can power be humanized? the notions of elite and legitimation in istván bibó's political...

GÁBOR KOVÁCS

CAN POWER BE HUMANIZED?

The Notions of Elite and Legitimation in István Bibó’s PoliticalPhilosophy1

ABSTRACT. Istvan Bibó was the clandestine politological authority during thelate Kadar period, and was rediscovered after the fall of communism. The essayexamines and reconstructs the notions of elite and legitimation in Bibó’s politicalphilosophy. As a young thinker he confronted the value crisis between the twoworld wars. He was influenced by Oswald Spengler’s and Ortega y Gasset’stheories of elites. The essay analyses the similarities and differences in theirviews. In Bibó’s conceptual world, the theory of elites is connected with the issueof legitimation, because in his opinion the crisis of elites always results in a crisisof legitimation. Bibó’s analysis of elites, their social responsibilities as well as thetypes of legitimization are highly instructive for us since they help us rethink ourconceptions of the social roles of elites and political legitimation under conditionsof globalisation.

KEY WORDS: Istvan Bibó, value crisis, elites, sense of social responsibilities,types of legitimation, humanization of power

István Bibó (1911–1979) was one of Central Europe’s mostprofound thinkers in recent history. It is not an easy task to definehis field of interest. Was he a historian or a legal scientist, a polit-ical thinker, maybe a politician? He was all and none. In his earlyworks, he was interested mostly in legal sciences. Between 1935and 1944, he wrote a series of essays concerned with jurispru-dence. They predicted the direction in which he was to turn afterthe Second World War. In 1935 he published an essay entitledCoer-cion, Law and Liberty[Kényszer, jog, szabadság].2 In this work,the young legal scientist investigated the relation between the threefactors listed in the title. In his interpretation, coercion and liberty donot exclude one another. Moreover, they exist in a complementaryrelationship: coercion cannot eliminate or destroy liberty becausesomeone under very strict pressure or coerced to do something is notdeprived totally of a modicum of liberty. However, liberty is an inner

Studies in East European Thought51: 307–327, 1999.© 1999Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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experience, and a human being never loses the chance to choosebetween possibilities, not even under pressure. Law, according to thethought-train of this essay, is the “objectivation” of liberty and coer-cion at the same time. On the one hand, law is based onconsensuswithin the given society because the theoretical beginning of a law-system is unimaginable without a preliminary tacit recognition: onecannot survive unless some kind of social rules exist ensuring thepossibility of peaceful life. This train of thought is well-known fromnatural law theories, and this is not by chance since Bibó’s formerprofessors, Barna Horváth and Gyula Moór, had influenced him inthis field to a great extent. On the other hand, for Bibó right is asource of coercion because it necessitates the presence of a politicalpower, which creates law-abiding people.

We can distinguish a second phase in Bibó’s intellectual devel-opment on the basis of a long, well-researched essay written duringthe Second World War entitledOn European Balance and Peace[Azeurópai egyensúlyról és békéröl]. He finished this work in 1943–44,and we can regard it as a very important step in the evolution ofhis thought, because here he placed Central and Eastern-Europeandevelopment into an European framework providing in addition adetailed analysis of ‘political hysteria’.

The period after the war between 1945–48, prior to thecommunist regime, was the climax of his life both as a thinkerand as a politician. After the war, he joined the Peasants’ Party andworked in the Ministry of Interior as a clerk. During this period, hismost important essays wereThe Crisis of Hungarian Democracy[A magyar demokrácia válsága] (1945),The Distress of the EasternEuropean Small States[A kelet-európai kisállamok nyomorúsága](1946),The Jewish Question in Hungary After 1944[ZsidókérdésMagyarországon 1944 után] (1948) andDistorted Hungarian Char-acter, the Deadlocks of Hungarian History[Eltorzult magyar alkat,zsákutcás magyar történelem] (1948). Once, among friends and in aself-ironical and bitter mood, he jokingly said that when he dies, theinscription on his grave should be: “István Bibó lived from 1945 to1948.”

In 1949 the Hungarian Communist Party came to power. Duringthe communist era Bibó was prevented from publishing his works.He had to resign from his university tenure held at the University

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of Szeged. In 1956, in the coalition government of the Revolution,he held the position of state minister. For his activities during theRevolution the court of the Kádár regime sentenced him to lifeimprisonment in 1957. Thanks to the Amnesty of 1963 he wasreleased from prison. From 1963 until his death in 1979 he workedas a librarian in the Library of the Office of Statistics. In this ‘inneremigration’ he wrote some essays which we have to regard as veryimportant. These are:The Paralysis of International Institutionsand Remedies[A nemzetközi államközösség bénultsága és annakorvosságai] (1965–74) andReflections on the Social Developmentof Europe[Az európai társadalomfejlodés értelme] (1971).3 Untilhis death these works remained in manuscript.

In this paper, I would like to investigate two important issuesof the young Bibó’s writings, namely the notion of ‘elite’ and thequestion of legitimation.

I. THE NOTION OF ‘ELITE’ IN BIBÓ’S CONCEPTUAL WORLD

Reading Bibó’s works, including the short treatises from the begin-ning of his career as well as his mature works, it is obvious thatthroughout his life Bibó was interested in the problem of elites.The concept of elite was vitally important in the writings before theSecond World War, but we can detect this problem in his late workentitled Reflections on the Social Development of Europe(1971);although the older Bibó was inclined to use the term ‘sociallyorganizing intellectuals’ instead of the notion of elite.

