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diff --git a/76966-0.txt b/76966-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..74db426 --- /dev/null +++ b/76966-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3842 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76966 *** + + + + + + THE PHANTOM PUBLIC + + + BY + WALTER LIPPMANN + + + NEW YORK + HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY + HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. + + + Printed in the U. S. A. + + + + + TO + LEARNED HAND + + + + + “_The Voice of the People has been said to be the voice of God: + and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it + is not true in fact._”—Alexander Hamilton, June 18, 1787, at the + Federal Convention (Yates’s notes, cited _Sources and Documents + Illustrating the American Revolution_, edited by S. G. Morison). + + “... _consider ‘Government by Public Opinion’ as a formula.... It + is an admirable formula: but it presupposes, not only that public + opinion exists, but that on any particular question there is a + public opinion ready to decide the issue. Indeed, it presupposes + that the supreme statesman in democratic government is public + opinion. Many of the shortcomings of democratic government are + due to the fact that public opinion is not necessarily a great + statesman at all._”—From “Some Thoughts on Public Life,” a lecture + by Viscount Grey of Fallodon, February 3, 1923. + + + + + Contents + + + PART I + + Chapter Page + + I. The Disenchanted Man 13 + + II. The Unattainable Ideal 22 + + III. Agents and Bystanders 40 + + IV. What the Public Does 54 + + V. The Neutralization of Arbitrary Force 63 + + PART II + + VI. The Question Aristotle Asked 77 + + VII. The Nature of a Problem 81 + + VIII. Social Contracts 95 + + IX. The Two Questions Before the Public 107 + + X. The Main Value of Public Debate 110 + + XI. The Defective Rule 115 + + XII. The Criteria of Reform 125 + + XIII. The Principles of Public Opinion 143 + + PART III + + XIV. Society in Its Place 155 + + XV. Absentee Rulers 173 + + XVI. The Realms of Disorder 187 + + Index 201 + + + + +PART I + + + + +Chapter I + +THE DISENCHANTED MAN + + +1 + +The private citizen today has come to feel rather like a deaf spectator +in the back row, who ought to keep his mind on the mystery off there, +but cannot quite manage to keep awake. He knows he is somehow affected +by what is going on. Rules and regulations continually, taxes annually +and wars occasionally remind him that he is being swept along by great +drifts of circumstance. + +Yet these public affairs are in no convincing way his affairs. They +are for the most part invisible. They are managed, if they are managed +at all, at distant centers, from behind the scenes, by unnamed powers. +As a private person he does not know for certain what is going on, or +who is doing it, or where he is being carried. No newspaper reports +his environment so that he can grasp it; no school has taught him how +to imagine it; his ideals, often, do not fit with it; listening to +speeches, uttering opinions and voting do not, he finds, enable him to +govern it. He lives in a world which he cannot see, does not understand +and is unable to direct. + +In the cold light of experience he knows that his sovereignty is +a fiction. He reigns in theory, but in fact he does not govern. +Contemplating himself and his actual accomplishments in public affairs, +contrasting the influence he exerts with the influence he is supposed +according to democratic theory to exert, he must say of his sovereignty +what Bismarck said of Napoleon III.: “At a distance it is something, +but close to it is nothing at all.”[1] When, during an agitation of +some sort, say a political campaign, he hears himself and some thirty +million others described as the source of all wisdom and power and +righteousness, the prime mover and the ultimate goal, the remnants of +sanity in him protest. He cannot all the time play Chanticleer who was +so dazzled and delighted because he himself had caused the sun to rise. + +For when the private man has lived through the romantic age in politics +and is no longer moved by the stale echoes of its hot cries, when he is +sober and unimpressed, his own part in public affairs appears to him a +pretentious thing, a second rate, an inconsequential. You cannot move +him then with a good straight talk about service and civic duty, nor +by waving a flag in his face, nor by sending a boy scout after him to +make him vote. He is a man back home from a crusade to make the world +something or other it did not become; he has been tantalized too often +by the foam of events, has seen the gas go out of it, and, with sour +derision for the stuff, he is saying with the author of _Trivia_:[2] + +“‘Self-determination,’ one of them insisted. + +“‘Arbitration,’ cried another. + +“‘Coöperation,’ suggested the mildest of the party. + +“‘Confiscation,’ answered an uncompromising female. + +“I, too, became intoxicated with the sound of these vocables. And were +they not the cure for all our ills? + +“‘Inoculation!’ I chimed in. ‘Transubstantiation, alliteration, +inundation, flagellation, and afforestation!’” + + +2 + +It is well known that nothing like the whole people takes part in +public affairs. Of the eligible voters in the United States less +than half go to the polls even in a presidential year.[3] During the +campaign of 1924 a special effort was made to bring out more voters. +They did not come out. The Constitution, the nation, the party system, +the presidential succession, private property, all were supposed to be +in danger. One party prophesied red ruin, another black corruption, a +third tyranny and imperialism if the voters did not go to the polls in +greater numbers. Half the citizenship was unmoved. + +The students used to write books about voting. They are now beginning +to write books about nonvoting. At the University of Chicago Professor +Merriam and Mr. Gosnell have made an elaborate inquiry[4] into the +reason why, at the typical Chicago mayoral election of 1923, there +were, out of 1,400,000 eligible electors, only 900,000 who registered, +and out of those who registered there were only 723,000 who finally +managed to vote. Thousands of persons were interviewed. About 30 per +cent of the abstainers had, or at least claimed to have had, an +insuperable difficulty about going to the polls. They were ill, they +were absent from the city, they were women detained at home by a child +or an invalid, they had had insufficient legal residence. The other 70 +per cent, representing about half a million free and sovereign citizens +of this Republic, did not even pretend to have a reason for not voting, +which, in effect, was not an admission that they did not care about +voting. They were needed at their work, the polls were crowded, the +polls were inconveniently located, they were afraid to tell their age, +they did not believe in woman suffrage, the husband objected, politics +is rotten, elections are rotten, they were afraid to vote, they did +not know there was an election. About a quarter of those who were +interviewed had the honesty to say they were wholly uninterested. + +Yet Bryce is authority for the statement that “the will of the +sovereign people is expressed ... in the United States ... by as large +a proportion of the registered voters as in any other country.”[5] +And certainly Mr. Lowell’s tables on the use of the initiative and +referendum in Switzerland in the main support the view that the +indifference of the American voter is not unique.[6] In fact, realistic +political thinkers in Europe long ago abandoned the notion that the +collective mass of the people direct the course of public affairs. +Robert Michels, himself a Socialist, says flatly that “the majority is +permanently incapable of self-government,”[7] and quotes approvingly +the remark of a Swedish Socialist Deputy, Gustaf F. Steffen, that +“even after the victory there will always remain in political life the +leaders and the led.” Michels, who is a political thinker of great +penetration, unburdens himself finally on the subject by printing a +remark of Hertzen’s that the victory of an opposition party amounts to +“passing from the sphere of envy to the sphere of avarice.” + +There is then nothing particularly new in the disenchantment which the +private citizen expresses by not voting at all, by voting only for the +head of the ticket, by staying away from the primaries, by not reading +speeches and documents, by the whole list of sins of omission for which +he is denounced. I shall not denounce him further. My sympathies are +with him, for I believe that he has been saddled with an impossible +task and that he is asked to practice an unattainable ideal. I find +it so myself for, although public business is my main interest and I +give most of my time to watching it, I cannot find time to do what is +expected of me in the theory of democracy; that is, to know what is +going on and to have an opinion worth expressing on every question +which confronts a self-governing community. And I have not happened to +meet anybody, from a President of the United States to a professor of +political science, who came anywhere near to embodying the accepted +ideal of the sovereign and omnicompetent citizen. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Cited Philip Guedalla, _The Second Empire_. + +[2] Logan Pearsall Smith, _More Trivia_, p. 41. + +[3] _Cf._ Simon Michelet, _Stay-at-Home Vote and Absentee Voters_, +pamphlet of the National Get Out the Vote Club; also A. M. Schlesinger +and E. M. Erickson, “The Vanishing Voter,” _New Republic_, Oct. 15, +1924. The percentage of the popular to the eligible vote from 1865 to +1920 declined from 83.51 per cent to 52.36 per cent. + +[4] Charles Edward Merriam and Harvey Foote Gosnell, _Non-Voting: +Causes and Methods of Control_. + +[5] James Bryce, _Modern Democracies_, Vol. II, p. 52. + +[6] A. Lawrence Lowell, _Public Opinion and Popular Government_. _Cf._ +Appendices. + +[7] Robert Michels, _Political Parties_, p. 390. + + + + +Chapter II + +THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL + + +I have tried to imagine how the perfect citizen could be produced. +Some say he will have to be born of the conjunction of the right germ +plasms, and, in the pages of books written by Madison Grant, Lothrop +Stoddard and other revivalists, I have seen prescriptions as to just +who ought to marry whom to produce a great citizenry. Not being a +biologist I keep an open but hopeful mind on this point, tempered, +however, with the knowledge that certainty about how to breed ability +in human beings is on the whole in inverse proportion to the writer’s +scientific reputation. + +It is then to education that logically one turns next, for education +has furnished the thesis of the last chapter of every optimistic book +on democracy written for one hundred and fifty years. Even Robert +Michels, stern and unbending antisentimentalist that he is, says +in his “final considerations” that “it is the great task of social +education to raise the intellectual level of the masses, so that they +may be enabled, within the limits of what is possible, to counteract +the oligarchical tendencies” of all collective action. + +So I have been reading some of the new standard textbooks used to teach +citizenship in schools and colleges. After reading them I do not see +how any one can escape the conclusion that man must have the appetite +of an encyclopædist and infinite time ahead of him. To be sure he no +longer is expected to remember the exact salary of the county clerk +and the length of the coroner’s term. In the new civics he studies the +problems of government, and not the structural detail. He is told, in +one textbook of five hundred concise, contentious pages, which I have +been reading, about city problems, state problems, national problems, +international problems, trust problems, labor problems, transportation +problems, banking problems, rural problems, agricultural problems, and +so on _ad infinitum_. In the eleven pages devoted to problems of the +city there are described twelve sub-problems. + +But nowhere in this well-meant book is the sovereign citizen of the +future given a hint as to how, while he is earning a living, rearing +children and enjoying his life, he is to keep himself informed about +the progress of this swarming confusion of problems. He is exhorted to +conserve the natural resources of the country because they are limited +in quantity. He is advised to watch public expenditures because the +taxpayers cannot pay out indefinitely increasing amounts. But he, the +voter, the citizen, the sovereign, is apparently expected to yield an +unlimited quantity of public spirit, interest, curiosity and effort. +The author of the textbook, touching on everything, as he thinks, from +city sewers to Indian opium, misses a decisive fact: the citizen gives +but a little of his time to public affairs, has but a casual interest +in facts and but a poor appetite for theory. + +It never occurs to this preceptor of civic duty to provide the student +with a rule by which he can know whether on Thursday it is his duty +to consider subways in Brooklyn or the Manchurian Railway, nor how, +if he determines on Thursday to express his sovereign will on the +subway question, he is to repair those gaps in his knowledge of that +question which are due to his having been preoccupied the day before in +expressing his sovereign will about rural credits in Montana and the +rights of Britain in the Sudan. Yet he cannot know all about everything +all the time, and while he is watching one thing a thousand others +undergo great changes. Unless he can discover some rational ground for +fixing his attention where it will do the most good, and in a way that +suits his inherently amateurish equipment, he will be as bewildered as +a puppy trying to lick three bones at once. + +I do not wish to say that it does the student no good to be taken on +a sightseeing tour of the problems of the world. It may teach him +that the world is complicated, even if he comes out of the adventure +“laden with germs, breathing creeds and convictions on you whenever +he opens his mouth.”[8] He may learn humility, but most certainly his +acquaintance with what a high-minded author thought were American +problems in 1925 will not equip him to master American problems ten +years later. Unless out of the study of transient issues he acquires an +intellectual attitude no education has occurred. + +That is why the usual appeal to education as the remedy for the +incompetence of democracy is so barren. It is, in effect, a proposal +that school teachers shall by some magic of their own fit men to govern +after the makers of laws and the preachers of civic ideals have had a +free hand in writing the specifications. The reformers do not ask what +men can be taught. They say they should be taught whatever may be +necessary to fit them to govern the modern world. + +The usual appeal to education can bring only disappointment. For the +problems of the modern world appear and change faster than any set +of teachers can grasp them, much faster than they can convey their +substance to a population of children. If the schools attempt to teach +children how to solve the problems of the day, they are bound always to +be in arrears. The most they can conceivably attempt is the teaching +of a pattern of thought and feeling which will enable the citizen to +approach a new problem in some useful fashion. But that pattern cannot +be invented by the pedagogue. It is the political theorist’s business +to trace out that pattern. In that task he must not assume that the +mass has political genius, but that men, even if they had genius, would +give only a little time and attention to public affairs. + +The moralist, I am afraid, will agree all too readily with the idea +that social education must deal primarily not with the elements and +solutions of particular phases of transient problems but with the +principles that constitute an attitude toward all problems. I warn +him off. It will require more than a good conscience to govern modern +society, for conscience is no guide in situations where the essence of +the difficulty is to find a guide for the conscience. + +When I am tempted to think that men can be fitted out to deal with the +modern world simply by teaching morals, manners and patriotism, I try +to remember the fable of the pensive professor walking in the woods at +twilight. He stumbled into a tree. This experience compelled him to +act. Being a man of honor and breeding, he raised his hat, bowed deeply +to the tree, and exclaimed with sincere regret: “Excuse me, sir, I +thought you were a tree.” + +Is it fair, I ask, as a matter of morality, to chide him for his +conduct? If he had encountered a tree, can any one deny his right to +collide with it? If he had stumbled into a man, was his apology not +sufficient? Here was a moral code in perfect working order, and the +only questionable aspect of his conduct turned not on the goodness of +his heart or the firmness of his principles but on a point of fact. +You may retort that he had a moral obligation to know the difference +between a man and a tree. Perhaps so. But suppose that instead of +walking in the woods he had been casting a ballot; suppose that instead +of a tree he had encountered the Fordney-McCumber tariff. How much more +obligation to know the truth would you have imposed on him then? After +all, this walker in the woods at twilight with his mind on other things +was facing, as all of us think we are, the facts he imagined were +there, and was doing his duty as he had learned it. + +In some degree the whole animate world seems to share the inexpertness +of the thoughtful professor. Pawlow showed by his experiments on dogs +that an animal with a false stomach can experience all the pleasures +of eating, and the number of mice and monkeys known to have been +deceived in laboratories is surpassed only by the hopeful citizens of a +democracy. Man’s reflexes are, as the psychologists say, conditioned. +And, therefore, he responds quite readily to a glass egg, a decoy duck, +a stuffed shirt or a political platform. No moral code, as such, will +enable him to know whether he is exercising his moral faculties on a +real and an important event. For effective virtue, as Socrates pointed +out long ago, is knowledge; and a code of the right and the wrong must +wait upon a perception of the true and the false. + +But even the successful practice of a moral code would not emancipate +democracy. There are too many moral codes. In our immediate lives, +within the boundaries of our own society, there may be commonly +accepted standards. But a political theorist who asks that a local +standard be universally applied is merely begging one of the questions +he ought to be trying to solve. For, while possibly it may be an aim +of political organization to arrive at a common standard of judgment, +one of the conditions which engenders politics and makes political +organization necessary is the conflict of standards. + +Darwin’s story of the cats and clover[9] may be recommended to any +one who finds it difficult to free his mind of the assumption that +his notions of good and bad are universal. The purple clover is +cross-fertilized by the bumblebee, and, therefore, the more bumblebees +the better next year’s crop of clover. But the nests of bumblebees are +rifled by field mice which are fond of the white grubs. Therefore, the +more field mice the fewer bumblebees and the poorer the crop. But in +the neighborhood of villages the cats hunt down the field mice. And so +the more cats the fewer mice, the more bumblebees the better the crop. +And the more kindly old ladies there are in the village the more cats +there will be. + +If you happen not to be a Hindu or a vegetarian and are a beef-eating +Occidental you will commend the old ladies who keep the cats who hunt +the mice who destroy the bumblebees who make the pasture of clover +for the cattle. If you are a cat you also will be in favor of the old +ladies. But if you are a field mouse, how different the rights and +wrongs of that section of the universe! The old ladies who keep cats +will seem about as kindly as witches with pet tigers, and the Old Lady +Peril will be debated hysterically by the Field Mouse Security League. +For what could a patriotic mouse think of a world in which bumblebees +did not exist for the sole purpose of producing white grubs for field +mice? There would seem to be no law and order in such a world; and +only a highly philosophical mouse would admit with Bergson that “the +idea of disorder objectifies for the convenience of language, the +disappointment of a mind that finds before it an order different from +what it wants.”