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THE  PURE  THEORY  OF 
POLITICS 


THE 

PURE  THEORY  OF 
POLITICS 


BY 

BERTRAND  DE  JOUVENEL 


NEW  HAVEN 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1963 


PUBLISHED   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 
BY   YALE  UNIVERSITY   PRESS 


CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY   PRESS 
1963 


Printed  in  Great  Britain  at  the  University  Press,  Cambridge 
{Brooke  Crutchley,  University  Printer) 


-o 


HELENAE 


et  oculi  illius  in  ea  sunt  a  principio 
anni  usque  adfinem  ejus 


CONTENTS 

Preface  page  ix 

PART    I 

APPROACH:  POLITICS  AS  HISTORY 

1  Configuration  and  Dynamics  3 

2  Wisdom  and  Activity :  the  Pseudo-Alcibiades  14 

3  On  the  Nature  of  PoUtical  Science  29 

PART   II 

SETTING:  EGO  IN  OTHERDOM 

1  Of  Man  43 

2  Home  48 

3  Otherdom  55 

PART   III 

ACTION:    INSTIGATION   AND   RESPONSE 

1  Instigation  69 

2  Response  83 

PART   IV 

AUTHORITY:  'POTESTAS'  AND  'POTENTIA' 

1  On  Being  Heard  99 

2  The  Law  of  Conservative  Exclusion  109 

3  Place  and  Face  118 

vii 


CONTENTS 
PART  V 

DECISION 

1  The  People  page  131 

2  The  Committee,  I  (Judicial  or  Political?)  146 

3  The  Committee,  II  (Foresight,  Values  and  Pressures)  157 

PART  VI 

ATTITUDES 

1  Attention  and  Intention  169 

2  The  Team  against  the  Committee  176 

3  The  Manners  of  Politics  187 

Addendum:  The  Myth  of  the  Solution  204 

Conclusion  213 

Index  215 


vni 


PREFACE 

Every  political  situation  is  complex  and  original.  The  hasty  mind, 
however,  seizes  upon  some  single  feature  because  of  which  it  assigns 
the  given  situation  to  a  certain  class  of  situations,  previously  formed, 
and  in  regard  to  which  the  mind  has  passed  judgement  once  for  all. 
Thus,  for  instance:  'The  situation  envisaged  involves  centralization; 
I  am  in  general  for  (against)  centralization :  therefore  my  stand  is  as 
follows ' 

It  seems  inevitable  that  such  work-saving  procedure  should  be 
commonly  resorted  to:  which  implies  a  permanent  demand  for 
ideologies — taxonomic  devices  constituting  wide  classes  and  in- 
spiring general  judgements,  allowing  us  in  short  to  take  a  stand  on 
problems  we  have  not  analysed. 

The  procedure  outlined  above  gives  no  inkling  as  to  the  mode  of 
appearance  and  the  chances  of  development  of  a  situation.  Con- 
venient as  we  may  find  it  when  we  only  want  to  assess,  it  is  radically 
unsuitable  if  we  wish  to  explain  or  foresee.  We  then  need  to  in- 
vestigate processes,  and  this  cannot  be  a  joint  venture  unless  we  use 
a  common  set  of  elementary  concepts. 

I  gratefully  remember  the  care  taken  by  the  teachers  of  my  child- 
hood to  familiarize  me  with  the  simplest  possible  relations  in  each 
field,  such  as  the  attribute  of  the  subject,  the  dependent  variable,  and 
so  forth.  The  geometry  master  took  me  forward  from  the  humble 
triangle;  the  chemistry  master  made  sure  that  I  grasped  the  com- 
bination HgO  before  moving  by  degrees  to  the  intricacies  of  the 
protein  molecule ;  the  law  master  began  with  Spondesne? . . . 

The  acquisition  of  such  elementary  notions  was  then,  and  surely 
is  now,  regarded  as  the  indispensable  first  stage  in  any  disciphne. 

We  speak  naturally  of  more  or  less  '  advanced '  study,  implying 
that  the  most  modest  learner  has  travelled  some  way  along  the  trunk 
road  on  which  others  have  gone  much  further,  and  from  which 
pioneering  research  branches  out  in  various  directions.  This  in  turn 
implies  that  anyone  who  has  been  trained  in  a  science  holds  the  keys 
to  any  message  conveyed  by  its  leaders  or  researchers :  he  may  find 
it  very  difficult  to  understand  the  message  but  there  is  no  risk  of  his 
mistaking  it,  the  notions  are  unambiguous — they  have  been  chosen 
for  that  virtue. 

ix 


PREFACE 

Political  science  offers  a  contrast.  The  field  has  been  settled  by 
immigrants  from  philosophy,  theology,  law,  and  later  sociology  and 
economics,  each  group  bringing  and  using  its  own  box  of  tools. 
Moreover,  political  words  are  widely  circulating  currency,  and  so 
tend  to  lose  neatness  and  acquire  emotional  associations :  politicians 
are  not  interested  in  using  them  properly  but  in  using  them  for  effect. 

Whatever  the  reasons,  political  science  stands  alone  in  its  lack  of 
agreed  'elements'.  There  are  no  basic  concepts,  simple  enough  to 
allow  of  only  one  meaning,  therefore  conveying  exactly  the  same 
signification  to  all  and  confidently  handled  by  everyone;  there  are  no 
simple  relations,  acknowledged  by  all  to  form  the  smallest  com- 
ponents of  complex  systems,  and  commonly  used  in  the  building  of 
models  devised  to  simulate  the  intricacies  of  real  situations. 

Does  such  a  deficiency  pertain  to  the  nature  of  this  discipline? 
I  do  not  believe  it.  Should  it  be  remedied?  I  thought  so  and  there- 
fore embarked  upon  the  undertaking  here  offered  to  the  reader.  I 
shall  be  rewarded  enough  if  it  is  adjudged  inadequate  but  necessary, 
if  it  evokes  not  approbation  but  emulation. 

While  the  book  must  speak  for  itself,  there  are  a  few  points  which 
require  an  early  mention. 

The  adjective  'pure'  in  the  title  is  used  by  analogy  with  the  con- 
trast between  'pure'  and  'organic'  in  chemistry.  Just  as  'organic' 
bodies  are  far  more  complex  than  those  to  which  the  student  is  first 
introduced  in  the  beginner's  course  of  pure  chemistry,  so  are  the 
situations  and  relations  of  actual  Politics  far  more  complex  than 
those  examined  here.  Therefore  the  reader  should  not  complain  that 
the  whole  of  reaHty  is  not  encompassed. 

Because  my  purpose  is  to  come  down  to  the  greatest  possible 
degree  of  simplicity,  political  phenomena  appear  essentially  as  rela- 
tions between  individuals.  This  does  not  imply  an  'atomistic'  view 
of  society,  it  simply  follows  from  the  tautology  that  the  simpler 
elements  are  the  'atoms'.  More  importantly  my  emphasis  upon  the 
relation  'man  moves  man'^  throws  me  open  to  the  misconception 
that  I  deem  it  a  great  and  admirable  thing  to  move  others  and  am 
prone  to  worshipping  'political  heroes '.^  As  it  happens  my  dis- 
position is  quite  radically  the  opposite :  naturally  distrustful  of  power, 

^  I  have  recendy  found  that  my  friend  Edward  Shils  emphasized  it  as  early  as  1939. 
^  This  misconception  has  already  appeared  in  one  important  critique  of  my 
Sovereignty. 


PREFACE 

I  distrust  it  at  its  very  source.  But  this  work  has  a  descriptive,  not 
a  normative,  purpose. 

