21-22-23
It may be that the present tendencies towards centralization are too strong to be resisted until they have led to disaster, and that, as happened in the fifth century, the whole system must break down, with all the inevitable results of anarchy and poverty, before human beings can again acquire that degree of personal freedom without which life loses its savor. I hope that this is not the case, but it certainly will be the case unless the danger is realized and unless vigorous measures are taken to combat it.
In this brief sketch of the changes in regard to social cohesion that have occurred in historical times, we may observe a two-fold movement.
On the one hand, there is a periodic development, from a loose and primitive type of organization to a gradually more orderly government, embracing a wider area, and regulating a greater part of the lives of individuals. At a certain point in this development, when there has recently been a great increase in wealth and security, but the vigor and enterprise of wilder ages has not yet decayed, there are apt to be great achievements in the way of advancing civilization. But when the new civilization becomes stereotyped, when government has had time to consolidate its power, when custom, tradition, and law have established rules sufficiently minute to choke enterprise, the society concerned enters upon a stagnant phase. Men praise the exploits of their ancestors, but can no longer equal them; art becomes conventional, and science is stifled by respect for authority.
This type of development followed by ossification is to be found in China and India, in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and in the Graeco-Roman world. The end comes usually through foreign conquest: there are old maxims for fighting old enemies, but when an enemy of a new type arises the elderly community has not the adaptability to adopt the new maxims that can alone bring safety. If, as often happens, the conquerors are less civilized than the conquered, they have probably not the skill for the government of a large empire, or for free preservation of commerce over a wide area. The result is a diminution of population, of the size of governmental units, and of the intensity of governmental control. Gradually, in the new more or less anarchic conditions, vigor returns, and a new cycle begins.
But in addition to this periodic movement there is another. At the apex of each cycle, the area governed by one state is larger than at any former time, and the degree of control exercised by authority over the individual is more intense than in any previous culmination. The Roman Empire was larger than the Babylonian and Egyptian empires, and the empires of the present day are larger than that of Rome. There has never in past history been any large state that controlled its citizens as completely as they are controlled in the Soviet Republic, or even in the countries of Western Europe.
Since the earth is of finite size, this tendency, if unchecked, must end in the creation of a single world state. But as there will then be no external enemy to promote cohesion through fear, the old psychological mechanisms will no longer be adequate. There will be no scope for patriotism in the affairs of the world government; the driving force will have to be found in self-interest and benevolence, without the potent incentives
of hate and fear. Can such a society persist? And if it persists, can it be capable of progress? These are difficult questions. Some considerations that must be borne in mind if they are to be answered will be brought forward in subsequent lectures.
I have spoken of a two-fold movement in past history, but I do not consider that there is anything either certain or inevitable about such laws of historical development as we can discover. New knowledge may make the course of events completely different from what it would otherwise have been; this was, for instance, a result of. the discovery of America. New institutions also may have effects that could not have been foreseen: I do not see how any Roman at the time of Julius Caesar could have predicted anything at all like the Catholic Church. And no one in the nineteenth century, not even Marx, foresaw the Soviet Union. For such reasons, all prophecies as to the future of mankind should be treated only as hypotheses which may deserve consideration.
I think that, while all definite prophecy is rash, there are
certain undesirable possibilities which it is wise to bear in mind.
On the one hand, prolonged and destructive war may cause a
breakdown of industry in all civilized states, leading to a. condition of small-scale anarchy such as prevailed in Western
Europe after the fall of Rome. This would involve an immense diminution of the population, and, for a time at least,
a cessation of many of the activities that we consider characteristic of a civilized way of life. But it would seem reasonable
to hope that, as happened in the Middle Ages, a sufficient minimum of social cohesion would in time be restored, and the lost
ground would gradually be recovered.
There is, however, another danger, perhaps more likely to be realized. Modern techniques have made possible a new intensity of governmental control, and this possibility has been exploited very fully in totalitarian states. It may be that under the stress of war, or the fear of war, or as a result of totalitarian conquest, the parts of the world where some degree of individual liberty survives may grow fewer, and even in them ?: liberty may come to be more and more restricted.
45
Democracy, as it exists in large modern states, does not give adequate scope for political initiative except to a tiny minority. We are accustomed to pointing out that what the Greeks called “democracy” fell short through the exclusion of women and slaves, but we do not always realize that in some important
46
respects it was more democratic than anything that is possible when the governmental area is extensive. Every citizen could vote on every issue; he did not have to delegate his power to a representative. He could elect executive officers, including generals, and could get them condemned if they displeased a majority’. The number of citizens was small enough for each man to feel that he counted, and that he could have a significant influence by discussion with his acquaintance. I am not suggesting that this system was good on the whole; it had, in fact, very grave disadvantages. But in the one respect of allowing for individual initiative it was very greatlv superior to anything that exists in the modern world.