[10] For the order which we recognize as good is an +order suited to our needs and hopes and habits. + +There is nothing universal or eternal or unchangeable about our +expectations. For rhetorical effect we often say there is. But in +concrete cases it is not easy to explain why the thing we desire is so +righteous. If the farmers are able to buy less than their accustomed +amount of manufactured foods there is disorder and a problem. But what +absolute standard is there which determines whether a bushel of wheat +in 1925 should, as compared with 1913, exchange for more, as many, +or less manufactures? Can any one define a principle which shall say +whether the standard of living of the farmers or of any other class +should rise or fall, and how fast and how much? There may be more jobs +than workingmen at the wage offered: the employers will complain and +will call it a problem, but who knows any rule which tells how large a +surplus of labor there ought to be and at what price? There may be more +workingmen than jobs of the kind and at the places and for the wages +they will or can take. But, although the problem will be acute, there +is no principle which determines how many machinists, clerks, coal +miners, bankers, or salesmen it is the duty of society to provide work +for. + +It requires intense partisanship and much self-deception to argue that +some sort of peculiar righteousness adheres to the farmers’ claims as +against the manufacturers’, the employers’ against the wage-earners’, +the creditors’ against the debtors’, or the other way around. These +conflicts of interest are problems. They require solution. But there +is no moral pattern available from which the precise nature of the +solution can be deduced. + +If then eugenics cannot produce the ideal democratic citizen, +omnicompetent and sovereign, because biology knows neither how to breed +political excellence nor what that excellence is; if education cannot +equip the citizen, because the school teacher cannot anticipate the +issues of the future; if morality cannot direct him, first, because +right or wrong in specific cases depends upon the perception of true +or false, and, second, on the assumption that there is a universal +moral code, which, in fact, does not exist, where else shall we look +for the method of making the competent citizen? Democratic theorists +in the nineteenth century had several other prescriptions which still +influence the thinking of many hopeful persons. + +One school based their reforms on the aphorism that the cure for the +evils of democracy is more democracy. It was assumed that the popular +will was wise and good if only you could get at it. They proposed +extensions of the suffrage, and as much voting as possible by means of +the initiative, referendum and recall, direct election of Senators, +direct primaries, an elected judiciary, and the like. They begged the +question, for it has never been proved that there exists the kind of +public opinion which they presupposed. Since the Bryan campaign of +1896 this school of thought has made great conquests in most of the +states, and has profoundly influenced the federal government. The +eligible vote has trebled since 1896; the direct action of the voter +has been enormously extended. Yet that same period has seen a decline +in the percentage of the popular vote cast at presidential elections +from 80.75 per cent in 1896 to 52.36 per cent in 1920. Apparently there +is a fallacy in the first assumption of this school that “the whole +people” desires to participate actively in government. Nor is there any +evidence to show that the persons who do participate are in any real +sense directing the course of affairs. The party machines have survived +every attack. And why should they not? If the voter cannot grasp the +details of the problems of the day because he has not the time, the +interest or the knowledge, he will not have a better public opinion +because he is asked to express his opinion more often. He will simply +be more bewildered, more bored and more ready to follow along. + +Another school, calling themselves revolutionary, have ascribed the +disenchantment of democracy to the capitalistic system. They have +argued that property is power, and that until there is as wide a +distribution of economic power as there is of the right to vote the +suffrage cannot be more effective. No serious student, I think, +would dispute that socialist premise which asserts that the weight +of influence on society exercised by an individual is more nearly +related to the character of his property than to his abstract legal +citizenship. But the socialist conclusion that economic power can be +distributed by concentrating the ownership of great utilities in the +state, the conclusion that the pervasion of industrial life by voting +and referenda will yield competent popular decisions, seems to me again +to beg the question. For what reason is there to think that subjecting +so many more affairs to the method of the vote will reveal hitherto +undiscovered wisdom and technical competence and reservoirs of public +interest in men? The socialist scheme has at its root the mystical +fallacy of democracy, that the people, all of them, are competent; at +its top it suffers from the homeopathic fallacy that adding new tasks +to a burden the people will not and cannot carry now will make the +burden of citizenship easily borne. The socialist theory presupposes an +unceasing, untiring round of civic duties, an enormous complication of +the political interests that are already much too complicated. + +These various remedies, eugenic, educational, ethical, populist and +socialist, all assume that either the voters are inherently competent +to direct the course of affairs or that they are making progress +toward such an ideal. I think it is a false ideal. I do not mean an +undesirable ideal. I mean an unattainable ideal, bad only in the sense +that it is bad for a fat man to try to be a ballet dancer. An ideal +should express the true possibilities of its subject. When it does not +it perverts the true possibilities. The ideal of the omnicompetent, +sovereign citizen is, in my opinion, such a false ideal. It is +unattainable. The pursuit of it is misleading. The failure to achieve +it has produced the current disenchantment. + +The individual man does not have opinions on all public affairs. He +does not know how to direct public affairs. He does not know what is +happening, why it is happening, what ought to happen. I cannot imagine +how he could know, and there is not the least reason for thinking, as +mystical democrats have thought, that the compounding of individual +ignorances in masses of people can produce a continuous directing force +in public affairs. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] Logan Pearsall Smith. + +[9] As told by J. Arthur Thomson, _The Outline of Science_, Vol. III, +p. 646. + +[10] _Creative Evolution_, Ch. III. + + + + +Chapter III + +AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS + + +1 + +When a citizen has qualified as a voter he finds himself one of the +theoretical rulers of a great going concern. He has not made the +complicated machine with its five hundred thousand federal officers +and its uncounted local offices. He has not seen much of it. He is +bound by contracts, by debts, by treaties, by laws, made before he +was aware of them. He does not from day to day decide who shall do +what in the business of government. Only some small fraction of it +comes intermittently to his notice. And in those episodic moments +when he stands in the polling booth he is a highly intelligent and +public-spirited voter indeed who can discover two real alternatives +and enlist his influence for a party which promises something he can +understand. + +The actual governing is made up of a multitude of arrangements on +specific questions by particular individuals. These rarely become +visible to the private citizen. Government, in the long intervals +between elections, is carried on by politicians, officeholders +and influential men who make settlements with other politicians, +officeholders and influential men. The mass of people see these +settlements, judge them, and affect them only now and then. They are +altogether too numerous, too complicated, too obscure in their effects +to become the subject of any continuing exercise of public opinion. + +Nor in any exact and literal sense are those who conduct the daily +business of government accountable after the fact to the great mass of +the voters. They are accountable only, except in spectacular cases, +to the other politicians, officeholders and influential men directly +interested in the particular act. Modern society is not visible to +anybody, nor intelligible continuously and as a whole. One section is +visible to another section, one series of acts is intelligible to this +group and another to that. + +Even this degree of responsible understanding is attainable only by the +development of fact-finding agencies of great scope and complexity.[11] +These agencies give only a remote and incidental assistance to the +general public. Their findings are too intricate for the casual reader. +They are also almost always much too uninteresting. Indeed the popular +boredom and contempt for the expert and for statistical measurement are +such that the organization of intelligence to administer modern affairs +would probably be entirely neglected were it not that departments of +government, corporations, trade unions and trade associations are being +compelled by their own internal necessities of administration, and +by compulsion of other corporate groups, to record their own acts, +measure them, publish them and stand accountable for them. + +The need in the Great Society not only for publicity but for +uninterrupted publicity is indisputable. But we shall misunderstand +the need seriously if we imagine that the purpose of the publication +can possibly be the informing of every voter. We live at the mere +beginnings of public accounting. Yet the facts far exceed our +curiosity. The railroads, for example, make an accounting. Do we read +the results? Hardly. A few executives here and there, some bankers, +some regulating officials, some representatives of shippers and the +like read them. The rest of us ignore them for the good and sufficient +reason that we have other things to do. + +For the man does not live who can read all the reports that drift +across his doorstep or all the dispatches in his newspaper. And if +by some development of the radio every man could see and hear all +that was happening everywhere, if publicity, in other words, became +absolute, how much time could or would he spend watching the Sinking +Fund Commission and the Geological Survey? He would probably tune in +on the Prince of Wales, or, in desperation, throw off the switch and +seek peace in ignorance. It is bad enough today—with morning newspapers +published in the evening and evening newspapers in the morning, with +October magazines in September, with the movies and the radio—to be +condemned to live under a barrage of eclectic information, to have +one’s mind made the receptacle for a hullabaloo of speeches, arguments +and unrelated episodes. General information for the informing of public +opinion is altogether too general for intellectual decency. And life is +too short for the pursuit of omniscience by the counting in a state of +nervous excitement of all the leaves on all the trees. + + +2 + +If all men had to conceive the whole process of government all the time +the world’s work would obviously never be carried on. Men make no +attempt to consider society as a whole. The farmer decides whether to +plant wheat or corn, the mechanic whether to take the job offered at +the Pennsylvania or the Erie shops, whether to buy a Ford or a piano, +and, if a Ford, whether to buy it from the garage on Elm Street or from +the dealer who sent him a circular. These decisions are among fairly +narrow choices offered to him; he can no more choose among all the jobs +in the world than he can consider marrying any woman in the world. +These choices in detail are in their cumulative mass the government +of society. They may rest on ignorant or enlightened opinions, but, +whether he comes to them by accident or scientific instruction, they +are specific and particular among at best a few concrete alternatives +and they lead to a definite, visible result. + +But men are supposed also to hold public opinions about the general +conduct of society. The mechanic is supposed not only to choose +between working for the Pennsylvania or the Erie but to decide how +in the interests of the nation all the railroads of the country shall +be regulated. The two kinds of opinion merge insensibly one into the +other; men have general notions which influence their individual +decisions and their direct experiences unconsciously govern their +general notions. Yet it is useful to distinguish between the two kinds +of opinion, the specific and direct, the general and the indirect. + +Specific opinions give rise to immediate executive acts; to take a job, +to do a particular piece of work, to hire or fire, to buy or sell, +to stay here or go there, to accept or refuse, to command or obey. +General opinions give rise to delegated, indirect, symbolic, intangible +results: to a vote, to a resolution, to applause, to criticism, +to praise or dispraise, to audiences, circulations, followings, +contentment or discontent. The specific opinion may lead to a decision +to act within the area where a man has personal jurisdiction; that +is, within the limits set by law and custom, his personal power and +his personal desire. But general opinions lead only to some sort of +expression, such as voting, and do not result in executive acts except +in coöperation with the general opinions of large numbers of other +persons. + +Since the general opinions of large numbers of persons are almost +certain to be a vague and confusing medley, action cannot be taken +until these opinions have been factored down, canalized, compressed +and made uniform. The making of one general will out of a multitude +of general wishes is not an Hegelian mystery, as so many social +philosophers have imagined, but an art well known to leaders, +politicians and steering committees.[12] It consists essentially in the +use of symbols which assemble emotions after they have been detached +from their ideas. Because feelings are much less specific than ideas, +and yet more poignant, the leader is able to make a homogeneous +will out of a heterogeneous mass of desires. The process, therefore, +by which general opinions are brought to coöperation consists of an +intensification of feeling and a degradation of significance. Before a +mass of general opinions can eventuate in executive action, the choice +is narrowed down to a few alternatives. The victorious alternative is +executed not by the mass but by individuals in control of its energy. + +A private opinion may be quite complicated, and may issue in quite +complicated actions, in a whole train of subsidiary opinions, as when +a man decides to build a house and then makes a hundred judgments as +to how it shall be built. But a public opinion has no such immediate +responsibility or continuous result. It leads in politics to the making +of a pencil mark on a piece of paper, and then to a period of waiting +and watching as to whether one or two years hence the mark shall be +made in the same column or in the adjoining one. The decision to make +the mark may be for reasons _a_^1, _a_^2, _a_^3 ... _a_^n: the result, +whether an idiot or genius has voted, is A. + +For great masses of people, though each of them may have more or less +distinct views, must when they act converge to an identical result. And +the more complex the collection of men the more ambiguous must be the +unity and the simpler the common ideas. + + +3 + +In English-speaking countries during the last century the contrast +between the action of men individually and in the mass has been much +emphasized, and yet greatly misunderstood. Macaulay, for example, +speaking on the Reform Bill of 1832, drew the conventional distinction +between private enterprise and public action: + +“In all those things which depend on the intelligence, the knowledge, +the industry, the energy of individuals, this country stands preëminent +among all countries of the world ancient and modern. But in those +things which it belongs to the state to direct we have no such claim to +superiority ... can there be a stronger contrast than that which exists +between the beauty, the completeness, the speed, the precision with +which every process is performed in our factories, and the awkwardness, +the crudeness, the slowness, the uncertainty of the apparatus by which +offenses are punished and rights vindicated?... Surely we see the +barbarism of the Thirteenth Century and the highest civilization of the +Nineteenth Century side by side, and we see that the barbarism belongs +to the government, and the civilization to the people.”[13] + +Macaulay was, of course, thinking of the contrast between factory +production and government as it existed in England under Queen +Victoria’s uncles and the hard-drinking, hard-riding squirearchy. But +the Prussian bureaucracy amply demonstrated that there is no such +necessary contrast between governmental and private action. There is +a contrast between action by and through great masses of people and +action that moves without them. + +The fundamental contrast is not between public and private enterprises, +between “crowd” psychology and individual, but between men doing +specific things and men attempting to command general results. The +work of the world is carried on by men in their executive capacity, +by an infinite number of concrete acts, plowing and planting and +reaping, building and destroying, fitting this to that, going from +here to there, transforming A into B and moving B from X to Y. The +relationships between the individuals doing these specific things are +balanced by a most intricate mechanism of exchange, of contract, of +custom and of implied promises. Where men are performing their work +they must learn to understand the process and the substance of these +obligations if they are to do it at all. But in governing the work of +other men by votes or by the expression of opinion they can only reward +or punish a result, accept or reject alternatives presented to them. +They can say yes or no to something which has been done, yes or no to +a proposal, but they cannot create, administer and actually perform +the act they have in mind. Persons uttering public opinions may now +and then be able to define the acts of men, but their opinions do not +execute these acts. + + +4 + +To the realm of executive acts, each of us, as a member of the public, +remains always external. Our public opinions are always and forever, +by their very nature, an attempt to control the actions of others from +the outside. If we can grasp the full significance of that conclusion +we shall, I think, have found a way of fixing the rôle of public +opinion in its true perspective; we shall know how to account for the +disenchantment of democracy, and we shall begin to see the outline of +an ideal of public opinion which, unlike that accepted in the dogma of +democracy, may be really attainable. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[11] _Cf._ my _Public Opinion_, Chapters XXV and XXVI. + +[12] _Cf._ my _Public Opinion_, Chapters XIII and XIV. + +[13] Speech on the Reform Bill of 1832, quoted in the _Times_ +(London), July 12, 1923. + + + + +Chapter IV + +WHAT THE PUBLIC DOES + + +1 + +I do not mean to say that there is no other attainable ideal of public +opinion but that severely practical one which this essay is meant +to disclose. One might aim to enrich the minds of men with charming +fantasies, animate nature and society with spirits, set up an Olympus +in the skies and an Atlantis at the end of the world. And one might +then assert that, so the quality of ideas be fine or give peace, it +does not matter how or whether they eventuate in the government of +affairs. + +Utopia and Nirvana are by definition their own sufficient reason, and +it may be that to contemplate them is well worth the abandonment of +feeble attempts to control the action of events. Renunciation, however, +is a luxury in which all men cannot indulge. They will somehow seek to +control the behavior of others, if not by positive law then at least +by persuasion. When men are in that posture toward events they are a +public, as I am here defining the term; their opinions as to how others +ought to behave are public opinions. The more clearly it is understood +what the public can do and what it cannot, the more effectively it will +do what lies within its power to do well and the less it will interfere +with the liberties of men. + +The rôle of public opinion is determined by the fact that its relation +to a problem is external. The opinion affects an opinion, but does not +itself control the executive act. A public opinion is expressed by a +vote, a demonstration of praise or blame, a following or a boycotting. +But these manifestations are in themselves nothing. They count only +if they influence the course of affairs. They influence it, however, +only if they influence an actor in the affair. And it is, I believe, +precisely in this secondary, indirect relationship between public +opinion and public affairs that we have the clue to the limits and the +possibilities of public opinion. + + +2 + +It may be objected at once that an election which turns one set of +men out of office and installs another is an expression of public +opinion which is neither secondary nor indirect. But what in fact is an +election? We call it an expression of the popular will. But is it? We +go into a polling booth and mark a cross on a piece of paper for one of +two, or perhaps three or four names. Have we expressed our thoughts on +the public policy of the United States? Presumably we have a number of +thoughts on this and that with many buts and ifs and ors. Surely the +cross on a piece of paper does not express them. It would take us hours +to express our thoughts, and calling a vote the expression of our mind +is an empty fiction. + +A vote is a promise of support. It is a way of saying: I am lined up +with these men, on this side. I enlist with them. I will follow. I will +buy. I will boycott. I will strike. I applaud. I jeer. The force I can +exert is placed here, not there. + +The public does not select the candidate, write the platform, outline +the policy any more than it builds the automobile or acts the play. It +aligns itself for or against somebody who has offered himself, has made +a promise, has produced a play, is selling an automobile. The action of +a group as a group is the mobilization of the force it possesses. + +The attempt has been made to ascribe some intrinsic moral and +intellectual virtue to majority rule. It was said often in the +nineteenth century that there was a deep wisdom in majorities which +was the voice of God. Sometimes this flattery was a sincere mysticism, +sometimes it was the self-deception which always accompanies the +idealization of power. In substance it was nothing but a transfer to +the new sovereign of the divine attributes of kings. Yet the inherent +absurdity of making virtue and wisdom dependent on 51 per cent of any +collection of men has always been apparent. The practical realization +that the claim was absurd has resulted in a whole code of civil +rights to protect minorities and in all sorts of elaborate methods of +subsidizing the arts and sciences and other human interests so they +might be independent of the operation of majority rule. + +The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in +its ethical superiority. It is to be found in the sheer necessity of +finding a place in civilized society for the force which resides in +the weight of numbers. I have called voting an act of enlistment, an +alignment for or against, a mobilization. These are military metaphors, +and rightly so, I think, for an election based on the principle +of majority rule is historically and practically a sublimated and +denatured civil war, a paper mobilization without physical violence. + +Constitutional democrats, in the intervals when they were not +idealizing the majority, have acknowledged that a ballot was a +civilized substitute for a bullet. “The French Revolution,” says +Bernard Shaw, “overthrew one set of rulers and substituted another +with different interests and different views. That is what a general +election enables the people to do in England every seven years if they +choose. Revolution is therefore a national institution in England; +and its advocacy by an Englishman needs no apology.”