The Origins of Democratic Zionism

Gregory B. Kaplan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429649400
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

This book is the first to link the modern appreciation for democratic freedom directly to Jewish political thought in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. The modern appreciation for democratic values is often assumed to have its roots in Classical thought. However, democracy has taken various forms in its progression to the governance many countries now employ. Working in dialog with Protestants, Jewish thinkers voiced the first Modern appeal for the reestablishment of a Jewish polity in the Holy Land. This appeal was grounded in a vision of a Jewish state governed by individual liberty and popular consent, which could be defined as a democratic Zionism.

The book focuses on influential rabbi Saul Levi Morteira (b. ca. 1590-d. 1660), as well as two of the most renowned members of his congregation, Baruch Spinoza and Miguel de Barrios. Unlike contemporary Catholic and Protestant thinkers, these three intellectuals found democratic values in an Old Testament polity that came to be revered as the Hebrew Republic. The book explores the trajectory by which this democratization of the Hebrew Republic evolved in the writings of Morteira as an alternative to divine-right rule. It then shows that, in spite of their divergent views toward practicing Judaism, Spinoza and Barrios disseminated Morteira's democratic ideas and promoted the Hebrew Republic as a model polity for a post-medieval political order.

This book will be of great use to scholars of Judaism and Jewish philosophy in the modern era, medieval and early modern Spanish literature, as well as religious, political and intellectual history.

1 Flawed democracy, the Aristotelian agricultural democracy and the Hebrew Republic

Over the course of human history, democracy, a form of governance whose success depends on free willingness to participate, has only recently achieved widespread appeal among peoples endeavoring to replace rule by one with rule by many. In modern times, this widespread appeal has been accompanied by growing skepticism toward democratic institutions, which is identified in the studies that comprise Critical Citizens, a scholarly ‘world-wide audit of public support for representative democracy at the end of the twentieth century’ (1). In spite of such skepticism, the volume’s editor, Pippa Norris, identifies enduring support for democratic principles, including ‘freedom, participation, tolerance and moderation, respect for legal-institutional rights, and the rule of law’ (‘Introduction’ 11). In Democratic Deficit: Critical Citizens Revisited, a follow-up study to Critical Citizens, Norris finds similar support for democratic principles. While Norris detects in Democratic Deficit a ‘decline in conventional forms of participation expressed through the ballot box, political parties, and civic associations’ (222), in post-industrial nations she also affirms the existence of a widespread belief that ‘adherence to democratic values strengthens the propensity to demonstrate and to become engaged through unconventional channels’ (224–225).

The modern appreciation for democratic values contrasts with Classical attitudes toward democratic governance. One of the first to proclaim the flaws of democracy was the historian Herodotus, who resided in an Athenian democracy that had begun to function around 500 bce. In his only known work, The Histories, Herodotus comments on democracy several times while analyzing the causes of the Greco-Persian wars (499–449 bce), which pitted Athens (along with other Greek city-states) against the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. While depicting a conversation among Persian rulers, Herodotus has the Persian King Darius (b. ca. 550–d. ca. 486 bce) declare the superiority of the monarchic polity:

There are three choices before us, and let us suppose that each of them is the best of its kind – the best democracy, the best oligarchy, and the best monarchy. In my opinion, the best monarchy far outstrips the others. I mean, if you have a single person, and he is the best person in the world, how could you hope to improve on that? His views are the best there are, he can govern the people blamelessly, and he is particularly good at keeping to himself his plans against hostile opponents.

(205)

For Darius, monarchy ‘far outstrips’ other systems because leadership by an individual can bring an end to the civil unrest and dishonesty that are typical of oligarchies and democracies:

In an oligarchy, however, a number of people are trying to benefit the community, and in this situation violent personal feuds tend to arise, because every one of them wants to come out on top and have his own views prevail. This leads them to become violently antagonistic towards one another, so that factions rise, which leads to bloodshed, which leads ultimately to monarchy – which just goes to show that it is by far the best system. Then again, corruption is inevitable in a democracy. So, in the context of corruption in the political sphere, the corrupt ones become firm friends, rather than opponents, because corrupt practitioners of politics act by forming alliances. This kind of thing goes on until someone emerges as a champion of the people and puts an end to these corrupt politicians. But by doing this he wins the admiration of the people, and then he turns out to be a monarch. So he again is proof that monarchy is the best system.

(205–206)

According to Herodotus, the corruptibility of politicians inevitably dooms democracy, which is only preferable to tyranny as revealed in a conversation among Ionian leaders concerning what would occur if they were liberated from Persian tyranny. The prevailing view is offered by Histiaeus (d. 493 bce), the tyrannical ruler of Miletus, who identifies a popular preference for democracy within his own dominion:

he argued that every one of them owed his position as tyrant of his community to Darius, and that if Darius were to fall, he would not be able to rule Miletus and none of them would remain in power either, because there was not one of their communities which would not prefer democracy to tyranny.