This  brings  me  to  elucidate  the  meaning  of  the  word  'theory'  in 
my  title.  It  is  used  to  denote  what  goes  under  that  name  in  dis- 
ciplines other  than  political  science.  Observations  by  themselves  are 
of  course  meaningless :  to  make  sense  out  of  them,  one  must  formu- 
late a  hypothesis  which  can  account  for  them,  that  is,  one  must 
choose  concepts  between  which  one  assumes  some  relations  of 
dependence,  thus  elaborating  a '  model'  which  simulates  reality.  This 
activity  of  the  mind  is  habitually  called  'theorizing'  in  sciences 
other  than  the  political.  Models  thus  obtained  perform  a  repre- 
sentative function :  they  have  no  normative  value. 

What  is  called  'political  theory',  on  the  other  hand,  offers 
'models'  in  the  quite  different  sense  of 'ideals'.  Rousseau's  model 
of  a  democratic  assembly  is  one  wherein  all  those  who  will  be 
subject  to  a  decision  participate  in  taking  it;  each  one  of  them  in  so 
doing  is  moved  only  by  concern  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  and 
trusts  solely  to  his  own  judgement,  uninfluenced  by  the  opinions  of 
others.  This  obviously  is  not  meant  as  a  description. 

There  exists  of  course  a  logical  relation  between  representative 
and  normative  models,  if  one  holds  the  view  that  any  observed  shape 
is  a  mere  accidental  deformation  of  one  true  shape  capable  of  being 
known  immediately  by  the  mind,  and  though  not  open  to  our 
observation,  the  only  'natural'  one.  From  this  view  it  must  follow 
that  observable  patterns  in  their  unending  variety  are  not  interest- 
ing, while  the  only  one  worthy  of  our  attention  is  that  of  which  all 
others  are  corrupt  copies.  But  this  view  impHes  special  philosophical 
tenets. 

The  present  attempt,  solely  based  upon  observation,  aims  at 
representing  observable  phenomena.  In  other  words  it  is  strictly 
non-normative.  This  certainly  does  not  mean  that  I  reject  preceptive 
poHtical  science,  but  only  that  describing  and  prescribing  are 
distinct  tasks  of  which  I  have  here  chosen  the  former. 

Quoting  is  very  pleasurable ;  moreover  it  gives  a  scholarly  look :  in 
this  case  it  would  have  been  deceitful,  a  borrowing  of  respectable 
authorities  to  cloak  the  foolhardiness  of  my  venture.  It  seems  more 
honest  to  admit  that  observation  has  afforded  me  my  material.  Born 
in  a  poUtical  milieu^  having  lived  through  an  age  rife  with  political 
occurrences,  I  saw  my  material  forced  upon  me.  For  its  marshalling, 

xi 


PREFACE 

I  found  my  best  guides  in  the  geniuses  who  have  immortally  por- 
trayed the  drama  of  Politics :  Thucydides  and  Shakespeare.  While 
instances  from  contemporary  events  crowded  my  mind,  I  have 
avoided  referring  to  them  whenever  possible  because  there  is  lack  of 
agreement  on  their  interpretation,  while  every  reader  has  in  his 
mind  the  great  scenes  from  the  classics.  The  very  fact  that  these 
could — with  the  advantage  of  inimitable  expression — serve  as  sub- 
stitutes for  contemporary  instances,  testifies  that  political  activity 
remains  fundamentally  the  same. 

Whoever  talks  of  Politics  calls  to  the  minds  of  different  listeners 
different  experiences  and  different  doctrines,  and  therefore  the  same 
assemblage  of  words  assumes  a  variety  of  subjective  meanings.  The 
nature  of  my  purpose  obliged  me  to  guard  as  best  I  could  against 
this  danger.  'Elements'  are  useless  if  they  do  not  preclude  am- 
biguity. It  seemed  to  me  that  focusing  upon  'poHtical  activity' 
offered  the  best  chance  of  a  self-contained  exposition,  capable  of 
being  developed,  without  too  much  interference  from  pre-existing 
states  of  mind. 

This  exposition  begins  in  part  iii  and  is  pursued  systematically  to 
the  end.  If  I  have  been  at  all  successful  in  my  attempt,  it  should 
present  the  same  significance  to  the  erudite  as  to  the  beginner. 

Why  does  the  exposition  begin  only  in  part  ui}  As  I  am  deahng 
with  the  action  of  Man  upon  Man,  it  seemed  necessary  to  stress  that 
this  occurs  in  a  social  setting,  whose  importance  and  influence  is 
sketched  out  in  part  ii. 

Part  I  is  of  an  altogether  different  character.  It  does  not  really 
pertain  to  the  body  of  the  work  but  constitutes  an  extended  and 
somewhat  difficult  introduction.  While  in  the  body  of  the  treatise  I 
have,  or  hope  I  have,  traced  a  path,  step  by  step,  part  i  discusses  my 
reasons  for  tracing  this  path.  Readers  who  are  impatient,  or  who  are 
not  political  scientists,  are  advised  to  bypass  part  i :  returning  to  it 
after  going  through  the  work  may  then  explain  the  author's  intention 
or  help  to  track  down  the  reasons  for  the  reader's  dislike  of  the 
treatment. 

Many  a  time,  during  six  years  of  effort,  I  have  grown  doubtful 
about  this  work.  Doubts  have  been  especially  fostered  by  those  of 
my  friends  who  have  disapproved  of  my  purpose  of  describing  rather 
than  prescribing.  The  high  value  I  set  upon  their  opinion  has 

xii 


PREFACE 

weighed  upon  my  mind.  On  the  other  hand,  since  my  first  version 
was  completed  at  the  end  of  1957,  a  number  of  events  have  occurred, 
the  pattern  of  which  was  so  close  to  the  patterns  here  sketched  that 
one  might  think  I  wrote  after  the  event  instead  of  before :  and  this 
has  confirmed  me  in  my  purpose. 

I  have  been  greatly  helped  in  this  endeavour  by  the  opportunities 
which  were  generously  afforded  to  me  to  try  out  these  elements.  At 
the  kind  suggestion  of  Professors  Brogan  and  Postan,  the  Master  of 
Peterhouse,  Professor  Butterfield,  invited  me  to  give  three  lectures 
on  the  subject  in  Cambridge.  The  discussions  which  followed  helped 
me  greatly  to  re-shape  these  elements.  Then  came  from  the  Dean  of 
the  Yale  Law  School,  Professor  Eugene  Rostow,  an  invitation  to  give 
the  Storrs  Lectures  at  Yale.  This  honour  was  once  again  the  occasion 
of  very  profitable  critiques.  In  essence  this  treatise  is  an  expanded 
version  of  the  Storrs  Lectures.  The  expansion,  however,  has  been 
considerable.^  A  chance  to  find  out  whether  I  had  devised  an 
introduction  to  Politics  acceptable  to  undergraduates  was  offered  to 
me  when  the  Chairman  of  the  PoHtical  Science  Department  of  the 
University  of  CaHfornia,  Professor  Charles  Aikin,  invited  me  to 
teach  at  Berkeley  during  the  fall  term  of  i960. 

I  am  most  grateful  to  the  Relm  Foundation  for  the  financial  help 
afforded  to  me  during  1958.  I  am  obHged  to  The  Yale  Review^ 
The  American.Political  Science  Review^  and  The  Journal  of  Politics  for 
allowing  me  to  use  chapters  which  they  have  printed. 