[14] It makes an +enormous difference, of course, whether the people fight or vote, +but we shall understand the nature of voting better if we recognize +it to be a substitute for fighting. “There grew up in the 17th and +18th Centuries in England,” says Dwight Morrow in his introduction to +Professor Morse’s book, “and there has been carried from England to +almost every civilized government in the world, a procedure through +which party government becomes in large measure a substitute for +revolution.”[15] Hans Delbrück puts the matter simply when he says that +the principle of majority rule is “a purely practical principle. If one +wants to avoid a civil war, one lets those rule who in any case would +obtain the upper hand if there should be a struggle; and they are the +superior numbers.”[16] + +But, while an election is in essence sublimated warfare, we must take +care not to miss the importance of the sublimation. There have been +pedantic theorists who wished to disqualify all who could not bear +arms, and woman suffrage has been deplored as a falsification of the +value of an election in uncovering the alignment of martial force in +the community. One can safely ignore such theorizing. For, while the +institution of an election is in its historical origins an alignment +of the physical force, it has come to be an alignment of all kinds of +force. It remains an alignment, though in advanced democracies it has +lost most of its primitive association with military combat. It has +not lost it in the South where the Negro population is disfranchised +by force, and not permitted to make its weight felt in an election. It +has not lost it in the unstable Latin American republics where every +election is in some measure still an armed revolution. In fact, the +United States has officially recognized this truth by proclaiming that +the substitution of election for revolution in Central America is the +test of political progress. + +I do not wish to labor the argument any further than may be necessary +to establish the theory that what the public does is not to express its +opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory +is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can +be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon +the notion that the people govern. Instead we must adopt the theory +that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support +or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the +popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes +occasionally. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] Preface to _The Revolutionist’s Handbook_, p. 179. + +[15] _Parties and Party Leaders_, p. xvi. + +[16] H. Delbrück, _Government and the Will of the People_, p. 15. +Translated by Roy S. MacElwee. + + + + +Chapter V + +THE NEUTRALIZATION OF ARBITRARY FORCE + + +1 + +If this is the nature of public action, what ideal can be formulated +which shall conform to it? + +We are bound, I think, to express the ideal in its lowest terms, +to state it not as an ideal which might conceivably be realized by +exceptional groups now and then or in some distant future but as an +ideal which normally might be taught and attained. In estimating the +burden which a public can carry, a sound political theory must insist +upon the largest factor of safety. It must understate the possibilities +of public action. + +The action of a public, we had concluded, is principally confined +to an occasional intervention in affairs by means of an alignment +of the force which a dominant section of that public can wield. We +must assume, then, that the members of a public will not possess an +insider’s knowledge of events or share his point of view. They cannot, +therefore, construe intent, or appraise the exact circumstances, enter +intimately into the minds of the actors or into the details of the +argument. They can watch only for coarse signs indicating where their +sympathies ought to turn. + +We must assume that the members of a public will not anticipate a +problem much before its crisis has become obvious, nor stay with +the problem long after its crisis is past. They will not know the +antecedent events, will not have seen the issue as it developed, will +not have thought out or willed a program, and will not be able to +predict the consequences of acting on that program. We must assume as a +theoretically fixed premise of popular government that normally men as +members of a public will not be well informed, continuously interested, +nonpartisan, creative or executive. We must assume that a public is +inexpert in its curiosity, intermittent, that it discerns only gross +distinctions, is slow to be aroused and quickly diverted; that, since +it acts by aligning itself, it personalizes whatever it considers, and +is interested only when events have been melodramatized as a conflict. + +The public will arrive in the middle of the third act and will leave +before the last curtain, having stayed just long enough perhaps to +decide who is the hero and who the villain of the piece. Yet usually +that judgment will necessarily be made apart from the intrinsic merits, +on the basis of a sample of behavior, an aspect of a situation, by very +rough external evidence. + +We cannot, then, think of public opinion as a conserving or creating +force directing society to clearly conceived ends, making deliberately +toward socialism or away from it, toward nationalism, an empire, a +league of nations or any other doctrinal goal. For men do not agree as +to their aims, and it is precisely the lack of agreement which creates +the problems that excite public attention. It is idle, then, to argue +that though men evidently have conflicting purposes, mankind has some +all-embracing purpose of which you or I happen to be the authorized +spokesman. We merely should have moved in a circle were we to conclude +that the public is in some deep way a messianic force. + + +2 + +The work of the world goes on continually without conscious direction +from public opinion. At certain junctures problems arise. It is only +with the crises of some of these problems that public opinion is +concerned. And its object in dealing with a crisis is to help allay +that crisis. + +I think this conclusion is unescapable. For though we may prefer to +believe that the aim of popular action should be to do justice or +promote the true, the beautiful and the good, the belief will not +maintain itself in the face of plain experience. The public does not +know in most crises what specifically is the truth or the justice of +the case, and men are not agreed on what is beautiful and good. Nor +does the public rouse itself normally at the existence of evil. It is +aroused at evil made manifest by the interruption of a habitual process +of life. And finally, a problem ceases to occupy attention not when +justice, as we happen to define it, has been done but when a workable +adjustment that overcomes the crisis has been made. If all this were +not the necessary manner of public opinion, if it had seriously to +crusade for justice in every issue it touches, the public would have to +be dealing with all situations all the time. That is impossible. It is +also undesirable. For did justice, truth, goodness and beauty depend on +the spasmodic and crude interventions of public opinion there would be +little hope for them in this world. + +Thus we strip public opinion of any implied duty to deal with the +substance of a problem, to make technical decisions, to attempt justice +or impose a moral precept. And instead we say that the ideal of public +opinion is to align men during the crisis of a problem in such a way +as to favor the action of those individuals who may be able to compose +the crisis. The power to discern those individuals is the end of the +effort to educate public opinion. The aim of research designed to +facilitate public action is the discovery of clear signs by which these +individuals may be discerned. + +The signs are relevant when they reveal by coarse, simple and objective +tests which side in a controversy upholds a workable social rule, or +which is attacking an unworkable rule, or which proposes a promising +new rule. By following such signs the public might know where to +align itself. In such an alignment it does not, let us remember, +pass judgment on the intrinsic merits. It merely places its force at +the disposal of the side which, according to objective signs, seems +to be standing for human adjustments according to a clear rule of +behavior and against the side which appears to stand for settlement in +accordance with its own unaccountable will. + +Public opinion, in this theory, is a reserve of force brought into +action during a crisis in public affairs. Though it is itself an +irrational force, under favorable institutions, sound leadership +and decent training the power of public opinion might be placed at +the disposal of those who stood for workable law as against brute +assertion. In this theory, public opinion does not make the law. But by +canceling lawless power it may establish the condition under which law +can be made. It does not reason, investigate, invent, persuade, bargain +or settle. But, by holding the aggressive party in check, it may +liberate intelligence. Public opinion in its highest ideal will defend +those who are prepared to act on their reason against the interrupting +force of those who merely assert their will. + +The action of public opinion at its best would not, let it be noted, +be a continual crusade on behalf of reason. When power, however +absolute and unaccountable, reigns without provoking a crisis, public +opinion does not challenge it. Somebody must challenge arbitrary power +first. The public can only come to his assistance. + + +3 + +That, I think, is the utmost that public opinion can effectively do. +With the substance of the problem it can do nothing usually but meddle +ignorantly or tyrannically. It has no need to meddle with it. Men in +their active relation to affairs have to deal with the substance, but +in that indirect relationship when they can act only through uttering +praise or blame, making black crosses on white paper, they have done +enough, they have done all they can do if they help to make it possible +for the reason of other men to assert itself. + +For when public opinion attempts to govern directly it is either +a failure or a tyranny. It is not able to master the problem +intellectually, nor to deal with it except by wholesale impact. The +theory of democracy has not recognized this truth because it has +identified the functioning of government with the will of the people. +This is a fiction. The intricate business of framing laws and of +administering them through several hundred thousand public officials is +in no sense the act of the voters nor a translation of their will. + +But although the acts of government are not a translation of public +opinion, the principal function of government is to do specifically, in +greater detail, and more continually what public opinion does crudely, +by wholesale, and spasmodically. It enforces some of the working rules +of society. It interprets them. It detects and punishes certain kinds +of aggression. It presides over the framing of new rules. It has +organized force which is used to counteract irregular force. + +It is also subject to the same corruption as public opinion. For when +government attempts to impose the will of its officials, instead of +intervening so as to steady adjustments by consent among the parties +directly interested, it becomes heavy-handed, stupid, imperious, even +predatory. For the public official, though he is better placed to +understand the problem than a reader of newspapers, and though he is +much better able to act, is still fundamentally external to the real +problems in which he intervenes. Being external, his point of view is +indirect, and so his action is most appropriate when it is confined to +rendering indirect assistance to those who are directly responsible. + +Therefore, instead of describing government as an expression of the +people’s will, it would seem better to say that government consists +of a body of officials, some elected, some appointed, who handle +professionally, and in the first instance, problems which come to +public opinion spasmodically and on appeal. Where the parties directly +responsible do not work out an adjustment, public officials intervene. +When the officials fail, public opinion is brought to bear on the issue. + + +4 + +This, then, is the ideal of public action which our inquiry suggests. +Those who happen in any question to constitute the public should +attempt only to create an equilibrium in which settlements can be +reached directly and by consent. The burden of carrying on the work of +the world, of inventing, creating, executing, of attempting justice, +formulating laws and moral codes, of dealing with the technic and the +substance, lies not upon public opinion and not upon government but +on those who are responsibly concerned as agents in the affair. Where +problems arise, the ideal is a settlement by the particular interests +involved. They alone know what the trouble really is. No decision by +public officials or by commuters reading headlines in the train can +usually and in the long run be so good as settlement by consent among +the parties at interest. No moral code, no political theory can usually +and in the long run be imposed from the heights of public opinion, +which will fit a case so well as direct agreement reached where +arbitrary power has been disarmed. + +It is the function of public opinion to check the use of force in a +crisis, so that men, driven to make terms, may live and let live. + + + + +PART II + + + + +Chapter VI + +THE QUESTION ARISTOTLE ASKED + + +These conclusions are sharply at variance with the accepted theory of +popular government. That theory rests upon the belief that there is +a public which directs the course of events. I hold that this public +is a mere phantom. It is an abstraction. The public in respect to a +railroad strike may be the farmers whom the railroad serves; the public +in respect to an agricultural tariff may include the very railroad men +who were on strike. The public is not, as I see it, a fixed body of +individuals. It is merely those persons who are interested in an affair +and can affect it only by supporting or opposing the actors. + +Since these random publics cannot be expected to deal with the merits +of a controversy, they can give their support with reasonable assurance +that it will do good only if there are easily recognizable and yet +pertinent signs which they can follow. Are there such signs? Can they +be discovered? Can they be formulated so they might be learned and +used? The chapters of this second part are an attempt to answer these +questions. + +The signs must be of such a character that they can be recognized +without any substantial insight into the substance of a problem. Yet +they must be relevant to the solution of the problem. They must be +signs which will tell the members of a public where they can best align +themselves so as to promote the solution. In short, they must be guides +to reasonable action for the use of uninformed people. + +The environment is complex. Man’s political capacity is simple. Can +a bridge be built between them? The question has haunted political +science ever since Aristotle first formulated it in the great seventh +book of his _Politics_. He answered it by saying that the community +must be kept simple and small enough to suit the faculties of its +citizens. We who live in the Great Society are unable to follow +his advice. The orthodox democrats answered Aristotle’s question by +assuming that a limitless political capacity resides in public opinion. +A century of experience compels us to deny this assumption. For us, +then, the old question is unanswered; we can neither reject the Great +Society as Aristotle did, nor exaggerate the political capacity of +the citizen as the democrats did. We are forced to ask whether it +is possible for men to find a way of acting effectively upon highly +complex affairs by very simple means. + +I venture to think that this problem may be soluble, that principles +can be elucidated which might effect a successful junction between the +intricacies of the environment and the simplicities of human faculty. +It goes without saying that what I shall present here is no final +statement of these principles. At most and at best it may be a clue, +with some illustrations, that can be developed by research. But even +that much assurance seems to me rash in the light of the difficulties +which the problem has always presented, and so, following Descartes, I +add that “after all, it is possible I may be mistaken; and it is but a +little copper and glass I take for gold and diamonds.”[17] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] _Discourse on Method_, Part I. + + + + +Chapter VII + +THE NATURE OF A PROBLEM + + +1 + +Somewhat in the spirit of Descartes, let us begin by supposing that +your whole experience were confined to one glimpse of the world. There +would be, I think, no better or worse in your sight, neither good men +nor bad, patriots nor profiteers, conservatives nor radicals. You would +be a perfect neutral. From such an impression of things, it would never +occur to you that the crest of a mountain endured longer than the crest +of a wave, that people moved about and that trees did not, or that the +roar of an orator would pass sooner than the roar of Niagara. + +Lengthen your experience, and you would begin to notice differences +in the constancy of things. You would know day and night, perhaps, +but not winter and summer, movement in space, but little of age in +time. And if you then formulated your social philosophy, would you not +almost certainly conclude that the things you saw people doing then +it was ordained they should do always, and that their characters as +you had seen them that day would be thus and so forever? And would +not the resulting treatise pass almost unnoticed in any collection of +contemporary disquisitions on the nations, the races, the classes or +the sexes? + +But the more you lengthened the span of your impression, the more +variability you would note, until at last you would say with Heraclitus +that all things flow. For when the very stars and the rocks were seen +to have a history, men and their institutions and customs, habits and +ideals, theories and policies could seem only relatively permanent. And +you would have to conclude that what at first glance you had called +a constant turns out after you had watched it longer merely to be +changing a little more slowly than something else. + +With sufficiently long experience you would indeed be bound to +conclude that while the diverse elements that bear upon the life of +men, including the characters of men themselves, were changing, yet +they were not changing at the same pace. Things multiply, they grow, +they learn, they age, they wear out and they die at different rates. +An individual, his companions, his implements, his institutions, his +creeds, his needs, his means of satisfaction, evolve unevenly, and +endure unevenly. Events do not concur harmoniously in time. Some hurry, +some straggle, some push and some drag. The ranks have always to be +reformed. + +Instead of that one grand system of evolution and progress, which +the nineteenth century found so reassuring, there would appear to be +innumerable systems of evolution, variously affecting each other, some +linked, some in collision, but each in some fundamental aspect moving +at its own pace and on its own terms. + +The disharmonies of this uneven evolution are the problems of mankind. + + +2 + +Suppose a man who knew nothing of the history of the nineteenth century +were shown the tables compiled in the _Statistical Abstract of the +United States_ for the period from 1800 to 1918: He would note that +the population of the world had multiplied two and a half times; its +total commerce 42 times; its shipping tonnage more than 7 times; its +railways 3664 times; its telegraphs 317 times; its cotton production 17 +times; its coal 113 times; its pig iron 77 times. Could he doubt that +in a century of such uneven changes men had faced revolutionary social +problems? + +Could he not infer from these figures alone that there had been great +movements of population, vast changes in men’s occupation, in the +character of their labor, their wants, their standards of living, +their ambitions? Would he not fairly infer that the political system +which had existed in 1800 must have altered vastly with these new +relationships, that customs, manners and morals appropriate to the +settled, small and more or less self-contained communities of 1800 had +been subjected to new strains and had probably been thoroughly revised? +As he imagined the realities behind the tables, would he not infer that +as men lived through the changes which these cold figures summarize +they had been in conflict with their old habits and ideals, that the +process of making new habits and adjustments must have gone on subject +to trial and error with hopefulness over material progress and yet much +disorder and confusion of soul? + + +3 + +For a more specific illustration of the nature of a problem we may +examine the problem of population in its simplest form. When Malthus +first stated it he assumed, for the purposes of argument, two elements +evolving at different rates. Population, he said, doubled every +twenty-five years; the produce of land could be increased in the same +time by an amount “equal to what it at present produces.”