Between the two world wars the concept of elite was fashion-able and widely used among European scholars and writers.4 Wecan mention thinkers such as Oswald Spengler and José Ortega yGasset or Arnold Toynbee. Bibó was not an exception to the rule.The question arises why was this issue so exciting and importantfor these thinkers? The answer is rather simple: the First WorldWar was a watershed in the history of European civilization. Thecommonly held social, moral, and political values were burned toashes ‘in the storm of blood and iron’. We know well that when thewar broke out not only the ‘common people’ but the intellectuals aswell were enthusiastic. But hopes failed and the war left only ruins.Pre-war enthusiasm changed into post-war disillusionment. Many

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thinkers thought that old familiar pre-war values would be replacedby repulsive values, which would endanger European civilization.José Ortega y Gasset found a very suggestive expression for thisfear in his famous bookThe Revolt of the Masses[La rebelion delas masas] (1931). However, this title described and summarizedall the fears of his period as well as an explicit opposition betweentwo ideas, that ofelite andmass. Naturally Ortega was not the onewho invented these notions, but he erected a consistent frame ofreference in which these terms occupied a central place. Ortega, inan early writing entitledSpain Lacking Backbone[España inverte-brada] (1921), applied his theory to Spanish history. He worked outa periodization according to the logic of his theory.

Ortega’s theoretical starting-point was the miserable condition ofSpain after the First World War. He contrasted this situation with theage of Philip II, when Spain had enjoyed the status of a major power.As Ortega stated that the cause of this collapse had been a lackof meritorious virtuous persons, he traced every social problem tothe question of elites. The values of rationalism and liberal democ-racy were questioned after the First World War and public opinionwas prone to accept irrational, mythological concepts, and it hada very strong disposition to qualify the idea of democracy as amere illusion. However, this was the age of so-calledphilosophiesof crisis. The first important representative of the ‘philosophy ofcrisis’ was Oswald Spengler who, in his famous and oft cited book,The Decline and Fall of the West[Untergang des Abendlandes](1918–22), foretold the collapse of Western civilization.

Spengler undeniably emphasized antimodernism.5 Despiteholding that a historian’s main task is to be an objective observer,in his own book he was not able to realize the noble idea of “sine iraet studio.” For him, civilization meant a kind of historic degeneracy.In the period of civilization, the opposition between themetropolisandprovinceappears. Spengler wrote on the lifestyle of the metro-polis in a disparaging manner, contrasting the tradition-preserving,ancient and pure moral values safeguarding the peasantry, with thoseof the parasitic, irresponsible and lustful city dwellers.6

In The Decline of the West, we can detect an archetype of elitetheories. All the essential features of these theories are present: theopposition between elites and masses, the presentation of history as


a process of degeneration; because civilization undoubtedly meantdegeneration for Spengler. The starting-point of degeneration in histheory is the decline of traditional elites, i.e. the nobility and theclergy.

Speaking about the biology of history, Ortega was Spengler’sdisciple. In his opinion, the masses deny their biological missionby turning their backs on the elites and refusing to follow theirinstructions. In his analysis, this disobedience results in the collapseof every social institution. Following Spengler Ortega interpretedcivilization as the second period of development. His classifica-tion of peoples, including the study on ‘fellah peoples’, followedSpengler as well.

The ‘fellah peoples’ in Ortega’s interpretation are peopleswithout elites. He worried that Spain was tending – in spite of thefact that Spain belonged to the family of Western ‘culture-creating’peoples – to move toward the ‘fellah peoples’ cul de sac. Theroots of Spanish misery were detected by Ortega in the SpanishMiddle Ages. He declared that Spain had not had genuine feudalism.Contrasting the Spanish Middle Ages with the French Middle Ages,he pointed out that during this period Spain lacked feudal nobility.Ortega traced the causes of Spanish backwardness to the absence ofmedieval elites. At this point in his train of thought he introduceda notion of race within his theory. According to him, the Visigoths,who had occupied the Iberian Peninsula and established a kingdom,had been a biologically old and tired people lacking a creative elite.Because the Visigoths were the ancestors of the Spanish – at leastin Ortega’s opinion – Spanish troubles originated from biologicalcauses.7 [That said, it is important to emphasize that neither Spen-gler nor Ortega was a racist thinker, and their theories were not racisttheories.]

Spengler’s method is based on analogies, some borrowed frombiology. Ortega’s biological allusions did not play a major rolein his philosophy. In fact, both of them can be characterized asconservative thinkers who took an antimodernistic point of view. Imentioned earlier the pejorative connotation of the idea of civili-zation in Spengler’s book. Now I must call attention to the factthat in hisSpain Lacking BackboneOrtega predicted the end ofmodernity, and from this prediction derived optimism in connec-

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tion with Spain’s future. How did he reason? According to him,modernity is a period appropriate to English, French, and in partGerman national traits, but not to Spanish ones. What are themain features of modernity in Ortega’s conceptual world? They arethe following:8 1. Rationality, 2. Democratism, 3. Industrialism, 4.Mechanization.