EngHsh-speaking  readers  of  this  book  are  sure  to  find  its  mode  of 
expression  lamentably  fallen  from  the  high  standards  of  style  to  be 
found  in  Power  and  in  Sovereignty.  The  present  work  I  have  written 
in  English,^  while  its  predecessors  owed  their  elegance  to  my 
admirable  translator  and  very  dear  friend,  J.  F.  Huntington :  it  seems 
suitable  that  I  should,  in  the  last  words  of  this  preface,  refer  to  the 
wit  and  grace  and  fundamental  nobihty  of  my  departed  friend. 

ANSERVILLE  J* 

May  ig62 

^  The  Storrs  Lectures  corresponded  to  part  11,  part  in  and  part  of  part  iv. 

^  I  want  to  thank  the  Cambridge  University  Press  for  their  kind  revision  of  my 
English,  and  also  to  acquit  them  of  any  responsibility  for  the  many  barbarisms, 
solecisms  or  infeUcitous  expressions  vi^hich  I  obdurately  maintained  against  good 
advice. 


PART  I 


APPROACH:  POLITICS  AS  HISTORY 


CHAPTER  I 

CONFIGURATION  AND  DYNAMICS 

Our  mind  strives  towards  statements  of  configuration  and  statements 
of  consequence.  Configuration  is  'where  different  things  stand  in 
relation  to  one  another'.  Consequence  is  'how  successive  events 
arise  from  one  another'.  We  grasp  far  more  easily  disposition  in  space 
than  process  in  time;  further,  an  incomplete  'geographic'  account 
can  be  valid  as  far  as  it  goes,  while  an  incomplete  'historic'  account 
can  be  highly  misleading.  The  difference  in  difficulty  and  reliabiHty 
between  'where'  and  'how'  statements  is  at  a  maximum  in  Politics. 
It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  political  science  should  have  dealt 
mainly  with  configurations. 

The  baggage  borne  by  a  student  of  PoHtics  returning  from  a  Grand 
Tour  of  many  countries  is  apt  to  consist  of  maps  exhibiting  the 
'commanding  heights'  of  the  lands  visited.  First  let  us  picture  our 
student  beginning  with  a  pilgrimage  to  Athens.  There  he  ascends 
the  Acropolis;  here  the  gods  were  worshipped,  here  also  was  the 
residence  of  the  erstwhile  monarchs;  next  he  ascends  the  hill  of 
Ares,  where  an  aristocratic  tribunal  made  its  decisions,  grown  more 
important  after  the  overthrow  of  the  monarchy;  lastly  he  ascends  the 
Pnyx,  and  evokes  the  Assembly  of  the  People.  These  three  hills 
respectively  suggest  the  authority  of  the  One,  the  Few  and  the  Many, 
as  depicted  by  Aristotle.  They  assist  our  imagination  in  conceiving 
the  shift  of  authority  from  one  eminence  to  another,  but  also  in 
conceiving  mixed  forms  of  authority  which  combine  the  voices 
issuing  from  different  hills.  The  same  tangible  assistance  to  imagina- 
tion is  afforded  in  Washington  by  L'Enfant's  skill  in  posing  the 
Capitol  and  the  White  House  upon  confronting  hills.  But  even 
where  such  physical  aid  is  lacking,  we  are  sharply  aware  of  com- 
manding heights.  Thus  our  student,  in  London,  visits  the  Houses  of 
Parliament,  Downing  Street,  and  casts  an  eye  upon  Buckingham 
Palace.  In  Paris  he  views  the  Palais-Bourbon,  the  Hotel  Matignon 
and  the  Elysee.  He  will  thus  carry  away  a  series  of  raised  maps  of  the 
seats  of  decision  and  authority.  If  he  is  at  all  shrewd,  he  will  note 
what  is  written  in  stone  beyond  what  is  written  in  the  Constitutions. 
Thus  in  Washington  he  will  pay  attention  to  the  proliferation  of 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

buildings  housing  executive  departments  and  agencies.  Nor  will  he 
neglect  the  mansions  erected  by  unions  and  other  non-governmental 
bodies. 

There  is  ample  material  here  for  a  comparative  and  critical  geo- 
graphy of  seats  of  authority  or  influence.  Ground  plans  suffice  to 
show,  for  instance,  that  the  dependencies  of  the  Legislative  have 
nowhere  kept  pace  with  the  dependencies  of  the  Executive,  that 
indeed  they  have  been  developed  only  in  the  United  States,  hardly 
in  Britain,  not  at  all  in  France.  Discrepancies  may  thus  be  brought 
out  between  relative  attributions  of  authority  and  relative  means  of 
implementing  attributions. 

Mapping  the  configuration  of  authorities  is  a  natural  and  necessary 
concern  of  political  science.  While  theoretical  writers  have  ever  been 
interested  in  advocating  this  or  that  ideal  map,  derived  from  some 
principle,  practical  politicians  have  ever  needed  accurate  and  detailed 
knowledge  of  the  actual  map,  as  a  guide  to  efficient  action.  The 
importance  of  configurations  is  great  but  adequately  recognized,  and 
they  are  dealt  with  more  than  adequately  by  other  authors.  There- 
fore it  has  seemed  to  me  that  a  different  approach  to  Politics  might 
be  tried. 

Let  us  fancy  that  we  visit  Athens  in  415  B.C.  just  before  the 
decision  is  made  to  send  an  expedition  against  Syracuse.  As  ignor- 
ant foreigners  we  ask  our  hosts  three  questions. 

First:  to  whom  does  it  pertain  to  make  the  decision.? 

Second :  is  it  right  and  advantageous  to  undertake  the  expedition? 

Third:  in  fact,  will  it  be  decided  and  undertaken.? 

The  first  question  is  one  of  constitutional  competence,  which  any 
Athenian  can  and  must  immediately  answer  in  the  same  manner 
with  complete  certainty:  the  decision  belongs  to  the  Assembly  of  the 
People  which  will  also,  if  it  makes  an  affirmative  decision,  elect  the 
generals.  This  falls  in  the  realm  of  configuration.  The  second  ques- 
tion is  one  of  political  Prudence :  I  use  the  capital  P  to  stress  that  I 
have  in  mind  not  the  skimpy  notion  of  prudence  obtaining  nowadays 
but  the  classical  notion  of  Prudence  as  the  virtue  of  giving  the  right 
answer  in  specific  circumstance,  a  virtue  which  we  may  find  in  some 
of  our  hosts  and  not  in  others.  The  third  question  again  falls  in  a 
different  realm.  It  calls  for  a  statement  of  fact  concerning  a  future 
event. 

Let  us  then  consider  briefly  our  foreknowledge  of  future  events. 


CH.  l]  CONFIGURATION  AND  DYNAMICS 

There  are  a  great  many  future  events  which  we  take  entirely  for 
granted,  else  we  could  not  conduct  our  daily  lives.  Upon  examina- 
tion it  appears  that  most  such  certafiitura  are  mere  manifestations  of 
configuration.  That  the  sun  will  rise  tomorrow  is  an  event  only  from 
an  extreme  subjective  point  of  view.  Stable  natural  configurations 
allow  us  to  expect,  indeed  to  produce,  '  events '  with  no  doubt  as  to 
their  occurrence.  Further,  stable  social  configurations  lead  us  to 
expect  some  events  with  hardly  less  assurance  (e.g.  a  presidential 
election  will  be  held  in  the  U.S.  on  the  second  Tuesday  of  November 
1964) :  while  for  the  philosopher  there  is  a  great  difference  in  nature 
between  these  two  assurances,  for  the  practical  man  there  is  a  very 
slight  difference  in  degree.  But  the  political  event  we  are  now  con- 
sidering, the  decision  of  war  or  peace  to  be  made  by  the  Athenian 
Assembly,  is  one  which  by  definition  depends  upon  the  free  choice 
of  men  between  alternatives.  And  here  we  know  for  certain  that  we 
can  have  no  certain  foreknowledge  of  the  outcome.  If  we  could  have 
certain  foreknowledge  of  the  use  which  other  men  will  make  of  their 
freedom  to  choose,  we  should  be  possessed  of  what  theologians 
call  scientia  libera. 