[18] He was +writing about the year 1800. The population of England he estimated +at seven millions, and the food supply as adequate to that number. +There was then, in 1800, no problem. By 1825 the population, according +to his estimate of its rate of increase, would have doubled, but the +food supply would also have doubled. There would be no problem of +population. But by 1850 the population would stand at twenty-eight +millions; the food supply would have increased only by an amount to +support an additional seven millions. The problem of excess population, +or, if you like, of food scarcity, would have appeared. For while in +1800 and in 1825 the food available for each person would be the same, +in 1850, owing to the uneven rate of growth, there would be only a +three-quarter ration for each person. And this altered relationship +Malthus rightly called a problem. + +Suppose, now, we complicate Malthus’s argument a bit by assuming +that in 1850 people had learned to eat less and felt more fit on the +three-quarter ration. There would then be no problem in 1850, for the +adjustment of the two variables—food and people—would be satisfactory. +Or, on the contrary, suppose that soon after 1800 people had demanded a +higher standard of living and expected more food, though the necessary +additional food was not produced. These new demands would create a +problem. Or suppose, as was actually the case,[19] the food supply +increased faster than Malthus had assumed it could, though population +did not. The problem of population would not arise at the date he +predicted. Or suppose the increase of population was reduced by birth +control. The problem, as Malthus first stated it, would not arise.[20] +Or suppose the food supply increased faster than the population could +consume it. There would then be a problem not of population but of +agricultural surplus. + +In an absolutely static society there would be no problems. A problem +is the result of change. But not of the change in any self-contained +element. Change would be unnoticeable unless we could measure it +against some other element which did not change at the same pace. If +everything in the universe expanded at a mile a minute, or shrank at +the same rate, we should never know it. For all we can tell we may +be the size of a mosquito one moment in the sight of God, and of an +elephant the next; we cannot tell if mosquitoes and elephants and +chairs and planets change in proportion. Change is significant only in +relation to something else. + +The change which constitutes a problem is an altered relationship +between two dependent variables.[21] Thus the automobile is a problem +in the city not because there are so many automobiles but because there +are too many for the width of the streets, too many for the number of +competent drivers, because the too narrow streets are filled with too +many cars driven too recklessly for the present ability of the police +to control them. Because the automobile is manufactured faster than +old city streets can be widened, because some persons acquire cars +faster than they acquire prudence and good manners, because automobiles +collect in cities faster than policemen can be recruited, trained or +paid for by slow-yielding taxpayers, there is an automobile problem +made evident by crowding, obnoxious fumes and collisions. + +But though these evils seem to arise from the automobile, the fault +lies not in the automobile but in the relation between the automobile +and the city. This may sound like splitting hairs, but unless we +insist upon it we never define a problem accurately nor lay it open +successfully to solution. + +The problem of national defense, for example, can never be stated by a +general staff which draws upon its inner consciousness for an estimate +of the necessary force. The necessary force can be estimated only in +relation to the probable enemy, and the military problem whether of +peace or of war lies always in the ratio of forces. Military force +is a purely relative conception. The British Navy is helpless as a +child against the unarmed mountaineers of Tibet. The French Army has +no force as against fishing smacks in the Pacific Ocean. Force has +to be measured against its objective: the tiger and the shark are +incomparable one with the other. + +Now a settled and accepted ratio of forces that might collide is a +state of military peace. A competitive and, therefore, constantly +unbalanced ratio is a prelude to war. The Canadian border presents no +military problem, not because Canada’s forces and our own are equal +but because, happily, we do not compare them. They are independent +variables, having no relation one with the other, and a change in the +one does not affect the other. In capital ships we are confronted now +with no naval problem in the Atlantic or in the Pacific, because with +Britain and Japan, the only two comparable powers, we are agreed on +a ratio by treaty.[22] But for all types of ships not subject to the +ratio there is a naval problem in both oceans, and if the Washington +Treaty should lapse the problem which it settled would recur. It would +recur because the synchronized progress of the three navies would be +replaced by a relatively uneven progress of each as compared with the +others. + + +4 + +The field of economic activity is the source of many problems. For, as +Cassel says,[23] we include within the meaning of the word economic +those means of satisfying human wants which are “usually available only +in a limited quantity.” Since “the wants of civilized human beings as +a whole are,” for all practical purposes, “unlimited,” there is in all +economic life the constant necessity of reaching “an adjustment between +the wants and the means of supplying the wants.” This disharmony of +supply and demand is the source of an unending series of problems. + +We may note at once that the economist does not claim as his province +the whole range of adjustments between human wants and the means of +satisfying them. He usually omits, for example, the human need to +breathe air. For since the air is unlimited in quantity the human +need of it is not frustrated, and the surplus air not required by +men in no way impinges upon their lives. Yet there may be a scarcity +of air, as, for example, in a congested tenement district. Then an +economic problem is engendered which has to be met, let us say, by +building laws requiring a certain number of cubic feet of air a person. +The economist, in other words, takes as his field of interest the +maladjustment between human wants and those means of satisfying them +which are available, but only in limited quantities. In a world where +every want was satisfied there would be no problems for him; nor any +in a world where men had no wants; nor any in a world where the only +wants men had could be supplied by a change on their part of their own +states of consciousness. To create a problem there must be at least two +dependent but separated variables: wants and the means of satisfaction; +and these two variables must have a disposition to alter so that an +antecedent equilibrium is disturbed. + +In the measure, says Cassel, in which the economic system succeeds in +securing an adjustment between the wants and the means of supplying the +wants we speak of it as a sound economy. “This task may be accomplished +in three different ways: first, by eliminating the less important +wants and so restricting the total wants; secondly, by making the best +possible use of the means available for the purposes in question; and, +thirdly, by increased personal exertions.”[24] + +Since the problem arises out of the disharmony of supply and demand, +its solution is to be found by increasing the supply or restricting +the demand. The choice of method depends first of all on which it +is possible in specific cases to follow, and, second, granting the +possibility, on which is the easier or the preferred. Either method +will give what we acknowledge as a solution. For when two variables are +in an adjustment which does not frustrate the expectations of either +there is no problem, and none will be felt to exist. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] T. R. Malthus, _An Essay on the Principle of Population_, Chapter +II. + +[19] A. M. Carr-Saunders, _The Population Problem_, p. 28. + +[20] Malthus himself recognised this in a later edition of his book. + +[21] _Cf._ in this connection W. F. Ogburn, _Social Change_, _passim_, +but particularly Part IV, I, on “The Hypothesis of Cultural Lag.” + +[22] However, the controversy over gun elevation demonstrates how +difficult it is to maintain an equilibrium of force where so many +factors are variable. + +[23] Gustav Cassel, _A Theory of Social Economy_, Chapter I. + +[24] _Ibid._, p. 7. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +SOCIAL CONTRACTS + + +1 + +It is impossible to imagine in the universe a harmony of all things, +each with all the others. The only harmonies we know or can conceive, +outside of what Mr. Santayana calls the realm of essences, are partial +adjustments which sacrifice to some one end all purposes which conflict +with it. That the tree may bear fruit for us, we readily kill the +insects that eat the fruit. So the fruit will ripen for us, we take no +account of the disharmony we create for innumerable flies. + +In the light of eternity it may be wholly unimportant whether the +harmonies on this earth are suited to men or to insects. For in the +light of eternity and from the point of view of the universe as a whole +nothing can be what we call good or bad, better or worse. All ideas of +value are measurements of some part of this universe with some other +part, and it is no more possible to value the universe as a whole than +it is to weigh it as a whole. For all scales of value and of weight are +contained within it. To judge the whole universe you must, like a god, +be outside of it, a point of view no mortal mind can adopt. + +Unfortunately for the fly, therefore, we are bound to judge him by +human values. In so far as we have power over him, he must submit to +the harmonies we seek to establish. We may as a sporting matter admit +his theoretical right to establish his own harmonies against us if he +can, and to call them better if he likes, but for us that only is good +which is good for man. Our universe consists of all that it contains, +not as such, not as the fly knows it, but in its relation to us. From +any other point of view but man’s, his conception of the universe is +askew. It has an emphasis and a perspective, it is shaped to a design +which is altogether human. The very forms, colors, odors and sound +of things are dependent for their quality upon our sense organs. +Their relations are seen and understood against the background of our +necessities. + +In the realm of man’s interests and purposes and desires, the +perspectives are even narrower. There is no human point of view here, +but only the points of view of men. None is valid for all human beings, +none for all of human history, none for all corners of the globe. An +opinion of the right and the wrong, the good and the bad, the pleasant +and the unpleasant, is dated, is localized, is relative. It applies +only to some men at some time in some place under some circumstances. + + +2 + +Against this deep pluralism thinkers have argued in vain. They have +invented social organisms and national souls, and oversouls, and +collective souls; they have gone for hopeful analogies to the beehive +and the anthill, to the solar system, to the human body; they have +gone to Hegel for higher unities and to Rousseau for a general will +in an effort to find some basis of union. For though men do not think +alike, nor want the same things, though their private interests are +so distinct that they do not merge easily in any common interest, +yet men cannot live by themselves, nor realize even their private +purposes without taking into account the behavior of other people. We, +however, no longer expect to find a unity which absorbs diversity. For +us the conflicts and differences are so real that we cannot deny them +and instead of looking for identity of purpose we look simply for an +accommodation of purposes. + +When we speak, then, about the solution of a problem in the Great +Society, we may mean little more than that two conflicting interests +have found a _modus vivendi_. It may be, of course, that they have +really removed all their differences, that one interest has yielded +to the other, or both to a third. But the solutions of most social +problems are not so neat as this; everything does not fit perfectly +as in the solution of a puzzle. The conflicting interests merely find +a way of giving a little and taking a little, and of existing together +without too much bad blood. + +They still remain separate interests. The men involved still think +differently. They have no union of mind or purpose. But they travel +their own ways without collision, and even with some reliance at times +upon the others’ help. They know their rights and their duties, what +to expect and what will be expected. Their rights are usually less +than they claim, and their duties heavier than they like, yet, because +they are in some degree enforced, conduct is rendered intelligible +and predictable, and coöperation exists in spite of the conflicting +interests of men. + +The _modus vivendi_ of any particular historical period, the system +of rights and duties, has generally acquired some high religious or +ideal sanction. The thinkers laureate of the age will generally manage +to show that the institutions, the laws, the morality and the custom +of that age are divinely inspired. These are tiresome illusions which +have been exploded a thousand times. The prevailing system of rights +and duties at any time is at bottom a slightly antiquated formulation +of the balance of power among the active interests in the community. +There is always a certain lag, as Mr. Ogburn calls it, so that the +system of rights and duties men are taught is generally a little less +contemporary than the system they would find most convenient. But, +whether the system is obsolete or not, in its naked origin, a right +is a claim somebody was able to assert, and a duty is an obligation +somebody was able to impose. + + +3 + +The prevailing system of rights and duties is designed to regulate the +conflicting purposes of men. An established right is a promise that +a certain kind of behavior will be backed by the organized force of +the state or at least by the sentiment of the community; a duty is a +promise that failure to respect the rights of others in a certain way +will be punished. The punishment may be death, imprisonment, loss of +property, the nullification of a right, the expression of disapproval. +In short, the system of rights and duties is the whole system of +promises which the courts and public sentiment will support. It is not +a fixed system. It varies from place to place, and from time to time, +and with the character of the tribunals and the community. But none the +less it makes the conduct of men somewhat rational, and establishes a +kind of union in diversity by limiting and defining the freedom with +which conflicting purposes can be pursued. + +Sometimes the promises are embodied in coercive law: Thou shalt, on +penalty of this, do that; thou shalt not do so and so. Sometimes +the promise is based on a contract between two parties: there is no +obligation to make the contract, but, once made, it must be executed +or a certain penalty paid. Sometimes the promise is based on an +ecclesiastical code: it must be followed or the wages of sin will be +visited either in fact or in anticipation upon the sinner. Sometimes +the promise is based on custom: it must be respected or the price of +nonconformity, whatever it may happen to be, must be paid. Sometimes +the promise is based on habit: it must be executed or the disturbance +faced which men feel when they break with their habits. + +The question of whether any particular right or duty shall be enforced, +the question of how it shall be enforced, whether by the police, +by public criticism or private conscience, will not be answered by +reasoning _a priori_. It will be answered by the dominant interests in +society, each imposing to the limit of its powers the system of rights +and duties which most nearly approximates the kind of social harmony +it finds convenient and desirable. The system will be a reflection of +the power that each interest is able to exert. The interests which +find the rule good will defend it; the interests which find it bad will +attack it. Their arguments will be weapons of defense and offense; even +the most objective appeal to reason will turn out to be an appeal to +desert one cause and enlist in another. + + +4 + +In the controversies between interests the question will be raised as +to the merits of a particular rule; the argument will turn on whether +the rule is good, on whether it should be enforced with this penalty +or that. And out of those arguments, by persuasion or coercion, the +specific rules of society are made, enforced and revised. + +It is the thesis of this book that the members of the public, who +are the spectators of action, cannot successfully intervene in a +controversy on the merits of the case. They must judge externally, and +they can act only by supporting one of the interests directly involved. +It follows that the public interest in a controversy cannot turn upon +the specific issue. On what, then, does it turn? In what phase of the +controversy can the public successfully interest itself? + +Only when somebody objects does the public know there is a problem; +when nobody any longer objects there is a solution. For the public, +then, any rule is right which is agreeable to all concerned. It follows +that the public interest in a problem is limited to this: that there +shall be rules, which means that the rules which prevail shall be +enforced, and that the unenforceable rules shall be changed according +to a settled rule. The public’s opinion that John Smith should or +should not do this or that is immaterial; the public does not know John +Smith’s motives and needs, and is not concerned with them. But that +John Smith shall do what he has promised to do is a matter of public +concern, for unless the social contracts of men are made, enforced +and revised according to a settled rule, social organization is +impossible. Their conflicting purposes will engender unending problems +unless they are regulated by some system of rights and duties. + +The interest of the public is not in the rules and contracts and +customs themselves but in the maintenance of a régime of rule, contract +and custom. The public is interested in law, not in the laws; in the +method of law, not in the substance; in the sanctity of contract, not +in a particular contract; in understanding based on custom, not in this +custom or that. It is concerned in these things to the end that men in +their active affairs shall find a _modus vivendi_; its interest is in +the workable rule which will define and predict the behavior of men so +that they can make their adjustments. The pressure which the public +is able to apply through praise and blame, through votes, strikes, +boycotts or support can yield results only if it reinforces the men who +enforce an old rule or sponsor a new one that is needed. + +The public in this theory is not the dispenser of law or morals, but, +at best, a reserve force that may be mobilized on behalf of the method +and spirit of law and morals. In denying that the public can lay down +the rules I have not said that it should abandon any function which +the public now exercises. I have merely said that it should abandon +a pretense. When the public attempts to deal with the substance it +merely becomes the dupe or unconscious ally of a special interest. For +there is only one common interest: that all special interests shall act +according to settled rule. The moment you ask what rule you invade the +realm of competing interests of special points of view, of personal, +and class, and sectional, and national bias. The public should not ask +what rule because it cannot answer the question. It will contribute +its part to the solution of social problems if it recognizes that some +system of rights and duties is necessary, but that no particular system +is peculiarly sacred. + + + + +Chapter IX + +THE TWO QUESTIONS BEFORE THE PUBLIC + + +The multitude of untroubled rules that men live by are of no concern +to the public. It has to deal only with the failures. Customs that are +accepted by all who are expected to follow them, contracts that are +carried out peaceably, promises that are kept, expectations fulfilled, +raise no issue. Even when there has been a breach of the rule, there is +no public question if the breach is clearly established, the aggression +clearly identified, the penalty determined and imposed. The aggressor +may be identified because he pleads guilty. He may be identified by +some due process though he denies his guilt. The rule, a term under +which I mean to include the method of detection, interpretation and +enforcement, as well as the precept, is in either case intact. The +force of the public can be aligned without hesitation on behalf of the +authorities who administer the rule. + +There is no question for the public unless there is doubt as to the +validity of the rule,—doubt, that is to say, about its meaning, its +soundness or the method of its application. When there is doubt the +public requires simple, objective tests to help it decide where it will +enlist. These tests must, therefore, answer two questions: + +First, Is the rule defective? + +Second, How shall the agency be recognized which is most likely to mend +it? + +These are, I should maintain, the only two questions which the public +needs to answer in order to exert the greatest influence it is capable +of exerting toward the solution of public problems. They are not, +please note, the only questions which anybody has to answer to solve a +problem. They are the only questions which a member of the public can +usefully concern himself with if he wishes to avoid ignorant meddling. + +How then shall he know the rule is defective? How shall he recognize +the reformer? If he is to answer those questions at all, he must be +able to answer them quickly and without real understanding of the +problem. Is it possible for him to do that? Can he act intelligently +but in ignorance? + +I think this apparently paradoxical thing can be done in some such way +as the next four chapters describe. + + + + +Chapter X + +THE MAIN VALUE OF PUBLIC DEBATE + + +The individual whose action is governed by a rule is interested in its +substance. But in those rules which do not control his own action his +chief interest is that there should be workable rules. + +It follows that the membership of the public is not fixed. It changes +with the issue: the actors in one affair are the spectators of another, +and men are continually passing back and forth between the field +where they are executives and the field where they are members of a +public. The distinction between the two is not, as I said in Chapter +III, an absolute one: there is a twilight zone where it is hard to say +whether a man is acting executively on his opinions