in which they keep fighting, into a broad daylight of reconciliation. Rousseau's writings contain more or less explicit criticisms of many schemes which the imagination of men of good will has invented. So far as St. Pierre's peace plan was a forerunner of modern international organization, Rousseau's critique goes to the very foundation of that halfway house between state sovereignty and world government which flourishes today and which Kant presented both as a moral imperative and as the object of a hidden plan of nature. On the one hand, Rousseau suggests, in terms close to those Walter Schiffer applied to the League of Nations,67 that as long as states behave as they have customarily behaved, they are unlikely to be willing to achieve lasting peace through such devices; and if their behavior were sufficiently reformed to
6S The most brilliant contemporary analysis is that of Raymond Aron, . op. cit., Introduction and final note. Rousseau's and Aron's arguments contradict the faith in moderation which advocates of the "national interestJ' as the norm of foreign policy have so often proclaimed in recent years. 66 Vaughan, I, 391. ' 6 T h e Legal C o m m u n i t y of M a n k i n d (New York, 1954), esp. p. 199.

make the adoption of such plans possible, the need for such a league would become much less pressing.58 On the other hand, anticipating I<antJs philosophy of history, Rousseau argues that "what is useful to the public" can be introduced only by force, because of the resistance which selfish interests oppose; but he adds that wars and revolutions, necessary to impose federative leagues on men, are fearful means indeed and may do more harm than such leagues could ever prevent.59 This is an aclmirable, though depressing comment on the dialectic of history in our own century, which required two world wars to establish two rather weak world organizations. I t places a major reservation on Kant's hope t h a t the hidden plan of nature would bring states together through a process of ever more damaging wars. Rousseau did not deal with disarmament plans, which did not proliferate until later. However, a recent study has aptly pointed out the three main reasons why all negotiations toward t h a t end have failed:Oo the desire of states to catch up when they are behind in the race, the security fears of the nations, and dificulties of enforcement. Rousseau's analysis of unevenness and international insecurity and his refutation of the 'Lcommon interests" argument cut through hundreds of pages of peace plans. JVe are left with a frightening picture of world politics. States are apparently condemned to their "state of war." The only restraints are unilateral and temporary; the islands of peace are always threatened. Rousseau does not deny that they may exist: as already noted, he does not assume literally a war of all against all, but a struggle in which the existence of even one "relationship of major tension" may make amity impossible and neutrality diffic:ult.61 Hcre, precisely as in his analysis of society in the Discourse on I n e q u a l i t y , Rousseau's vision is not historical, but ideal-typical: it is "the essence of things, not events" that he wants to account for.82 Consequently, one cannot refute him by pointing out that there are a few permanent neutrals --like his own Switzerland-who have succeeded in staying out of the competition; or t h a t some international systems are more moderate or some restraints more lasting than Vaughan, I, 388. Ibid., p. 396. 60 Evan Luard, Peace and O p i n i o n (Oxford, 1962), ch. 2. fl Compare Arnold Wolfers, "The pole of power and the pole of indifference," W o r l d Politzcs, Vol. 4 (Oct. 1951), pp. 39-63. oa Vaughan, I, 297.
69

