THE REFORMS INTRODUCED BY THE SO-CALLED ENLIGHTENED DESPOTS WERE

DICTATED MORE BY THE EXIGENCIES OF THE SITUATION THAN BY THE SPIRIT OF

ENLIGHTENMENT . IS IT CORRECT WITH REFERENCE TO FREDERICK THE GREAT OF
PRUSSIA? (2004)

The term ‘Enlightened Despotism’ is a contradiction of sorts. According to some

historians, it was born in the 1860s as a theoretical programme of reform based
on the doctrines of the Physiocrats, which was very influential at the time. But
the fact of the matter was that Enlightened Despotism was hardly influenced by
these theories; according to Fritz Hartung, on the contrary, their activities for
the most part occurred before the doctrine of “despotisme éclaire” had been
enunciated. But certain traits are found similar to both the intellectual
movement and the rule of these despots, thus drawing connections between the
two, such as the implementation of religious tolerance, their reforms of the
educational system, improvements in legal procedure, rationalization and
centralization of the administration, the raising of the standard of living of the
working classes, particularly of the peasantry, and the improvement of the
economic situation of the country.

But these arguments are not entirely satisfactory. For example, Frederick the
Great, who is usually regarded as a typical representative of Enlightened
Despotism, cannot be fitted into the framework of his scheme without some
major qualifications. The problem arises with attempting to define the
chronological limits of this so-called period of “Enlightened Despotism”, because
many of the reforms ascribed to this period had, in fact, been initiated by earlier
governments which cannot be termed “enlightened”.

It could be said that the most characteristic feature of Enlightened Absolutism is

the enthusiasm that was shown by the ruler in reform plans, and that this
energy was the result of enlightened thought; but this argument is contradicted
by the fact that many attempts at reform under Enlightened Despotism
encountered insurmountable obstacles eve in their initial stages, and they
weren’t achieved in totality till the French Revolution.

It is important to note that none of the rulers whom we regard as

representatives of Enlightened Despotism ever used this expression, though the
Physiocrats did use terms like “Despotisme eclaire” or “Despotisme legal” from
1760 onwards. According to Fritz Hartung, it would be preferable to use the
expression “Enlightened Absolutism”, since it agrees with the older tradition,
common to the whole of Europe, of distinguishing clearly between Absolutism—
i.e. a form of government which is not hampered by parliamentary institutions,
but which voluntarily submits to laws and acknowledges the rights of subjects—
and Despotism, which is equivalent to unchecked tyranny.

It must be understood that the essential element in the conception of absolutism

is its monarchical form. Then the term ‘Enlightened Absolutism’ could be
stretched to cover every attempt at reform that was supported by the authority
of the absolute monarch. The attempt to intensify the power of the State by
increasing the efficiency of the administration and the army, by stimulating
national economy and thereby augmenting revenues—by the policy of
mercantilism—was so frequent and natural a concomitant of absolutism that it
cannot be regarded as a special characteristic of Enlightened Absolutism.

Hartung agrees that Enlightened Absolutism as a form of government was

strongly influenced by the philosophy and particularly by the political
philosophy, of the Enlightenment. By establishing the connection between
Enlightened Absolutism and the Enlightenment of the 18 th century, we are not
only able to define precisely its intellectual content, but also obtain that clear
chronological determination of its place in time. From this point of view,
Enlightened Absolutism takes place in the final phase of the Estates, in which the
adherents of the new doctrine had already begun to question the rightness and
expediency of the traditional division of society into classes determined by birth.
They tried to alleviate the hardships and inadequacies of this social system, but
they lacked the courage to draw the full consequences from their theories and to
overthrow the existing social order.

According to the Physiocrats, the natural order had as its foundation the liberty
of the individual, particularly in its economic aspects. Any interference with the
natural development of economic life through measures taken by the state was
rejected on principle, not only because they were contrary to the individual’s
natural right to freedom, but also because they were considered economically
harmful.