We cannot detect Ortega’s direct impact upon young István Bibó,but we have good reason to assume an indirect influence, namelythrough László Németh [1901–1975], the well-known Hungarianwriter who played a very significant role in Hungarian culture.László Németh founded a one-man literary journal, theTanú[Witness], in which he dealt not only with the problems of liter-ature, but also with issues of contemporary philosophy. In 1932–33,László Németh included ‘The diary of a critic’ in which he wrotea book review on Ortega’s bestsellerThe Revolt of the Masses.Here he reproduced the main line of Ortega’s book. First of all,László Németh was very enthusiastic about Ortega’s intellectualachievement, writing that Ortega had recognized the essence of theEuropean crisis. Németh agreed with Ortega that the real crisis wasnot economic, but was located elsewhere. The illness – continuedLászló Németh – was the revolt of the masses, which woulddestroy European culture.9 In Németh’s theory, the only escape frombarbarism is the creation of new elites, more precisely, in his terms,the ‘new nobility’.

In an interview, Bibó explained that László Németh’s theory ofelites convinced him until l935.10 It was not by chance that Bibó’swritings on the problem of the elites arose in the early forties.These wereMoney[A pénz] (1942),Elites and the Sense of SocialResponsibilities[Elit és szociális érzék] (1942), and a book-reviewon Karl Mannheim’s bookDiagnosis of our Timesfrom 1943. Wecannot forget that between the two world wars, Spain and Hungarywere in similar positions among the European states. Spain in the20th century had ceased to be a major power. The golden age,which the country had enjoyed under Philip II, was a half-forgottendream. Hungary after 1920, which had been grossly mutilated,losing two thirds of its territory and half of its population, knewa similar problem. The medieval Hungarian Kingdom had been aregional power in Eastern Europe and after 1867, as a consequence


of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, Hungary became the co-nation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which was undoubtedlya major European power. In 1896, the Hungarian nation celeb-rated the millennium of its founding; certain Hungarian politiciansdreamt of a Hungary with 30 million inhabitants. But after 1920,the great power dreams were replaced by bitter reality: Hungaryhad been diminished to a small country. This was as much a shockfor Hungary as it had been for Spain – the loss of its great powerstatus. Describing the situation in the terms of Immanuel Waller-stein’s school: both countries had lost their previous status in thesystem of the world-economy. Spain had sunk to the status of a half-periphery, Hungary had to face the danger of being relegated to theperiphery.

It must kept in mind that the analogy between Spain and Hungaryis only approximate: the differences between the two countries weregreater than the similarities. Still, the analogy in this case provedto be justifiable from many angles. This fact explains why Ortega’sideas were popular among Hungarian thinkers; his analysis couldjust as well have concerned Hungary. That was why László Némethgreeted Ortega’s intellectual achievement with great respect. Butnow we can raise the question: what have Ortega’s ideas to dowith Bibó’s theory of the social role of elites? The answer requiresa comparative study of their ideas. Ortega’sSpain Lacking Back-boneappeared in 1921 having been explicitly influenced by OswaldSpengler’sThe Decline and Fall of the West. At the beginning ofthe book, Ortega stated that every society was anorganism, and tocreate a nation two basic abilities were needed: will and the ability toimpose order.11 The notion of strength is very important in Ortega’sconceptual world. It involves not only a physical but also a spiritualability. In his interpretation, strength gives a nation a real chance torealize its future plans.12 For Ortega, these plans constitute the mostimportant socially cohesive factors in the life of a nation. A nationmust be orientated to the future, not to the past.

In attempting to describe the factors, which in his opinion wereindispensable for a well-functioning society, Ortega cited the rela-tionship between the ruling elites and the obedient masses. In hisopinion, nothing can characterize the conditions of a given societymore precisely than this.13 In Spain Lacking Backbonehe strongly

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emphasized that elite positions depended on the confidence of themasses, and not on the personal abilities of the elites. In other words,in his theory the elites are created by the masses. This happensbecause a society lacking a governing elite ceases to function.

This conception harmonizes with the young Bibó’s idea formu-lated inElites and the Sense of Social Responsibilities(1942). Hepointed out that we cannot find a society in the history of mankindlacking elites. The main task which elites have to face is to lead thesociety entrusted to their stewardship.14 But in this work, Bibó gavefurther details as to the duties of socially organizing elites: 1) to givea pattern to moral behaviour in different human situations, and 2) toenrich and refine human needs.15

Bibó, in his treatise, set out a diagnosis of crisis in Europeancivilization as did Ortega in his respective works. The most spectac-ular symptom, which always designates crisis in a given society, isthe collapse of self-confidence in the elites. The elites become tooshaky and intimidated – which in Bibó’s theory means the beginningof a social crisis. The elites certainly try to compensate for this shakyposition, but this endeavour results in some kind of overcompensa-tion. The main consequence of this process among the members ofthe ruling elites is their sense of being superfluous. And among otherdistinct social classes the idea of exploitation comes to the fore, theview that the elites are mere parasites sucking the blood of theirsociety. In other words, this attitude suggests that the elites exploitsociety. Young Bibó vehemently rejected this point of view. In hisElites and the Sense of Social Responsibilities, he explains that thesupreme good enjoyed by a society resides in well-functioning eliteswho do not exploit but serve society.16 So the privileges of the rulingelite are the consequences of their genuine social achievements. Butwhen the elites fail to fulfill their social duties, they become anexploitative social stratum.

