On Executive Power in Great States

Jacques Necker (1732–1804) was a
Swiss statesman and financier who played a crucial role in French political
life from 1776 to 1789. Born in Geneva, he was a devout Protestant who amassed
considerable wealth as a successful banker. In October 1776, he was appointed
as director of the Royal Treasury and, later, in June 1777, as director general
of finances of France under Louis XVI. While in charge of the finances of the
kingdom, his most famous decision, in 1781, was to make public the budget of
France for the first time, a novel practice in an absolute monarchy.

His work On Executive Power in
Great States (1792) is arguably one of the most important texts ever
written on the issue of executive power in modern society. It includes
memorable formulations regarding liberty and public spirit among the English
and the Americans, the relation between economic prosperity and political freedom,
and the seminal influence of religion and morals on liberty. Necker provides a
defense of representative government and offers an examination of the French
political system, which he compares on several occasions with England and
America. Before Tocqueville, Necker understood the importance of America for
the Old World as the first successful example of popular self-government and
free institutions.

In his book, Necker called upon
French legislators to study the principles of the U.S. Constitution. His bold
innovation was to replace the theory of the functional separation of powers
with the “intertwining of powers” that were dependent upon the existence of
effective links between the executive and the legislative. In the absence of
such links, Necker maintained, “all would be contest and confusion.” Necker’s
fundamental premise was that it would be impossible to establish effective
cooperation between different powers solely through the exercise of constant
watchfulness and mutual distrust.

Although Necker was one of the most
important politicians in France before and during the French Revolution, he has
been largely ignored as a political thinker. This is the first modern edition
of Necker’s important work, shedding fresh light on the timely topics of executive
power, constitutionalism and the rule of law, federalism, balance of power, and
the dependence of liberty on morality and religion. Professor Aurelian Craiutu
significantly revised and corrected the 1792 English translation and added
explanatory notes, an introduction, and a select bibliography.

Aurelian Craiutu is Professor of Political Science at Indiana University,
Bloomington. An expert on French political thought, he is the author of Faces
of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes and the editor of
several works, including Germaine de Staël’s Considerations on the Principal
Events of the French Revolution, also published by Liberty Fund.