Remuneration of Public Servants

Key Insight

Democracies typically exhibit a strong tendency to economize on public officials' salaries, especially for high-ranking positions. This stems from the fact that a large number of people authorize these salaries, and very few of them will ever personally benefit from such generous compensation. In contrast, in aristocracies, those who authorize high salaries often harbor 'vague hopes' of profiting themselves or providing for their children, effectively creating 'capital' for their class.

This parsimony, however, is not uniformly applied across all official ranks. In America, lower-ranking officials are generally better paid than their counterparts elsewhere, a consequence of the competitive private sector, which compels the state to offer good wages to attract talent. Conversely, high-ranking officials receive significantly less compensation. This discrepancy arises because the people, comparing official salaries to their own needs, perceive large sums for top officials as 'prodigious' and are prone to envy, finding it difficult to grasp the perceived 'splendor' required for a national representative.

The salaries of American officials demonstrate this pattern: a minister's salary in the US was 32,520 francs, while the president's was 135,000 francs. In contrast, France paid its finance minister 80,000 francs and the king 12,000,000 francs. This reflects how, in democracies, high officials, being above the people, tend to 'arouse their envy,' leading to lower compensation as power increases. Aristocracies, ignorant of the poor's miseries, pay high officials substantially while often providing barely enough for lesser ones, only raising wages when refusal to serve forces it. Therefore, democracy gives little to officials but much to the governed, while aristocracy channels state money to the ruling class.