In Bibó’s view, the well-functioning elites resemble Ortega’scharacterization. The elite consciously formulates urgent socialtasks and leads society to their realization. The crisis of Europeafter the First World War was presented by young Bibó as theconsequence of the fall of traditional European elites. Finally,in Bibó’s interpretation, this meant the wholesale crisis of theEuropean value-system. For him, European civilization as a whole


had come to a dead end. However, it should not be forgotten thatBibó was to later change his mind.

I turn now to a summary of another relevant writing by Bibóin the field of elite theory entitledMoney (1942). Here youngBibó presented a kind of antimodernism which was a characteristicfeature of this early writing. He drew a parallel between the modernmoney-based economy and the spread of quantitative evaluation.The modern age evaluates everything in numbers: a good exampleis the recording of sports’ achievements in numbers. Modernityhas created a one-dimensional world.17 But values are many-dimensional entities, and are deformed if forced into the frameworkof a one-dimensional world. Bibó mentioned, as a typical case, theinstitution of election in the modern world. This is an ancient insti-tution suitable to solving everyday problems in a given society butinherently incapable of deciding between different values. So youngBibó had doubts about the political system of modern democracybased on general suffrage. He evaluated modernity as the periodof a wholesale crisis in European social development. Somethinghad happened at the end of the Middle Ages resulting in the disin-tegration of a transcendentally oriented world-view. In the MiddleAges, a rigid society existed which determined the social posi-tion for every individual from his/her birth to his/her death. Socialmobility was at a very low level, but it was the price paid by anwell-organized society, in which a fixed value system ensured thateveryone performed the social duties associated with his/her socialposition.18

Undeniably, Medieval society could not ensure the individual’sliberties in the sense that we interpret them, but this was not exper-ienced as a deficiency. Every individual could calculate his/her wayof life, social ties were very strong, and alienation was unknown inthis period. The social elites, i.e. the feudal landlords, fulfilled theirsocial duties, protecting their country and ensuring the tranquilityof life for their serfs. These idealistic conditions fell apart at theend of the Middle Ages: the elites ceased to fulfill their duties, andthe peasants revolted against their lords, who had really becomean exploitative social stratum. Roughly speaking, this was youngBibó’s theory of the Middle Ages. In his interpretation, the waningof the Middle Ages was, first of all, exhibited in the collapse of two

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social strata, which had previously maintained the social order: theclergyand thenobility. The institution of the kingdom became shakyas well. The privileges, which had been ensured for the nobility inreturn for their fulfillment of social duties, were challenged by thelower social classes, i.e. the peasantry and the emerging bourgeoisie

So, at the outset of the modern period the bourgeoisie took overthe elite positions from the nobility and the clergy. But young Bibóevaluated these changes as a loss of values. In his opinion, thebourgeoisie could not replace the traditional values with new ones.In this text, Bibó identified thecitoyen with the bourgeois, andwrote deprecatingly about capitalism. According to his assessmentof modernization, it had distorted the commandment in the Bible[The parable of the talents, St. Matthew, 25.14–31] in the form of anavid moneymaking capitalist bourgeoisie. Thus, Bibó’s evaluationof the capitalist spirit is just the opposite of Max Weber’s.

Young Bibó’s opinion on the role of money in a capitalist societywas very similar to Spengler’s. The German thinker qualified therole of money as extremely harmful for social life. InThe Declineand Fall of the Westhe connected the money-based economy to theage of civilization. His main objection to money was that it reducesvalues to one-dimensional entities.19

However, it would be wrong to conclude that young Bibó was aconservative thinker definitely rejecting modernity with its achieve-ments, as Spengler and Ortega both did. InMoney, he rejectedthe claim that money is an evil in itself. On the contrary, hedeclared money is a miraculous tool for attaining heretofore unat-tained levels of human liberty. The value-crisis and the introductionof the money-based economy coincided, wrote Bibó, but moneyhad not been the cause of the crisis.20 In his book-review on KarlMannheim’sDiagnosis of Our Time, he distanced himself from theelite theories, and declared that a new value-system must be basedon values borrowed from different ideologies, including Christianityand liberalism.


II. THE PROBLEM OF LEGITIMATION IN BIBÓ’S CONCEPTUALWORLD

Legitimation was one of Bibó’s main concerns. In his theory, theideal society is based on mutually beneficial services among themembers of society, and social development is identical with dimin-ishing coercion and fear of coercion. But the first question residingbehind the problem of power concerns legitimation.

In 1934–35, Bibó spent an academic year in Geneva (thanks to ascholarship) working with Guglielmo Ferrero. Guglielmo Ferrerowas one of the most popular historians in the first decades of20th century. His books, especiallyThe Gamble: Bonaparte inItaly 1796–97[Aventure. Bonaparte en Italie 1796–97] (1936)TheReconstruction of Europe: Talleyrand and the Congress of Vienna1814–15[Reconstruction. Talleyrand a Vienne (1814–15)] (1940),andThe Principles of Power[Pouvoir. Les génies invisibles de lacité] (1940) greatly influenced the young scholar. In Bibó’s twomonumental worksOn European Balance and Power(1943–44) andThe Paralysis of International Institutions and Remedies(1965–74)we can detect the Italian historian’s influence.

