(Note: I recommend you read the essay on which this commentary is based first: http://thinkingabouthumansociety.blogspot.ca/2013/08/spotlight-communitarian-political.html)
The Italian
Renaissance, specifically its Florentine manifestation, is a period of history
that is, for many good reasons, typically portrayed in a very positive light by
historians. Immortal works of art and architecture were produced in this
period, and the period featured the (in most cases) salutary revival and
adaptation of many branches of ancient Greco-Roman culture. There is a danger,
though, that when a period of history is portrayed in a very positive light,
that positivity extends to almost all of its productions as well, which can
lead to sometimes uncritical praise of the cultural, literary, and political
works of the period. I do not intend to make that mistake here, as I will be
criticizing in many ways the political thought of Leonardo Bruni that I laid out
in my previous post.
I argued in
my essay that Leonardo Bruni’s political thought can be characterized
predominantly as civic nationalist/communitarian, a form of collectivist
political ideology. Any collectivist political ideology has three foundational
tasks to accomplish: 1. To define the favoured collective and justify that
choice. 2. To explain why the interests of individuals must be subordinated to
the supposed ‘interests of the collective’. 3. To explain why the chosen
collective has a special moral status, not shared by other, rival, collectives.
This is how I structured my descriptive essay about Bruni’s thought, so this is
how I will structure my critique of it.
1. Defining the Collective:
Nation-states,
‘social classes’, ethnic groups, religious groups, local geographical groups,
these have been some of the favourite collectives that various collectivist
political ideologies have been based on. Bruni’s favoured collective can be
defined as a cross between a modern nation-state and a local geographical group
collective, a supposedly ‘self-sufficient’ group of associated citizens
designated as a city, or polis. How
coherent is his definition of this collective and his justification for making
it supreme in his thought?
As noted in
the essay, while claiming that every good city was ‘self-sufficient’, and
claiming that Florence and her surrounding countryside were self-sufficient,
the fact is that Florence was not self-sufficient, but very dependent on the
wider European economy of the time. The wealth of the most prominent citizens
of Florence at the time, and the foundation of the city’s political power, was
international banking, trading, and wool clothing manufacture for the European
economy. Now, if bare self-sufficiency were Bruni’s only criteria, he could
have responded that if Florence and her countryside had been forced into
autarchy, the inhabitants still would have been able to sustain their lives,
though at a lower standard of living. But Bruni also claims that the city can
provide its inhabitants, without outside help, with a “good standard of living”
and that Florence is self-sufficient not just for “necessities”, but also for “luxuries”.
But this is simply not a true statement, an autarchic Florentine regional state
would not have enjoyed a “good standard of living” or “luxuries” by any stretch
of the imagination, thus Bruni’s claim about Florence is a fictitious one.
Bruni is
actually forced to make this fictitious claim about Florence’s economic
independence because of the nature of the political ideology he is trying to
formulate. If he had recognized that Florence was dependent on a wider European
economy for its prosperity, he would have been forced to espouse either
imperialism or a more universalistic form of morality. If Bruni had recognized
that his civic community was forced to trade with inhabitants from other parts
of Europe, either the civic community would have had to conquer and subjugate
these other parts of Europe to establish its economic independence, or economic
independence as an ideal would have had to be abandoned and a more
universalistic code of morality and conduct which facilitated peaceful exchange
with these other parts of Europe would have had to be recognized. The British
advocates of international free-trade in the 19th century tried the latter;
the government of Nazi Germany tried the former. Bruni, not wishing to discuss
either option, made fictitious claims about economic independence instead.
Thus, Bruni’s
definition of the supreme collective unit is not logically coherent, based as
it is on fictitious claims.
2. Collective over Individuals:
The
trickiest (and in my opinion, insurmountable) part of formulating a
collectivist ideology is to come up with a reason why the ‘interests’ of the
collective (whatever those are…) are more important than the total interests of
the individuals who are members of the collective. As illustrated in my essay,
Bruni attempts to surmount this dilemma by arguing (by implication, in his
historical work) that the civic community and its laws are necessary to protect
the individual freedom of citizens from domestic and external aggression. This
being the case, in his political works, Bruni asserts that since happiness and
life itself are dependent on such civic communities, individuals should revere,
fight for, be taxed by, and even die for, their civic communities, their ‘native
lands’.