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therefore propose a European or a world federation to put an end to war. As already noted, the passage Waltz quotes65appears in Rousseau's digest of St. Pierre's peace plan, which he thereupon mercilessly destroys in his subsequent critique. But i t is not enough to note the absence of any "morld federalist" or "world government" solution; the important question is why Rousseau brushed it aside. For we have an apparently puzzling contrast. H e had shown that the "state of war" in de facto society convinced men to become citizens, i.e., to establish states so as to put an end t o violence, a t least within civil society. And he had described this movement as having spread because some men (the rich) were able to convince others of a coinmon interest in security under lawscG-even though he had also pictured man in the fallen state of nature as just as incapable of making common interests triumph The loss of Rousseau's manuscript on con- over antagonistic ones, as sovereign states are federations makes it difficult to know in full in the international jungle.G7 If, then, men were detail his answer to "international anarchy." driven individually by insecurity to heed the However, it is possible to put together pieces of common interest after all, in Hobbesian fashion, the puzzle, and to assess the relevance of the why should not the same conclusion be reached result to present-day morld politics. by states, whose "state of war" Rousseau himRousseau has more than once been the vic- self described as worse than the state of violence tim of his interpreters. Recently it has been among men in de facto society? If the social fashionable to make him the father of "total- contract would set u p an ideal state endowed itarian democracy." This is not the place to not merely with a monopoly of force but also deal with such a distortion; instead, two points with the capacity to make man morally free need to be made. One is to establish the inten- and virtuous, why should not a similar compact tions of the author, without projecting into his establishing a world state be the basis of uniwork the intentions of disciples or others. The versal peace and the guarantee of "republican second is to deal with his views on their merits. government" in each component unit? This may entail showing that the author's The answers to these questions are only imideal is incapable of execution, or of any en- plicit in Rousseau's work. They can be summed forcement that would not thwart his inten- up as follo\vs: in the world as i t is, such a tions.e3 The results may point to serious diffi- universal state is impossible; in a world comculties in maliing his work relevant to the ~vorld posed of ideal states, it would be neither dein which ~ v e live, but they should absolve him sirable nor necessary. of responsibility for the perversions produced Let us take first the world as it is. The prosby attempts to apply his vision. pects of peace and unity are so dim, precisely To clear the may, let us start with what because fights among nations are worse than Rousseau's intentions were not. He did not feuds among men before states appeared. Men suggest that the may out of the international finally became aware and convinced of their jungle was the establishment of a world state. common interest in establishing civil societies; Nor was he the father of modern nationalism. but their purpose mas to protect the "ins" I t is true that his analysis of the international against the "outs." I t was not an end to commilieu provides what Waltz has called the third petition, merely a displacement of it-a differimage, in nhich the absence of any common ence not merely of degree but of essence besuperior over the states is seen as the "permis- tween the creation of a state and the building sive" cause of war.64 But Rousseau does not of the morld state. The former merely orders conflict (in the sense of abolishing domestic 63 This is what I have attempted to do in: "Du violence, but allowing and indeed fostering Contrat Social, ou le mirage de la volont6 g6nBrale," Revue Internationale d'Histoire Politiqz~eet 66 Ibid., p p 185-6. Constit~ctioilnelle,Oct. 1954, pp. 288-315. 66 Vaughan, I, 180-1. f i W p . cit., p. 232. " IIbid., pi). 450-1.

others-not so much because they are based on common interests as because they operate in periods when the range of stakes (i.e., the scope of the competition) is narrower than a t other moments. Rousseau's answer, obviously, is that nothing guarantees the perpetuation of moments of grace and the preservation of oases of peace: whcnever the system becomes revolutionary again, his analysis is thoroughly valid. But Rousseau proposed a way out of the systkme ~ n i r t e of the domestic order-a way of making tstre and paraftre, amour propre and amour de soi, less incompatible. What about the international state of physical violence, moral division, and psychological bad faith? We must turn from his empirical theory to his normative theory-or to whatever me can find in its stead.

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external turmoil) ; the latter R ould eliminate the competitive use of force.68 RIoreover, this ordering of conflict, to the extent t h a t it makes international war so much more formidable than the state of mar in de facto society, weakens further the persuasion that "common interestJ' arguments can exert upon states. The earlier type of violence was still anarchic and mild enough to be overcome by such reasoning. But wars among states have become institutionalized; and the more intense the fighting, the higher the stakes (both in the sense of bigger, and in the sense of more distant froin the citizens' lives, with such elements as national pride and prestige involved), the more devastating the cffects, the less likely are rational arguments of common interest to be heard. Indeed, Rousseau suggests that one component of the original "lam of nature," the remnants of which may have played a role in convincing men to abolish mar among them, has left even fewer traces, and thus kept far less vigor among states-pity.69 So we are faced with units-the states-~vhose awzour-propre (hence insecurity) is far more inflated than that of finite men could ever be, and whose compassion is practically nil. Finally, we must not forget that internationol conflict is a safeguard for tyrants: a-orld insecurity assures domestic security; n ould not, for them, world peace entail domestic insecurity? Thus one comes to a triple and dismal conclusion. The only combinations of states likely to emerge in the world are competitive, i.e., alliances and leagues whose members temporarily agree to suspend the competition among them, in order better to resist or to attack other contenders. The "general society of mankind," n-hich existed neither in the original state of nature, nor in the corrupt state of de facto society, is not likely to result from the present world of states either. Lastly, should the domination of one state be imposed on all others through conquest, such a world empire could not be the carrier of world peace; for the rule of force can never become legitimate: the compact between conqueror and conquered, "far from liquidating the state of war, assumes its continuan~e."~~ But what about the ideal world-that of the Social Contract? Here again, a world federation or a world state is ruled out. A federation with a legislative body and coercive powers would Or, more accurately, reserve to the worldstate the monopoly of the legitimate use of force. 69 Vaughan, I, 182. 7 0 Vaughan, 11, 31 (and in general, Bk. I, ch. 4, of the Socir~l Contract).