European Balance and Powercan be considered a turning pointin Bibó’s intellectual career. In this work, he emerged as a mature,well-balanced thinker. Here, we no longer find the aristocratic elitetheory, so characteristic of the early writings. Given that this workwas written during the Second World War, the situation profoundlydetermined its subject. In advance of a presumed peace treaty Bibótried to outline the principles of good peace-making. He started fromtwo previous peace treaties, those of the Congress of Vienna andthe Peace Treaty of Versailles. In fact, these peace treaties werediametrically opposed to one other, at least if we evaluate them byconsidering their later consequences. The Peace Treaty of Vienna –at least in Ferrero’s and Bibó’s interpretation – was very successful,establishing a European order for long decades. Just the oppositewas the case with the peace Treaty of Versailles after the First WorldWar, because it sowed the seeds of a new world war.

I must point out that the earlier theory of elites is deeplyconnected to the issue of legitimation because the crisis of society-organizing elites always results in a crisis of legitimation. That waswhy the crisis in the late Middle Ages manifested itself as a crisis of

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legitimation. But we can rightly pose the question: how and whydid the concept of legitimation arise in history? Why did nakedforce prove unable to stabilize human societies? The answers tothese questions are the pillars sustaining Bibó’s theory. In his latework, The Paralysis of International Institutions and Remedies, heoutlined the problem in the following manner:

Social theorists have sought for centuries for a valid justification for the legitimacyof power, one that transcends mere fluctuating military supremacy or personaltyranny. Not surprisingly, the forms of organization, social structures, formu-lations of principles, and theoretical tenets connected with this problem havenot developed evenly or to the same degree in every culture. Often the politicalthought and social structure of very advanced cultures stagnated due to exposureto brutal oppression. Sometimes the great thinkers in a society ignore the politicaland social events of their time and concentrate on more spiritual and transcendentmatters. In two great cultures, the Greco-Roman and the Chinese, both rulers andruled defined the nature of power; and consequently, the masses who endured,supported or suspected the power elite were able to question it. Through this ideaof justifying and having to legitimize power, it became a decisive factor in thesetwo cultures and a force which deeply affected other societies. Sometimes theidea was used to justify existing power, at other times to provoke mass uprisings,transforming society through revolution. It is no historical chance that the mosteminent and profound political philosophers in Greece, Rome, and China werealso involved in practical politics.21

The theory of legitimation in Bibó’s political philosophy is deeplyimbued with Guglielmo Ferrero’s thoughts related to this problem.In 1921, Ferrero wrote a book entitledThe Ruin of Ancient Civilisa-tion [La ruine de la civilisation antique] (1918), in which he dealtwith the causes of the crisis of Antiquity. Ferrero identified thepolitical causes for this crisis, tracing the phenomenon of crisis totroubles with legitimation. He inquired after the grounds for legiti-mation in the Roman Empire. According to him, the Roman Senate,in terms of the ‘lex de imperio,’ legitimized the Roman emperors’powers.22 Certainly, on several occasions a new emperor took powerby force, but it became legitimate only after recognition by thesenate. Ferrero emphasized that this recognition was not formal butquite the opposite; however, in the eyes of his subjects it made theemperor’s power justifiable and legitimate. In other words, in theRoman Empire the principle of monarchism was tied to the prin-ciples of republicanism, more exactly to institutions of aristocraticrepublicanism, i.e., the senate legitimized the monarch’s power. This


kind of political power needed appropriately trained and culturedpolitical elites. When the Roman Empire was at its heights, theemperors consciously protected elites. This happened under FlaviusVespasianus (69–79) when the emperor enlarged the tired old senatearistocracy with provincial families. Thus, he renewed the sociallyorganizing elites.23

The murder of Septimius Severus (193–211) unleashed theendless hysteria of political violence in Roman society. Ferreroidentified the causes of this extremely harmful social phenomenonin the collapse of the senate institution. In the ensuing period,soldier-emperors ruled, but it was an era of endless violence.Most died violently, usually killed by their soldiers. For Ferrero,events such as these justified the conclusion that mere force cannotprovide peaceful conditions for society, in other words, that militaryforces cannot be a solid foundation for power. From this historicalexample, Ferrero concluded that “where power has the first word,it will have the last one, to the point where the inner strength ofthe given civilization will have run dry.”24 If force is used, it willdemolish all social institutions, making human life without fearimpossible.

The opposite of legitimation is usurpation, i.e. power which is notbacked by public conviction that it is justifiable power. In Ferrero’sopinion, among the causes in crisis for the Roman Empire, such asthe decline of civility and increasing barbarism, the political wasthe most important. In his investigation of social life, politics heldpride of place, an orientation detectable in Bibó’s social philos-ophy as well. Bibó denied economic determinism, as representedby vulgar Marxism and usually emphasizing the priority of politicsin the life of society. Social phenomena such as deadlocks andhysteria are usual troubles in political life. Ferrero did not concealthe parallel between the crisis of Antiquity and the crisis of moderntimes following the First World War. He declared that, after the war,the principles of legitimation had failed to fulfill their function. Hecited two principles, the principle of dynastic legitimation, and themodern principle of people’s sovereignty. In his opinion, dynasticlegitimation is an ancient principle, which sustained Europeanpolitical structures for over two thousand years. After the FrenchRevolution of 1789, this principle which emphasized the tran-

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scendent theory of power, declaring that power descends from God,was replaced by a new theory according to which political poweroriginated in the people, i.e. was based on citizens’ consensus.

Ferrero, in considering post-war developments, was very skep-tical about the future of popular sovereignty. He worried that Europewould sink into barbarism and dictatorship.25 He was terrified by thecollapse of political authorities in Central and Eastern Europe, andcomplained, that the idea of democratic legitimation had also beenquestioned in Western Europe.