or merely acting +to influence the opinion of some one else who is acting executively. +There is often a mixture of the two types of behavior. And it is this +mixture, as well as the lack of a clear line of distinction in all +cases, which permits a very large confusion in affairs between a public +and a private attitude toward them. The public point of view on a +question is muddied by the presence in the public of spurious members, +persons who are really acting to bend the rule in their favor while +pretending or imagining that they are moved only by the common public +need that there shall be an acceptable rule. + +At the outset it is important, therefore, to detect and to discount the +self-interested group. In saying this I do not mean to cast even the +slightest reflection on a union of men to promote their self-interest. +It would be futile to do so, because we may take it as certain that men +will act to benefit themselves whenever they think they conveniently +can. A political theory based on the expectation of self-denial and +sacrifice by the run of men in any community would not be worth +considering. Nor is it at all evident that the work of the world could +be done unless men followed their private interest and contributed to +affairs that direct inner knowledge which they thus obtain. Moreover, +the adjustments are likely to be much more real if they are made from +fully conscious and thoroughly explored special points of view. + +Thus the genius of any illuminating public discussion is not to obscure +and censor private interest but to help it to sail and to make it sail +under its own colors. The true public, in my definition of that term, +has to purge itself of the self-interested groups who become confused +with it. It must purge itself not because private interests are bad +but because private interests cannot successfully be adjusted to each +other if any one of them acquires a counterfeit strength. If the true +public, concerned only in the fact of adjustment, becomes mobilized +behind a private interest seeking to prevail, the adjustment is false; +it does not represent the real balance of forces in the affair and the +solution will break down. It will break down because the true public +will not stay mobilized very long for anything, and when it demobilizes +the private interest which was falsely exalted will find its privileges +unmanageable. It will be like a man placed on Jack Dempsey’s chest by +six policemen, and then left there after the policemen have gone home +to dinner. It will be like France placed by the Allies upon a prostrate +Germany and then left there after the Allies have departed from Europe. + +The separation of the public from the self-interested group will not +be assisted by the self-interested group. We may be sure that any body +of farmers, business men, trade unionists will always call themselves +the public if they can. How then is their self-interest to be detected? +No ordinary bystander is equipped to analyze the propaganda by which +a private interest seeks to associate itself with the disinterested +public. It is a perplexing matter, perhaps the most perplexing in +popular government, and the bystander’s only recourse is to insist upon +debate. He will not be able, we may assume, to judge the merits of the +arguments. But if he does insist upon full freedom of discussion, the +advocates are very likely to expose one another. Open debate may lead +to no conclusion and throw no light whatever on the problem or its +answer, but it will tend to betray the partisan and the advocate. And +if it has identified them for the true public, debate will have served +its main purpose. + +The individual not directly concerned may still choose to join the +self-interested group and support its cause. But at least he will +know that he has made himself a partisan, and thus perhaps he may +be somewhat less likely to mistake a party’s purpose for the aim of +mankind. + + + + +Chapter XI + +THE DEFECTIVE RULE + + +1 + +A man violates a rule and then publicly justifies his action. Here in +the simplest form is an attack upon the validity of the rule. It is an +appeal for a public judgment. + +For he claims to have acted under a new rule which is better than the +old one. How shall the public decide as between the two? It cannot, +we are assuming, enter into the intrinsic merits of the question. It +follows that the public must ask the aggressor why he did not first +seek the assent of those concerned before he violated the rule. He +may say that he did not have time, that he acted in a crisis. In that +event, there is no serious question for the public, and his associates +will either thank him or call him a fool. But since the circumstances +were admittedly exceptional they do not really establish a new rule, +and the public may be satisfied if the parties at interest peaceably +make the best of the result. But suppose there was no emergency. +Suppose the innovator had time to seek assent, but did not on the +ground that he knew what was best. He may be fairly condemned; the +objections of the other parties may be fairly sustained. + +For the right of innovation by fiat cannot be defended as a working +principle; a new rule, however excellent in intention, cannot be +expected to work unless in some degree it has been first understood +and approved by all who must live according to it. The innovator may +reply, of course, that he is being condemned by a dogma which is not +wholly proved. That may be admitted. Against the principle that a new +rule requires assent historic experience can be cited. There have been +many instances where a régime has been imposed on an unwilling people +and admired later by them for its results. The dogma that assent is +necessary is imperfect, as are most principles. But, nevertheless, +it is a necessary assumption in society. For if no new rule required +assent every one could make his own rule, and there would be no rules. +The dogma therefore must be maintained, softened by the knowledge that +exceptional times and exceptional men of their own force will make +way with any dogma. Since the rules of society cannot be based on +exceptions the exceptions must justify themselves. + +The test, therefore, of whether a rule has been justifiably broken is +the test of assent. The question, then, is how in applying the test of +assent a member of the public is to determine whether sufficient assent +has been given. How is he to know whether the régime has been imposed +by arbitrary force or in substance agreed to? + + +2 + +We wish to know if assent is lacking. We know it is lacking because +there is open protest. Or we know it because there is a widespread +refusal to conform. A workable rule, which has assent, will not +evoke protest or much disobedience. How shall we, as members of the +public, measure the significance of the protest or the extent of the +disobedience? + + +3 + +Where very few persons are directly involved in the controversy the +public does best not to intervene at all. One party may protest, but +unless he protests against the public tribunals set up to adjudicate +such disputes, his protest may be ignored. The public cannot expect +to take part in the minutiæ of human adjustments however tragic or +important they may be to the individuals concerned. The protest of one +individual against another cannot be treated as a public matter. Only +if the public tribunal is impugned does it become a public matter, and +then only because the case may require investigation by some other +tribunal. In such disputes the public must trust the agencies of +adjustment acting as checks upon each other. When we remember that the +public consists of busy men reading newspapers for half an hour or so +a day, it is not heartless but merely prudent to deny that it can do +detailed justice. + +But where many persons are involved in the controversy there is +necessarily a public matter. For when many persons are embroiled the +effects not only are likely to be wide but there may be need of all the +force the public can exert in order to compel a peaceable adjustment. + +The public must take account of a protest voiced on behalf of a +relatively large number of persons. But how shall the public know that +such a protest has been made? It must look to see whether the spokesman +is authorized. How shall it tell if he is authorized? How can it tell, +that is to say, whether the representative is able to give assent +by committing his constituency to a course of action? Whether the +apparent leader is the real leader is a question which the members of +a public cannot usually answer directly on the merits. Yet they must +answer in some fashion and with some assurance by some rule of thumb. + +The rule of thumb is to throw the burden of proof on those who deny +that the apparent leader, vested with the external signs of office, +is the real leader. As between one nation and another, no matter how +obnoxious the other’s government may be, if there is no open rebellion, +public opinion cannot go behind the returns. For, unless a people is +to engage in the hopeless task of playing politics inside another’s +frontiers, there is no course but to hold that a nation is committed +by the officials it fails to discharge. If there is open rebellion, +or that milder substitute, an impending election, it may be wise +to postpone long term settlements until a firm government has been +seated. But settlements, if they are made at all, must be made with the +government in office at the other nation’s capital. + +The same theory holds, with modifications, for large bodies of men +within a state. If the officials of the miners’ union, for instance, +take a position, it is perfectly idle for an employer to deny that +they speak for the union miners. He should deny that they speak for +the nonunion miners, but if the question at issue requires the assent +of the union, then, unless the union itself impeaches the leaders, the +public must accept them as authorized. + +But suppose the leaders are challenged within the union. How shall +the importance of the challenge be estimated by the public? Recall +that the object is to find out not whether the objectors are right but +simply whether the spokesmen can in fact commit their constituents. +In weighing the challenge the public’s concern is to know how far +the opposition can by virtue of its numbers, or of its strategic +importance, or its determination, impair the value of an assent. But +if we expected the public to make judgments of this sort we should be +asking too much of it. The importance of an opposition can be weighed, +if at all, only by rough, external criteria. With an opposition that +does not challenge the credentials of the spokesmen, which criticizes +but is not in rebellion, the public has no concern. That is an internal +affair. It is only an opposition which threatens not to conform that +has to be considered. + +In such a case, if the spokesmen are elected, they can be held +competent to give a reliable assent only until a new election has been +held. If the spokesmen are not elective, and a rebellious opposition is +evident, their assent can only be taken as tentative. These criteria +do not, to be sure, weigh the importance of an opposition, but, by +limiting the kind of settlement which can reasonably be made in face of +an opposition, they allow for its effect. + +They introduce the necessary modification to make workable the general +principle that the test of assent by large bodies of men is simply that +their spokesmen have agreed. + + +4 + +The test of conformity is closely related to the test of assent. For +it can be assumed that open criticism of a rule, a custom, a law, an +institution, is already accompanied by or will soon be followed by +evasion of that rule. It is a fairly safe hypothesis that the run of +men wish to conform; that any body of men aroused to the point where +they will pay the price of open heresy probably has an arguable case; +more certainly that that body will include a considerable number +who have passed over the line of criticism into the practice of +nonconformity. Their argument may be wrong, the remedy may be foolish, +but the fact that they openly criticize at some personal risk is a sign +that the rule is not working well. Widespread criticism, therefore, has +a significance beyond its intellectual value. It is almost always a +symptom on the surface that the rule is unstable. + +When a rule is broken not occasionally but very often the rule is +defective. It simply does not define the conduct which normally may +be expected of men who live under it. It may sound noble. But it does +not work. It does not adjust relations. It does not actually organize +society. + +In what way the rule is defective the public cannot specifically +determine. By the two tests I have suggested, of assent and of +conformity, the public can determine the presence of a defect in the +rule. But whether that defect is due to a false measure of the changing +balance of forces involved, or to neglect of an important interest or +some relevant circumstance, or to a bad technic of adjustment, or to +contradictions in the rule, or to obscurity, or to lack of machinery +for its interpretation or for the deduction of specific rules from +general ones, the public cannot judge. + +It will have gone, I believe, to the limits of its normal powers if it +judges the rule to be defective, and turns then to identify the agency +most likely to remedy it. + + + + +Chapter XII + +THE CRITERIA OF REFORM + + +1 + +The random collections of bystanders who constitute a public could not, +even if they had a mind to, intervene in all the problems of the day. +They can and must play a part occasionally, I believe, but they cannot +take an interest in, they cannot make even the coarsest judgments +about, and they will not act even in the most grossly partisan way on, +all the questions arising daily in a complex and changing society. +Normally they leave their proxies to a kind of professional public +consisting of more or less eminent persons. Most issues are never +carried beyond this ruling group; the lay publics catch only echoes of +the debate. + +If, by the push and pull of interested parties and public personages, +settlements are made more or less continually the party in power +has the confidence of the country. In effect, the outsiders are +arrayed behind the dominant insiders. But if the interested parties +cannot be made to agree, if, as a result, there is disturbance and +chronic crisis, then the opposition among the insiders may come to +be considered the hope of the country, and be able to entice the +bystanders to its side. + +To support the Ins when things are going well; to support the Outs when +they seem to be going badly, this, in spite of all that has been said +about tweedledum and tweedledee, is the essence of popular government. +Even the most intelligent large public of which we have any experience +must determine finally who shall wield the organized power of the +state, its army and its police, by a choice between the Ins and Outs. A +community where there is no choice does not have popular government. It +is subject to some form of dictatorship or it is ruled by the intrigues +of the politicians in the lobbies. + +Although it is the custom of partisans to speak as if there were +radical differences between the Ins and the Outs, it could be +demonstrated, I believe, that in stable and mature societies the +differences are necessarily not profound. If they were profound, the +defeated minority would be constantly on the verge of rebellion. +An election would be catastrophic, whereas the assumption in every +election is that the victors will do nothing to make life intolerable +to the vanquished and that the vanquished will endure with good humor +policies which they do not approve. + +In the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and in certain +of the Continental countries an election rarely means even a fraction +of what the campaigners said it would mean. It means some new faces +and perhaps a slightly different general tendency in the management +of affairs. The Ins may have had a bias toward collectivism; the Outs +will lean toward individualism. The Ins may have been suspicious +and non-coöperative in foreign affairs; the Outs will perhaps be +more trusting or entertain another set of suspicions. The Ins may +have favored certain manufacturing interests; the Outs may favor +agricultural interests. But even these differing tendencies are very +small as compared with the immense area of agreement, established habit +and unavoidable necessity. In fact, one might say that a nation is +politically stable when nothing of radical consequence is determined by +its elections. + +There is, therefore, a certain mock seriousness about the campaigning +for votes in well-established communities. Much of the excitement +is not about the fate of the nation but simply about the outcome +of the game. Some of the excitement is sincere, like any fervor +of intoxication. And much of it is deliberately stoked up by the +expenditure of money to overcome the inertia of the mass of the +voters. For the most part the real difference between the Ins and the +Outs is no more than this: the Ins, after a term of power, become so +committed to policies and so entangled with particular interests that +they lose their neutral freedom of decision. They cannot then intervene +to check the arbitrary movement of the interests with which they have +become aligned. Then it is time for the Outs to take power and restore +a balance. The virtue of the Outs in this transaction is that they +are not committed to those particular policies and those particular +interests which have become overweighted. + +The test of whether the Ins are handling affairs effectively is the +presence or absence of disturbing problems. The need of reform is +recognizable, as I pointed out in the chapter before this one, by +the test of assent and the test of conformity. But it is my opinion +that for the most part the general public cannot back each reformer +on each issue. It must choose between the Ins and Outs on the basis +of a cumulative judgment as to whether problems are being solved or +aggravated. The particular reformers must look for their support +normally to the ruling insiders. + +If, however, there is to be any refinement of public opinion it must +come from the breaking up of these wholesale judgments into somewhat +more retail judgments on the major spectacular issues of the day. Not +all of the issues which interest the public are within the scope of +politics and reachable through the party system. It seems worth while, +therefore, to see whether any canons of judgment can be formulated +which could guide the bystanders in particular controversies. + +The problem is to locate by clear and coarse objective tests the actor +in a controversy who is most worthy of public support. + + +2 + +When the rule is plain, its validity unchallenged, the breach clear and +the aggressor plainly located, the question does not arise. The public +supports the agents of the law, though when the law is working well +the support of the public is like the gold reserve of a good bank: it +is known to be there and need not be drawn upon. But in many fields +of controversy the rule is not plain, or its validity is challenged; +each party calls the other aggressor, each claims to be acting for +the highest ideals of mankind. In disputes between nations, between +sectional interests, between classes, between town and country, between +churches, the rules of adjustment are lacking and the argument about +them is lost in a fog of propaganda. + +Yet it is controversies of this kind, the hardest controversies to +disentangle, that the public is called in to judge. Where the facts are +most obscure, where precedents are lacking, where novelty and confusion +pervade everything, the public in all its unfitness is compelled to +make its most important decisions. The hardest problems are those which +institutions cannot handle. They are the public’s problems. + +The one test which the members of a public can apply in these +circumstances is to note which party to the dispute is least willing to +submit its whole claim to inquiry and to abide by the result. This does +not mean that experts are always expert or impartial tribunals really +impartial. It means simply that where the public is forced to intervene +in a strange and complex affair, the test of public inquiry is the +surest clue to the sincerity of the claimant, to his confidence in +his ability to stand the ordeal of examination, to his willingness to +accept risks for the sake of his faith in the possibility of rational +human adjustments. He may impugn a particular tribunal. But he must +at least propose another. The test is whether, in the absence of an +established rule, he is willing to act according to the forms of law +and by a process through which law may be made. + +Of all the tests which public opinion can employ, the test of inquiry +is the most generally useful. If the parties are willing to accept +it, there is at once an atmosphere of reason. There is prospect of a +settlement. Failing that there is at least a delay of summary action +and an opportunity for the clarification of issues. And failing +that there is a high probability that the most arbitrary of the +disputants will be isolated and clearly identified. It is no wonder +that this is the principle invoked for the so-called nonjusticiable +questions in all the recent experiments under the covenant of the +League of Nations[25] and the Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of +International Disputes.