[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
solid in antagonism to the (class-conscious) ruling minority. In some way the
class-conscious workers would seize power, he prophesied, and inaugurate a new
social state. The antagonism, the insurrection, the possible revolution are
understandable enough, but it does not follow that a new social state or
anything but a socially destructive process will ensue. Put to the test in
Russia, Marxism, as we shall note later, has proved singularly uncreative.
Marx sought to replace national antagonism by class antagonisms; Marxism has
produced in succession a First, a Second and a Third Workers' International.
But from the starting point of modern individualistic thought it is also
possible to reach international ideas. From the days of that great English
economist, Adam Smith, onward there has been an increasing realization that
for world-wide prosperity free and unencumbered trade about the earth is
needed. The individualist with his hostility to the state is hostile also to
tariffs and boundaries and all the restraints upon free act and movement that
national boundaries seem to justify. It is interesting to see two lines of
thought, so diverse in spirit, so different in substance as this class-war
socialism of the Marxists and the individualistic freetrading philosophy of
the British business men of the Victorian age heading at last, in spite of
these primary differences, towards the same intimations of a new world-wide
treatment of human affairs outside the boundaries and limitations of any
existing state. The logic of reality triumphs over the logic of theory. We
begin to perceive that from widely divergent starting points individualist
Page 136
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
theory and socialist theory are part of a common search, a search for more
spacious social and political ideas and interpretations, upon which men may
contrive to work together, a search that began again in Europe and has
intensified as men's confidence in the ideas of the Holy Roman Empire and in
Christendom decayed, and as the age of discovery broadened their horizons from
the world of the Mediterranean to the whole wide world.
To bring this description of the elaboration and development of social,
economic and political ideas right down to the discussions of the present day,
would be to introduce issues altogether too controversial for the scope and
intentions of this book. But regarding these things, as we do here, from the
vast perspectives of the student of world history, we are bound to recognize
that this reconstruction of these directive ideas in the human mind is still
an unfinished task-we cannot even estimate yet how unfinished the task may be.
Certain common beliefs do seem to be emerging, and their influence is very
perceptible upon the political events and public acts of today; but at present
they are not clear enough nor convincing enough to compel men definitely and
systematically towards their realization. Men's acts waver between tradition
and the new, and on the whole they rather gravitate towards the traditional.
Yet, compared with the thought of even a brief lifetime ago, there does seem
to be an outline shaping itself of a new order in human affairs. It is a
sketchy outline, vanishing into vagueness at this point and that, and
fluctuating in detail and formulae, yet it grows steadfastly clearer, and its
main lines change less and less.
It is becoming plainer and plainer each year that in many respects and in an
increasing range of affairs, mankind is becoming one community, and that it is
more and more necessary that in such matters there should be a common
world-wide control. For example, it is steadily truer that the whole planet is
now one economic community, that the proper exploitation of its natural
resources demands one comprehensive direction, and that the greater power and
range that discovery has given human effort makes the present fragmentary and
contentious administration of such affairs more and more wasteful and
dangerous. Financial and monetary expedients also become world-wide interests
to be dealt with successfully only on world-wide lines. Infectious diseases
and the increase and migrations of population are also now plainly seen to be
world-wide concerns. The greater power and range of human activities has also
made war disproportionately destructive and disorganizing, and, even as a
clumsy way of settling issues between government and government and people and
people, ineffective. All these things clamour for controls and authorities of
a greater range and greater comprehensiveness than any government that has
hitherto existed.
But it does not follow that the solution of these problems lies in some
super-government of all the world arising by conquest or by the coalescence of
existing governments. By analogy with existing institutions men have thought
of the Parliament of Mankind, of a World Congress, of a President or Emperor
of the Earth. Our first natural reaction is towards some such conclusion, but
the discussion and experiences of half a century of suggestions and attempts
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]