In On European Balance and Peace, Bibó presented a verysimilar point of view in his analysis of European social develop-ment after the First World War. In a study entitledGerman PoliticalHysteria, he declared that the main cause of German post-warpolitical upheaval had been the crisis of legitimation. In practiceGermany suffered from the lack of a workable conception of legit-imation. The war had brought about the bankruptcy of the oldaristocratic German elites, but the dynastic idea of legitimation sanktogether with them. There were no new political elites capable offilling the political vacuum left by the war. The war and the Germanrevolution demolished the territorial principalities and the aristo-cratic social structures, which, though they had previously beenthe main obstacles to German social development, had also beenthe political authorities. They were not replaced with new, widelyaccepted political authorities.26 In Bibó’s interpretation, this processwas the main cause of German fascism. He definitely rejected thetheory of a deformed German ‘national character’, denying theexistence of any innate national traits.

I mentioned above that in Bibó’s philosophy the two great peaceagreements, namely the Vienna Peace Treaty of 1815 and theVersailles Peace Treaty in 1920, deeply influenced European devel-opment in the balance of power as well as in social development.In fact, here there are essential parallels between Bibó’s concep-tual world and Ferrero’s political philosophy. In other words, Bibótook over, transformed, and further developed his former professor’sthoughts.

The role of the French Revolution was very important in Bibó’sframe of reference, being closely connected to the problem of legiti-mation. He evaluated it in a double manner. On the one hand, the


revolution eliminated the exaggerated concentration of power inFrance, thus proving useful for French social development; on theother hand, it unleashed the endless stream of violence in Frenchsociety and in Europe, thus proving very harmful. The FrenchRevolution was imbued with social criticism; in Bibó’s philosophy itis an essentially European phenomenon. Unknown elsewhere, Chinais an exception. However, the French Revolution opened the way toterror as a means of solving social problems.

The French Revolution was, at the same time, the most and the least successfulrevolution in European history. Most successful because it made possible such athorough and rational re-organization of society as had never before been accom-plished by a revolution; least successful because it aroused so much fear thatthe Western World has not since recovered. What makes revolutionary violencejustifiable and legitimate? If we reconsider that every violent action and all hatredoriginate from the fearful, distorted state of a man’s mind, then we must reject thenotion that violence in and by itself has a liberating and creative effect, and thatcertain kinds of social progress simply cannot be imagined without violence.27

Moreover, this revolution created two types of deformed indi-viduals: the professional revolutionary who wants to solve everyproblem with revolution, without considering concrete social condi-tions, and the professional reactionary who wants to prevent revolu-tion at any cost. Besides these harmful phenomena, the FrenchRevolution contributed to other nations’ difficulties, in the first placeto German political hysteria. If we draw a parallel between Bibóand Ferrero, we find a striking resemblance between them. Ferreroassessed the French Revolution in a way similar to Bibó. First ofall, Ferrero inquired, “why were the consequences of the FrenchRevolution quite the opposite of those intended?” The revolution-aries wanted liberty but created tyranny. They wanted constitutionalmonarchy but condemned the king to death. They had declaredfraternity among nations but got involved in destructive wars withtheir neighbours.28 Ferrero gave a brief and very resolute answer.He declared that the Revolution was based on principles partly incontradiction with one another.29

In Ferrero’s theory, we find a distinction between two kinds ofrevolution, the constructive revolution(la révolution constructice)and the destructive revolution(la revolution destructice).30 Theconstructive revolution lasts for centuries giving new impetus tosociety. The destructive revolution is just the opposite, a brief

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and devastating phenomenon destroying the existing legitimationwith nothing to replace it. Each of the varieties of revolution canemerge alone or together. In the French Revolution they overlapped.The result was fatal: the forces of destructive revolution paralysedthe forces of constructive revolution. In this contradiction, Ferrerodiscovered the key to the French Revolution.31

Comparing Bibó’s theory with Ferrero’s it is not hard to detect theparallels. Earlier we saw Bibó’ assessment of the double nature ofthe French Revolution. In fact, he made a distinction between socialdevelopments in the Netherlands, England, and France. In Englandand the Netherlands, the revolutions did not demolish medievalsocial development. On the contrary, metaphorically they crownedit. These countries were fortunate for they could avoid the devasta-ting storm of destructive revolution, which in France proclaimed thetotal annihilation of the Past:

It cannot be emphasized strongly enough how important it was that as early asthe second half of the 16th and, above all, during the 17th centuries Hollanddeveloped a society possessed of broad liberties unmatched throughout Europe.(. . . ) By the way, it was this Dutch example that inspired the revolutions both inEngland and in America, and it was the model for all bourgeois societies bornin a similar manner. The primary accomplishment of these revolutions was thatthey removed royal authority, or reduced it to a symbolic level. They also allowedthe aristocracy to survive in a society where emphasis was continuously shiftingtoward city dwellers . . . Both the Dutch and the English revolutions – as wellas the earlier Swiss one – were organic outgrowths of medieval constitutionalcategories.32