(280)

The oppressive character of tyranny enlists it as inferior to democracy, a concept upon which Herodotus elaborates in his praise of the democracy established in Athens after military victories over the Boeotians and Chalcidians in 506 bce:

So Athens flourished. Now, the advantages of everyone having a voice in the political procedure are not restricted just to single instances, but are plain to see wherever one looks. For instance, while the Athenians were ruled by tyrants, they were no better at warfare than any of their neighbours, but once they had got rid of the tyrants they became vastly superior. This goes to show that while they were under an oppressive regime they fought below their best because they were working for a master, whereas as free men each individual wanted to achieve something for himself.

(333)

Individual freedom is the source of the prosperity of the Athenian democracy insofar as the possession of ‘a voice in the political procedure’ is what inspires the desire of ‘each individual … to achieve something for himself.’

However, this apparently positive quality of democracy is actually a flaw in the view of Herodotus. While he does prefer democracy to tyranny, in light of Herodotus’ conviction that ‘corruption is inevitable in a democracy,’ it stands to reason that the free desire of each Athenian ‘to achieve something for himself’ would eventually corrupt the Athenian democracy. In sum, Herodotus cannot be said to be a proponent of democracy due to his conviction that corruption will inevitably arise. The only value attached to individual freedom is that it can inspire the overthrow of a tyrannical government.

Freedom is a defining feature of democracy according to the Greek philosopher Plato, who wrote his Republic several decades after Herodotus composed The Histories. Plato describes democracy as a political system that emerges from oligarchy. This process is initiated by a violent upheaval led by the impoverished victims of greedy oligarchs:

we’d better try to see how democracy starts, and what its characteristics are once it exists … the transition from oligarchy to democracy is a result of people being insatiably greedy for what they’ve come to accept as good – that they ought to get as rich as they possibly can … because political power within the community depends on the possession of wealth, [and] the rulers aren’t disposed to curb by legal means the undisciplined elements of the younger generation, [or] to prevent them from spending their money and ruining their estates, because this enables them to buy up those estates and to loan money at interest, and so get even richer and gain even more public standing… . Now, the negligent sanctioning of indiscipline which occurs within oligarchies has been known in the past to reduce men of some calibre to poverty… [and] they squat in the community, I imagine, equipped with their stings – and with weapons. Some are in debt, some have lost their citizenship, some are enduring both these hardships. In their hatred of the people who have acquired their property, they long for revolution, and plot against them and everyone else as well… . Now, it takes only a slight external influence to push an unhealthy body towards illness, and sometimes nothing external need be involved at all for the body’s elements to start fighting one another. Likewise, a community which is in a similarly unhealthy state needs only a slight pretext – one party might bring in reinforcements from an external oligarchy, or the other from an external democracy – to fall ill and start fighting with itself, and sometimes no external influence at all is needed for conflict to begin… . So democracy starts, in my opinion, when the poor members of the community are victorious. They kill some of the rich, they expel others, and they give everyone who’s left equal social and political rights.

(293–295)

Democracy is a dangerous form of governance according to Plato, which is an attitude that recalls the tone of Herodotus. Whereas for Herodotus corruption prevents democracy from thriving, for Plato it is the inevitable violence perpetrated by those who become impoverished, who ‘long for revolution’ and who ‘kill some of the rich’ and ‘expel others.’ The result is a democracy in which everyone has ‘equal social and political rights’ but that is shaped by violent conflict, and democratic governance is ultimately found to be as unstable as an oligarchy.

Plato describes what a ‘democratic political system [is] actually like’ (296) by identifying characteristics, or rights, of the ‘democratic individual’ (296). The foremost of these rights are freedom of speech and freedom of choice: ‘The [democratic] community is informed by independence and freedom of speech, and everyone has the right to do as he chooses’ (296). In a manner that evokes the words of Herodotus, Plato declares that freedom contributes to the deterioration of democracies. This deterioration, according to Plato, derives from the frivolous nature of democratic freedom. An individual’s freedom to choose, or ‘make for himself the kind of life which suits him’ (296), is thus compared by Plato to ‘a cloak … adorned with every species of flower … [which] plenty of people would find … highly attractive, just as women and children are attracted by the sight of colourful variety’ (296).

Freedom of choice does not lead to the success of democracies but to their decline, a notion conveyed in Plato’s vision of the future of democratic polities, which he depicts as lacking a moral or legal code to prevent individuals from breaking the law:

You’re not forced to hold political office … even if you’d be good at it; you’re not forced to be a subject either, unless you want to. You don’t have to go to war when there’s a war on, or to keep the peace when everyone else is, if peace isn’t to your liking. Then again, even if you’re legally forbidden to play a part in governmental or judicial procedures, you can still do both, if you feel like it.

(296)

Plato considers democracy to lack a firm foundation, and the democratic individual is ultimately a ‘drone’ (299) whose political system has the potential to be ‘routed’ (299). Democracy is again doomed to fail by its inevitable deterioration as a result of freedom of choice, which promotes apathy as well as corruption inasmuch as those who ‘feel like’ illegally participating in governance are provided with such opportunities.