conflict with the character of sovereignty as defined in the Social Contract: sovereignty is indivisible. The essence of the general willindestructible, inalienable, incapable of being represented, is such that any formula of shared legislative powers, which federation requires, would destroy that identity of freedom and authority which the Social Confruct purports to achieve, and restore heteronomy.'l RIoreover, such a federation n ould rule over far too vast a territory; Rousseau was convinced t h a t the chances for autonomy exist only in small states: like 3lontesquieu, and like the Greek philosophers, he saw in large states major threats to freedom.'Z -4 world-wide "city of the Social ContractJJwas inconceivable, since the legislative general will could not assemble in ally given place. The bigger the state, the heavier the bureaucracy, the greater the need for a strong, i.e., dangerous, executive, the greater also the need for intransigent virtue among the citizens, the smaller the likely "ratio in R hich the ~vills of individual citizens stand to the general will, or, in other words, customs (wzoezlrs) to lam-s," the greater the need for repressive force.'3 -111 those arguments convinced Kant, too, of the impossibility of a world government. If we start with Rousseau's conception of the ideal state-small and ruled by an indivisible general mill-then the only links between states th:?t do not conflict with this scheme are confederations, which may have common executive organs appointed or instructed by the legislators, but in which those legislators (i.e., the general wills) would remain separate national entities. A4ssuciationsof governments are possible, but not of peoples, just as Rousseau's idea of sovereignty rules out genuine local selfgovernment except in the form of regional delegations from the executive.74 Thus the road to a "general society of mankind" does not pass through a world government. Rousseau's constant sarcasms about "cosn~opolitans" should be kept in mind.'6 The arguments which a number of Frenchmen have opposed to European supranational instituSee the reasoning in Windenberger, op. cit., ch. 6. 72 See Vaughan, I, 484 f f ; 11, 56 ff, 64 ff, 154, 442-3. 73 Vaughan, 11, 66. 74 See my essay, "Areal division of powers in the writings of French political thinkers," in A. hlaaes (ed.), r l ~ e a and Power (Glencoe, 1959)) pp. 143-149, a t 120-4. 76 Vaughan, 11, 144-5; I, 182. See also the passage on Socrates and Cato in Econornie Politiqlce, Vaughan, I, 251-2.

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tions h a r e a clearly Rousseauistic ring: there is, a t present, no European nation, only a variety of European nations that wish to cooperate. Legitimate decisions among them can be taken only by the agents of the separate popular wills: otherlvise, the decisiolls could only represent either the will of one of those communities, imposed upon the others, or the will of "technocrats," i e . , executive agents operating in a political vacuum. And not all the Frenchmen who have objected to European supranationality (or to the spread of majority rule in the U.N.) are conservatives. I n this respect, as well as in some of his constitutional ideas, General de Gaulle appeals t o a certain Jacobin tradition which quite justifiably claims Rousseau as one of its prophets. However, Jacobinism (not to mention General de Gaulle) brings to mind modern nationalism and particularly the militant nation-state that has often turned a war into a crusade. On this score Rousseau has also been accused of being the father of a form of social organization which has been a worse enemy of peace than the princcls he so bitterly denounced. K h o can deny t h a t he did indeed constantly celebrate patriotism, identify the good citizen with the good p n t r i ~ t , ~lecture E the Corsicans on the need to have a national character,77 and give the Poles a formidable list of recipes for the deliberate creation of a Polish national spirit that could defy the invaders and the a g e ~ ? I ~n 8 particular, the pages on national education, in his essay on Poland, foreshadow the missionary zeal of the French First and Third Republics in this essential area of public life. Here again, however, we must be careful. National pride, yes-Rousseau thought it essential; for i t ~vould give its dynamism, indeed its substance, to the general will. But nationalism as we know i t now, definitely not. Not because he was unaware of its possibilities: having noted that every patriot is harsh toward foreigners, he added that this explained why the wars waged by republics are often worse than those waged by kings.7g But as we have observed, he saw in war a source of tyranny and the perpetuation of all those evils of society which the "good society"-that of the Social Contract-aimed a t eliminating. Indeed, he rejected la religion clu citoyen as doubly evil-as making the citizens "bloodthirsty and intolerant" and as threatening the nation's security by throwing it into wars with every other naIring Fetscher, op. cit., pp. 194 ff. 7 7 Vaughan, 11, 319. 78 Ibid., pp. 319, 348 ff., and 431 ff. 79 Ibid., p. 144.
76