Consider, for purposes of illustration, the relation of an ordinary taxpayer to an admiral. The taxpayers, collectively, are the admiral’s employers. Their agents in Parliament vote his pay, and choose the government which sanctions the authority which appoints the admiral. But if the individual taxpayer were to attempt to assume towards the admiral the attitude of authority which is customary from employer to employee, he would soon be put in his place. The admiral is a great man, accustomed to exercising authority; the ordinary taxpayer is not. In a lesser degree the same sort of thing is true throughout the public services. Even if you only wish to register a letter at a post office, the official is in a position of momentary power; he can at least decide when to notice that you desire attention. If you want anything more complicated, he can, if he happens to be in a bad humor, cause you considerable annoyance; he can send you to another man, who may send you back to the first man; and yet both are reckoned “‘servants” of the public. The ordinary voter, se far from finding himself the source of all the power of army, navy, police, and civil service, feels himself their humble subject, whose duty is, as the Chinese used to sav, to “tremble and obey.” So long as democratic control is remote and rare, while public administration is centralized and authority is delegated from the center to the circumference, this sense of individual impotence before the powers that be is difficult to avoid. And
yet it must be avoided if democracy is to be a reality in feeling and not merely in governmental machinery.
52-53
An interesting and painful example of the decay of quality through modern machine methods is afforded by the Scottish tweed industry. Hand-woven tweeds, universally acknowledged to be of superlative excellence, have long been produced in the Highlands, the Hebrides and the Orkney and Shetland Islands, but the competition of machine-woven tweeds has; hit the hand-weavers very hard, and the purchase tax, according to debates in both Houses of Parliament, is giving them then coup de grace. The result is that those who can no longer make a living by exercising their craft are compelled to leave the islands and Highlands to live in cities or even to emigrate.
Against the short-term economic gain of a purchase tax which brings in from £1,000,000 to £ 1,500,000 a year must be placed long-term losses which are hardly calculable.
First, there is the loss, added to those we have already suffered in the blind and greedy heyday of the Industrial Revolution of one mote local and traditional skill, winch has brought to those who exercised it the joy of craftsmanship and a way of life which, though hard, gave pride and self-respect and the joy of achievement, through ingenuity and effort, in circumstances of difficulty and risk.
Secondly, there is the diminution in the intrinsic excellence of the product, both aesthetic and utilitarian.
Thirdly, this murder of a local industry aggravates the tendency to uncontrollable growth of cities, which we are attempting in our national town planning to avoid. The independent weavers become units in a vast, hideous and unhealthy human ant-hill. Their economic security is no longer dependent on their own skill and upon the forces of nature It is lost in a few large organizations, in which if one fails all fail and the causes of failure cannot be understood.
Two factors make this process-a microcosm of the Industrial Revolution-inexcusable at this date. On the one hand, unlike the early industrialists, who could not see the consequences of their own acts, we know the resultant evils all too well. On the other hand, these evils are no longer necessary for the increase of production, or the raising of the material standards of living of the worker. Electricity and motor-transport have made small units of industry not only economically permissible but even desirable, for they obviate immense expenditure on transportation and organization. Where a rural industry still flourishes, it should be gradually mechanized, but be left in situ and in small units.
In those parts of the world in which industrialism is still young, the possibility of avoiding the horrors we have experienced still exists. India, for example, is traditionally
a land of village communities. It would be a tragedy if this traditional way of life with all its evils were to be suddenly and violently exchanged for the greater evils of urban industrialism, as they would apply to people whose standard of living is already pitifully low. Gandhi, realizing these dangers, attempted to put the clock back by reviving hand-loom weaving throughout the continent. He was half right, but it is folly to reject the advantages that science gives us; instead they should be seized with eagerness and applied to increase the material ‘wealth and, at the same time, to preserve those simple privileges of pure air, of status in a small community, of pride in responsibility and work well done, which are rarely possible for the worker in a large industrial town. The rivers of die Himalayas should provide all the hydro-electric power that is needed for the gradual mechanization of the village industries of India and for immeasurable improvement of physical well-being, without either the obvious disaster of industrial slump or the more subtle loss and degradation which results when age-old traditions are too rudely broken.
60-61
In politics, the association of personal initiative with a group is obvious and essential. Usually two groups are involved: the party and the electorate. If you wish to carry some reform, you must first persuade your party to adopt the reform, and then persuade the electorate to adopt your party. You may, of course, be able to operate directly upon the Government, but this is seldom possible in a matter that rouses much public interest. When it is not possible, die initiative required involves so much energy and time, and is so likely to end in failure, that most people prefer to acquiesce in the status quo, except to the extent of voting, once in five years, for some candidate who promises reform.
In a highly organized world, personal initiative connected with a group must be confined to a few unless the group is small. If you are a member of a small committee you may reasonably hope to influence its decisions. In national politics, where you are one of some twenty million voters, your influence is infinitesimal unless you arc exceptional or occupy an exceptional position. You have, it is true, a twenty-millionth share in the government of others, but only a twenty-millionth share in the government of yourself. You are therefore much more conscious of being governed than of governing. The government becomes in your thoughts a remote and largely malevolent “they,” not a set of men whom you, in concert with others who share your opinions, have chosen to carry out your wishes. Your individual feeling about politics, in these circumstances, is not that intended to he brought about by democracy, but much more nearly what it would be under a dictatorship.