However  impossible  it  is  for  us  to  say  for  certain  what  other  men 
will  do,  when  they  manifestly  have  a  choice  and  are  visibly  hovering 
between  alternatives,  none  the  less  it  is  quite  possible  to  state  that  a 
given  alternative  seems  to  us  the  more  probable:  such  a  statement 
may  indeed  be  required.  Supposing  that  we  are  envoys  from  Syra- 
cuse, our  first  duty  is  to  plead  with  the  Athenians,  seeking  to  dis- 
suade them  from  attacking  our  City;  but  surely  that  is  not  our  only 
duty :  we  must  also  guess  what  the  decision  will  in  fact  be.  On  our 
return  to  Syracuse,  we  shall  be  accused  of  a  disservice  to  our  City  if 
we  have  failed  to  convey  advance  information  that  the  Athenian 
decision  was  going  to  be  war.  It  will  then  be  a  quite  inadequate 
defence  to  argue  that  we  could  not  know  what  the  Athenians  would 
decide  as  long  as  the  decision  was  open :  though  it  is  strictly  true  that 
we  could  not  have  certain  knowledge,  we  should  have  formed  a  true 
opinion  of  the  future  event. 

Surmising  is  essential  to  the  conduct  of  human  affairs ;  a  mistaken 
surmise  can  be  disastrous.  Napoleon  surmised  that  Grouchy  would 
and  Bliicher  would  not  intervene  on  the  field  of  Waterloo.  The 
tragedy  of  King  Lear  turns  upon  erroneous  surmises:  examples 
thereof  are  not  hard  to  find  in  our  time.  Within  one  year  Chamber- 
lain made  three  major  erroneous  surmises:  that  Hitler  would  be 

5 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  I 

satisfied  with  the  Munich  settlement;  that  he  would  be  intimidated 
by  the  giving  of  a  guarantee  to  Poland;  that  Stalin  would  join 
hands  with  Britain  and  France. 

Surely  an  interest  in  Politics  implies  an  interest  in  surmising. 
However  important  it  is  to  describe  a  configuration  deemed  static, 
to  recommend  attitudes  wholesome  and  virtuous,  it  is  important  also 
to  fi)resee  what  men  will  do  and  what  will  happen. 

Indeed  when  we  discuss  Politics,  not  in  the  character  of  political 
scientists  but  as  mere  men,  we  are  apt  to  speculate  about  some  future 
event.  Thus  in  September  i960  one  may  well  say:  'I  believe  that 
Kennedy  will  be  elected  in  November.'  The  speaker,  asked  the 
reasons  for  his  statement,  may  answer : '  I  could  not  really  say. '  But 
this  is  a  natural  reaction  of  defence  against  a  challenge  to  consider- 
able intellectual  effort.  It  is  difficult  to  state  the  reasons  for  a 
surmise,  but  self-examination  might  bring  them  to  fight.  It  would 
then  appear  that  the  mind  supposes  certain  dynamic  relations;  be- 
cause of  certain  past  events,  people  of  certain  dispositions  will  prove 
responsive  to  a  certain  call  and  act  in  a  certain  way.  The  chain  of 
conjectures  may  be  very  weak  in  itself  and  it  may  be  perceived  only 
faintly  by  the  speaker,  but  none  the  less  it  exists  in  his  mind. 

While  people  are  most  unwilling  to  work  out  their  chain  of  sup- 
positions leading  to  their  expectation  of  some  future  event  over 
which  they  have  no  control,  or  only  a  very  insignificant  share  of 
control,  the  same  people  will  carefully  work  out  their  chain  of 
suppositions  when  they  propose  to  bring  about  that  which  they 
ardently  desire  and  conceive  as  largely  dependent  upon  their  own 
actions.  Latin  has  a  convenient  duality  of  words  for  those  two  kinds 
of  events :  the  masculine  eventus,  with  its  connotation  of  outcome, 
can  be  taken  to  designate  the  event  which  I  propose  to  bring  about, 
of  which  I  am  somehow  the  author,  while  the  neutral  eventum  can  be 
taken  to  denote  the  event  which  is  utterly  out  of  my  hands.  For  the 
Foreign  Office  or  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  the  Kennedy  election  is  eventum; 
for  the  campaign  team,  eventus.  Hovever  hazy  we  may  usually  be 
about  the  sequence  or  intermingling  of  sequences  that  will  bring 
about  an  eventum^  in  the  case  of  an  eventus  we  bring  our  minds  to 
bear  on  the  causative  sequence  far  more  sharply. 

The  future  is  present  to  the  mind  of  acting  man.  The  great  Ger- 
man jurist  Jhering  discriminated  between  human  action  and  animal 

6 


CH.  l]  CONFIGURATION  AND  DYNAMICS 

action  in  terms  of  iit  and  quia.  Quia  actions  are  those  I  perform 
under  the  pressure  of  outside  causes,  without  choice  or  deUberation. 
Ut  actions  on  the  other  hand  are  those  I  perform  in  view  of  a  certain 
result  I  wish  to  bring  about.  They  involve  a  certain  vision  of  a  future 
state  of  affairs  I  propose  to  obtain,  and  of  a  'path'  to  that  state. 

There  is  nothing  of  which  we  are  more  aware,  whatever  philo- 
sophers may  say,  than  our  ability  to  bring  about  certain  situations 
by  our  choice  served  by  our  efforts.  I  can,  if  I  want  to,  raise  this 
glass  to  my  Hps.  When  I  raise  it,  I  am  aware  that  I  am  'causing'  its 
new  position.  But,  to  speak  more  accurately,  the  very  notion  of 
'cause',  common  to  all  men,  is  a  product  of  such  experiences.  From 
my  earhest  childhood,  I  have  found  that  I  can  change  something, 
however  little,  in  my  environment,  by  my  action,  and  from  this 
microcosmic  experience  of  a  relation  between  my  effort  and  this 
change  arises  the  general  idea  of 'cause  and  effect'. 

This  is  confirmed  by  elementary  etymology.  In  Latin,  the  word 
causa  was  mainly  used  when  referring  to  the  trying  of  causes  at  law. 
A  causa  was  what  one  of  the  parties  wanted,  a  meaning  conserved 
in  English  when  we  speak  of  'espousing  a  cause',  'fighting  for  a 
cause'.  The  word  Romans  were  prone  to  use  when  they  meant  the 
bringing  about  of  a  certain  result  was  efficere^  which  contains  the 
idea  offacere^  that  is  doing,  but  which  reinforces  it  and  adds  the  idea 
of  completion,  achievement  (a  sense  which  has  been  reflected  in  the 
modern  word  'efficiency').  The  well-known  formula  causa  efficiens 
associates  the  two  ideas  that  something  is  wanted,  causa,  and  is 
achieved,  efficiens,  into  the  one  idea  of  operational  wanting. 

In  the  case  of  my  lifting  this  glass,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if 
I  want  it  lifted,  I  can  effect  this  change :  it  lies  entirely  within  my 
power  (the  word  'power',  let  us  incidentally  stress,  denoting  the 
ability  to  do).  Nobody  but  a  madman,  or  a  philosopher  (for  different 
reasons),  will  give  thought  to  an  eventus  which  he  can  so  readily 
bring  about. 