[26] For in applying this test of inquiry, what +we affirm is this: That there is a dispute. That the merits are not +clear. That the policy which ought to be applied is not established. +That, nevertheless, we of the public outside say that those who are +quarreling must act as if there were law to cover the case. That, even +if the material for a reasoned conclusion is lacking, we demand the +method and spirit of reason. That we demand any sacrifice that may +be necessary, the postponement of satisfaction of their just needs, +the risk that one of them will be defeated and that an injustice will +be done. These things we affirm because we are maintaining a society +based on the principle that all controversies are soluble by peaceable +agreement. + +They may not be. But on that dogma our society is founded. And that +dogma we are compelled to defend. We can defend it, too, with a +good enough conscience, however disconcerting some of its immediate +consequences may be. For, by insisting in all disputes upon the +spirit of reason, we shall tend in the long run to confirm the habit +of reason. And where that habit prevails no point of view can seem +absolute to him who holds it, and no problem between men so difficult +that there is not at least a _modus vivendi_. + +The test of inquiry is the master test by which the public can use its +force to extend the frontiers of reason. + + +3 + +But while the test of inquiry may distinguish the party which is +entitled to initial support, it is of value only where one party +refuses inquiry. If all submit to inquiry, it reveals nothing. And +in any event it reveals nothing about the prospects of the solution +proposed. The party seeking publicity may have less to conceal, and may +mean well, but sincerity unfortunately is no index of intelligence. +By what criteria are the public then to judge the new rule which is +proposed as a solution? + +The public cannot tell whether the new rule will, in fact, work. It may +assume, however, that in a changing world no rule will always work. A +rule, therefore, should be organized so that experience will clearly +reveal its defects. The rule should be so clear that a violation is +apparent. But since no generality can cover all cases, this means +simply that the rule must contain a settled procedure by which it can +be interpreted. Thus a treaty which says that a certain territory shall +be evacuated when certain conditions are fulfilled is quite defective, +and should be condemned, if it does not provide a way of defining +exactly what those conditions are and when they have been fulfilled. A +rule, in other words, must include the means of its own clarification, +so that a breach shall be undeniably overt. Then only does it take +account of experience which no human intelligence can foresee. + +It follows from this that a rule must be organized so that it can be +amended without revolution. Revision must be possible by consent. But +assent is not always given, even when the arguments in favor of a +change are overwhelming. Men will stand on what they call their rights. +Therefore, in order that deadlock should be dissoluble, a rule should +provide that subject to a certain formal procedure the controversy over +revision shall be public. This will often break up the obstruction. +Where it does not, the community is pretty certain to become engaged on +behalf of one of the partisans. This is likely to be inconvenient to +all concerned, and the inconvenience due to meddling in the substance +of a controversy by a crude, violent and badly aimed public opinion at +least may teach those directly concerned not to invoke interference the +next time. + +But although amendment should be possible, it should not be continual +or unforeseen. There should be time for habit and custom to form. The +pot should not be made to boil all the time, or be stirred up for some +comparatively insignificant reason, whenever an orator sees a chance +to make himself important. Since the habits and expectations of many +different persons are involved in an institution, some way must be +found of giving it stability without freezing it _in statu quo_. This +can be done by requiring that amendment shall be in order only after +due notice. + +What due notice may be in each particular case, the public cannot +say. Only the parties at interest are likely to know where the rhythm +of their affairs can be interrupted most conveniently. Due notice +will be one period of time for men operating on long commitments and +another for men operating on short ones. But the public can watch to +see whether the principle of due notice is embodied in the proposed +settlement. + +To judge a new rule, then, the tests proposed here are three: Does it +provide for its own clarification? for its own amendment by consent? +for due notice that amendment will be proposed? The tests are designed +for use in judging the prospects of a settlement not by its substance +but by its procedure. A reform which satisfies these tests is normally +entitled to public support. + + +4 + +This is as far as I know how at present to work out an answer to the +question which we inherit from Aristotle: can simple criteria be +formulated which will show the bystander where to align himself in +complex affairs? + +I have suggested that the main value of debate is not that it reveals +the truth about the controversy to the audience but that it may +identify the partisans. I have suggested further that a problem exists +where a rule of action is defective, and that its defectiveness can +best be judged by the public through the test of assent and the test of +conformity. For remedies I have assumed that normally the public must +turn to the Outs as against the Ins, although these wholesale judgments +may be refined by more analytical tests for specific issues. As samples +of these more analytical tests I have suggested the test of inquiry for +confused controversies, and for reforms the test of interpretation, of +amendment and of due notice. + +These criteria are neither exhaustive nor definitive. Yet, however +much tests of this character are improved by practice and reflection, +it seems to me there always must remain many public affairs to which +they cannot be applied. I do not believe that the public can intervene +successfully in all public questions. Many problems cannot be advanced +by that obtuse partisanship which is fundamentally all that the public +can bring to bear upon them. There is no reason to be surprised, +therefore, if the tests I have outlined, or any others that are a vast +improvement upon them, are not readily applicable to all questions that +are raised in the discussions of the day. + +I should simply maintain that where the members of a public cannot use +tests of this sort as a guide to action, the wisest course for them is +not to act at all. They had better be neutral, if they can restrain +themselves, than blindly partisan. For where events are so confused or +so subtly balanced or so hard to understand that they do not yield to +judgments of the kind I have been outlining here, the probabilities are +very great that the public can produce only muddle if it meddles. For +not all problems are soluble in the present state of human knowledge. +Many which may be soluble are not soluble with any force the public can +exert. Some time alone will cure, and some are the fate of man. It is +not essential, therefore, always to do something. + +It follows that the proper limits of intervention by the public in +affairs are determined by its capacity to make judgments. These limits +may be extended as new and better criteria are formulated, or as men +become more expert through practice. But where there are no tests, +where such tests as these cannot be used, where, in other words, only +an opinion on the actual merits of the dispute itself would be of any +use, any positive action the bystanders are likely to take is almost +certain to be more of a nuisance than a benefit. Their duty is to keep +an open mind and wait to see. The existence of a usable test is itself +the test of whether the public ought to intervene. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] Articles XIII, XV. + +[26] Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. + + + + +Chapter XIII + +THE PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC OPINION + + +1 + +The tests outlined in the preceding chapters have certain common +characteristics. They all select a few samples of behavior or a +few aspects of a proposal. They measure these samples by rough but +objective, by highly generalized but definite standards. And they yield +a judgment which is to justify the public in aligning itself for or +against certain actors in the matter at issue. + +I do not, of course, set great store upon my formulation of these +tests. That is wholly tentative, being put out merely as a basis of +discussion and to demonstrate that the formulation of tests suited to +the nature of public opinion is not impracticable. But I do attach +great importance to the character of these tests. + +The principles underlying them are these: + +1. Executive action is not for the public. The public acts only by +aligning itself as the partisan of some one in a position to act +executively. + +2. The intrinsic merits of a question are not for the public. The +public intervenes from the outside upon the work of the insiders. + +3. The anticipation, the analysis and the solution of a question are +not for the public. The public’s judgment rests on a small sample of +the facts at issue. + +4. The specific, technical, intimate criteria required in the handling +of a question are not for the public. The public’s criteria are +generalized for many problems; they turn essentially on procedure and +the overt, external forms of behavior. + +5. What is left for the public is a judgment as to whether the actors +in the controversy are following a settled rule of behavior or their +own arbitrary desires. This judgment must be made by sampling an +external aspect of the behavior of the insiders. + +6. In order that this sampling shall be pertinent, it is necessary to +discover criteria, suitable to the nature of public opinion, which can +be relied upon to distinguish between reasonable and arbitrary behavior. + +7. For the purposes of social action, reasonable behavior is conduct +which follows a settled course whether in making a rule, in enforcing +it or in amending it. + +It is the task of the political scientist to devise the methods of +sampling and to define the criteria of judgment. It is the task of +civic education in a democracy to train the public in the use of these +methods. It is the task of those who build institutions to take them +into account. + + +2 + +These principles differ radically from those on which democratic +reformers have proceeded. At the root of the effort to educate a +people for self-government there has, I believe, always been the +assumption that the voter should aim to approximate as nearly as he +can the knowledge and the point of view of the responsible man. He +did not, of course, in the mass, ever approximate it very nearly. But +he was supposed to. It was believed that if only he could be taught +more facts, if only he would take more interest, if only he would +read more and better newspapers, if only he would listen to more +lectures and read more reports, he would gradually be trained to direct +public affairs. The whole assumption is false. It rests upon a false +conception of public opinion and a false conception of the way the +public acts. No sound scheme of civic education can come of it. No +progress can be made toward this unattainable ideal. + +This democratic conception is false because it fails to note the +radical difference between the experience of the insider and the +outsider; it is fundamentally askew because it asks the outsider to +deal as successfully with the substance of a question as the insider. +He cannot do it. No scheme of education can equip him in advance for +all the problems of mankind; no device of publicity, no machinery +of enlightenment, can endow him during a crisis with the antecedent +detailed and technical knowledge which is required for executive action. + +The democratic ideal has never defined the function of the public. It +has treated the public as an immature, shadowy executive of all things. +The confusion is deep-seated in a mystical notion of society. “The +people” were regarded as a person; their wills as a will; their ideas +as a mind; their mass as an organism with an organic unity of which +the individual was a cell. Thus the voter identified himself with the +officials. He tried to think that their thoughts were his thoughts, +that their deeds were his deeds, and even that in some mysterious +way they were a part of him. All this confusion of identities led +naturally to the theory that everybody was doing everything. It +prevented democracy from arriving at a clear idea of its own limits and +attainable ends. It obscured for the purposes of government and social +education the separation of function and the specialization in training +which have gradually been established in most human activities. + +Democracy, therefore, has never developed an education for the public. +It has merely given it a smattering of the kind of knowledge which +the responsible man requires. It has, in fact, aimed not at making +good citizens but at making a mass of amateur executives. It has not +taught the child how to act as a member of the public. It has merely +given him a hasty, incomplete taste of what he might have to know if he +meddled in everything. The result is a bewildered public and a mass +of insufficiently trained officials. The responsible men have obtained +their training not from the courses in “civics” but in the law schools +and law offices and in business. The public at large, which includes +everybody outside the field of his own responsible knowledge, has had +no coherent political training of any kind. Our civic education does +not even begin to tell the voter how he can reduce the maze of public +affairs to some intelligible form. + +Critics have not been lacking, of course, who pointed out what a hash +democracy was making of its pretensions to government. These critics +have seen that the important decisions were taken by individuals, and +that public opinion was uninformed, irrelevant and meddlesome. They +have usually concluded that there was a congenital difference between +the masterful few and the ignorant many. They are the victims of a +superficial analysis of the evils they see so clearly. The fundamental +difference which matters is that between insiders and outsiders. Their +relations to a problem are radically different. Only the insider can +make decisions, not because he is inherently a better man but because +he is so placed that he can understand and can act. The outsider is +necessarily ignorant, usually irrelevant and often meddlesome, because +he is trying to navigate the ship from dry land. That is why excellent +automobile manufacturers, literary critics and scientists often talk +such nonsense about politics. Their congenital excellence, if it +exists, reveals itself only in their own activity. The aristocratic +theorists work from the fallacy of supposing that a sufficiently +excellent square peg will also fit a round hole. In short, like the +democratic theorists, they miss the essence of the matter, which is, +that competence exists only in relation to function; that men are not +good, but good for something; that men cannot be educated, but only +educated for something. + +Education for citizenship, for membership in the public, ought, +therefore, to be distinct from education for public office. Citizenship +involves a radically different relation to affairs, requires different +intellectual habits and different methods of action. The force of +public opinion is partisan, spasmodic, simple-minded and external. It +needs for its direction, as I have tried to show in these chapters, +a new intellectual method which shall provide it with its own usable +canons of judgment. + + + + +PART III + + + + +Chapter XIV + +SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE + + +1 + +A false ideal of democracy can lead only to disillusionment and +to meddlesome tyranny. If democracy cannot direct affairs, then a +philosophy which expects it to direct them will encourage the people +to attempt the impossible; they will fail, but that will interfere +outrageously with the productive liberties of the individual. The +public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own +powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live +free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd. + + +2 + +The source of that bewilderment lies, I think, in the attempt to +ascribe organic unity and purpose to society. We have been taught to +think of society as a body, with a mind, a soul and a purpose, not as a +collection of men, women and children whose minds, souls and purposes +are variously related. Instead of being allowed to think realistically +of a complex of social _relations_, we have had foisted upon us by +various great propagative movements the notion of a mythical entity, +called Society, the Nation, the Community. + +In the course of the nineteenth century society was personified under +the influence largely of the nationalist and the socialist movements. +Each of these doctrinal influences in its own way insisted upon +treating the public as the agent of an overmastering social purpose. +In point of fact, the real agents were the nationalist leaders and +their lieutenants, the social reformers and their lieutenants. But they +moved behind a veil of imagery. And the public was habituated to think +that any one conforming to the stereotype of nationalism or of social +welfare was entitled to support. What the nationalist rulers thought +and did was the nation’s purpose, and the touchstone for all patriots; +what the reformers proposed was the benevolent consciousness of the +human race moving mysteriously but progressively toward perfection. + +The deception was so generally practised that it was often practised +sincerely. But to maintain the fiction that their purposes were the +spirit of mankind, public men had to accustom themselves to telling the +public only a part of what they told themselves. And, incidentally, +they confessed to themselves only a part of the truth on which they +were acting. Candor in public life became a question of policy and not +a rule of life. + +“He may judge rightly,” Mr. Keynes once said of Mr. Lloyd George,[27] +“that this is the best of which a democracy is capable,—to be jockeyed, +humbugged, cajoled along the right road. A prejudice for truth or for +sincerity as a method may be a prejudice based on some æsthetic or +personal standard inconsistent, in politics, with practical good. We +cannot yet tell.” + +We do know, as a matter of experience, that all the cards are not laid +face up upon the table. For however deep the personal prejudice of +the statesman in favor of truth as a method, he is almost certainly +forced to treat truth as an element of policy. The evidence on this +point is overwhelming. No statesman risks the safety of an army out of +sheer devotion to truth. He does not endanger a diplomatic negotiation +in order to enlighten everybody. He does not usually forfeit his +advantages in an election in order to speak plainly. He does not admit +his own mistakes because confession is so good for the soul. In so far +as he has power to control the publication of truth, he manipulates it +to what he considers the necessities of action, of bargaining, morale +and prestige. He may misjudge the necessities. He may exaggerate the +goodness of his aims. But where there is a purpose in public affairs +there are also apparent necessities which weigh in the balance against +the indiscreet expression of belief. The public man does not and cannot +act on the fiction that his mind is also the public mind. + +You cannot account for this, as angry democrats have done by dismissing +all public men as dishonest. It is not a question of personal morals. +The business man, the trade-union leader, the college president, the +minister of religion, the editor, the critic and the prophet, all feel +as Jefferson did when he wrote that “although we often wished to go +faster we slackened our pace that our less ardent colleagues might keep +pace with us ... [and] by this harmony of the bold with the cautious, +we advanced with our constituents in undivided mass.”[28] + +The necessity for an “undivided mass” makes men put truth in the +second place. I do not wish to argue that the necessity is not often +a real one. When a statesman tells me that it is not safe for him to +disclose all the facts, I am content to trust him in this if I trust +him at all. There is nothing misleading in a frank refusal to tell. The +mischief comes in the pretense that all is being told, that the public +is entirely in the confidence of the public man. And that mischief has +its source in the sophistry that the public and all the individuals +composing it are one mind, one soul, one purpose. It is seen to be +an absurd sophistry, once we look it straight in the face. It is an +unnecessary sophistry. For we do well enough with doctors, though we +are ignorant of medicine, and with engine drivers, though we cannot +drive a locomotive; why not, then, with a Senator, though we cannot +pass an examination on the merits of an agricultural bill? + +Yet we are so deeply indoctrinated with the notion of union based +upon identity, that we are most reluctant to admit that there is +room in the world for different and more or less separate purposes. +The monistic theory has an air of great stability about it; we are +afraid if we do not hang together we shall all hang separately. The +pluralistic theory, as its leading advocate, Mr. Laski, has pointed +out, seems to carry with it “a hint of anarchy.”[29] Yet the suggestion +is grossly exaggerated. There is least anarchy precisely in those +areas of society where separate functions are most clearly defined +and brought into orderly adjustment; there is most anarchy in those +twilight zones between nations, between employers and employees, +between sections and classes and races, where nothing is clearly +defined, where separateness of purpose is covered up and confused, +where false unities are worshiped, and each special interest is forever +proclaiming itself the voice of the people and attempting to impose its +purpose upon everybody as the purpose of all mankind. + + +3 + +To this confusion liberalism has with the kindest intentions +contributed greatly. Its main insight was into the prejudices of the +individual; the liberal discovered a method of proving that men are +finite, that they cannot escape from the flesh. From the so-called age +of enlightenment down to our day the heavy guns of criticism have been +used to make men realize that they submit, as Bacon said, the shadows +of things to the desires of the mind. Once the resistance was broken +by proof that man belonged to the natural world, his pretensions to +absolute certainty were attacked from every quarter. He was shown +the history of his ideas and of his customs, and he was driven to +acknowledge that they were bounded by time and space and circumstance. +He was shown that there is a bias in all opinion, even in opinion +purged of desire, for the man who holds the opinion must stand at some +point in space and time and can see not the whole world but only the +world as seen from that point. So men learned that they saw a little +through their own eyes, and much more through reports of what other men +thought they had seen. They were made to understand that all human eyes +have habits of vision, which are often stereotyped, which always throw +facts into a perspective; and that the whole of experience is more +sophisticated than the naïve mind suspects. For its pictures of the +world are drawn from things half heard and of things half seen; they +deal with the shadows of things unsteadily, and submit unconsciously to +the desires of the mind. + +It was an amazing and unsettling revelation, and liberalism never quite +knew what to do with it. In a theater in Moscow a certain M. Yevreynoff +carried the revelation to one of its logical conclusions. He produced +the monodrama.