The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton Classics)

by Albert O. Hirschman

For example, among the reasons for which “the foundation on which freedom was built, may serve to support a tyranny” he lists the fear of losing wealth and situations in which “heirs of family find themselves straitened and poor, in the midst of affluence.” Relative deprivation and ressentiment resulting from actual or feared downward mobility are here seen as intimately bound up with the acquisitive society and its tumultuous ways, and these feelings are viewed as breeding ground for the ready acceptance of whatever “strong” government promises to stave off such real or imagined dangers.5 Moreover, commerce creates a desire for tranquility and efficiency, and this may be another source of despotism: When we suppose government to have bestowed a degree of tranquillity, which we sometimes hope to reap from it, as the best of its fruits, and public affairs to proceed, in the several departments of legislation and execution, with the least possible interruption to commerce and lucrative arts; such a state … is more akin to despotism than we are apt to imagine. … Liberty is never in greater danger than it is when we measure national felicity … by the mere tranquillity which may attend on equitable administration.6