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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Two ancient symbols—public opinion and the middle class— have nearly always been associated in some degree. Public opinion has stood, first of all, for participation in the government of a society. Such participation has raised the issue of the quality of opinion or the quality of the participation in the government of res populi. From the time of the Greeks at least, the middle class has been regarded by certain conservatives, or let us say, Aristotelians, as having moderate, intelligent, and balanced opinion.
Though public opinion and the middle class idea have been often associated, they have each had different and divergent lines of emergence; different theoretical problems have been presented, and some of this development is to be outlined here. Yet at the tense moments of the eighteenth-century revolution, the French Revolution and its children, they were joined together in close doctrinal union at the height of an historical crisis.
1 Bagehot, Walter, Literary Studies (Everyman's Library, 1911), Vol. I, p. 331.Google Scholar See also Cortés, Juan Donoso, Obras Completas, ed. Juretschke, J. (2 vols., Madrid, 1946)Google Scholar, for Donoso's letters from Paris.
2 Charles A. Micaud has spoken of the sense of guilt of the French intellectuals: “The guilt of the intellectual … is first the product of the intellectual's belief that he is a bourgeois by origin and way of life. He must atone for this original sin. He has economic and cultural privileges for which he must be forgiven.” See “French Intellectuals and Communism,” Social Research, XXI (Autumn, 1954), 290.Google Scholar
3 English writers contributed the word “radical” to the political vocabulary; “liberal” originated in Spain, it seems, around 1812, and spread rapidly to Western Europe. “Conservatism” was contributed by the French through Chateaubriand around 1818. “Socialism,” “communism,” as well as other words of this sort, are likewise French contributions. See Bastide, G., “Notes sur les Origines Anglaises de Notre Vocabulaire Politique,” Revue des Sciences Politiques, 58 (1935), 524ffGoogle Scholar; Bestor, Arthur E., “The Evolution of the Socialist Vocabulary,” Journal of the History of Ideas, IX (1948), 259ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Hill, R. L., Toryism and the People (1929), 36Google Scholar, notes that between 1832–1846 the extra-parliamentary political association in England succeeded in mobilizing and regimenting public opinion. As public opinion thus became effective, the possibilities of the political campaign were realized. The reformers at the time of the Reform Bill in 1832 believed in universal suffrage, and to them middle class rule had become the rational ideal. Even James Mill, that great believer in the rationality of man, had contempt for popular movements. See Mill, to Brougham, , in Bain, Alexander, John Stuart Mill (1882), 363–364.Google Scholar Robert Owen put some of his faith, as expressed in The Crisis, in the new public opinion that was arising in the world. On the influence of public opinion during the early nineteenth century, see Knight, Melvin M., “Liquidating Our War Illusions,” Journal of International Relations, XII (1922), 485ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Grampf, William D., “On the Politics of the Classical Economists,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXII (1948), 714ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 See Halévy, Elie, The Growth of Philosophic RadicalismGoogle Scholar, trans, by Morris, Mary (1928), 122ff.Google Scholar, who stresses Cartwright, John's Take Your Choice (1776).Google Scholar One may, of course, cite the various reform movements of the time in this connection, such as Spence's agrarian communism, Howard's prison reform movement, Wilberforce's criticism of slavery, and Robert Owen's proposals for the reorganization of human nature and economic society. It was significant, then, that by 1817 Bentham espoused the cause of parliamentary democracy in his Plan for Parliamentary Reform. Bentham favored, with the Radicals in general, universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and election by ballot. Bentham wanted secrecy, universality, equality, and annuality of the suffrage.
It is fairly clear that Bentham turned to democracy after he had discovered the existing ruling class was unwilling to accept his proposals for reform. In his Constitutional Code, Bentham wanted an omnicompetent legislature, with no bill of rights, since, if we have the sovereignty of public opinion, nothing should be regarded as definitive. A bill of rights is conservative, and it is against the reforming spirit. He rejected, of course, the idea of a mixed state and the separation of powers.