Plato expands on his notion of a democratic ‘drone’ in his reflections on the rights possessed by individuals in a democracy, which encourage the development of a noncommittal and senseless lifestyle:

He indulges in every passing desire that each day brings. One day he gets drunk at a party, the next day he’s sipping water and trying to lose weight; then again, he sometimes takes exercise, sometimes takes things easy without a care in the world, and sometimes he’s apparently a student of philosophy. At frequent intervals, he gets involved in community affairs, and his public speaking and other duties keep him leaping around here, there, and everywhere. If military types arouse his admiration, he inclines towards the military life; if it’s businessmen, he’s all for business. His lifestyle has no rhyme or reason, but he thinks it enjoyable, free, and enviable and he never dispenses with it.

(301)

It is readily apparent that, in Plato’s opinion, the freedom that inspires ‘a community with a democratic government … [to] claim that there is nothing finer than freedom’ (303) also contributes to the decline of a democracy.

Plato declares that ‘insatiable greed for freedom … causes this [democratic] political system to change and creates the need for dictatorship’ (303). He explains this change in symbolic terms as being similar to drunkenness and represents freedom as a dangerous drug:

In its thirst for freedom, a democratically governed community might get leaders who aren’t any good at serving wine. It gets drunk on excessive quantities of undiluted freedom, and then, I suppose, unless the rulers are very lenient and keep it provided with plenty of freedom, it accuses them of being foul oligarchs and punishes them… . In fact, it’s a general principle that overdoing anything leads to a huge compensatory shift towards the opposite: seasons, plants, and bodily health are all subject to this principle, and political systems are particularly good examples of it… . In other words, it’s plausible to claim that excessive freedom, at both the individual and political level, can only change into excessive slavery [and that] … dictatorship is bound to arise out of democracy – from what, I take it, is the peak of freedom to the most severe and savage form of slavery.

(303–305)

Plato provides his strongest condemnation of democracy upon declaring that ‘excessive freedom, at both the individual and political level, can only change into excessive slavery.’ In the end, Plato’s view is that democracy is a feeble political system ultimately destined to transform into dictatorship precisely because of the freedoms it affords.

One issue that is not expressed clearly by Plato is whether the ‘poor members of the community’ whose rule he fears actually constitute the majority of a democratic government, which typically is the case according to Aristotle. In The Politics, Aristotle explains that democracy traces its roots to ‘ancient times’ (57), when it came into existence as a ‘perversion’ (61) of one of the ‘true forms’ (61) of government (kingship, aristocracy and constitutional government):

The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the common interest; but governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether of the one, or the few, or the many, are perversions… . Of the above-mentioned forms, the perversions are as follows: of kingship, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy, of the needy: none of them the common good of all.

(61–62)

Like Plato, Aristotle associates the rise of democracy with the triumph of an impoverished population:

The argument seems to show that, whether in oligarchies or in democracies, the number of the governing body, whether the greater number, as in a democracy, or the smaller number, as in an oligarchy, is an accident due to the fact that the rich everywhere are few, and the poor numerous… . For the real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy.

(62)

In this passage Aristotle clearly asserts that the poor, due to the ‘fact’ that they are ‘everywhere … numerous,’ constitute the majority in democracies, an inevitability with which Aristotle displays a preoccupation on other occasions in The Politics.

With respect to this preoccupation, Melissa Lane argues that Aristotle’s attitude toward democratic rule is tempered by his concern that a multitude he deems as ‘inferior people’ (267) will possess political power. This flaw of democracies motivates Aristotle to question the ability of the ‘numerous’ poor to govern effectively:

There is still a danger in allowing them [the poor] to share the great offices of state, for their folly will lead them into error, and their dishonesty into crime. But there is a danger also in not letting them share, for a state in which many poor men are excluded from office will necessarily be full of enemies. The only way of escape is to assign to them some deliberative and judicial functions.

(66–67)

Like Herodotus’ association of freedom with corruption and Plato’s notion that democracy can be ‘routed’ by a drone’s frivolous freedom of choice, freedom does not contribute to the success of democracy for Aristotle. For Aristotl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of abbreviations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: from democracy to democratic Zionism
• 1 Flawed democracy, the Aristotelian agricultural democracy and the Hebrew Republic
• 2 The medieval divine-right monarchy, an anti-Hebrew Republic
• 3 The divine-right Spanish monarchy and the conversos
• 4 The Hebrew Republic as an alternative to Habsburg rule and the emergence of Morteira, Barrios and Spinoza
• 5 The Hebrew Republic and democratic Zionism in the writings of Morteira
• 6 Morteira, Hobbes and the democratic Zionism of Spinoza and Barrios
• 7 Democratic Zionism and twenty-first-century Zionism
• Appendix: Treatise on the Truth of the Law of Moses, Chapters one, two, ten and eleven (translation into English by Gregory B. Kaplan)
• Index