But  as  we  well  know,  men  do  give  thought  to  an  eventus  that  they 
deem  both  desirable  and  difficult  to  achieve.  Presumably  it  was 
quite  a  number  of  years  ago  that  Mr  Kennedy  first  had  a  brief  vision 
of  himself  as  President  of  the  United  States.  Between  imagining  and 
achieving  this  position  there  was  a  vast  gap  to  be  spanned.  The 
spanning  of  this  gap  required  a  long  sequence  of  actions.  This 
sequence  had  to  be  conceived  and  planned  from  the  outset,  even 
though  many  amendments  were  found  necessary  in  the  course  of  the 


THE   PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

Operation.  Clearly,  planning  a  shift  from  the  situation  of  Senator  to 
that  of  President  is  very  different  from  planning  a  move  from  one 
room  of  a  house  to  another.  In  both  cases  steps  have  to  be  taken;  but 
in  the  latter  case  they  are  literal  steps,  and  the  outcome  of  each  is 
assured:  in  the  more  important  case,  they  are  metaphorical  'steps', 
that  is,  'moves'  by  the  actor,  and  the  outcome  of  each  move  is 
uncertain,  dependent  upon  the  reactions  of  other  men.  Well- 
calculated  steps  are  those  which  elicit  reactions  helpful  towards  the 
attainment  of  the  goal.  The  problem  of  achieving  the  wanted  eventus 
then  calls  for  correct  surmising  of  responses.  The  actor's  'steps'  in 
fact  advance  him  towards  the  goal  only  or  mainly  by  virtue  of  the 
actions  of  others  which  they  spark  off.  Far  the  greater  part  of  the 
energy  expended  in  bringing  about  an  important  eventus  is  provided 
by  others  whom  the  designer  sets  in  motion. 

The  practical  politician  is  well  aware  that  his  means  for  the  attain- 
ment of  any  political  objective  are  the  contributory  actions  of  other 
men.  Knowing  in  general  how  to  obtain  such  actions,  and  specific- 
ally for  what,  when  and  from  whom  he  can  hope  to  obtain  them, 
constitutes  his  familiar  lore.  The  technology  of  Politics  is  essentially 
concerned  with  dynamics  while  its  science  cleaves  to  statics.  If  we 
want  to  study  dynamics  we  must  seek  to  understand  the  sparking 
off  of  contributory  actions. 

The  word  'designing'  has,  in  common  English  usage,  an  un- 
favourable connotation,  when  applied  to  a  person.  Used  neutrally, 
the  term  conveniently  denotes  the  occupational  trait  of  the  politician. 
He  seeks  to  bring  about  a  certain  eventus  requiring  actions  from 
other  persons,  and  therefore  he  seeks  to  elicit  the  adequate  con- 
tributory actions,  and  for  this  purpose  makes  the  moves  likely  to 
elicit  these  actions :  all  of  this  constitutes  the  design  of  the  politician, 
which,  on  being  carried  out,  constitutes  a  political  operation.  The 
political  operation  is  analysed  in  the  following  emphatic  self-portrait 
of  a  politician : 

Neither  Montaigne  in  writing  his  essays  nor  Descartes  in  building  new 
worlds,  nor  Burnet  in  framing  an  antediluvian  earth,  no  nor  Newton  in 
discovering  and  establishing  the  true  laws  of  nature  on  experiment  and  a 
sublimer  geometry,  felt  more  intellectual  joys,  than  he  feels  who  is  a  real 
patriot,  who  bands  all  the  forces  of  his  understanding  and  directs  all  his 
thoughts  and  actions  to  the  good  of  his  country.  When  such  a  man  forms 
a  political  scheme  and  adjusts  various  and  seemingly  independent  parts 
into  a  great  and  good  design,  he  is  transported  by  imagination,  or  absorbed 

8 


CH.  l]  CONFIGURATION  AND  DYNAMICS 

in  meditation,  as  much  and  as  agreeably  as  they :  and  the  satisfaction  that 
arises  from  the  different  importance  of  these  objects,  in  every  step  of  the 
work,  is  vastly  in  his  favour.  It  is  here  that  the  speculative  philosopher's 
labour  and  pleasure  end.  But  he,  who  speculates  in  order  to  act,  goes  on, 
and  carries  his  scheme  into  execution.  His  labour  continues,  it  varies,  it 
increases;  but  so  does  his  pleasure  too.  The  execution  indeed  is  often 
crossed  by  unforeseen  and  untoward  circumstances,  by  the  perverseness 
or  treachery  of  friends,  and  by  the  power  or  malice  of  enemies :  but  the 
first  and  the  last  of  these  animate,  and  the  docility  and  fidelity  of  some 
men  make  amends  for  the  perverseness  and  treachery  of  others.  While  a 
great  event  is  in  suspense,  the  action  warms,  and  the  very  suspense,  made 
up  of  hope  and  fear,  maintains  no  unpleasing  agitation  in  the  mind.  If  the 
event  is  decided  successfully,  such  a  man  enjoys  pleasure  proportionable  to 
the  good  he  has  done:  a  pleasure  like  to  that  which  is  attributed  to  the 
Supreme  Being,  on  a  survey  of  his  works.  If  the  event  is  decided  other- 
wise, and  usurping  courts,  or  overbearing  parties  prevail,  such  a  man  still 
has  the  testimony  of  his  conscience,  and  the  sense  of  the  honour  he  has 
acquired,  to  soothe  his  mind,  and  support  his  courage.^ 

Here  Bolingbroke  indicates  that  there  is:  (i)  a  patriotic  objective; 

(2)  a  grand  strategy  designed  to  ensure  the  attainment  of  the  goal; 

(3)  an  active  and  flexible  manoeuvring  to  carry  out  this  strategy; 

(4)  an  intense  pleasure  inherent  in  the  whole  performance.  One 
would  like  to  think  that  such  pleasure  depends  wholly  upon  the 
excellence  of  the  project,  that  the  scheming  and  handling  are  made 
enjoyable  only  by  the  merit  of  the  goal.  Observation  regrettably 
suggests  that  the  sport  of  moving  men  is  enjoyed  in  itself  even  when 
the  operation  is  not  inspired  by  a  high  purpose,  or  addressed  to  a 
salutary  end. 

The  worthiest  and  wisest  men  engaging  in  Politics  are  least  apt  to 
experience  the  sporting  enjoyment  described  by  BoHngbroke.  The 
wielding  of  power  or  influence  must,  in  a  truly  good  man,  be 
attended  by  a  constant  fear  of  its  misuse,  by  doubts  regarding  the 
goal  to  be  sought  and  scruples  concerning  the  means  to  be  used.  This 
has  been  expressed  by  Fenelon:  'Indeed  men  are  unfortunate  that 
they  have  to  be  ruled  by  a  King  who  is  like  them  a  man,  for  it  would 
take  gods  to  set  them  right.  But  Kings  are  no  less  unfortunate, 
being  mere  men,  weak  and  imperfect,  to  have  the  ruling  of  a  great 
multitude  of  sinful  and  deceitful  individuals.  "^ 

What  a  contrast  between  these  two  statements !  Pride  colours  the 

^  Bolingbroke,  Letters  on  the  Spirit  of  Patriotism,  ed.  Hassall  (Oxford,  1926),  pp.  19- 
20.   (The  italics  are  Bolingbroke's.) 