t i ~ n . ~Because O he thought princes had a vested interest in war, he attacked them vigorously in his critique of St. Pierre's project-where Rewants publics are never m e n t i ~ n e d Whoever .~~ to be free must refrain from becoming a conqueror, he told the Poles. Yet in order to be free, to obey only one's own (higher) will, one must keep invaders out-or if (like the Poles) one is too ~veak to do so, one must a t least be capable of preventing the invaders from ever forcing the inner sanctum of the citizens' conscience into submission. This makes his enthusiasm for a citizens' army understandable; i t is essentially a defensive army, incapable in his eyes of undertaking aggression (to which a professional army is much more suited), but more capable of making a n aggressor's life untenable.82 Aggressive nationalism would have destroyed Rousseau's ideal. For he ~vanted a polis established in which the irreversible consequences of man's entry into civil society-the development of passions and desires, the urge to look a t one's reflection in other people's eyes, the mirror game of social vanity-could be channeled to good, i.e., moral uses. Patriotism is such a good use for it combines anzourpropre and virtue.83 The building of national character is an attempt a t dissociating the two elements of anzour-propre: vanity and pride, so as to smother the former under the latter. Vanity is the result of comparisons with others, and "the fruit of opinion"-while pride is born of one's own achievement^.^^ The competitions which he advocates in schools and public games, the medals and distinctions he recommends, the national (but not nationalist) celebrations he describes, are all efforts to make the seeds of human vanity sprout into flowers of legitimate collective pride.85 He favors a kind of "Stakhanovism" among citizens, but one which aims a t civic virtue, not a t national power: the citizens are invited to compete ~ v i t h one another to such a purpose, not to compete with and compare themselves to foreigners.S6 And if he wants them to celebrate work, i t is not in order to promote the state's grandeur, but because work is the condition and guarantee of civic virtue; whereas leisure and luxury,
so
82

Ibid., p. 129. Vrtughan, I, 389-92. Vaughan, 11, 486-92. Vaughan, I, 251. See Fetscher, op. cit., pp.

62 ff. a4 Vaughan, I. 217; 11, 319, 344-5, 441. Vaughan, 11, 434 ff; Fetscher, op. cit., pp. 194 ff. 86 See esp. Vaughan, 11,437 ff.

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credit and speculation are the surest roads to independence; in commerce lies wealth, but c o r r ~ p t i o n . 8The ~ Switzerland of his days, or wealth brings d e p e n d e n ~ e . ~ ~ Rousseau's philosophy remains consistent the United States of Tocqueville's, would be much better examples than anything the new also in its discontinulties. There is a break between man in the state of nature, and man in nations of the post\i7arworld exhibit-precisely because events have made Rousseau's ideal soclety. Another break lies between the ideal society, in which man is, so to speak, reconciled impossible, as we shall see. For the community of peaceful but proud vc ith hircself, and the international milieu: so as nations he had in mind was of a very special not to live in any mixed system any more, the sort. His most eminent quality is one his critics citizen of the good state will do his best not to have often denied him-consistency. Interde- be a n actor on the world stage. Should the pendence, the result of our proliferating needs whole planet be covered with small, essentially and wants, is evil whenever it engenders de- self-sufficient republics, endowed with civic pendence. Independence, once society appears, pride but no national vanity and equipped with is possible for man only in the modern form, purely defensive militias, then the world would i.e.. not as isolation, but as autoncmy. But be a t peace ipso facto. A general society of manautonomy can be achieved only in small com- kind would emerge, composed not of "cosmomunities. So, if they are to avoid becoming the politans" or "~vorld citizens," but of good stakes or the tools of others, they will have to citizens, who would have discovered the modbe as self-sufficient as possible. They must aim ern, or social, equivalent of natural man's a t an autarkv which, as Iring Fetscher has amour de soi and pity, by curbing amourshown, is as different from the pre-belligerent propre, overcoming those passions which autarky of Nazism as patriotism is different "speak louder than (their) conscience,"" and from aggressive nationalism.88 I n the original practicing patriotism without belligerency. state of nature, man, whoenjoyed the ''absolute However, this "general society" would not existence" of an "absolute whole,"89 was both entail a "real union," i.e , formal links between independent and self-sufficient; in the ideal its member natlons, just as there was no real society, his former independence is transmuted union between men in the original state of into autonomy, while independence and an- nature. Indeed, the two situations are clearly tarky have become the attributes of the state. parallel. The state of nature was a state of Indeed, only if the state is an "absolute whole" independent men who followed, in their rare can the citizen be autonomous. Otherwise, the encounters, the dictates of the (non-rational) tyranny of norld competition will rule the natural law of self-preservation and pity; the state, and the citizen then can be neither free ideal international society would be composed nor virtuous. "The nation will not be famous, of pearls juxtaposed but not on a string. indebut it will be happy. Others will not mention it. pendent states that would observe, in their I t ill have little prestige outside. But i t will infrequent and relaxed contacts, the commands have abundance, peace and freedom ~ i t h i n . " ~ Q of "rational natural law," which are nothing Abundance here means the welfare that accrues but the rules of (original) natural law reestabfrom the citizens' work, not from private lished, by reason, on new foundations.g4Thanks wealth." Rousseau's distrust of commerce and to the self-sufficiency of the states, our natural finance runs through the Social Contract, the reluctance to inflict harm (i.e., our sense of second Discourse, and the Project for Corsica: pity) would no longer be smothered by our fear Thereas only through the the Corsicans are invited to be a pastoral of being ha~-med.~s nation, for in agricultural self-sufficiency lies social contract can men both escape from their fallen state of nature and also fulfill their moral 87 Ibid., pp. 346-7, and the remarkable passage development, i t is now clear why there is no in Vaughan, I, 320: "in all that depends on need to envisage a similar compact among human labor, one must carefully rule out machines states founded on the contract's formula. ant1 inventions capable of making work shorter, Thus the solution to the problem of war and of reducing the amount of manpower needed, and peace, in Rousseau's mind, is really a "second of producing the same results with less effort." image" solution: establish ideal states all over Op. cit., pp. 241 ff. the world, and peace will follon-mithout the 8g Vaughan, 11, 145. need for a world league ti la Kant. And it is also Ibid., pp. 353. g1 Ibid., p. 330: "everybody must live and nog2 Ibid., p. 311. 93 Vaughan, I, 452. body must get rich"; p. 322: "poverty became noticeable in Switzerland only after money had g4 Ibid., p. 138. 96 Ibid., p. 494. begun to circulate."

