The Government we Deserve

(“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.”) 

Joseph de Maistre  (1753-1821) 

Whichever way we vote, politicians say the electorate always gets it right at the ballot box. Cynics are more inclined to think that we get the government we deserve.  Did we get it right this time?  What does the election tell us about our faith in our political leaders?  Are we a nation that can't make up its mind?

French-speaking Savoyard philosopher writer lawyer and diplomat commented in a letter he wrote in August 1811, later published in Lettres et Opuscules Inedits (1851).

Whenever Election Day draws near, we are reminded of this famous quote by Joseph de Maistre.  He wrote this aphorism in 1811 when he was serving as the King of Piedmont-Sardinia’s envoy to Russian Czar Alexander I.  At that time, Alexander was introducing reforms that were moving Russia toward a European-style constitutional government. It’s ironic that Maistre’s quote is now commonly used to suggest that citizens should get more involved in politics, actively push for more democratic governments and rebel against tyrants.

Maistre disliked democracy and believed that hereditary monarchies were a divinely-sanctioned, superior form of government.

For example, he opposed the French Revolution and supported the restoration of the French monarchy.  And, in his letter, Maistre was actually expressing his negative views of Alexander's reform in Russia.

He said a European-style constitution system would be "over the heads" of the Russian people.  One early translation of Maistre's aphorism in this letter was: "Every nation has a government which it is fit for."

This paternalistic translation may best capture what Maistre really meant. The more familiar translation — “Every nation [or ‘country’] has the government it deserves” — is often wrongly attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville and Abraham Lincoln.  They never said it.  Maistre did, but what he meant by it is probably different than what most people think.