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Review Article: Democracy Unretrieved, or the Political Theory of Professor Macpherson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

John Dunn
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British Journal of Political Science , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , October 1974 , pp. 489 - 499
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

1 Macpherson, C. B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 1.Google Scholar

2 The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (1962); The Real World of Democracy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966);Google ScholarDemocratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).Google Scholar

3 The earliest of the essays printed in Democratic Theory was first published in 1945.

4 Possessive Individualism, pp. 276–7. This theme appears to have been replaced in his subsequent writings by the prospective transcendence of scarcity.

5 See for example Lichtheim, George, The Concept of Ideology and Other Essays (New York: Vintage, 1967), pp. 152–8Google Scholar, and the very appreciative review of the French translation of Possessive Individualism (Paris: Gallimard, 1971) in Les Etudes Philosophiques, 1973, pp. 96–9.Google Scholar For more critical views see Berlin, Sir Isaiah, ‘Hobbes, Locke and Professor Macpherson’, The Political Quarterly, XXXV (1964), 444–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Vinėr, Jacob, ‘ "Possessive Individualism” as Original Sin’, Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXIX (1963), 548–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar (and subsequent controversy with Macpherson, pp. 559–66).

6 For a more historical attempt to identify the relationship between Hobbes's values and the social relations of seventeenth-century England, see Thomas, Keith, is ‘The Social Origins of Hobbes's Political Thought’, in Brown, K. C., ed., Hobbes Studies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965), pp. 185–236.Google Scholar For more historical accounts of the arguments reconstructed by Macpherson and more concrete explanations of why their authors should have advanced them, see (in the case of Hobbes) Goldsmith, M. M., Hobbes's Science of Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Skinner, Quentin, ‘The Ideological Context of Hobbes's Political Thought’, The Historical Journal, IX (1966), 286–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Conquest and Consent: Thomas Hobbes and the Engagement Controversy’, in Aylmer, G. E., ed., The Interregnum; The Quest for Settlement 1646-1660 (London: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 79–98;Google ScholarPocock, J. G. A., Politics, Language and Time (London: Methuen, 1972)Google Scholar, Chap. 5.: (in the case of the Levellers), Thomas, Keith, ‘The Levellers and the Franchise’, in Aylmer, , ed., The Interregnum, pp. 57–78Google Scholar: (in the case of Harrington), Pocock, J. G. A., The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957)Google Scholar. Chap, VI; and Politics, Language and Time, Chap. 4; Pocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian Moment, Part III (Princeton University Press, forthcoming)Google Scholar and the extended introduction by Pocock, to the edition of Harrington's, Collected Works to be published by the Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar: (in the case of Locke) see Dunn, John, ‘Justice and the Interpretation of Locke's Political Theory’, Political Studies, XVI (1968), 68–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969)Google Scholar. For a careful account more sympathetic to Macpherson, see Ryan, A., ‘Locke and the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie’, Political Studies, XIII (1965), 219–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Possessive Individualism, pp. 35–46, 53–61. Cf. Hobbes, , De Cive, ed. Lamprecht, S. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949), pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

8 Even as a structural principle competitive malice is less tied to capitalism than the limits of Macpherson's model allow. For two examples of societies structurally organized on a principle of competitive malice which show no affection for individual consumption or greed see Mauss, Marcel, trans. Cunnison, I., The Gift (London: Cohen and West, 1954), pp. 35–6Google Scholar, and Campbell, J. K., Honour, Family and Patronage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), esp. 9, 39, 181, 204–7, 211, 230, 267, 300, 312–15 (a very Hobbesian account of the social meaning of laughter), 320.Google Scholar There are many societies with whose ideologies Hobbes's account of human psychology is, of course, incompatible. See most notably Dumont's, Louis account of Hindu society in Homo Hierarchicus (London: Paladin, 1972).Google Scholar

9 Cf. Possessive Individualism, esp. pp. 90–5.

10 Real World, Chap. 1.

11 Even in the case of James Mill this characterization is now in some dispute. See the controversy between Thomas, William and Carr, Wendell Robert in The Historical Journal, XII (1969), 249–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; XIV (1971), 553–80; XIV (1971), 735–50; XV (1972), 315–20.

12 In 1962 it was the menace of nuclear destruction which was at last to enable us to escape from the long nightmare of capitalist greed (see fn. 4 above). By 1965 this formidable threat had been supplanted by peaceful coexistence and the aftermath of decolonization, the struggle for the hearts and minds of the Third World, a struggle in which the West was seen as being prospectively crippled by its association with the moral contaminations of the market (Real World, passim, esp. pp. 65–7). This association was no longer imposed by material scarcity (Real World, pp. 62–4).

13 Democratic Theory, Chap. 1 and esp. Chap. 3.

14 ‘The postulate of the non-opposition of essentially human capacities may be too good to be true. But it is necessary to any fully democratic theory.’ (Democratic Theory, p. 55.) For the development of this point of view see pp. 55–76. One essentially human capacity which Macpherson would plainly not wish to maximize would be the capacity deliberately to inflict intense pain on other humans. This is a power which may involve both intellectual or physical prowess (ability) and work (labour power). It is also one which has been known to have its price even in societies where the market is officially regarded with great moral scorn – for example, in the spheres of sport (boxing) or social control (torture).

15 For a considerably more concrete and powerfully argued treatment of the lack of producer control over the means of production in both capitalist and state-socialist societies (and one which gives a more adequate account of the place of ownership in maintaining this) see Giddens, Anthony, The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies (London: Hutchinson, 1973).Google Scholar

16 Democratic Theory, pp. 14–16, 21–2.

17 Real World, Chap. 3.

18 Real World, pp. 24–5,60 and esp. 65: ‘They have rejected the market and have not lost but gained strength.’

19 There are a few brief comments on the possibilities of popular control in Real World, p. 18, 20–1. Participatory democracy receives some support in Democratic Theory, p. 62, and there is a discussion of the possibilities for protecting political freedom where there exists a government monopoly of employment in Democratic Theory, pp. 152–4. It is possible that Macpherson's apparent lack of interest in this issue (‘The serious difficulty about a democratic society is not how to run it but how to reach it’, Democratic Theory, p. 74, my italics; it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.) is connected with his readiness to consider the distinction between government by and government for the people as a relatively minor one within democratic theory. (See Real World, p. 5,16–22 etc. and especially p. 19 with the explicit parallels between Plato and Lenin.) For a corrective to the view that democracy in the ancient world meant indifferently government by or government for the demos see Finley, M. I., Democracy Ancient and Modem (London: Chatto and Windus, 1973).Google Scholar

20 Democratic Theory, Chaps. 4, 5, and 7.

21 Possessive Individualism, p. 158.

22 See e.g. Milenkovitch, Deborah D., Plan and Market in Yugoslav Economic Thought (New Haven: Yale University press, 1971)Google Scholar and Vanek, Jan, The Economics of Workers’ Management: a Yugoslav Case Study (London: Allen and Unwin, 1972).Google Scholar

23 Cf. Kidron, Michael, Western Capitalism since the War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968);Google ScholarGlyn, Andrew and Sutcliffe, Bob, British Capitalism, Workers and the Profits Squeeze (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972);Google ScholarYaffe, David S., ‘The Marxian Theory of Crisis, Capital and the State’, Economy and Society, II (1973), 186–232;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWarren, Bill, ‘Imperialism and Capitalist Industrialization’, New Left Review, 81 (1973), 3–44.Google Scholar

24 Cf. Democratic Theory, p. 16, 35–7 etc.