On the other hand, the pages of Blackwood's Magazine from the period immediately after the fall of Napoleon to far into the nineteenth century demonstrate the conservative fear of the new power of public opinion. Rationality was not the primary quality of the masses, and yet the Tories were called on to pay more attention to the power of opinion in politics. Isaac Disraeli praised the ability of Elizabeth I in guiding public opinion. “This was the time of first beginning in the art of guiding public opinion. Ample volumes, like those of Fox, powerful organs of the feelings of the people were given them…. In the revelations of the Verulamian philosophy, it was a favourite axiom with its founder, that we subdue Nature by yielding to her.” See Disraeli, Isaac, Amenities of LiteratureGoogle Scholar, new ed. by his Disraeli, son Benjamin (1867), 376, 380.Google Scholar
7 Mackinnon, William A., On the Rise, Progress and Present State of Public Opinion in Great Britain and Other Parts of the World (2nd ed., 1928)Google Scholar, passim.
8 Ibid., 15.
9 The similarity of these ideas to those of Tönnies, who found public opinion in the commercial and contractual Gesellschaft may be readily noted.
10 Mill, J. S., Autobiography (1873), Ch. IV.Google Scholar
11 On Liberty, Ch. iii; Dissertations and Discussions, II, 269Google Scholar, “The Claims of Labor.”
12 See A. D. Lindsay's introduction to the Everyman edition of Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Government, xviii–xix.Google Scholar
13 See the author's article, “James Bryce on Public Opinion: Fifty Years Later,” The Public Opinion Quarterly, III (1939), 420–435.Google Scholar
14 See Cicero, , De OfficiisGoogle Scholar, trans, by Miller, Walter (1913), I, xl, 142ffGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of “moderation.” Moderation and temperance are frequently discussed by Cicero.
15 Kirk, Russell, The Conservative Mind (1953), 6, 18, 33.Google Scholar
16 Cicero, , De Officiis, I, xlii, 150ffGoogle Scholar; I, xlv, 155. T. R. Malthus may be cited as one who was both friendly and critical of the middle class. He was critical, for example, of merchants and industrialists. See Simons, Richard B., “T. R. Malthus on British Society,” Journal of the History of Ideas, XVI (01, 1955), 64–65.Google Scholar To argue that the middle class should “rule” society is, no doubt, as fallacious as arguing that the working class should be sovereign. A conservative doctrine finds a place for both, and extends to both a share in political power.
17 See Sánchez-Barba, Mario Hernández, “Los Fundamentos Sociológicos del Imperialismo Histórico Británico (1765–1786), Revista de Estudios Politicos, No. 76 (07–08, 1954), 61–113.Google Scholar
18 de Jouvenel, Bertrand, The Ethics of Redistribution (1951).Google Scholar
19 See by way of further analysis, Sauvy, Alfred, “On the Relation Between Domination and the Numbers of Men,” Diogenes, No. 3, Summer, 1953, pp. 31ff.Google Scholar
20 See Cole, G. D. H., A History of Socialist Thought (2 vols., 1953–1954)Google Scholar, passim.
21 Of course, the idea of material progress is still central in liberal thought. When Henry R. Luce spoke at the fortieth anniversary dinner of the New Republic in Washington, D. C., 11 17, 1954Google Scholar, he said, among other things: “One thing clearly foreseeable in the future of the Republic of the human race is an immense increase in the world's wealth and standard of living. Even to call it an Age of Plenty may soon seem old-fashioned. Could there be any such thing as the Age of Too Much? …. As for the rest of the world, most of it is a wretchedly poor place; yet it surely cannot escape the prospering impact of an American Age of Plenty.” Reprint from the New Republic, 12 6, 1954.Google Scholar
22 Mills, C. Wright, White Collar (1951).Google Scholar
23 See Mayer, J. P., Alexis de TocquevilleGoogle Scholar, trans, by Bozman, M. M. and Hahn, C. (1940), 14, 134ff.Google Scholar Tocqueville's judgment on the French middle class was expressed most forcefully in the early pages of the Souvenirs. One of the elements in the prophetic quality of Tocqueville's mind was that as a conservative he could yet reject the middle class. Here is the source of fruitful conservatism.