[30] This is a play in which the action, the setting and +all the characters are seen by the audience through the eyes of one +character only, as the hero sees them, and they take on the quality +which his mind imagines they possess. Thus in the old theater, if the +hero drank too much, he reeled in the midst of a sober environment. +But in M. Yevreynoff’s supremely liberal theater, if I understand +Mr. Macgowan’s account of it correctly, the drunkard will not reel +about the lamppost; two lampposts will reel about him, and he will be +dressed, because that is the way he feels, like Napoleon Bonaparte. + +M. Yevreynoff has troubled me a good deal, for he seemed to have +finished off the liberal with a fool’s cap, and left him sitting in a +world that does not exist, except as so many crazy mirrors reflecting +his own follies one upon the other. But then I recalled that M. +Yevreynoff’s logic was defective and make-believe. He had all the time +stood soberly outside his own drunken hero, and so had his audience; +the universe had not after all gone up in the smoke of one fantasy; the +drunken hero had his point of view, but, after all, there were others, +just as authentic, with which in the course of his career he might +collide. There might be a policeman, for example, with fantasies to be +sure, but his own, who would break in upon the monodrama and remind the +hero, and us, that when we submit the shadows of things to the desires +of the mind we do not submit the things themselves. + +But while all this does vindicate the sanity of the liberal criticism, +it does not answer the question: since every action has to be taken by +somebody, since everybody is in some degree a drunken hero with two +lampposts teetering about him, how can any common good be furthered by +this creature who is dominated by his special purposes? The answer was +that it could be furthered by taming his purposes, enlightening them +and fitting them into each other as the violin and the drum are fitted +together into the orchestra. The answer was not acceptable in the +nineteenth century, when men, in spite of all their iconoclasm, were +still haunted by the phantom of identity. So liberals refused to write +harmonious but separate parts for the violinist and the drummer. They +made, instead, a noble appeal to their highest instincts. They spoke +over the heads of men to man. + +These general appeals were as vague as they were broad. They gave +particular men no clue as to how to behave sincerely, but they +furnished them with an excellent masquerade when they behaved +arbitrarily. Thus the trappings of liberalism came into the service of +commercial exploiters, of profiteers and prohibitionists and jingoes, +of charlatans and the makers of buncombe. + +For liberalism had burned down the barn to roast the pig. The discovery +of prejudice in all particular men gave the liberal a shock from +which he never recovered. He was so utterly disconcerted by his own +discovery of a necessary but perfectly obvious truth, that he took +flight into generalities. The appeal to everybody’s conscience gave +nobody a clue how to act; the voter, the politician, the laborer, the +capitalist had to construct their own codes _ad hoc_, accompanied +perhaps by an expansive liberal sentiment, but without intellectual +guidance from liberal thought. In time, when liberalism had lost its +accidental association with free trade and _laissez faire_, through +their abandonment in practice, it sadly justified itself as a necessary +and useful spirit, as a kind of genial spook worth having around the +place. For when individual men, guided by no philosophy but their own +temporary rationalizations, got themselves embroiled, the spook would +appear and in a peroration straighten out the more arbitrary biases +they displayed. + +Yet even in this disembodied state liberalism is important. It tends +to awaken a milder spirit; it softens the hardness of action. But it +does not dominate action, because it has eliminated the actor from its +scheme of things. It cannot say: You do this and you do that, as all +ruling philosophies must. It can only say: That isn’t fair, that’s +selfish, that’s tyrannical. Liberalism has been, therefore, a defender +of the under dog, and his liberator, but not his guide, when he is +free. Top dog himself, he easily leaves his liberalism aside, and to +liberals the sour reflection that they have forged a weapon of release +but not a way of life. + +The liberals have misunderstood the nature of the public to which +they appealed. The public in any situation is, in fact, merely those +persons, indirectly concerned, who might align themselves in support +of one of the actors. But the liberal took no such uninflated view of +the public. He assumed that all mankind was within hearing, that all +mankind when it heard would respond homogeneously because it had a +single soul. His appeal to this cosmopolitan, universal, disinterested +intuition in everybody was equivalent to an appeal to nobody. + +No such fallacy is to be found in the political philosophies which +active men have lived by. They have all assumed, as a matter of course, +that in the struggle against evil it was necessary to call upon some +specific agent to do the work. Even when the thinker was out of temper +with the human race, he had always hitherto made somebody the hero of +his campaign. It was the peculiarity of liberalism among theories which +have played a great part in the world that it attempted to eliminate +the hero entirely. + +Plato would certainly have thought this strange: his _Republic_ is a +tract on the proper education of a ruling class. Dante, in the turmoil +of thirteenth century Florence, seeking order and stability, addressed +himself not to the conscience of Christendom but to the Imperial Party. +The great state builders of modern times, Hamilton, Cavour, Bismarck, +Lenin, each had in mind somebody, some group of real people, who +were to realize his program. The agents in the theory have varied, +of course; here they are the landlords, then the peasants, or the +unions, or the military class, or the manufacturers; there are theories +addressed to a church, to the ruling classes in particular nations, to +some nation or race. The theories are always, except in the liberal +philosophy, addressed to somebody. + +By comparison the liberal philosophy has an air of vague unworldiness. +Yet the regard of men for it has been persistent; somehow or other with +all the lapses in its logic and with all its practical weaknesses it +touches a human need. These appeals from men to man: are they not a way +of saying that men desire peace, that there is a harmony attainable in +which all men can live and let live? It seems so to me. The attempt +to escape from particular purposes into some universal purpose, from +personality into something impersonal, is, to be sure, a flight from +the human problem, but it is at the same time a demonstration of how +we wish to see that problem solved. We seek an adjustment, as perfect +as possible, as untroubled as it was before we were born. Even if +man were a fighting animal, as some say he is, he would wish for a +world in which he could fight perfectly, with enemies fleet enough to +extend him and not too fleet to elude him. All men desire their own +perfect adjustment, but they desire it, being finite men, on their own +terms. Because liberalism could not accommodate the universal need of +adjustment to the permanence and the reality of individual purpose, it +remained an incomplete, a disembodied philosophy. It was frustrated +over the ancient problem of the One and the Many. Yet the problem is +not so insoluble once we cease to personify society. It is only when +we are compelled to personify society that we are puzzled as to how +many separate organic individuals can be united in one homogeneous +organic individual. This logical underbrush is cleared away if we +think of society not as the name of a thing but as the name of all +the adjustments between individuals and their things. Then, we can +say without theoretical qualms what common sense plainly tells us is +so: it is the individuals who act, not society; it is the individuals +who think, not the collective mind; it is the painters who paint, +not the artistic spirit of the age; it is the soldiers who fight +and are killed, not the nation; it is the merchant who exports, not +the country. It is their relations with each other that constitute +a society. And it is about the ordering of those relations that the +individuals not executively concerned in a specific disorder may have +public opinions and may intervene as a public. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[27] John Maynard Keynes, _A Revision of the Treaty_, p. 4. + +[28] In a letter to William Wirt, cited by John Sharp Williams, _Thomas +Jefferson_, p. 7. + +[29] Harold J. Laski, _Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty_, p. 24. + +[30] Kenneth Macgowan, _The Theatre of Tomorrow_, pp. 249–50. + + + + +Chapter XV + +ABSENTEE RULERS + + +1 + +The practical effect of the monistic theories of society has been to +rationalize that vast concentrating of political and economic power in +the midst of which we live. Since society was supposed to have organic +purposes of its own, it came to seem quite reasonable that these +purposes should be made manifest to a people by laws and decisions from +a central point. Somebody had to have a purpose revealed to him which +could be treated as the common purpose; if it was to be accepted it had +to be enforced by command; if it was really to look like the national +purpose, it had to be handed down as a rule binding upon all. Thus men +could say with Goethe: + + “And then a mighty work completed stands, + One mind suffices for a thousand hands.”[31] + +In this fashion the eulogies of the Great Society have been made. Two +thousand years ago it was possible for whole civilizations as mature as +the Chinese and the Greco-Roman to coexist in total indifference to one +another. Today the food supplies, the raw materials, the manufactures, +the communications and the peace of the world constitute one great +system which cannot be thrown severely out of balance in any part +without disturbing the whole. + +Looked at from the top, the system in its far-flung and intricate +adjustments has a certain grandeur. It might, as some hopeful persons +think, even ultimately mean the brotherhood of man since all men +living in advanced communities are now in quite obvious fashion +dependent upon one another. But the individual man cannot look at the +system steadily from the top or see it in its ultimate speculative +possibilities. For him it means in practice, along with the rise in +certain of his material standards of life, a nerve-wracking increase +of the incalculable forces that bear upon his fate. My neighbor in the +country who borrowed money to raise potatoes which he cannot sell for +cash looks at the bills from the village store asking for immediate +cash payments, and does not share the philosophic hopeful view of the +interdependence of the world. When unseen commission merchants in New +York City refuse his potatoes, the calamity is as dumfounding as a +drought or a plague of locusts. + +The harvest in September of the planting in May is now determined not +only by wind and weather, which his religion has from time immemorial +justified, but by a tangle of distant human arrangements of which +only loose threads are in his hands. He may live more richly than his +ancestors; he may be wealthier and healthier and, for all he knows, +even happier. But he gambles with the behavior of unseen men in a +bewildering way. His relations with invisibly managed markets are +decisively important for him; his own foresight is not dependable. He +is a link in a chain that stretches beyond his horizon. + +The rôle that salesmanship and speculation play is a measure of the +spread between the work men do and the results. To market the output +of Lancashire, says Dibblee,[32] “the merchants and warehousemen of +Manchester and Liverpool, not to mention the marketing organizations +in other Lancashire towns, have a greater capital employed than that +required in all the manufacturing industries of the cotton trade.” And, +according to Anderson’s calculations,[33] the grain received at Chicago +in 1915 was sold sixty-two times in futures, as well as an unknown +number of times in spot transactions. Where men produce for invisible +and uncertain markets “the initial plans of enterprisers”[34] cannot be +adequate. The adjustments, often very crude and costly, are effected by +salesmanship and speculation. + +Under these conditions neither the discipline of the craftsman who +controls his process from beginning to end nor the virtues of thrift, +economy and work are a complete guide to a successful career. Defoe in +his _Complete English Tradesman_[35] could say that “trade is not a +ball where people appear in masque and act a part to make sport ... but +is a plain, visible scene of honest life ... supported by prudence and +frugality” ... and so “prudent management and frugality will increase +any fortune to any degree.” Benjamin Franklin might opine that “he that +gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expenses +excepted) will certainly become rich, if that Being who governs +the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest +endeavors, doth not in His wise providence, otherwise determine.” Young +men were until quite recently exhorted in the very words of Defoe and +Franklin, though Franklin’s rather canny allowance for the whims of +the Almighty was not always included. But of late the gospel of success +contains less about frugality and more about visions and the message +of business. This new gospel, beneath all its highfalutin cant, points +dimly though excitedly to the truth that for business success a man +must project his mind over an invisible environment. + +This need has bred an imperious tendency to organization on a large +scale. To defend themselves against the economic powers of darkness, +against great monopolies or a devastating competition, the farmers set +up great centralized selling agencies. Business men form great trade +associations. Everybody organizes, until the number of committees and +their paid secretaries cannot be computed. The tendency is pervasive. +We have had, if I remember correctly, National Smile Week. At any rate +we have had Nebraska which discovered that if you wish to prohibit +liquor in Nebraska you must prohibit it everywhere. Nebraska cannot +live by itself alone, being too weak to control an international +traffic. We have had the socialist who was convinced that socialism +can maintain itself only on a socialist planet. We have had Secretary +Hughes who was convinced that capitalism could exist only on a +capitalist planet. We have had all the imperialists who could not live +unless they advanced the backward races. And we have had the Ku Klux +Klansmen who were persuaded that if you organized and sold hate on a +country-wide scale there would be lots more hate than there was before. +We have had the Germans before 1914 who were told they had to choose +between “world power or downfall,” and the French for some years after +1919 who could not be “secure” in Europe unless every one else was +insecure. We have had all conceivable manifestations of the impulse +to seek stability in an incalculable environment by standardizing for +one’s own apparent convenience all those who form the context of one’s +activity. + +It has entailed perpetual effort to bring more and more men under the +same law and custom, and then, of course, to assume control of the +lawmaking and law-enforcing machinery in this larger area. The effect +has been to concentrate decision in central governments, in distant +executive offices, in caucuses and in steering committees. Whether +this concentration of power is good or bad, permanent or passing, this +at least is certain. The men who make the decisions at these central +points are remote from the men they govern and the facts with which +they deal. Even if they conscientiously regard themselves as agents or +trustees, it is a pure fiction to say that they are carrying out the +will of the people. They may govern the people wisely. They are not +governing with the active consultation of the people. They can at best +lay down policy wholesale in response to electorates which judge and +act upon only a detail of the result. For the governors see a kind of +whole which obscures the infinite varieties of particular interests; +their vices are abstraction and generalization which appear in politics +as legalism and bureaucracy. The governed, on the contrary, see vivid +aspects of a whole which they can rarely imagine, and their prevailing +vice is to mistake a local prejudice for a universal truth. + +The widening distance between the centers where decisions are taken +and the places where the main work of the world is done has undermined +the discipline of public opinion upon which all the earlier theorists +relied.[36] A century ago the model of popular government was the +self-sufficing township in which the voters’ opinions were formed and +corrected by talk with their neighbors. They might entertain queer +opinions about witches and spirits and foreign peoples and other +worlds. But about the village itself the facts were not radically in +dispute, and nothing was likely to happen that the elders could not +with a little ingenuity bring under a well-known precedent of their +common law. + +But under absentee government these checks upon opinion are lacking. +The consequences are often so remote and long delayed that error is not +promptly disclosed. The conditioning factors are distant; they do not +count vividly in our judgments. The reality is inaccessible; the bounds +of subjective opinion are wide. In the interdependent world, desire, +rather than custom or objective law, tends to become the criterion of +men’s conduct. They formulate their demands at large for “security” at +the expense of every one else’s safety, for “morality” at the expense +of other men’s tastes and comfort, for the fulfillment of a national +destiny that consists in taking what you want when you want it. The +lengthening of the interval between conduct and experience, between +cause and effect, has nurtured a cult of self-expression in which each +thinker thinks about his own thoughts and has subtle feelings about +his feelings. That he does not in consequence deeply affect the course +of affairs is not surprising. + + +2 + +The centralizing tendencies of the Great Society have not been accepted +without protest, and the case against them has been stated again and +again.[37] Without local institutions, said de Tocqueville, a nation +may give itself a free government, but it does not possess the spirit +of liberty. To concentrate power at one point is to facilitate the +seizure of power. “What are you going to do?” Arthur Young asked some +provincials at the time of the French Revolution. “We do not know,” +they replied; “we must see what Paris is going to do.” Local interests +handled from a distant central point are roughly handled by busy and +inattentive men. And in the meantime the local training and the local +winnowing of political talent are neglected. The overburdened central +authority expands into a vast hierarchy of bureaucrats and clerks +manipulating immense stacks of paper, always dealing with symbols on +paper, rarely with things or with people. The genius of centralization +reached its climax in the famous boast of a French minister of +education, who said: It is three o’clock; all the pupils in the third +grade throughout France are now composing a Latin verse. + +There is no need to labor the point. The more centralization the less +can the people concerned be consulted and give conscious assent. The +more extensive the rule laid down the less account it can take of fact +and special circumstance. The more it conflicts with local experience, +the more distant its source and wholesale its character, the less +easily enforceable it is. General rules will tend to violate particular +needs. Distantly imposed rules usually lack the sanction of consent. +Being less suited to the needs of men, and more external to their +minds, they rest on force rather than on custom and on reason. + +A centralized society dominated by the fiction that the governors are +the spokesmen of a common will tends not only to degrade initiative +in the individual but to reduce to insignificance the play of public +opinion. For when the action of a whole people is concentrated, the +public is so vast that even the crude objective judgments it might +make on specific issues cease to be practicable. The tests indicated +in preceding chapters by which a public might judge the workability +of a rule or the soundness of a new proposal have little value when +the public runs into millions and the issues are hopelessly entangled +with each other. It is idle under such circumstances to talk about +democracy, or about the refinement of public opinion. With such +monstrous complications the public can do little more than at intervals +to align itself heavily for or against the régime in power, and for +the rest to bear with its works, obeying meekly or evading, as seems +most convenient. For, in practice, the organic theory of society means +a concentration of power; that is, the way the notion of one purpose +is actually embodied in affairs. And this in turn means that men must +either accept frustration of their own purposes or contrive somehow to +frustrate that declared purpose of that central power which pretends it +is the purpose of all. