Montesque and Government

I just finished listening to an RC Sproul message. He was discussing politcal systems of all things. Actually, I think he started on the 18th century enlightenment, but started discussing Montesque's calssifications of politcal systems. Apperently, Montesque defined three classifications for forms of government and identified the key component within the society, within the culture, that allows and enables that form to survive. The three that Montesque defined, as explained by RC Sproul, are Monarchy, Dictatorship, and Democratic and the key attributes of these forms are Honor, Fear, and Civic Virtue, respectively. He also theorized that whenever any of these systems fail, they will be raplaced by one of the other two. Let me explore these further.

Monarchy requires a strong leader that is able to capture the loyalty or his subjects. This requires that the subjects have the honor to ascribe loyalty to those who are due it. This is similiar to the 'political' system of the family. The parents are due loyalty and obedience, not only because of their greater experience and knowledge, but also for the practical reason that the parents provide to the family. This requires that the children have the honor to recognize the place of the parents in the family. The problem with Monarchy as a political system today is that I do not believe a person can maintain the respect and loyalty of any sizable group of people for any length of time. In ages past, monarchs were considered better than their subjects, but the egalitarian ideals, combined with a information infrastructure that allows anyone to learn anything about just about anyone else, the concept is not possible.

Second on the list is Dictatorship. It seems fairly simple that a dictatorship requires fear within the populous. In any governmental system that is not a military occupation, the real power lies with the people. The general populous will always outnumber the leaders and the leaders will rely on the people to produce. The only way for an individual, or a small group of leaders, to rule a population without popular support is to invoke fear in the people. Without fear, the dictator is quickly replaced by a popular leader.

And lastly, the Deomcracy is dependant on civic virtue, on the idea of the rule of law. Although civic virtue is more than just observance of the law. Civic virtue to belief in something bigger than yourself. Civic virtue is respecting the rule of law because everyone recognizes that is better for everyone to follow the law.

Now this is the most interesting to me. You see, classifying political systems this way and listing the requirements for each begs a question in my mind; What about a society that lacks all three? I daresay that while a culture can have more than one of the three requirements (honor, fear, and civic virtue), a culture cannot have none of the three for long. Specifically, when a people lose honor, which is the basic ability to respect others at least as much as themselves, and civic virture, i.e. the rule of law, fear will flurish

I was going somewhere with this. Honest, I was. But it seems to have gotten lost in the transcription. Perhaps I will continue this later.