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a "first image" solution, because in the ideal told us that states obey legal rules only as long state man's nature is rescued from the despond- as they believe they have an interest in obeying ency of mixed systems, and man is again a t t h ~ m . ~And 8 the latter formula-confederapeace r ~ i t h himself. Here m-e are very far from tions-does not put a n end to folly: it merely contemporary schemes for world peace, and provides small states with a way of being wise very close to the Greek ideal of the primacy of among the I t tells them t o be hedgehogs domestic politics: the road to peace passes in the midst of insecurity. We can only specuthrough the ethical (small) state. late how long Rousseau thought such associaHo~vever, there is no guarantee that all states tions could be made to last; for his analysis of will ever be ideal, or capable of practicing the international competition leads to skepticism austere virtues of the frugal, self-sufficient about the solidity of the leagues he had in mind. nation. Some may continue to depend on others On the other hand, his principal ans~\-er-the for food or other supplies, and thereby risk ideal world of small, self-sufficient, self-centered becoming objects in the competition; others states governed by the general will-is a LLsolumay be so naturally wealthy as to excite the tion" to the problem of war only because i t is an envy of the "have nots." All the causes of evasion of politics. Here we find the most sericonflict, that is, may still be with us. Moreover, ous of the difficulties of enforcement to which I even if all princes have disappeared, we have no alluded earlier. Rousseau's ideal is utopian, in assurance that the general will in some state the first place, because i t can hardly be could not be corrupted, and superseded by a achieved as long as the whole world is not mere nil1 of all, which expresses nothing but covered with such communities. I n the second human passions, or by a particular will. So place, even if they had spread over the whole purely domestic reasons may also bring a return planet, they would remain what he wants them to international competition. Finally, when to be only on conditions hard to imagine. For, republics occasionally clash, the patriot's tend- in order not t o be dragged again into the comency to be "harsh toward foreigners" may petition-in order not to be diverted from the once again overcome the "reluctance to inflict closed-circuit practice of patriotism into the h:xrm." I1or such eventualities, I believe, and open contest of ambition and vanity-the small not for the case of a world of peaceful, "general community ought to be not just self-sufficient mill" state?, Rousseau advocates confedera- but insulated. Should its citizens have more ti0ns.~6Those leagues are not the crowning of than accidental or occasional contacts with his theory, in the way in which Kant's league of foreigners, then the citizens may be tempted to states is the summit of mankind's grubby as- revert to the evil practice of "comparing oneself cent. As 111 ilIontescluieu's work, the confedera- in order to know oneself." Presumably the tions do not mark the end of conflict, but a ~ a ygeneral will-which is always right-will rein which a number of small states can get main unaffected by those contacts and comparitogether, without sacrificing sovereignty, for sons. However, the judgment which discloses defensive purposes in the world conflict. They the general will is not always enlightened.loO do not signal international sunshine; they pro- The broader the range of relations between vide a shelter against the storm. We are in the communities, the greater the peril of a resurlogic of peace-via-deterrence, rather than gence of a collective amour-propre a t the expeace-through-law. pense of the common good, and the risk of a Thus, Rousseau's ansm ers to the problem of rising tide of envy, fear, aggressiveness or peace can be divided into t n o. On the one hand, greed that may corrode the general will. If the a world not composed exclusively of ideal states outside world is not to become the crack in the admits of only two ways of mitigating conflict: domestic synthesis of freedom and authority, one, the observance by the contenders of those then the world must remain a distant and very "true principles of the law of war," which he lightly pressing reality. O t h e r ~ ~ i sthe e , citizen's opposes t o Grotius's precepts, and which are autonomy mill be threatened. These conditions are met only exceptionally, based on the postulate that war is a contest between states but not men.97 The other way is and never on a sufficient scale to abolish the the confederation. But the former is obviously "state of war." Not every community can be an too fragile to be effective: Rousseau himself island, and even Corsica got into trouble. American isolation in the 19th century would 96 Here, again, he has learned much from RIontesquieu: L'Esprit des Lois, Bk. IX, chs. On this point, see Windenberger, op. cit., pp. 1-3. On Rousseau's confederat,ions, see Vaughan's 143-4. 9 9 Vaughan, 1, 387; 11, 158. discussion, I, 95 ff. g 7 Vaughan, 11, 159. l o oVaughan, 11, 50.

