Page 136 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

POLITICS AND PUBLIC OPINION 109

no longer.’ The idea of aligning governmental conduct with public will
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also became a guiding principle to the fathers of the Constitution of the
United States of America. Following the axiom of David Hume that ‘it is
on opinion only that government is founded,’ they argued that ‘it is the
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reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the
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government.’ The fact that this so-called ‘public opinion’ is to be taken
seriously was indicated by John Locke who used the expression ‘Law of
Opinion’, explaining that the word ‘law’ was deliberately chosen in order
to convey clearly the fact that pressure was being exerted. Jean-Jacques
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Rousseau, alternating between the expressions general will, public opinion
and unwritten laws, went even further by viewing public opinion as the
free guardian of morality and traditions and by arguing for the absolute
sovereign of the people as community of equal citizens irrespective of
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their status and property within the nation-state.
The period of confidence in public opinion, based on the belief in the
moral judgement of the common man proclaimed in the Age of
Enlightenment, was followed by a period of distrust in its capabilities and
competence. The first to clearly voice the ambiguous and inherently
contradictory role of public opinion was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
In contrast to the early liberal belief that the government had to follow the
public will, Hegel considered public opinion only the unorganised way in
which a people’s opinions and wishes are made known, in opposition to
the organised state. Similarly, the political-philosophical and social-
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psychological critiques by Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill and
James Bryce expressed doubts about the role of public opinion, even
referring to the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Nevertheless, whether Vox
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Populi was Vox Dei or Vox Diaboli, public opinion was acknowledged by
most to be a force in politics commanding attention.
If it is agreed that public opinion is, or should be, essential for any
democratic social system, the first matter at issue is the concept of public
opinion itself. What is meant by the ‘public’ in ‘public opinion’? This
seemingly simple query belies the complexity at the heart of the matter.
What is the essence of defining public opinion – is it the consideration of
public, or of opinion, or both? Is the political dimension fundamental to
any definition of public opinion, or should we understand it in a much
broader, anthropological sense? While the inherent limitations, theoretical
assumptions, and social conditions of public opinion have been
systematically studied since the rise of empiricism and the sociologisation
theories in the beginning of the twentieth century, there remains little
agreement on the exact meaning of ‘public opinion’. The reason for this
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lack of consensus may be rooted in the fact that so many researchers and
theorists from different disciplines have contributed to the field but have