According to this, despotic power was needed to restore the natural order, to
remove everything that hindered the free development of productive forces.
This despotic power should not be arbitrary, but “legal” and the law by which it
was regulated should be the law of logic. In order to carry through the task, it
was necessary that the executive power of the State should lie undivided in the
hands of the monarch; for the Physiocrats trusted so implicitly in the victorious
power of enlightenment that they advocated hereditary monarchy, without any
restrictions. Even foreign policy came under the influence of this doctrine, which
propagated the idea of a new peaceful international order, based on the
fraternity of individuals and nations.

In practice however, Enlightened Absolutism was definitely not so radical and

total; its practical effect was almost nil. This can be seen by an analysis of the
rule of Frederick the Great. His idea of the State lacks originality, and simply
reflects the theory of the social contract voluntarily entered into between
initially free and equal individuals.

In the first place, there is his attitude towards religion, the secularization of the
State and the disestablishment of the Church, leaving everybody free to achieve
their own salvation, which did more to enhance his prestige in the eyes of his
enlightened contemporaries than any of his military exploits. In religious
matters, he was possibly the most tolerant ruler in Europe. He kept on good
terms with most Catholics and Protestants; however he did not extend the same
toleration to Jews. An edict of 1750 debarred foreign Jews from settling in
Prussia, except on payment of an exorbitant sum, and excluded Prussian Jews
from all civil office, from the professions, and from the practice of most trades.
Wealthy Jews were expectedly heavily taxed.

The centralization of the Prussian government had been largely completed by

Frederick William I, and had been prompted by military necessity. It was chiefly
to ensure the efficient collection of the Excise, which maintained the army, that
the traditional town councils had been replaced by small bodies by paid officials.
In country districts similar supervision was exercised by a Rural Commissioner
who was, however, always a Junker. It was the efficiency of these local officials
that enabled Frederick to exploit the slender financial resources of Prussia
sufficiently to fight three wars in two decades.

The weakness of Frederick’s highly centralized system was that it was

centralized only in his head, and not in reality. Nevertheless it is Frederick The
Great’s merit that he made this conception of the State his own, and that in doing
so, he gave to Prussia’s higher bureaucracy an immutable standard for their
work which enabled them to continue to govern on absolutist principles way
after his time.
The subordination of the ruler to the State did not, however, imply a diminution
of the absolute power of the Crown. All rights and obligations were vested in the
monarch, whose powers of legislation and taxation were unrestricted by
parliamentary institutions; and the monarch used his rights in the spirit of
tutelage, characteristic of the police state, which reserves itself the right to
regulate all external activities of the citizen according to the needs of the State.
But there were limits that even Frederick’s Enlightened Absolutism dared not
transgress. It was not simply that the principle of authoritative leadership was
maintained; leadership did not dare to attack the existing division of society into
Estates or classes divided by birth. This even though the Physiocrats had said
that this division had become obsolete in view of the development of the
modern State. Although on the other hand, it was not though incongruous to
grant the aristocracy certain privileges denied to the other classes.

In Frederick’s time this discrepancy between enlightened theory and obsolete

practices was certainly caused by the requirements of power politics. Prussia’s
position was too insecure for the king to be able to expose to the State to the
upheavals which would follow from a radical break with the traditional agrarian
system based on hereditary serfdom; not only the finances of the State, but also
the army were closely linked with it.

His attitude towards law and legal procedure also reflected the principles of the
Enlightenment. He recognized the right of his subjects to rapid decisions and
impartial jurisdiction. In his financial administration too the influence of
enlightened thought can be seen; he subordinates the interests of the royal
budget to the common interest of the country, and also acknowledged that the
king was not the owner, but only the administrator of the wealth of the country
and had no right, therefore, to dispose of it arbitrarily.

There is however nothing essentially new about it. To say that only at the time of
the Enlightenment was the State regarded as a community which fused the
monarch and his people into one unity, is too make too much of a generalization.
In the smaller states of Germany a conception of the State as a political entity
could not develop, and the same was still true in Prussia at the time of Frederick
William I.

The defects in the administration of justice derived from the fact that it was still,
at Frederick’s accession, largely in the hands f the manorial and civic courts. His
schemes were along the lines of instituting a single centralized judicial system
with a standardized procedure to replace the hereditary jurisdiction of the
nobility with a body of wholetime, trained officials, and to introduce a single
codification of Prussian law.