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33 1

be a partial example. However, even then, the the growth of the induced desires that indusUnited States found itself in contact with trial society engenders. Paradoxically, Rousseau, who recognized others, to the north and the south, and lessons may be learned from t h a t experience. First, that man could never revert to the state of IT-hena nation puts into practice the teachings nature, advocates for states a return to an of Rousseau about patriotism and national isolation which the march of history had proved character, in a context not of isolation but of impossible long before he wrote. Hut the paraintercourse ~ ~ i other t h nations, the thin line dox is more apparent than real, for he reeogbetween patriotism and nationalism tends to nized also that most of the states of his day vanish despite Rousseau's intent. The general mere too corrupt ever to be capable of applj~ing ~T-iil itself becomes corrupted, and the national the principles of the Social Contract: only a few institutions, however closely patterned after small nations could still be saved-obviously those Rousseau wanted, may be diverted not enough to make universal peace possible.lo2 toward the quest for all those stakes that It follows that if that peace is obtainable only princes traditionally pursued. The competition on Rousseau's conditions, we are condemned t o between thc citizens for patriotic disticctions the competition he has so searchingly described. can all too easily turn into a competition in The question arising from this depressing conxenophobia. TT7henever this happens, Rous- clusion is whether peace can not be reached, seau's ideal is perverted in a particularly ugly despite Rousseau, in our world if in utopia. way. For when the state is the expression of the Here we must turn, briefly, to Kant. general nill, and not just the secular arm of a tyrant or prince, then Rousseau's formula Both Rousseau and Kant identify peace and about wars being waged among states, not among peoples, and affecting individuals neither morality; both consider that the man who lisas men nor even as citizens but only as soldiers, tens to the imperative of morality within him loses its point.lol TTThen the states are the must want peace, and that the good community peoples, when all the citizens are soldiers, wars shuns n.ar.lo3 Howerer, a sharp difference in come close to that evil from which Hobbes their conceptions of man's nature and of society's role explains the different outconles of hoped the state XI-ould shelter the peopleshocks in which whole populations are t h r o ~ ~ n their separate quests for peace. The battle beagainst each other. Total war instead of com- tween man's selfish desires and his moral in?pl(3te peace; a general nill nhich is always right perative is described by Rousseau as a conseI~erause i t is national, instead of rational: quence of society, which is responsible for the Rousseau IT-ould have been aghast a t such a former and in which the latter emerges. But perversion. He wanted the ideal of the general Kant sees this battle as a permanent feature of will realized in a context of isolation, but events man: the moral imperative is already a t work have decreed otherwise. Self-government and in the state of nature; i t is that very imperative self-determination spread in a context of inter- n~hichcreates a duty to get out of the state of national conflict. nature; for-like Hobbes and in opposition to Second, not only has the historival context Rousseau-IZant thinks t h a t precisely because thwarted the ideal, but the evolution of the of those selfish desires the state of nature is a world economy and of conlmunications has state of war. Consequently, society, which is the cause of a made the nations ever more interdependent and inrreasingly eager to join the race for wealth. fall for Rousseau's man, since i t frustrates and The modern world has repudiated Rousscau's perverts the very moral sense i t brings forth in ideal of the rommunity pleased with its frugal- him, is seen by Kant on the contrary as a condiity, proud of its austerity, hostile to machines tion of moral progress, since i t is the prerequiand division of labor, opposed to big cities or site to the establishment of law and to moral feverish social mobility. If nations want to be action, the obstacles to which i t is the function self-sufficient, i t is only in the sense of having of law to remove. But if society causes no fall, an economy balanced enough to withstand lo2 Oeuvres, IX,287;Vaughan, 11, 146. external shocks; but this implies a domestic lea On Kant's philosophy of peace, see C. J. expansion of production and wealth. Today's new nations behave as if there existed an inter- Friedrich, Inevitable Peace (Cambridge, 19-18), national obligation to furnish aid for develop- and Pierre Hassner's admirable study, "Les Conment-an obligation which incrcascs mutual cepts de guerre et de paix chez Kant," Revue dependence, and leads to a more frantic pace in Franfaise de Science Politique, Vol. 11 (Sept. 1961). I have followed here 1 I . EIassner's demonstration.

