Condorcet: Another Father of Sociology…and of Progressivism
(This is a Literature Review article. It includes links to all sources used, but it has not been “peer-reviewed” itself. I am posting it to provoke thought and further research.)
When I wrote “Evolution, Pragmatism and Progressivism,” I had only heard the name of Condorcet. Now I’ve read some of his works, and I think he was presenting similar ideas over 200 years ago. It’s a shame that he has received so little attention. He long ago spoke of the root of human progress, the arc of political history, the development of social sciences, and the quest for optimal social systems. Here’s a brief introduction to his insights.
First, this is what I see as the essence of his magnum opus, Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind (1794):
Over the millennia, humanity has progressed on the basis of its ability to reason. Progress breeds progress. Through the application of reason, enlightened individuals have developed mathematics, the scientific method for acquiring knowledge, and the concepts of liberty and equality as human rights. With these tools, and with universal education, we can create social systems able to provide liberty and equality sufficiently to ensure that all may enjoy “the common rights which impartial nature has bequeathed” them. The concepts have already spread too far and wide to be forgotten. Eventually, when “mutual wants” and exchanges have bound all mankind together, when nations institute the principles of equality, compassion, and respect for the independence of others, “Then will arrive the moment in which the sun will observe in its course free nations only, acknowledging no other master than their reason….” Because the perfectibility of humanity is indefinite.
Regarding the last sentence, he explains [p.369–370] that it is “indefinite” the sense that, given our current state of knowledge, we cannot state with certainty the limits of our perfectibility. There may be physical limits, but we haven’t established them yet. Improvements may arise from better living conditions [p.367], better education [p.370–1] and even genetic transmission [p.370].
His vision led him to predict several future conditions for humanity, including increasing distaste for war [p.356], extended human lifespans [p.367], and improved mental and physical conditions [p.370].
He predicted ongoing social change in the direction of greater liberty and equality, and he observed that it inevitably led to social revolution, in one of two ways [p.261]:
- The people themselves would establish a system based on these principles, in which case the revolution “would be more speedy, more radical, but also more tempestuous,” and their “liberty and happiness would be purchased at the expense of transient evils;”
- Alternatively, a “government might hasten to supersede this event by reforming its vices, and governing its conduct by the public opinion” [demanding greater liberty and equality], in which case the revolution would be “less rapid, less complete, but more tranquil,” and transient evils would be avoided, but it would take more time, perhaps a considerable period of time, to achieve the desired end-state.
He may have had in mind the French Revolution as an example of the first way and the American Revolution as more like the second [pp.266–8]. He said that the social conditions in France were such that, in order to achieve greater liberty and equality, the people had to attack at once the king, the nobility, the church, the existing constitution, feudal claims, the economy, and all social relations. The the social conditions in America were such that, in order to achieve greater liberty and equality, the people had to attack the king for independence, but they had “no corrupt system of finance to reform, no feudal tyrannies, no hereditary distinctions, no privileges of rich and powerful corporations, no system of religious intolerance to destroy….” They only had to replace British powers with new powers. In Condorcet’s view, the new American system didn’t extend to the mass of the people and didn’t alter anything with regard to the social relations among individuals.
Condorcet insisted that governments are responsible for securing individual rights, but also for establishing regulations which would apply to exchanges of every kind [p.237].
He also suggested various social and government initiatives to improve people’s lives and nations as a whole, such as the following:
- equality for women [p.355]
- improved education [p.360]
- development of a universal language [p.363]
- public insurance programs to support the elderly, widows and orphans [p.331]
- a public insurance program to support young adults with “capital sufficient to employ their industry” [p.331–2]
The objective he proposed was that of securing equality, “either by preventing credit from continuing to be a privilege exclusively attached to large fortunes … or by rendering the progress of industry and the activity of commerce more independent of the existence of great capitalists.” [p.333] He anticipated that social sciences, using the arithmetic of probabilities, would help us choose among social systems “those which best secure the preservation of these rights [‘the general principles of equality and natural rights’], which afford the freest scope for their exercise and enjoyment, which promote most effectually the peace and welfare of individuals, and the strength, repose, and prosperity of nations” [p.349].
Condorcet was not contemplating equality only for white males. His Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind asserts that equality of rights for both sexes is important to the general welfare [p.355], and that natural rights were understood to apply to all of humanity, without distinctions based on country, color or creed [pp.254–6].
He made this even more clear in other publications. In his essay “On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship” (1789), he notes that males have rights because they are conscious, rational, capable of apprehending ideas of morality, and able to reason with these ideas. He argues that women have the same qualities, so they inherently have the same rights. To those who claimed that women didn’t govern themselves according to reason, Condorcet replied that they didn’t govern themselves according to the reason and experience of men, but they governed themselves according to their reason and experience as women.
His essay “Reflections on Negro Slavery” (1781) begins with the same proposition: Nature had endowed blacks “with the same spirit, the same reason, the same virtues as whites,” and thus with the same rights. Slavery deprived blacks of these rights, so it should be abolished. Slave-masters deserved no compensation, because slavery was a criminal act.
He did understand that there were limits to the degree of equality which a social system could bear [pp.327–9, Outlines]. He suggested that inequality of rights arises from three principal causes: inequality of wealth; inequality of “condition” [ability to bequeath resources to descendants]; and inequality of education. He believed that these inequalities would diminish over time, but never become absolutely extinct, “since they have natural and necessary causes.” Moreover, he thought it would be dangerous to try to destroy their effects entirely. Such efforts, in his view, would open up other sources of inequality, “giving to the rights of man a more direct and more fatal blow.” [As shown, perhaps, in “Communist” countries?]
As the title of his masterwork indicates, Condorcet was only presenting an outline of what he saw as social forces and social progress. With the development of the social sciences and the aid of statistics, we are better able to fill in the details, to understand ourselves, and to determine optimal social systems and policies. As he predicted.
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AFTERTHOUGHTS:
- College courses on classical social theory ought to include a treatment of Condorcet. The course I took in college included Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, which was insightful, but Condorcet’s Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind is more encyclopedic in its consideration of the social sciences, social evolution, and social statistics.
- Condorcet’s theory would also anticipate systemic upheavals during the Chinese and Russian Revolutions, because they arose in social conditions similar to those of pre-revolutionary France. On the other hand, the Bolivarian Revolution in South America was more like the American Revolution, in that it didn’t extend to the mass of the people and didn’t alter anything with regard to the social relations among individuals. If this amounts to Condorcet’s second type of revolution, his theory would predict that it would take more time, perhaps a considerable period of time, to achieve the desired end-state in these revolutions.
- That said, the study of revolutions has progressed a lot since Condorcet. Jack Goldstone claims that we are already entering the 4th generation of theories concerning revolutions.
- It’s easy to identify Condorcet’s “value priorities” and “political orientation” based on what he wrote. His concern for women, blacks, the masses and equality for all indicate a value priority of “Universalism,” to use the term of Shalom Schwartz. At the same time, Condorcet clearly placed a value priority on individual rights, independence and freedom from traditional limitations, hallmarks of the value Shalom Schwartz calls “Self-direction.” Research in political psychology has demonstrated that these value priorities are associated with the political orientation currently described [in the U.S.] as “Liberal.” [discussed further in the essay “Political Parties (Part One): Machiavelli, Cicero and Modern Political Psychology”]