Hence, these revolutions did not demolish dynastic legitimation,but safeguarded it. This process spiritualized royal power withoutseeking extreme, unattainable aims, and without awaking themonster of revolutionary violence. Bibó warns the reader that if arevolution moves toward excessive violence, this signals that thereis something wrong with its declared aims. The participants of theDutch and English revolutions did not seek to realize impossiblethings, nor did they arouse the spirit of fear. Thespirit of fearis a key notion in Ferrero’s books as well. The French historian’sinterpretation is based on this notion. In his theory, the most fatefulconsequence of the French Revolution was this spirit of fear. Thisfear compelled the French revolutionaries to conduct war againstEurope and gave birth to the Napoleonic dictatorship. Napoleon


was full of fear as well. His power was illegal, and illegal poweris continually in the state of fear. This kind of power continuallyfears for its survival. In Bibó’s interpretation, following Ferrero, theNapoleonic state was the archetype of modern totalitarian states.Napoleon had pushed parliament to the background, had eliminatedthe liberty of press, as later the modern totalitarian dictators wereto do in the 20th century. Moreover, the French Revolution andNapoleon introduced warfare based on compulsory military service.This cancelled the ‘civilized way of warfare’, war becoming inspiredby mass emotions, and no longer caused by military-aristocraticelites. Certainly, this development lessened the chance of reason-able peacemaking. This fact came to light during the Napoleonicwars. Napoleon, after his victories, imposed peace conditions onthe defeated party, thus precluding any guarantee of lasting peace.Napoleon weakened the idea of dynastic legitimation because hecreated artificial states everywhere, bestowing the title of ‘king’ tohis relatives. In the long run, it proved very harmful for Europeanconditions that the French emperor defeated the Prussian armyforcing Prussia into the position of a humiliated satellite state. Hethus awoke the ‘Erbfeind-Komplex’ in the Prussians, a complexthat accompanied French-German relations throughout more thana hundred years.

CONCLUSION

In this essay, I have tried briefly to reconstruct Istvan Bibó’s theoryof elites and legitimation. It has not been an easy task because themany trains of thought dealing with these problems in Bibó’s textsfit into a wider context. Nonetheless, I think my approach is relevantbecause the concepts of elite and legitimation are central issues inIstvan Bibó’s conceptual world and were present in his life workfrom the beginning to the end.

But another problem remains. Recalling Shakespeare “What’sHecuba to him or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?”In other words, is Bibó’s conception of elites and legitimationa fossil of mental history, or does it still retain some relevancefor us at the end of the 20th century? Undoubtedly we can drawparallels – avoiding the exaggerations – between the interwar era

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and our age. This is especially true if we consider these paral-lels from the point of view of the crisis of modernity. It was acommon belief for contemporary observers that about the turn ofthis century modernity had temporarily run into crisis, and in theinterwar period the symptoms of this crisis were multiplying expo-nentially. The crisis philosophies were intellectual reactions to themodernity crisis. Some conservative and neoconservative thinkers– for instance Spengler – questioned the values of liberal democ-racy. Istvan Bibó – similary to his contemporaries – reflected onthe political crisis by investigating the roles of elites in societies.But unlike the conservative and neoconservative thinkers, he alwaysemphasized the importance of individual liberty. For that reason heconnected the question of elites with the question of legitimation.He declared that the old dynastic legitimation among the feudalelites had irreversibily sunk into the past, and the new era requirednew elites and a new, democratic type of legitimation. Thus, hereacted to the crisis of modernity not by rejecting the institutions ofdemocracy, but by emphasizing the need to reshape them. For him,the humanization of power included the ‘techniques of freedom’embodied in democratic institutions of liberal democracy, as well asthe historic achievements of christianity and non-marxian socialism.

The last decade has seen a veritable outpouring of books, papers,and articles on postmodernity and the global age. The authors ofthese theories frequently pose the question: are the institutions ofpolitical democracy valid in the postmodern or global age? Forinstance, Zygmunt Bauman, one of the most best known postmoderntheorists, declares that in the postmodern world the classical mech-anism of political democracy no longer functions. The postmodernstate does not need consensus-governed political legitimation. In thepostmodern age, the only valid legitimating factor is consumption.33

The hero of our age is not the citizen but the consumer.At the same time, the concept of the elite emerged as well. To

be sure, it had never disappeared totally; it is enough to recallW.R. Mills’ famous bookThe Power Elitewritten in 1956. But inthe nineties the notion of the elite became fashionable in sociologyand philosophy. The notion of class no longer seems adequate foranalyzing the socio-political developments of our time. Numeroustreatises today examine global elites, including the question of the


nature and responsibilities of these elites. The title of ChristopherLasch’s book on the subject is significant:The Revolt of the Elitesand the Betrayal of Democracy.In Lasch’s opinion, even thoughit is the new emerging social strata which possess the means ofpower, their heterogeneity does not lend itself to describing themthe new ruling class.34 Lasch accuses the new elites of giving upsocial responsibilities, thus losing solidarity with the rest of society.

We can enumerate other examples of contemporary theoriesdealing with the problem of legitimation and the elites. But thereis no need to do so, for we have acquired sufficient insight toanswer the question posed above: Bibó’s analyses of elites andtheir responsibilities as well as the types of legitimation are highlyinstructive, because they help us rethink our conceptions of politics.Naturally he cannot provide solutions to our problems, but histheory is a strong incentive for us to review our thinking.

