Democracy: An American Novel is a novel written by Henry Adams in 1880, which has been originally published anonymously. The book’s basic topics include political power, how it is acquired, used and misused, as well as human attitudes towards political power. Although there are many themes in the book, this paper shall concentrate only on one of them – corruption of society and resulting corruption of government. Adams is interested whether corruption can be overcome in a democratic society and is democracy possible without corruption.
He puts the question straight by the words of Mrs. Lee: “Are we for ever to be at the mercy of thieves and ruffians? Is a respectable government impossible in a democracy? " [34] So, from the very beginning he appears to be pretty pessimistic about opportunities of democracy to struggle against corruption. So along the rest of the book Adams continues to investigate the reasons why officials become corrupted and why do people so easily accept the work of corrupted officials. And the first question Adams asks is: what if it is not so bad that corruption exists?"What is to become of us if corruption is allowed to go unchecked. " [34] The answer can be found in the conversation between, Carrington, Madeleine and Gore.
Gore holds, that in case a politician works good, he is able not to care about vices of others: “We have no other equally good practical politician; it is unfair to require him to be a crusader besides. " [35] Thusly he takes a position of nonintervention and refuses to recognize the evil nature of corruption. In contrast Madeleine points how destructive corruption can be at least because it leads to moral insanity: "Who, then, is right?How can we all be right? Half of our wise men declare that the world is going straight to perdition; the other half that it is fast becoming perfect. Both cannot be right. There is only one thing in life," she went on, laughing, "that I must and will have before I die. I must know whether America is right or wrong.
” [35] When it is not possible to distinguish who is right and who is wrong in the government the society starts moving in the wrong direction. But where does corruption come from? How does it come to the government?There is a much clearer answer in the book by Adams, which is proposed by Ratcliffe. He explains that "is that no representative government can long be much better or much worse than the society it represents. Purify society and you purify the government. But try to purify the government artificially and you only aggravate failure. " [34] The society thusly has the government that it deserves and it is stupid to claim that government is corrupted in case all the people inside the society are corrupted.
Depraved society can hardly produce honest officials. Although it may seem obvious, baron Jacobi immediately tells, that Ratcliffe’s reply is “statesmanlike” [35], arguing, that Ratcliffe sees the problem from the eyes of a politician, who attempts to pretend good. The person of Jacoby may appear evil at the first sight, however, it is one of the most realistic characters, who has enough reason to say openly, that most of the people find some corruption useful because of their own selfish interests.The level of corruption gradually increases until the entire society if filled by it, and, what is the worst, people can hardly notice how corruption enters their life. No society can be free from corruption, even the one which has been created with the best intentions. Jacoby notices the beginning of corruption in America: “You Americans believe yourselves to be excepted from the operation of general laws.
You care not for experience.” [36], but he finds that corruption is not so bad, for people are able to survive in the corrupted societies and even make a good life for themselves: “I have lived seventy-five years, and all that time in the midst of corruption. I am corrupt myself, only I do have courage to proclaim it, and you others have it not. Rome, Paris, Vienna, Petersburg, London, all are corrupt; only Washington is pure! Well, I declare to you that in all my experience…Everywhere men betray trusts both public and private, steal money, run away with public funds.
” [36]After this pessimistic insight Adams still attempts to propose a way out from the situation to make America know “whether it is right or wrong” [35]. He finds it “in the doctrine of a personal God; of a future life; of revealed religion; subjects which one naturally reserves for private reflection”[36]. Democracy is the best possible social formation for Adams, because all other formations are worse and neither of them is free from corruption. As Gore notices, “I believe in it because it appears to me the inevitable consequence of what has gone before it.
” [36]Thusly, corruption is a natural part of any society and any government for Adams, whether it is American democracy, British constitutionalism or Russian absolutism. All measures against it would be futile, because corrupted people can never produce honest government, and America itself can become “more corrupt than Rome under Caligula; more corrupt than the Church under Leo X. ; more corrupt than France under the Regent! " [35] But in case people become moral creatures by themselves, corruption is going to disappear. It will simply have no source.