2  Fenelon,  Directions  pour  la  Conscience  d^un  Roi,  published  long  after  they  were  com- 
posed for  the  instruction  of  the  Due  de  Bourgogne  (Paris,  1748). 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

one,  humility  marks  the  other.  Surely  we  must  prefer  that  which 
stresses  the  statesman's  responsibility.  But  if  our  purpose  is  to 
understand  the  generation  of  events,  then  what  is  relevant  is 
Bolingbroke's  picture  of  the  politician's  activity. 

Our  times  are  marked  by  a  precipitous  course  of  events  and  an 
attendant  instability  of  configurations.  Political  maps  and  con- 
stitutions are  highly  perishable  commodities.^  Every  New  Year, 
there  are  countries  where  foreign  diplomats  have  to  shift  their 
compliments  from  the  authorities  of  yesterday,  now  outlawed,  to  the 
outlaws  of  yesterday,  now  in  authority.  Those  parts  of  the  world 
where  only  small  events  occur  within  an  unchanged  framework  have 
shrunk  relative  to  those  where  major  events  shake  and  transform  the 
framework.  The  character  of  the  times  therefore  focuses  our  interest 
upon  the  event. 

Some  minds  are  so  secure  in  their  a  priori  understanding  of  future 
history  that  for  them  great  events  fall  into  place  within  a  pre- 
ordained scheme.  Those  of  us  who  do  not  think  so  sweepingly  regard 
each  event  as  posing  a  problem,  calling  for  an  analysis  of  the  many 
factors  which  have  entered  its  composition. 

The  smallest  identifiable  component  of  any  political  event,  large 
or  small,  is  the  moving  of  man  by  man.  That  is  elementary  political 
action.  In  what  follows,  the  man  who  seeks  to  elicit  a  given  deed 
from  another  is  called  'instigator';  in  so  far  as  he  strives  to  obtain 
from  different  people  different  actions  contributing  to  an  eventus  he 
wants,  he  is  called  an  '  operator ' ;  and  in  so  far  as  he  builds  a  follow- 
ing habitually  responsive  to  the  same  voice,  or  a  voice  proceeding 
from  the  same  place,  he  is  an  'entrepreneur'. 

This  should  not  be  taken  to  imply  a  'great  men'  view  of  history. 
What  I  wish  to  stress  is  not  that  things  happen  'because'  of  an 
instigator,  but  that  they  occur  'through'  a  relation  instigation- 
response,  that  this  is  the  simplest  and  basic  link  in  complex  chains. 
Eventum  has  no  identifiable  author :  it  arises  out  of  the  meeting  of 
many  chains  wherein  the  phenomena  I  am  concerned  with  figure  as 
basic  constituents.  I  concentrate  upon  them  because  it  is  my  purpose 
to  seek  out  in  the  complexity  of  Politics  those  elements  which  are 
simple  and  present  semper  et  ubique. 

^  The  average  life-span  of  a  map  of  Europe  since  the  beginning  of  the  century  has 
been  fifteen  years.  Germans  since  1914  have  Hved  under  four  regimes,  the  French 
under  four  aheady  since  1938. 

10 


CH.  l]  CONFIGURATION  AND  DYNAMICS 

The  spirit  of  this  study  would  be  completely  misunderstood  if  I 
were  thought  to  offer  a  grand  simpHfication  of  Politics  considered 
globally.  Such  is  not  my  intention,  nor  is  it  an  intention  I  sym- 
pathize with  when  it  inspires  other  authors.  Politics  seems  to  me 
extraordinarily  complex :  attempts  to  reduce  it  to  simplicity  I  regard 
as  misleading  and  dangerous.  It  is  precisely  because  political 
phenomena  are  so  complex  that  I  attempt  to  reach  down  to  simple 
components.  But  the  picture  I  shall  try  to  offer  of  the  elements 
should  not  be  '  blown-up '  to  serve  as  a  picture  of  the  whole. 

It  may  be  useful  to  display,  by  means  of  a  fable,  the  place  of  an 
elementary  phenomenon,  such  as  I  mean  to  study,  in  the  coming 
about  of  an  eve?itum. 

Macedonia  wants  political  information  about  MegalopoHs.  We 
shall  assume  that  no  Macedonian  understands  or  can  learn  the 
Megalopolitan  language  but  that  three  observers  can  be  made 
invisible,  and  endowed  with  the  means  of  immediately  reporting 
what  they  see.  Observer  A  is  set  up  in  a  balloon  high  above  the 
city,  observer  B  in  another  balloon  much  nearer  to  the  ground, 
observer  C  roams  in  the  streets.  A's  altitude  is  such  that  he  discerns 
nothing  but  the  buildings  and  the  general  layout  of  the  city;  in  short, 
configuration.  This  he  maps  out  carefully:  it  may  be  a  long  task  but 
when  it  is  completed  he  has  nothing  more  to  report.  Surely  the 
analogy  with  the  description  of  a  Constitution  is  obvious. 

B  hovers  at  a  height  which  allows  him  to  study  traffic;  he  notes 
streams,  the  density  of  which  is  variable;  after  some  time  he  recog- 
nizes that  density  at  given  points  fluctuates  within  the  day  according 
to  a  recurrent  pattern ;  he  also  finds  patterns  of  longer  span :  days 
of  abnormally  low  density  (e.g.  Sundays)  immediately  preceded 
and  followed  by  some  increase  in  density;  seasonal  variations  and 
possibly  a  long-term  trend  to  increase :  indeed  he  may  note  growing 
pressure  upon  bottlenecks.  Even  if  B — who  calls  to  mind  the 
sociologist — notes  a  building  up  of  pressures  over  time,  his  observa- 
tions offer  but  little  variety  as  soon  as  he  has  mastered  the  patterns. 

It  is  otherwise  in  the  case  of  C,  who,  moving  on  a  level  with  the 
individual  inhabitants,  witnesses  an  inexhaustible  variety  of  in- 
cidents: while  A  ceases  transmission  when  he  has  conveyed  the 
map,  while  B  transmits  only  in  the  case  of  a  departure  from  pattern, 
a  scrupulous  C  transmits  all  the  time  a  succession  of  minor  scenes. 

One  day,  however,  A  is  shaken  from  his  calm.  He  has  seen  a  major 

II 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

building  of  Megalopolis,  call  it  the  Palace,  going  up  in  flames.  This 
he  hastens  to  report  and  receives  from  Macedonia  the  answer: 
'Thank  you.  This  confirms  our  previous  information.'  What  pre- 
vious information?  Some  time  earlier  B  has  communicated  that  a 
great  mass  of  people  were  moving  towards  the  Palace  and  breaking 
up  a  thin  line  of  guards.  To  this  communication,  however,  he  also 
received  the  answer:  'Thank  you.  This  confirms  our  previous 
information. ' 

Why.?  Because  C  was  on  the  spot  and  saw  how  it  all  started.  He 
witnessed  the  formation  of  the  'push',  which  was  noticed  by  the 
student  of  the  Constitution  only  when  it  had  produced  its  effect. 
C  is  the  earliest  and  most  sensitive  indicator.  Also,  however,  he  is 
the  least  reliable. 