The sense of bold adventure, and of capacity to bring about results that are felt to he important, can only be restored if power can be delegated to small groups in which the individual is not overwhelmed by mere numbers. A considerable degree of central control is indispensable, if only for the reasons that we considered at the beginning of this lecture. But to the utmost extent compatible with this requisite, there should be devolution of the powers of the state to various kinds of bodies —geographical, industrial, cultural, according to their functions. The powers of these bodies should be sufficient to make them interesting, and to cause energetic men to find satisfaction in influencing them. They would need, if they were to fulfill their purpose, a considerable measure of financial autonomy. Nothing is so damping and deadening to initiative as to have a carefully thought out scheme vetoed by a central authority which knows almost nothing about it and has no sympathy with its objects. Yet this is what constantly happens in Britain under our system of centralized control. r“
66
The control of greedy or predatory impulses is imperatively necessary, and therefore states, and even a world state, are needed for survival. But we cannot be content merely to be alive rather than dead; we wish to live happily, vigorously, creatively. For this the state can provide a part of the necessary conditions, but only if it does not, in the pursuit of security, stifle the largely unregulated impulses which give life its savor and it; value. The individual life still has its doe place, and must not be subjected too completely to the control of vast organizations. To guard against this danger is very necessary in the world that modern technique has created.
74-76
There are some among philosophers and statesmen who think that the state can have an excellence of its own, and not merely as a means to the welfare of the citizens. I cannot see any reason to agree with this view. “The state” is an abstraction; it does not feel pleasure or pain, it has no hopes or fears, and what we think of as its purposes are really the purposes of individuals who direct it. When we think concretely, not abstractly, we find, in place of “the state,” certain people who have more power than falls to the share of most men. And so glorification of “the state” turns out to be, in fact, glorification of a governing minority. No democrat can tolerate such a fundamentally unjust theory.
There is another ethical theory, which to my mind is also inadequate; it is that which might be called the “biological” theory, though I should not wish to assert that it is held by biologists. This view is derived from a contemplation of evolution. The struggle for existence is supposed to have gradually led to more and more complex organisms, culminating (so far) in Man. In this view, survival is the supreme end, or rather, survival of one’s own species. Whatever increases the human population of the globe, if this theory is right, is to count as “good,” and whatever diminishes the population is to count as “bad.”
I cannot see any justification for such a mechanical and arithmetical outlook. It would be easy to find a single acre containing more ants than there are human beings in the whole world, but we do not on that account acknowledge the superior excellence of ants. And what humane person would prefer a large population living in poverty and squalor to a smaller population living happily with a sufficiency of comfort?
It is true, of course, that survival is the necessary condition for everything else, but it is only a condition of what has value, and may have no value on its own account. Survival, in the world that modern science and technique have produced, demands a great deal of government. But what is to give value to survival must come mainly from sources that lie outside government. The reconciling of these two opposite requisites has been our problem in these discussions.
And now, gathering up the threads of our discussions, and remembering all the dangers of our time, I wish to reiterate certain conclusions, and, more particularly, to set forth the hopes which I believe we have rational grounds for entertaining.
Between those who care most for social cohesion and those
who primarily value individual initiative there has been an age-long battle ever since the time of the ancient Greeks. In every such perennial controversy there is sure to be truth on both sides; there is not likely to be a clear-cut solution, but at best one involving various adjustments and compromises.
Throughout history, as I suggested in my second lecture, there has been a fluctuation between periods of excessive anarchy and periods of too strict governmental control. In our day, except (as yet) in the matter of world government, there has been too much tendency towards authority, and too little care for the preservation of initiative. Men in control of vast organizations have tended to be too abstract in their outlook, to forget what actual human beings are like, and to try to fit men to systems rather than systems to men.
77
The lack of spontaneity from which our highly organized societies tend to suffer is connected with excessive control over large areas by remote authorities.
One of the advantages to be gained from decentralization is that it provides new opportunities for hopefulness and for individual activities that embody hopes. If our political thoughts are all concerned with vast problems and dangers of world catastrophe, it is easy to become despairing. Fear of war, fear of revolution, fear of reaction, may obsess you according to your temperament and your party bias. Unless you are one of a very small number of powerful individuals, you are likely to feel that you cannot do much about these great issues. But in relation to smaller problems—those of your town, or your trade union, or the local branch of your political party, for example—you can hope to have a successful influence. This will engender a hopeful spirit, and a hopeful spirit is what is most needed if a way is to be found of dealing successfully with the larger problems. War and shortages and financial stringency have caused almost universal fatigue, and have made hopefulness seem shallow and insincere. Success, even if, at first, it is on a small scale, is the best cure for this mood of pessimistic weariness. And success, for most people, means breaking up our problems, and being free to concentrate on those that are not too desperately large.