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a reform of society cannot bring redemption, either. I n the ideal society of the Social Contract, man succeeds in subordinating his particular interests to the general will; thus, authority and freedom are reconciled, and the drama of man's moral division, the battle between the lower and the higher self, comes to an end; the political and the moral problems are solved together. For Kant, the best society is not the one which makes man behave morally, it is the one in which man is most free to behare morally if he wants to. If world peace presupposes republican states, it is because they are least lil~elyto be bellicose. But, on the one hand, Kant's conception of constitutional government is less demanding than Rousseau's: i t is almost the opposition between the open and the closed society; and on the other hand, the establishment of republics all over the world does not eliminate the problem of war, in the way in which a world of "general will" communities would abolish it for Rousseau: man's evil propensities may still prevail. Hence the need for additional legal guarantees to make eternal peace less shaky, in the absence of the world republic that Iiant rejects. So, m-hereas Rousseau's solution to the problem of war was in the establishn~ent of the good society, Iiant, \vho found the root of war in man's nature, not in society's "denaturation" of man, could not halt, so to speak, the imperative of peace with the setting up of ideal states. Hence the league for eternal peace, which Kant's philosophy required. However, because man remains free either to heed the categorical imperative or to follow his selfish drives, Kant's peace plan would merely have set up a desirable goal, had it not been accompanied by a philosophy of history which turned this moral end into an historical terminus. Hence the paradoxical co~lception of world peace achieved, not because of man's moral progress, but despite man's moral failings, and brought about, not by man's deliberate efforts, but by a hidden plan of nature that relies on two highly non-moral factors: catastrophes, and the convergence of selfish interests. Both are supposed to lead the nations to harmony through interdependence-the very opposite of Rousseau's ideal. Roussenu's empirical theory contradicts in advance the main assumptions of Kant's system. Concerning the league of republican states, Rcusseau pointed out the major difference bet~vcen law within each of those statesa lam- backed by the force of the citizens-and law bet~vcenthem-a law whose strength depends on the plausibility of an end to conflict and competition, rather than the other way

around. Rousseau's argument, as we have seen, is t h a t such an end is possible only as long as coiltacts between the states are limited-in nhich case no such law would be necessary. Should these contacts be intense- and intensity is precisely w l ~ a t Kant's philosophy of history counts upon-then the league itself will become an arena and a stake for conflicting ambitions. One international development of the past twelve years may serve as a test of those respective doctrines. Is not the TTestern European Community which has gronn since 1950 an example of a leaguc of states with similar constitutional regimes, having established among them %hat a modern writer has called a "security bccause of the lessons of two disastrous world wars and because of the convergence of particular interests, especially in matters of trade and production? Ernst Haas's fine analysis of the uniting of Europe has shown t h a t i t is preciselythrough this convergence of interests, ~vhichhave fastencd upon the common institutions Europeans have erected, that the European communities have expanded.l06 Does Kant's philosophy of politics and history thus provide a better guide to peace than Rousseau's rejection of any philosophy of progress, and his apparent conviction that nations have only the choice between abolishing foreign policy or doing their best to survive in the competition? I doubt that the Western European experiment would have dispelled Rousseau's gloom. First, he would have thought the nature of the enterprise much closer to his idea of a confederation against "unjust aggressors,"16 than to the federal ideal of many present-day optimists. On most matters that affect the vitalinterests of the participants, supranationality fades away, and decisions have to be reached in a very traditional manner.17 The legislative powers of the Common Assembly are nil, and the enforcing powers of the European civil servants remain sharply limited. T o be sure, such a confederation suspends the use of force among the members. However, the reason why such an oasis of peace can bloom is
lo4 See Karl Deutsch et al., Political Communzty and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, 1957). lo5 The Uniting of Europe (Stanford, 1958); "The Challenge of Regionalism," International Organization, Vol. 12 (Autumn, 1958). l o 6 Vaughan, 11, 158. lo7See, for instance, what happened during the coal crisis of 1959, and in the negotiations on a common agricultural policy and on the admission of Great Britain.

