3 - The Political Variables

Summary

Moderation is the key to establishing and maintaining a secure, free, and prosperous society. Montesquieuian moderation is not the same, though, as the moral moderation we find in theories of virtue ethics. Montesquieu does not recommend that political actors embrace the moral or philosophical moderation found in Plato or Aristotle, for example. Montesquieu certainly does not think that political actors should attempt to inculcate citizens to adopt this kind of moral virtue. Rather, Montesquieu advises legislators to develop institutions and laws to produce moderate outcomes. Institutions should be structured such that different powers in the state check each other. The effect of these interactions and relations should be the establishment of security, liberty, and prosperity. Crucially, Montesquieu does not insist that only one form of government is capable of achieving a good, that is, free and moderate, political order. To the contrary, Montesquieu's politics of place presents four forms of government—aristocratic republics, federal republics, monarchies, and mixed regimes—as having the potential to produce moderate outcomes. Montesquieu also would have approved of liberal democracies had he had the chance to study them. Of all the forms of government Montesquieu studies, he only rules out despotisms and (ancient) democratic republics as incapable of producing a moderate political order.

This chapter will provide a deeper understanding of the institutions and practices Montesquieu thinks advance—or hinder—the establishment of moderate, free political orders. Here the focus is on what I call the “political variables.” The focus shifts to the “subpolitical” variables in chapter 4. We begin with the political variables because Montesquieu discusses them first, in parts I and II. He then moves, in parts III, IV, and V, to issues that are more particular, the subpolitical variables. Montesquieu's particularism comes out in his manner of proceeding. In the final sentence of book I he writes: “Then I will move to the other relations, which seem to be more particular” (I.3.238). Analytically, it makes sense to move from the more universal to the particularistic, and so we will proceed in this manner.

We set out first to examine Montesquieu's understanding of a moderate political order because this frames his analysis of different forms of government.