Census Suffrage, Rule of Law, Political Power, and Societal Theories

Census Suffrage and Restricted Suffrage

If suffrage means the ability to participate in electing political representatives, then restricted suffrage is the limitation of this right due to failing to meet required conditions. Census suffrage refers to the economic conditions needed to make such choices.

Rule of Law

The Rule of Law encompasses:

1. Rule of law as an expression of general will.
2. Division of powers.
3. Legality of the administration to act according to law under the control of the judiciary.
4. Rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals and a legal guarantee of the rule of law.

It opposes any absolutist, authoritarian, or totalitarian state.

Legality vs. Legitimacy

• Legality: Refers to the set of rules in a community that constitutes positive law.
• Legitimacy: The ability of a power to be obeyed because its authority is accepted by members of the political community.

Political Power

Political power is used to organize public life. It is imperative to exercise control over a community occupying a specific territory. In democratic states, it must be legitimated by the consensus of the political community to accept established authority.

Politics Defined

Politics is the process of harnessing power within a given community to achieve objectives considered valid for that community.

Naturalist Theories of the State

Naturalist Theories view the state as truly real, an organismic consideration. Key aspects include:

1. The state does not result from the simple collection of individuals but precedes them. Individuals exist only as part of society; in isolation, they are an abstraction.
2. Only the state can achieve individual freedom and human perfection, becoming the subject of rights and laws.
3. The state has an ethical character; its goal is the good of the community.

Philosophical Perspectives

Plato and Aristotle

The two great philosophers of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle, shared these views. Plato, in The Republic, stated that man is not self-sufficient, unable to provide for his material, moral, and spiritual needs. We must join with other men, and each contributes his work to all.

Aristotle, in Politics, argued that the individual, family, and village precede the state but are not natural. Only the polis, understood as society, can provide human beings with their final performance, their happiness. For Aristotle, a man who does not live in society is not a man but a beast or a god.

Thomas Aquinas

In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas faithfully followed Aristotelian theses. Society is natural to man, who should reach his fullness following guidelines set by the law, which the state dictates, modeled on natural law.

David Hume

In the modern age, David Hume criticized contractarianism, which places the origin of society in a social contract. Men are born to be grouped according to instinct or natural impulse, guided by interest and utility.

Karl Marx

In the contemporary era, Karl Marx defended the naturalness of human sociability. For Marx, human-specific abilities are meaningless when expressed in isolation. What man is depends on his social relations.

Work in Industrial Society

The Industrial Revolution brought significant changes:

1. Emergence of a new field of work, the factory: The invention of the steam engine and consequent production automation allowed many operators to work together in a coordinated manner. Work became fragmented.
2. Organization of time in a different way: Time was no longer managed by the sun but by the clock and the factory siren.
3. Production located in cities, resulting in urban planning.
4. A new kind of property other than traditional land-based property: shares and bonds.
5. The rise of the proletariat.
6. Women began to be linked to the productive process, initiating the long road to liberation.