NOTES

1 This research was completed between 1992 and 1994, and was supported bythe Research Support Scheme of the Central European University.2 There are two complete editions of István Bibó’s works in Hungarian: BibóIstván, Összegyüjtött munkái (Collected Works), edited by István Kemény andMátyás Sárközi, 4 volumes, Berne, 1981; and Bibó István, Válogatott tanul-mányok (Selected Studies), edited by István Vida and Endre Nagy, 4 volumes,Budapest, 1986–1990. In this paper I use the Selected Studies. Several of Bibó’sworks are available in English: István Bibó,Paralysis of International Institutionsand the Remedies, Harvester Press, Brighton, 1976, and István Bibó,Democ-racy, Revolution, Self-Determination, translated by András Boros-Kazay, editedby Károly Nagy, New York, 1991.3 This essay was thorougly analysed by R.N. Berki in his paper entitled “TheRealism of Moralism: The Political Philosophy of István Bibó,” in:History ofPolitical Thought, vol. XIII, No. 3, Autumn 1992.4 For theories of elites see: Walter Struve,Elites against Democracy. LeadershipIdeals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany, 1890–1933, Princeton Univ.Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1973; and Eric Carlton,The Few and the Many. ATypology of Elites, Scholar Press, 1996.5 For this problem see Detlef Felken,Oswald Spengler. Konservativer Denkerzwischen Kaiserreich und Diktatur, Verlag C.H. Beck München, 1988.6 “Statt einer Welt eine Stadt, ein Punkt, in dem das ganze Leben weiter Ländersammelt, während der rest verdorrt; statt eines formvollen, mit der Erde verwach-senen Volkes ein neuer Nomade, ein Parasit, der Großstadtbewohner, der reine,

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traditionslose, in formlos fluktuinder Masse auftretende Tatsachenmensch, irreli-giös, intelligent, unfruchtbar, mit einer tiefen Abneigung gegen das Bauerntum(und dessen höchste Form, den Landadel) . . . ” Oswald Spengler:Der Untergangdes Abendlandes Band I., edited by Oskar Beck München, 1924, p. 43.7 José Ortega y Gasset:Spain without Backbone[España invertebrada.]Hungarian translation:Gerinctelen Spanyolország, translated by Dezsö Csejtei.In: José Ortega y Gasset:Két történelmi esszé, Budapest, 1983, p. 125.8 Ibidem . . . p.133.9 Németh László:A minöség forradalma. Kisebbségben[The Revolution ofElites. In Minority]. Püski, Budapest, 1992, volume I, p. 219.10 Huszár Tibor:Bibó István: Beszélgetések, politikai életrajzi dokumentumok.[Reports and Biographical-Political Documents] Magyar Krónika, Budapest1989, p. 20.11 José Ortega y Gasset:Spain without Backbone. Hungarian translation. . . p. 17.12 Ibidem . . . p. 9.13 Ibidem . . . p. 74.14 Elites and the Sense of Social Responsibilities. In: Bibó István:SelectedStudies, volume I, p. 226.15 Ibidem . . . p.226.16 Ibidem . . . p.234.17 Money. In: Bibó István:Selected Studies, volume I, pp. 211–212.18 Ibidem . . . p.214.19 “Das Wirtschaftsbild wird ausschließlich auf Quantitäten zurückgeführt, unterAbsehen von der Qualität, die gerade das wesentliche Merkmal des Gutes bildet.”Oswald Spengler:Der Untergang, Band II, p. 599.20 MoneyIn: Bibó István:Selected Studies, volume I, p. 219.21 István Bibó:The Paralysis of International Institutions and the Remedies. TheHarvester Press, Brighton, 1976; p. 74.22 Guglielmo Ferrero:La ruine de la civilisation antique. [Az ókori civilizációbukása] Hungarian translation by Schmidt József, Budapest, 1993: p. 12.23 Ibidem . . . pp. 16–17.24 Ibidem . . . p. 28.25 Ibidem . . . p.149.26 On European Balance and PeaceIn: Bibó István:Selected Studies, volume I,p. 421.27 “Reflections on the Social Development of Europe,” in: István Bibó:Democracy, Revolution, Self-Determination. Translated by András Boros-Kazai,Columbia Univ. Press, New York, 1991, pp. 449–450.28 Guglielmo Ferrero:Les deux revolutions françaises 1789–1796, Paris 1951,p. 16.29 Ibidem . . . pp. 16–17.30 Ibidem . . . p. 17.31 Guglielmo Ferrrero:Reconstruction. Talleyrand à Vienne (1814–15), Paris1940, p. 3.


32 “Reflections on the Social Development of Europe.” In: István Bibó:Democ-racy, Revolution. . . p.446.33 “Emancipation of capital from labour makes possible the emancipation of thestate from legitimation; and that may mean, in the long run, a gradual erosion ofdemocratic institutions and the substance of democratic politics (reproduction oflegitimation having been the major historical task of political democracy). Unlikethe task of reproducing members of society as producers their reproduction asconsumers does not imply the need to reproduce them as citizens.” (ZygmuntBauman:Intimations of Postmodernity. London-New York, 1932: p. 120.)34 “Since they embrace a wide variety of occupations – brokers, real estatepromoters and developers, engineers, consultants of all kinds, system analysts,scientists, doctors, publicists, publishers, editors, advertising executives, artdirectors, moviemakers, entertainers, journalists, television producers anddirectors, artists, writers, university professors – and since they lack a commonpolitical outlook, it is also inappropriate to characterize managerial and profes-sional elites as a new ruling class.” (Christopher Lasch:The Revolt of the Elitesand the Betrayal of Democracy, New York-London, 1995: p. 34.)

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