What  exactly  has  the  street  observer  seen?  At  the  beginning  a 
man  holding  forth,  gesticulating,  attracting  a  crowd,  and,  within  this 
crowd,  an  increasing  agitation.  This  is  the  event  at  its  birth,  the  small 
beginning  from  which,  by  an  increase  in  mass  and  acceleration,  the 
tidal  wave  will  arise.  But  let  us  remember  that  not  every  such 
beginning  culminates  in  such  achievement.  Our  man  may  well  have 
formerly  witnessed  and  conveyed  scenes  of  this  type  out  of  which 
nothing  has  come.  The  decipherers  at  the  receiving  end  are  apt  to 
remember  that  they  have  already  received  a  number  of  descriptions 
of  this  kind ;  and  while  this  «th  instance  may  be  momentous,  they 
are  not  prone  to  suppose  so.  Any  man  who  has  had  occasion  to 
convey  warnings  is  aware  of  the  incredulity  which  greets  them; 
nothing  indeed  is  more  unwelcome  to  the  routine  of  the  staff  man 
than  the  fever  of  the  field  worker. 

It  is  only  under  the  impact  of  successive  information,  pouring  in 
more  and  more  rapidly,  that  increasing  notice  will  be  taken  of  a 
possible  event,  to  which  the  receivers  will  come  to  allow  a  growing 
degree  of  probability.  Of  course  the  event  will  not  be  held  certain 
until  it  has  been  completed:  only  post-diction  is  assured,  never 
prediction.  The  initial  piece  of  news  then  presents  over  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  culminating  havoc  a  great  chronological  superiority  but  a 
great  inferiority  of  assurance.  This  touches  upon  a  problem  well 
known  in  the  press.  A  reporter  cannot  forgive  his  editor  for  failing 
to  publish  the  dispatch  noticing  '  the  first  step '  of  a  revolution ;  but 
this  the  editor  acknowledges  as  effectively  the  first  step  only  when  the 
revolution  has  unmistakably  occurred.  And  the  reluctance  of  an 
editor  is  nothing  to  that  of  a  Foreign  Office:  newspapermen  are 

12 


CH.  l]  CONFIGURATION  AND   DYNAMICS 

functionally  prone  to  believe  in  events,  diplomats  are  functionally 
prone  to  disbelieve  them. 

The  illustration  used  points  out  both  that  an  elementary  political 
action  stands  at  the  start  of  the  large  event,  and  that  a  large  event 
may  or  may  not  follow  from  this  elementary  action.  Even  if  not  all 
acorns  turn  into  oaks,  it  is  important  to  know  that  all  oaks  arise  from 
acorns.  If  we  notice  only  oaks,  and  not  acorns,  then  we  shall  not 
understand  oaks. 

Should  political  scientists  address  their  attention  to  dynamics?  A 
negative  answer  is  plausible.  It  can  be  argued  that  standards  of 
scholarly  accuracy  can  be  sustained  only  in  description  and  classifica- 
tion of  given  states  of  affairs,  and  that  standards  of  logical  deduction 
can  be  sustained  only  in  deriving  prescriptive  arrangements  from 
clearly  enunciated  ethical  principles.  While  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
we  do  in  fact  attempt  to  understand  by  what  process  certain  events 
have  come  about  and  to  guess  what  will  occur,  it  is  easy  to  point  out 
that  our  assessments  of  past  causes  are  controversial  and  our  con- 
jectures of  future  events  highly  adventurous;  and  therefore  it  may 
be  held  that  we  should  not  be  so  bold  as  to  seek  an  understanding 
of  the  political  process  in  the  course  of  time.  But  such  a  negative 
answer  would  singularly  restrict  the  scope  and  advisory  capacity  of 
political  science.  The  statesman,  even  the  mere  'boss',  resorts  daily 
to  some  empirical  understanding  of  operational  relationships :  can 
we  not  elaborate  such  understanding.^ 

In  the  foregoing  tale,  an  elementary  action  has  given  rise  to  a 
major  event,  presumably  because  this  action  was  part  of  a  design  the 
carrying  out  of  which  was  favoured  by  a  situation.  Why  is  the  example 
chosen  that  of  an  upheaval.^  Possibly  because  upheavals  are  so 
common  in  our  day.  But  there  is  another  reason  besides  this. 
Periods  lacking  in  great  and  tumultuous  events  are  not  necessarily 
so  for  lack  of  primary  drives,  the  social  field  may  be  rife  with 
instigations  but  these  are  then  so  evenly  distributed,  and  addressed 
to  such  various  ends,  that  they  do  not  build  up  to  a  grand  dramatic 
impulse.  Tragedy  occurs  when  processes,  naturally  diffuse  through- 
out the  body  politic,  acquire  a  concentration,  an  intensity,  a  polari- 
zation which  affords  them  an  explosive  power.  Nothing  then  is  more 
important  to  the  guardians  of  a  body  politic  than  to  understand  the 
nature  of  these  processes,  so  that  they  may  be  guided  to  irrigate  and 
precluded  from  flooding. 


13 


CHAPTER  2 

WISDOM  AND  ACTIVITY: 
THE  PSEUDO-ALCIBIADES 

One  of  Plato's  dialogues  is  entitled  Alcibiades.  It  is  presented  as  the 
report  of  a  conversation  between  Socrates  and  Alcibiades,  occurring 
in  the  youth  of  the  latter  and  just  before  he  had  reached  the  age 
enabling  him  to  address  the  Assembly  of  the  People.  This  is  an 
exemplary  conversation,  an  artifice  used  to  develop  an  argument: 
the  argument  is  a  warning  of  Wisdom  (Socrates)  to  Ambition 
(Alcibiades).  The  opening  attack  by  Socrates  can  be  summarized  as 
follows : 

(i)  You  have  the  highest  possible  opinion  of  yourself.  You  deem 
yourself  the  strongest  and  the  most  handsome,  and  indeed  you  are 
such.  You  can  look  to  powerful  support  from  your  family  on  both  the 
paternal  and  the  maternal  sides;  you  enjoy  the  privilege  of  having 
been  the  ward  of  Pericles,  who  is  all-powerful  in  this  city,  whose 
dominance  stretches  all  over  Greece,  and  extends  indeed  into  bar- 
barian realms.  Moreover  you  are  of  the  wealthy,  which  helps,  but 
this  can  be  held  the  least  of  the  many  assets  which  cause  your 
valuation  of  yourself  to  be  widely  accepted. 

(2)  I  am  well  aware  of  your  great  expectations.  You  feel  that  as 
soon  as  you  have  stepped  forward  to  address  the  people  of  Athens, 
you  will  obtain  from  them  a  consideration  even  higher  than  that 
afforded  to  Pericles  or  any  foregoing  statesman;  and  on  such  basis, 
you  look  forward  to  making  yourself  all-powerful  in  the  city,  and, 
once  that  is  achieved,  throughout  Greece  and  also  among  the  out- 
lying barbarians. 

(3)  Indeed  you  are  impatient  to  come  to  the  Assembly  and  give 
your  views  to  the  Athenians.  Now  suppose  that,  just  as  you  were 
moving  forward  to  do  so,  my  hand  were  laid  on  your  arm,  and  I 
asked  you :  'Alcibiades,  what  of  the  subject  which  Athenians  are  now 
debating?  Have  you  stood  up  because  it  is  a  subject  upon  which 
your  knowledge  is  superior  to  theirs?' 

This  opening  poses  the  problem.  Alcibiades  is  eager  to  lead,  his 
assets  are  such  that  his  chances  of  being  followed  are  very  great.  But 
what  of  his  chances  of  leading  well?  This  query  drives  Alcibiades  to 

14 


PT.  I,  CH.  2]  WISDOM  AND  ACTIVITY 

claim  that  he  will  speak  as  one  who  knows,  advocating  the  best 
decision. 