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] _Faust_, Part II, Act v, scene 3. + +[32] Dibblee, _The Laws of Supply and Demand_, cited by B. M. Anderson, +Jr., _The Value of Money_, p. 259. + +[33] B. M. Anderson, Jr., _The Value of Money_, p. 251. + +[34] _Ibid._ + +[35] _Cf._ Werner Lombart, _The Quintessence of Capitalism_, Chapter +VII. + +[36] _Cf._ my _Public Opinion_, Chapters XVI and XVII. + +[37] In a convenient form by J. Charles Brun, _Le Régionalisme_, pp. +13 _et seq._ _Cf._ also Walter Thompson, _Federal Centralization_, +Chapter XIX. + + + + +Chapter XVI + +THE REALMS OF DISORDER + + +1 + +Yet the practice of centralization and the philosophy which personifies +society have acquired a great hold upon men. The dangers are well +known. If, nevertheless, the practice and the theory persist, it cannot +be merely because men have been led astray by false doctrine. + +If you examine the difficulties enumerated by the sponsors of great +centralizing measures, such as national prohibition, the national child +labor amendment, federal control of education or the nationalization of +railroads, they are reducible, I think, to one dominating idea: that it +is necessary to extend the area of control over all the factors in a +problem or the problem will be insoluble anywhere. + +It was to this idea that Mr. Lloyd George appealed when he faced his +critics at the end of his administration. While his words are the words +of a skilful debater, the idea behind them might almost be called the +supreme motive of all the imperial and centralizing tendencies of the +Great Society: + +“Lord Grey sought to make peace in the Balkans. He made peace. That +peace did not stand the jolting of the train that carried it from +London to the Balkans. It fell to pieces before it ever reached +Sofia. That was not his fault. The plan was good. The intentions were +excellent. _But there were factors there which he could not control._ +He tried to prevent the Turks from entering the war against us, a most +important matter. German diplomacy was too strong for him. He tried to +prevent Bulgaria from entering the war against us. There again German +diplomacy defeated us. Well, now I have never taunted Lord Grey with +that. I do not taunt him now, but what I say is that when you get +into the realm of foreign affairs there are things I will not say you +cannot visualize, because you do, but there are factors you cannot +influence.”[38] + +Mr. Lloyd George might have said the same of domestic affairs. There, +too, factors abound which you cannot influence. And as empires expand +to protect their frontiers, and then expand further to protect the +protections to their frontiers, so central governments have been led +step by step to take one interest after another under their control. + + +2 + +For the democracies are haunted by this dilemma: they are frustrated +unless in the laying down of rules there is a large measure of assent; +yet they seem unable to find solutions of their greatest problems +except through centralized governing by means of extensive rules which +necessarily ignore the principle of assent. The problems that vex +democracy seem to be unmanageable by democratic methods. + +In supreme crises the dilemma is presented absolutely. Possibly a +war can be fought for democracy; it cannot be fought democratically. +Possibly a sudden revolution may be made to advance democracy; but the +revolution itself will be conducted by a dictatorship. Democracy may +be defended against its enemies but it will be defended by a committee +of safety. The history of the wars and revolutions since 1914 is +ample evidence on this point. In the presence of danger, where swift +and concerted action is required, the methods of democracy cannot be +employed. + +That is understandable enough. But how is it that the democratic method +should be abandoned so commonly in more leisurely and less catastrophic +times? Why in time of peace should people provoke that centralization +of power which deprives them of control over the use of that power? +Is it not a probable answer to say that in the presence of certain +issues, even in time of peace, the dangers have seemed sufficiently +menacing to cause people to seek remedies, regardless of method, by the +shortest and easiest way at hand? + +It could be demonstrated, I think, that the issues which have seemed +so overwhelming were of two kinds: those which turned on the national +defense or the public safety and those which turned on the power of +modern capitalism. Where the relations of a people to armed enemies are +in question or where the relations of employee, customer or farmer to +large industry are in question the need for solutions has outweighed +all interest in the democratic method. + +In the issues engendered by the rise of the national state and the +development of large scale industries are to be found the essentially +new problems of the modern world. For the solution of these problems +there are few precedents. There is no established body of custom and +law. The field of international affairs and the field of industrial +relations are the two great centers of anarchy in society. It is a +pervasive anarchy. Out of the national state with its terrifying +military force, and out of great industry with all its elaborate +economic compulsion, the threat against personal security always rises. +To offset it somehow, to check it and thwart it, seemed more important +than any finical regard for the principle of assent. + +And so to meet the menace of the national state, its neighbors sought +to form themselves into more powerful national states; to tame the +power of capitalism they supported the growth of vast bureaucracies. +Against powers that were dangerous and uncontrolled they set up powers, +nominally their own, which were just as vast and just as uncontrolled. + + +3 + +But only for precarious intervals has security been attained by +these vast balances of power. From 1870 to 1914 the world was held +in equilibrium. It was upset, and the world has not yet found a new +order. The balances of power within the nations are no less unsteady. +For neither in industry nor in international affairs has it yet been +possible to hold any balance long enough to fix it by rule and give it +an institutional form. Power has been checked by power here and there +and now and then but power has not been adjusted to power and the terms +of the adjustment settled and accepted. + +The attempt to bring power under control by offsetting it with power +was sound enough in intention. The conflicting purposes of men cannot +be held under pacific control unless the tendency of all power to +become arbitrary is checked by other force. All the machinery of +conference, of peaceful negotiation, of law and the rule of reason is +workable in large affairs only where the power of the negotiators is +neutralized one against the other. It may be neutralized because the +parties are in fact equally powerful. It may be neutralized because the +weaker has invisible allies among the other powers of the world, or in +domestic affairs among other interests in society. But before there can +be law there must be order, and an order is an arrangement of power. + +The worst that can be said of the nationalists and collectivists is +that they attempted to establish balances of power which could not +endure. The pluralist at least would say that the end they sought must +be attained differently, that in place of vast wholesale balances of +power it is necessary to create many detailed balances of power. The +people as a whole supporting a centralized government cannot tame +capitalism as a whole. For the powers which are summed up in the term +capitalism are many. They bear separately upon different groups of +people. The nation as a unit does not encounter them all, and cannot +deal with them all. It is to the different groups of people concerned +that we must look for the power which shall offset the arbitrary power +that bears upon them. The reduction of capitalism to workable law is +no matter of striking at it wholesale by general enactments. It is a +matter of defeating its arbitrary power in detail, in every factory, +in every office, in every market, and of turning the whole network of +relations under which industry operates from the dominion of arbitrary +forces into those of settled rules. + +And so it is in the anarchy among nations. If all the acts of a citizen +are to be treated as organically the actions of that nation, a stable +balance of power is impossible. Here also it is necessary to break down +the fiction of identity, to insist that the quarrel of one business man +with another is their quarrel, and not the nation’s, a quarrel in which +each is entitled to a vindication of his right to fair adjudication but +not to patriotic advocacy of his cause. It is only by this dissociation +of private interests that the mass of disputes across frontiers can +gradually be brought under an orderly process. For a large part, +perhaps the greatest part, of the disputes between nations is an +accumulated mass of undetermined disputes between their nationals. If +these essentially private disputes could be handled, without patriotic +fervor and without confusing an oil prospector with the nation as a +whole, with governments acting as friends of the court and not as +advocates for a client, the balance of power between governments would +be easier to maintain. It would not be subject to constant assault from +within each nation by an everlasting propaganda of suspicion by private +interests seeking national support. And if only the balance of power +between governments could be stabilized long enough to establish a line +of precedents for international conference, a longer peace might result. + + +4 + +These in roughest outline are some of the conclusions, as they +appear to me, of the attempt to bring the theory of democracy into +somewhat truer alignment with the nature of public opinion. I have +conceived public opinion to be, not the voice of God, nor the voice +of society, but the voice of the interested spectators of action. I +have, therefore, supposed that the opinions of the spectators must be +essentially different from those of the actors, and that the kind of +action they were capable of taking was essentially different too. It +has seemed to me that the public had a function and must have methods +of its own in controversies, qualitatively different from those of +the executive men; that it was a dangerous confusion to believe that +private purposes were a mere emanation of some common purpose. + +This conception of society seems to me truer and more workable than +that which endows public opinion with pantheistic powers. It does not +assume that men in action have universal purposes; they are denied +the fraudulent support of the fiction that they are the agents of a +common purpose. They are regarded as the agents of special purposes, +without pretense and without embarrassment. They must live in a world +with men who have other special purposes. The adjustments which must +be made are society, and the best society is the one in which men have +purposes which they can realize with the least frustration. When men +take a position in respect to the purposes of others they are acting as +a public. And the end of their acting in this rôle is to promote the +conditions under which special purposes can be composed. + +It is a theory which puts its trust chiefly in the individuals directly +concerned. They initiate, they administer, they settle. It would +subject them to the least possible interference from ignorant and +meddlesome outsiders, for in this theory the public intervenes only +when there is a crisis of maladjustment, and then not to deal with the +substance of the problem but to neutralize the arbitrary force which +prevents adjustment. It is a theory which economizes the attention of +men as members of the public, and asks them to do as little as possible +in matters where they can do nothing very well. It confines the effort +of men, when they are a public, to a part they might fulfill, to a +part which corresponds to their own greatest interest in any social +disturbance; that is, to an intervention which may help to allay the +disturbance, and thus allow them to return to their own affairs. + +For it is the pursuit of their special affairs that they are most +interested in. It is by the private labors of individuals that life is +enhanced. I set no great store on what can be done by public opinion +and the action of masses. + + +5 + +I have no legislative program to offer, no new institutions to +propose. There are, I believe, immense confusions in the current +theory of democracy which frustrate and pervert its action. I have +attacked certain of the confusions with no conviction except that a +false philosophy tends to stereotype thought against the lessons of +experience. I do not know what the lessons will be when we have learned +to think of public opinion as it is, and not as the fictitious power +we have assumed it to be. It is enough if with Bentham we know that +“the perplexity of ambiguous discourse ... distracts and eludes the +apprehension, stimulates and inflames the passions.” + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[38] Speech at Manchester, October 14, 1922. + + + + +INDEX + + + Absentee rulers defined, 173–186 + + Action, public, defined, 73–74 + + Agencies defined, 125–142; + fact-finding, 45 + + Agent, public not, 169 + + Agents and bystanders defined, 40–53 + + Anarchy, 161 + + Anderson, Jr., B. M., 176 + + Arbitrary force, neutralization of, 63–74 + + Aristotle, 77–80 + + Assent, defined, 117–123, 129, 189 + + + Bacon, Francis, 162 + + Balkans, 188 + + Behavior, 55, 68–69; + reasonable, defined, 145 + + Bentham, Jeremy, 200 + + Bergson, Henri, 32–33 + + Birth control, its relation to food supply, 87–88 + + Bismarck, Prince von, 14, 169 + + Brun, J. Charles, 183 + + Bryan, William Jennings, 36 + + Bryce, James, 18–19 + + Bulgaria, 188 + + Business, new gospel of, 178 + + Bystanders and agents defined, 40–53 + + + Capitalism, 37, 179, 191, 192, 194, 195 + + Carr-Saunders, A. M., 87 + + Cassel, Gustav, 92, 94 + + Cats, mice and clover, 31–32 + + Cavour, Count di, 169 + + Centralization of government. _See_ Government + + Change, unnoticeable, 88 + + Chanticleer, 15 + + Chicago mayoral election, 17 + + Chinese and Greco-Roman civilizations, 174 + + Citizen, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 38, 39, 40, + 45, 46, 52, 148, 195 + + Citizenship, 151 + + Civic duty, derision for, 15, 146, 151 + + Civil rights, 58 + + Civilization, 174 + + Clover, cats and mice, 31–32 + + Competence, 150 + + Conduct, 182 + + Conformity, test of, defined, 123–124 + + Conscience, 28 + + Contracts, social, 40, 95–106; + defined, 101–102, 104–105 + + Control, 55 + + Controversy, 77 + + Coöperation, 99 + + Corruption, 71, 72 + + Criteria of reform defined, 125–142 + + Criticism, 123 + + Crises, 67 + + Crisis, public opinion reserve force in, 69 + + + Dante, 169 + + Darwin, Charles, 31, 32 + + Debate, public value of, defined, 110–114 + + Defective rule defined, 115–124 + + Defoe, Daniel, 177 + + Delbrück, Hans, 60 + + Democracy, 24, 35–37, 71, 146–151, 155, 189, 190, 197–200 + + Democratic theory, 14, 61, 147 + + Democrats, 59 + + Derision of citizens, 15 + + Descartes, 81 + + Dibblee, G. B., 176 + + Dictatorship, 190 + + Disenchanted man defined, 20 + + “Disorder, idea of,” 32–33; + realms of, defined, 187–200 + + Dogma of assent, 117 + + Duties and rights. _See_ Rights and duties. + + + Economic problem defined, 92–94. + + Education, 22–23, 24, 27; + public, defined, 146–147, 148–151, 169 + + Election, defined, 56, 60, 61 + + Elections, defined, 127–130 + + England, 59, 86 + + Enterprise, Macaulay on, 49–50 + + Enterprisers, 176 + + Environment, 14, 78, 79, 179 + + Erickson, E. M., 16 + + Eugenics, 34–35 + + Evasion of law, 123 + + Evils of democracy, 35–36, 37, 173–186 + + Evolution, 81–84 + + Executive action, 144 + + Expectations, 33 + + Exploiters, 166 + + + Fable of professor, 28 + + Food supply, 86–87 + + Franklin, Benjamin, 177–178 + + French security, 179 + + French Revolution, 59, 183 + + Frugality, 177 + + Function, government, defined, 70–73; + relation to competency, 150 + + + German diplomacy, 188 + + Germans, 179 + + Goethe, 173 + + Gosnell, Harvey Foote, 17 + + Government, vii, 14, 41, 50, 61, 62, 70, 71, 72, 73, 126, 173–186, + 194; + defined, 77, 126; + function defined, 70–73 + + Grant, Madison, 22 + + Great Society, 43, 79, 98, 174, 183, 188–189 + + Greco-Roman and Chinese civilizations, 174 + + Grey, Lord, vii, 188 + + Guedalla, Philip, 14 + + Gun elevation, 91 + + + Hamilton, Alexander, vii, 169 + + Hegel, 98 + + Hegelian mystery, 47 + + Hertzen, Alexander, 20 + + Hughes, Charles Evans, 179 + + Human values defined, 95–97 + + + “Idea of disorder,” 32–33 + + Ideal, 20, 22, 39, 63, 68, 155 + + Idealization, 57 + + Ideals, 14 + + Ideas, 47, 48 + + Imperial Party, 169 + + Initiative and referendum, 19 + + Innovation, 116 + + Inquiry, test of, defined, 130–135 + + Intelligence, 69, 135 + + + Jefferson, Thomas, 159 + + Justice, 67 + + + Keynes, J. M., 157–158 + + Knowledge, 30 + + Ku Klux Klan, 179 + + + Lancashire goods, 176 + + Laski, Harold J., 161 + + Latin America, 61 + + Latin verse, 184 + + Law, 69, 100, 108, 115, 116, 123, 124, 191–192, 193 + + Laws, 69, 71; + assent to, defined, 117–122, 123, 124; + defective, defined, 125–142, 136; + test of, defined, 138 + + Leaders, 19 + + League of Nations, 133 + + Lenin, 169 + + Liberal defined, 162 + + Liberalism defined, 162–172 + + Liberals, 162, 166 + + Liberties of men defined, 55 + + Liberty, spirit of, 187 + + Lloyd George, David, 157–158, 188–189 + + Lombart, Werner, 177 + + Lowell, Lawrence A., 19 + + + Macaulay, Lord, 49–50 + + Macgowan, Kenneth, 163 + + Majority, 19; + rule defined, 57–58, 60 + + Malthus, T. R., 85–87 + + Man, disenchanted, 13–21 + + Manchester, Lloyd George at, 188–189 + + Mayoral election in Chicago, 17 + + Merriam, Charles Edward, 17–18 + + Methods of public men, 159 + + Mice, cats and clover, 31–32 + + Michelet, Simon, 16 + + Michels, Robert, 19, 22–23 + + Minorities, 58 + + Monistic theory, 161, 173 + + Monodrama, 163–165 + + Moral code, 29–30, 35, 74 + + Moral codes, 30 + + Moralists, 28 + + Morality, 100 + + Morrow, Dwight, 59–60 + + Morse, Prof., 59–60 + + + Napoleon III., 14 + + National defense, problem defined, 90–91 + + Nationals, 196 + + Nationalism, 65 + + Neutralization of arbitrary force, 67–74 + + Neutralized power, 193 + + Newspapers, 13 + + Nonvoting, 17–18 + + + Officials, government, 72 + + Ogburn, W. F., 89, 100 + + Omnicompetency of citizens, 21, 39 + + One and Many problem, 171 + + Opinion, 48, 52, 56, 61 + + Opinion, public. _See_ Public opinion + + Opinions defined, 44–49, 162, 197 + + Opposition parties, 20 + + + Party government, 59–60 + + Party in power, 126 + + Party system, 130 + + Parties, political, 127 + + Partisanship, 34 + + Pawlow, Ivan Petrovich, 30 + + People, 19, 36, 41; + Macaulay on, 50, 61, 62, 68, 69, 71, 180, 181, 191, 194 + + People’s will defined, 72 + + Physical force in South, 61 + + Plato, 169 + + Pluralistic theory defined, 151, 161, 194 + + Political capacity, 78 + + Political evils, agents against, 169 + + Political leaders, 19, 22 + + Political system changes, 84–85 + + Political talent neglected, 184 + + Political theories defined, 22–39 + + Politicians, 41 + + Politics, truth in, 157–158 + + Policy, public, 57 + + Population, problem of, defined, 85–87 + + Power, arbitrary, 74; + balance of, defined, 192–196; + of public opinion, 70 + + Principles of public opinion, 143 + + Problem, nature of, 81–94, 130; + of One and Many, 171 + + Problems of citizen defined, 13–16, 25, 26, 34, 64, 72, 81–94, 125, + 129, 131, 140, 141, 187 + + Professor, fable of, 28 + + Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, 133 + + Public, 42; + powers defined, 49–52, 54–62; + relation to public affairs defined, 63–66, 67, 68, 77, 103, 105, + 106, 107, 108; + debate, value of, defined, 110–114, 115, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, + 124, 125, 129, 131, 133, 134, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145; + education defined, 146–151, 155, 156, 157, 159; + in any situation defined, 168, 169; + dangers to, defined, 189–191, 193, 197, 198 + + Public affairs, 13–21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 36, 38, 39, 41, 44, 55, 56, + 64, 69, 189 + + Public judgment, 115 + + Public life, candor in, 157 + + Public men, methods of, 159 + + Public office, education for, 151 + + Public opinion, 44, 48, 52, 53, 55; + and public affairs, 55–56, 65; + defined 65–70, 71, 72, 73, 74; + function of, defined, 74, 79; + principles of, 143; + tests of, defined, 144–145, 147, 151, 181, 197–200 + + Publicity, 43 + + Publics, random, 79 + + + Question Aristotle asked, 77–80 + + Questions, two, 107 + + + Realms of disorder, 187–200 + + Reason, 69 + + Reform Bill, 50 + + Reform, criteria of, 125–142 + + Reform, 129; + test of, defined, 135–138 + + Reformer, 129, 130 + + Registered voters, 19 + + Revivalists, 22 + + Revolution, 59, 61, 136, 190 + + Revolution, French, 59, 183 + + Rights, 100 + + Rights and duties defined, 100–107 + + Rousseau, J. J., 98 + + Rule, 68–69; + defective, defined, 115–124 + + Rules. _See_ Laws + + Rules of society, 117 + + Rulers, absentee, defined, 173–186 + + + Santayana, George, 95 + + Schlesinger, A. M., 16 + + School, 14 + + Self-government, 19 + + Settlements, 120 + + Shaw, G. Bernard, 59 + + Smith, Logan Pearsall, 15–16, 26 + + Social contracts defined, 95–106 + + Socialism, theory of, defined, 37–38, 39, 65 + + Socialists, 156 + + Society, 28, 30, 31, 32, 42, 45, 71, 73, 79, 88, 98, 103, 106, 134; + functions defined, 155–161; + defined, 155–172, 176, 183 + + Socrates, 30 + + Sovereign people, 18–19 + + Sovereignty, 14 + + Standards, 30, 143 + + Statesmanship defined, 155–161 + + Steffen, Gustaf F., 19 + + Stoddard, Lothrop, 22 + + Submission, 162 + + Supply and demand, 92 + + System, economic, 94; + prevailing, 100; + of rights and duties, 100 + + + Teachers, 27 + + Theory, citizen reigns in, 14 + + Thomson, J. Arthur, 31 + + Times (London), 50 + + Tocqueville, de, 183 + + Trade, 177 + + Truth, 67 + + Turks, 188 + + Tyranny, 70–71 + + + Unattainable ideal, 22–39 + + United States government, 61 + + + Validity of laws, 108 + + Value is measurement, 96 + + Value of public debate defined, 110–114 + + Values, human, defined, 95–97 + + Virtue, 30, 57 + + Voice of public opinion defined, 197 + + Vote, 36, 55, 56 + + Voter, 19, 36, 146 + + Voters, 16–17, 18–19, 41 + + Voting, 52, 55, 56, 58, 59 + + + War, 90, 190 + + Williams, John Sharp, 159 + + Wirt, William, 159 + + Woman suffrage, 60 + + Work, 173 + + World, 29 + + “World power or downfall,” 179 + + + Yevreynoff, 163–164 + + Young, Arthur, 183 + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76966 *** |