Now, if we
were to assume, for the sake of argument, that the arguments of the anarchists
are wrong, and that without States enjoying monopolies of the use of coercive
force over their territorial turfs, life would be nasty, brutish, and short for
individuals, there is something to Bruni’s argument. The problem with his
argument is that it involves an intellectual bait-and-switch maneuver. From the
plausible assertion that the lives and happiness of individuals depend on them
being organized into some kind of political collective, Bruni leaps to the
assertion that individuals owe undying loyalty and service to the particular
political collective they happen to be living under at the moment. But it is
the prime function of organized political collectives (the protection of the
life, liberty, and property of citizens in John Locke’s terminology) that Bruni
argues is necessary for the happiness of individual citizens, not the existence
of any particular political collective. And if this is the case, than the
political collective that fulfills that function best should be preferred, in
all cases, to political collectives who fulfill that function less well, or who
engage in aggression themselves against the life, liberty, and property of their
citizens. There is no particular reason why the political collective that
fulfills this function best should necessarily be a ‘city’, or even be based
out of the ‘native land’ of its citizens. Thus, if for instance an expansionist
Duke of Milan, or Holy Roman Emperor, or French King seemed likely to do a better
job at fulfilling the main function of political collectives at less cost in
taxation for Florentines than the Florentine Republic had been, Bruni’s calls
for Florentines to be taxed dry and to die in defense of the Republic would
have no logical backing.
Throughout
his political works, Bruni is more intent on telling Florentines what they
should do for their country, rather than on telling them what their country is
doing for them (to use the language of JFK). But this contradicts the nature of
the political collective that Bruni himself identifies as a means to the end of
individual happiness. It reverses it and implies that the ‘well-being’ of the
political collective is really the end to be pursued, and the lives and fortunes
of individuals are merely means for the pursuit of this end. But no
collectivist, including Bruni, has ever logically established why this should
be the case.
3. Favoured Collective over Other Collectives:
Another
major problem with collectivist ideologies is that they often call for actions
which favour one collective over other collectives. To do so convincingly, they
must come up with reasons why their favoured collectives should take precedence
over other, competing collectives. Take a common collectivist policy:
protectionism. A common argument for protectionism is that Country A should
develop certain advanced industries but cannot under the competitive pressure of
these same industries which have been established for a long time in Country B.
Hence, tariffs barriers should be set in place to prevent the industries of
Country B from out-competing the newly-emerging industries of Country A.
If such policies were universalized
and adopted by all countries though, then the result would be a duplicate of
all the ‘desirable industries’ in every country and a partial disintegration of
the productivity-improving international division of labor. Producers would be
frustrated at the limited extent of their markets, with most international
markets off-limits due to protectionist tariff barriers. In the worst case,
frustrated by their inability to exchange for much-needed products of other
countries, aggressive imperialistic expansion to ‘solve’ these problems might
be resorted to by countries with poorer natural resources (Nazi Germany, in a
world that was becoming increasingly protectionist, leaps to mind as a
real-world example of this phenomenon). Policies that seem to advance the
interests of the thinker’s favoured political collective, if adopted by other
political collectives, become spreaders of misery on a large scale. The lack of
norms of conduct capable of being effectively universalized becomes a serious
problem.
Does Bruni
provide a good explanation for why his favoured political collective should
take precedence over other political collectives? Besides praising the lineage,
the cultural achievements, and the foreign policy record of the Florentine
Republic, Bruni offers no real explanation. He basically just assumes that it
should be self-evident, especially to Florentines. Parochialism and national
chauvinism are not good reasons, in my opinion, for holding tenets of political
thought though.
Thus,
despite his cultural and literary achievements, skills as an orator, and
relatively good tenure as Chancellor of the Florentine Republic, Leonardo Bruni’s
political thought is unsatisfactory in many regards. While we may marvel at
other products of the Italian Renaissance such as Michelangelo’s exquisite
sculptures, Leonardo Bruni’s political thought should not be considered a
marvel of that period.
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