Moribund Society and Anarchy by Jean Grave

The question of property is so mixed up with that of authority that in treating of the former in its special chapter we could not do otherwise than treat of the origin and evolution of the latter. We shall not therefore return to these, but shall concern ourselves only with the present period, with the authority which is claimed to be based upon universal suffrage, the law of the majority. As we have seen, the divine origin of property and authority being sapped, the bourgeoisie has had to seek a new and more solid basis for them. Having themselves destroyed the basis of divine right, and helped to combat that of the right of force, they sought to substitute therefore that of money, by causing the chambers to be elected under the quit-rent regime, that is to say by a certain category of individuals who paid the highest taxes. Later there was some question of including "qualifications; " this came from the excluded fraction of the bourgeoisie. But all that could be of no long duration. From the moment that authority was put under discussion it lost its strength, and those who had hitherto taken no part in the choice of their masters, were not slow to demand the right to give their opinion upon this choice. The bourgeoisie, who feared the people, did not want to make any concession; they had the power, they wanted to keep it. In order to obtain universal suffrage the workers had to revolt. The bourgeois members whom they carried into power were eager to trick them out of this newly-acquired right, to cut the claws of the monster which they thought would devour them. It was only in the long run, through seeing it in operation, that they came to understand that it was not dangerous to their privileges, that it was but a fiddle upon which one must know how to play, and that this famous weapon for enforcing demands, which the workers believed themselves to have acquired, (they had paid for it with their blood) was but a perfected instrument of authority, which enslaved those who made use of it at the very moment they expected to emancipate themselves.

Indeed what is universal suffrage if not the right of the governed to choose their master, the right of choosing the rod to be whipped with? The voter is sovereign -- so far as to be able to choose his master! But he has not the right to dispense with him; for the one that his neighbor will have chosen will be his. From the moment he deposits his ballot in the box he has signed his abdication; he has no more to do but bend to the caprices of the masters of his choice; they will make the laws, will apply them to him, and throw him into prison if he resist.