The civil code of 1794 ratified the predominance of the landed aristocracy.
Nobles, burghers and peasants remained clearly defined classes, each with their
separate taxes, their separate property rights, and their separate function in the
state. These divisions were preserved in the interests of military necessity.
Frederick was also not prepared to deprive the provincial chambers of their
jurisdiction in matters affecting ‘the public interest’. Yet, while admitting these
qualifications, the rationalization of the judicial system during Frederick’s reign
undeniably made the ordinary citizen much more secure in the enjoyment of his
civil rights.

Frederick’s refusal to suppress the Jesuits may have been prompted by his need
for teachers. But Frederick in fact did little to help higher education. The
universities were kept desperately short of funds, nor did he abolish censorship.
The schoolmasters were recruited from among discharged soldiers. A scheme
for a national system of education was proposed in 1764, but was not carried
through lack of funds, and the Prussian primary school system remained far
inferior to the Austrian.

Frederick’s own personal character influenced him in stopping short of the

logical consequences of the enlightened principles he professed. It cannot be
denied that Frederick was personally little interested in the furtherance of
public instruction in Prussia. The reason for this was not lack of time, but
because he cared little for the instruction of the broader masses. He did not
share the optimism felt by most of the upholders of the Enlightenment, who
hoped that the spread of knowledge and the elimination of prejudice would
bring about the moral progress of mankind.

Once he became king, Frederick relegated philosophy to his leisure hours.

Where the reforms advocated by the Physiocrats seemed to make for the
smoother running of a military and mercantilist state, Frederick was ready to
adopt them; where they seemed more likely to impair his absolutism, he ignored
them.

His personal attitude also had a restrictive influence in the sphere of political
economy. He was not without ideas on this subject and his views on progressive
income-tax are definitely modern. In practice however, he never departed from
the tradition of mercantilism handed down to him by his father. He continued to
employ the system of prohibitions and tariffs since—in his opinion—the only
means of compelling his subjects to produce goods at home was to prevent them
from obtaining them from abroad. He continued the policy of attracting settlers
from neighbouring states; foreigners were exempted from military service for
three generations as an additional incentive.

In his efforts to encourage industry he attracted immigrant spinners, set up

rural schools to train spinners and weavers, and established cotton mills.
Attempts to foster the Prussian tobacco industry were less successful because
the quality was inferior to the Virginian product.

In general Frederick clung to the Colbertist principle of protecting home

industries from high tariffs, while stimulating internal trade by abolishing
internal tolls and by cutting canals to improve communications. Frederick seems
to have been interested in industry chiefly as a means of increasing state
revenues. The general principle was that of reducing taxes on necessities and
increasing those on luxuries.

Also noteworthy is attitude towards the peasantry. He was well aware of the
contradiction between his theory of the natural equality of men and the actual
situation of the peasants; but he did nothing to change it, or even to alleviate it
to a noticeable degree. Only on the royal domains, one major change was made:
in 1777 the tenure of the serfs was made hereditary, i.e. at the death of a peasant
his holding no longer reverted to the crown, but remained the inheritance of his
kin. But for the peasants who lived on the lands of the Junkers nothing at all was
done; the abolition of serfdom in Pomerania was never put into effect.

All this reveals Frederick’s marked preference for the aristocracy, which was
matched in his character by an equally marked contempt for the broad masses
of the people. It is true that the struggle with the nobility—one that he fought
with full force—had become unnecessary once they had submitted to royal
absolutism and accepted the duty of service as officers in the army. Nevertheless
the preference for the aristocracy which, from Frederick the Great’s time
onwards was the policy of almost every Prussian king, was in the long disastrous
for the State.
 Thus, in spite of his enlightened ideas, Frederick was not a pioneer who might
have led his State into a brighter future, but rather was the last in the line of
absolute monarchs.

~*~

Bibliography:
1. Fritz Hartung: Enlightened Despotism
2. Stuart Andrews: Enlightened Despotism at Home
3. Class Notes