The Social Contract - 18 zy
The most evident drawback★缺点 of government by a single
person is the absence of the successive★连续的 replacements which,
in the two other forms, ensure uninterrupted continuity. A king
dies, another is required;
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his selection leaves a dangerous interval★间隔; troubles can develop,
and unless the citizens show a degree of disinterestedness公正无私 and
integrity正直 that this form of government hardly encourages, plots阴谋
and corruption play their part.
What remedies have been devised for these ills?
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the risks of being ruled by children, monsters
or imbeciles愚人 have been preferred to the necessity
of debating the choice of a good king.
(也不愿意讨论选择一个好国王的必要性)
As Plato says, it is so rare to find a man who is a king
by nature, how often will nature and chance combine to put
one on the throne?
Everyone knows that when we have a bad government we must
put up with容忍 it;the question is how to find a good one.
---Chapter vii:Mixed Forms of Government---
STRICTLY speaking, no simple form of government exists.
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A single leader must have subordinate officers;
a government of the people must have a leader.
-
Thus in the distribution of executive power there is always
a gradation等级, going from the larger number to the smaller,
the variation★变化 being that sometimes the larger number depends
on the smaller, and sometimes the smaller on the larger.
★★cohesion：凝聚力
--Chapter viii:That Not All Forms of Government Are Suitable for Every Country
FREEDOM is not a product of every climate, and is
not within the reach of every people民族.
Under every government throughout the world the public
person consumes, but does not produce.
-
Where then does the substance it consumes come from?
From the work of the members of the public.
-
The subsistence of the public person is
provided from the surplus过剩 produced by individuals.
Moreover, not all governments are of the same nature;
they are more or less voracious贪婪的;
THe burden must not be measured by the amount of tax
imposed, but by the distance it travels before it
returns to the people who paid it. (？？)
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When the redistribution再分配 is rapid and well organized, it
does not matter whether the payments are large or small;
the people is always rich and the finances healthy.
-
By contrast, when the amounts
given in tax, however small they may be, do not return to those
who pay, the constant giving soon impoverishes them; the state
is never rich and the people always destitute赤贫的.
-
From this it follows that tax contributions become the more
burdensome ★as the distance between people and government
increases.
Thus in a democracy the burden on the people is
least; in an aristocracy, it is greater; and it
is heaviest in a monarchy.
-
Monarchy is only suitable, therefore, to very prosperous繁荣的
nations; aristocracy to states whose wealth and extent are
both moderate适度的/中等的; and democracy to states that are
small and poor.
The more one reflects on this point, indeed, the greater the
difference it seems to make between free states and monarchies.
-
In the former, everything is made to serve the common
interest; in the latter, public and private resources are in a
relation of reciprocity相互性, one becoming greater as the
other diminishes.
-
At the extreme, despotism reduces its subjects to
poverty in order to govern them, instead of governing
them in the aim of making them happy.