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not that worltl peace is getting nearer, but t h a t an external danger has brought threatened nations together. ?'here is a shift in the alignments within a continuing "sta.te of war": no less, but no more; and in the relations among the confederates (due to the very persistence of this state), considerations of prestige and calculations of power count as much as cooperation for peace. The politics of the participants display enough jockeying for leadership, enough disagreements on purposes, functions and institutions, enougli divergent estimates of the "common interest" to make Rousseau's pessimistic analysis relevant.108 A defensive external common purpose does not eliminate internal rivalries which the international competition in general, and the clash of amourspropres in close contact, perpetuate. Second, the forces that have brought about the confederation are not unmixed blessings. Rousseau IT-as dubious about the value of harmony forged out of catastrophes. He might have pointcd out that all the gains Europeans have made do not quite erase the political collapse of Europe t,hrough world wars, or eliminate Europe's dependence on America for military security. He was dubious, too, about the contribution of selfish and commercial interests to peace. I-Ie would have noticed t h a t the very prospects of wealth and power-which attract men1l)ers (and applicants) to the European community-also turn so successful an enterprise into an added cause of tension and fear in world politics as a n-hole. Those who are left out rcscnt their exclusion. Those who want to come in pl.ciduce splits among those who are in. Outsiders protest about discrimination. Insiders warn against dilution. After all, military conflict was only one aspect of the "state of warJ' as Rousseau defined it. He saw greed as a major source of trouble, quite capable of causing states to want to weaken one another-an intention w!~ich is the essence of the "state of war." Whoever studies conten~porary international relations cannot avoid hearing, behind the clash of interests and ideologies, a kind of pcxrmanent dialogue between Rousseau and Iiant. Kant has put forward an ideal of international organization for peace, which does indeed correspond to the categorical imperative of autonomy that survives in man's heart; for tliir imperative will be frustrated as long as war prevents man from being his own master. Kant's philosophy, far from displaying the easy
lo8

optimism and the depreciation of conflict into which later liberals fell, draws thc picture of a world dragged into ppace by conflict and by greed; and if the hope of progress is a duty which the imperative of autonomy imposes on progrc,ss is a major us, the expectation of l i n ~ a r fallacy. Roussrau tells us, however, that the very intercourse of nations breeds conflict; that if i t is not possible to put an end to such intercourse, the only "remediesJ' are fragile mitipating devices; that it is not enougli to try to suppress violence, which is the mere outcon~eof drives that are the essence of international politics--a point which contemporary writers (or intcrnational organizations) tend to forget, in their fascination with the nuclear monster. He reminds us that there can be no assurance that each nation will be able to remain its own master, for the competition may always become the overriding tyrant. Just as there is no real middle ground between the general will's austere democracy and "le hobbisme le plus p ~ r f a i t , ~so " ~there ~ is no lasting shelter between the state of war and the utopia of isolated communities: there are merely differences of degree in the intensity of the struggle. Citizens are thus condemned to remain in a systi.me mi.rte which threatens permanently the reconciliation of law and force which the Social Contract tries to accon~plish. The statesman's difficulty is that he must play the game of the international competition, from which he can escape only exccptionnlly, and a t the same time he ought not to lose sight of Kant's ideal. He ought not to give up the hope of a future world community, but he cannot act as if it already existed. Thus his task comes a t least as close to squaring a circle as the job Rousseau had set for himself in the Social Contract: how to fight for the particular interest of the nation in such a n a y as not to jeopardize the eventual reconciliation of state interests, without which no "international community" could ever emerge. Only when the statesman succeeds in this is the tyranny of world conflict alleviated for the citizen. Rousseau's contribution is in the nature not of a solution, but of a warning: total success cannot take the form of a world Leviathan, which would be either artificial or arbitrary; and although total success requires, in Rousscau's vision, a world which the evolution of history has ruled out, nothing short of total success can be more than a temporary relicf from that plague which, as in Camus's Oran, may a t any time wake up its rats and send then1 to die in a happy city.
19

Comptlre bron, op. cit., pp. 729 ff.

Vaughan, 11, 161.

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The Pole of Power and the Pole of Indifference Arnold Wolfers World Politics, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Oct., 1951), pp. 39-63.
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