Having  taken  that  stand,  the  aspiring  pohtician  is  now  subject  to 
successively  increasing  pressure  from  the  sage,  and  finds  himself 
forced  back  step  by  step.  First,  he  is  forced  to  admit  that  he  lacks  the 
expertise  required  for  the  setthng  of  specific  problems;  then,  having 
taken  refuge  in  the  larger  issues,  he  is  made  to  confess  that  he  is 
muddled  about  justice  or  the  public  interest. 

The  admission  eHcited  from  him  then  allows  Socrates  to  exclaim : 
'Ignorance  is  worse,  the  more  important  the  matter.  But  in  any 
matter  the  supreme  ignorance  is  not  to  realize  that  one  does  not 
know.  Alas !  what  a  sorry  situation  you  are  in,  as  we  have  found  you, 
by  your  own  words,  convinced  of  supreme  ignorance  in  the  most 
important  matter!  And  thus  you  rush  into  politics  without  know- 
ledge !  A  situation  indeed  in  which  you  do  not  find  yourself  alone, 
but  which  prevails  among  those  who  concern  themselves  with  the 
affairs  of  the  city,  with  the  exception  of  a  few,  among  whom  we  may 
probably  range  Pericles.  '^ 

In  other  Platonic  dialogues,  and  also  in  Xenophon's  Memorabilia^ 
Socrates  is  shown  throwing  this  same  challenge  to  various  eager  and 
impatient  youths :  '  Do  you  really  think  that  you  know  and  under- 
stand enough  to  offer  a  valuable  opinion,  profitable  to  the  city.^ '  But 
surely  the  lesson  is  pointed  by  taking  Alcibiades  as  the  butt.  He 
bears  a  major  responsibility  for  the  disastrous  sequence  of  events 
which  drove  Athens  down  from  her  position  as  the  most  honoured 
and  powerful  city  of  Greece  to  her  shameful  surrender  of  404  B.C.,  to 
the  abasement  of  receiving  a  Spartan  occupation  force,  to  the  irretriev- 
able moral  ruin  of  civil  strife,  of  which  indeed  the  trial  of  Socrates 
was  a  by-product. 

Alcibiades  was  the  evil  genius  who  brought  about  the  resumption 
of  hostilities  after  the  honourable  and  satisfactory  peace  negotiated 
by  Nicias  in  421.  It  was  Alcibiades  who,  in  415,  engaged  Athens, 
against  the  advice  of  Nicias,  in  the  great  venture  against  Syracuse, 
a  venture  the  outcome  of  which  was  the  utter  destruction  of  the 
Athenian  force,  the  massacre  or  enslavement  of  a  large  part  of 
Athenian  youth.  Alcibiades  again,  having  left  the  Athenian  army  in 
high  dudgeon  at  an  accusation  brought  against  him,  went  so  far  as 

^  Notwithstanding  the  quotation  marks,  this  is  not  a  hteral  translation  from  Plato: 
it  is  the  gist  of  what  Socrates  says. 

15 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

to  join  and  advise  the  Spartans,  and  he  it  was  who  contrived  to 
afford  them  the  alHance  of  Persia  against  his  native  city.  Yet,  when 
Athens  was  in  411  ready  for  peace  which  could  still  be  had  on 
acceptable  terms,  Alcibiades,  by  an  astonishing  about-face,  managed 
to  earn  the  acclaim  of  the  Athenian  soldiery,  and,  against  the  wish  of 
the  city's  magistrates,  led  them  to  a  renewal  of  hostilities.  Restored 
to  a  position  of  prestige  in  the  city,  he  was  able  to  cause  the  Assembly 
to  reject  the  overtures  of  peace  made  by  Sparta  in  410,  to  reject  this 
ultimate  chance  of  stopping  short  of  disaster  and  shame. 

An  extraordinarily  gifted  and,  by  all  accounts,  an  irresistibly 
attractive  man,  Alcibiades  can  be  called  the  author  of  Athens'  great 
fall  from  glory.  These  events  were  fresh  in  the  memories  of  those 
whom  Plato  addressed  c.  380.  The  force  of  the  Socratic  argument 
must  then  have  been  enhanced  in  the  minds  of  the  listeners  by  the 
knowledge  of  the  harm  Alcibiades  had  wrought,  and  which  the  city 
might  have  been  spared,  had  he  heeded  the  warning  of  Socrates. 
Though  the  dialogue  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  is  of  course  a  work 
of  art,  its  first  listeners  could  well  believe,  and  we  have  no  good 
reason  to  doubt,  that  some  such  warning  was  in  fact  given  by  the 
historical  Socrates  to  the  historical  Alcibiades. 

The  Alcibiades  is  altogether  more  forthright  than  other  Platonic 
dialogues.  Whatever  further  depths  of  meaning  may  be  found  in  it, 
it  conveys  a  simple  and  plain  message :  political  activity,  undirected 
by  wisdom,  is  dangerous.  Surely  this  is  what  all  aspirants  to  Politics 
should  be  told.  Surely  also,  if  political  philosophy  forcefully  utters 
this  warning,  if  it  thus  seeks  to  generate  a  hunger  for  political 
wisdom,  it  must  stand  ready  to  impart  it,  a  task  incomparably  more 
difficult  than  conveying  factual  knowledge.  Thus  the  Alcibiades 
teaches  a  moral  lesson  not  only  to  aspiring  politicians  but  also  to 
political  authors.  This  lesson  is  in  no  way  impaired  by  the  con- 
siderations which  follow. 

Apart  from  the  moral  lesson  it  teaches,  the  dialogue,  when  taken 
in  the  context  of  historical  events,  suggests,  in  the  non-normative 
realm,  another  lesson,  altogether  sadder:  that  political  activity  is 
not  highly  sensitive  to  the  teaching  of  wisdom. 

Socrates,  known  as  'the  wisest  of  men',  was  born  not  later  than 
469  and  began  teaching  when  Athens  stood  at  the  height  of  her 
prosperity,  glory  and  power:  when  he  was  killed,  at  over  seventy 
years  of  age  (399),  the  city  had  plunged  to  its  disaster.  This  was  not  due 

16 


CH.  2]  WISDOM  AND  ACTIVITY 

to  the  deep-laid  plans  of  wily  and  powerful  enemies :  Thucydides 
makes  it  clear  enough  that  Lacedaemon  embarked  upon  war  un- 
wilHngly  and  was  frequently  disposed  to  peace:  he  leaves  us  the 
dear  impression  that  Athens'  undoing  was  Athens'  own  doing.  Thus 
the  City  was  most  unwisely  governed  even  while  it  had  in  its  midst 
the  wisest  of  men.  And  many  of  the  actors  of  the  drama  had  been 
frequent  associates  of  Socrates :  one  such  was  Alcibiades ;  another 
was  Critias,  whom  we  find  as  the  moving  spirit  of  'the  Thirty 
Tyrants';  yet  another  was  Charmides,  similarly  involved. 

Therefore  we  must  conclude  that  the  very  admirers  of  Socrates 
profited  little  from  his  teaching  and  showed  little  trace  of  it  in  their 
political  activities.  This  is  a  regrettable  fact,  but  a  fact  none  the  less. 
Noting  this  fact  does  not  diminish  our  ardour  for  the  acquisition  of 
wisdom,  but  induces  us  to  regard  another  pursuit  as  also  of  some 
Importance :  that  is,  seeking  an  understanding  of  what  people  actually 
do  in  Politics.  The  present  treatise  is  in  fact  addressed  to  the  latter 
purpose. 

To  stress  the  contrast  between  political  philosophy  and  political 
ictivity,  I  have  resorted  to  a  device  which  may  well  be  regarded  as 
I  desecration.  I  have  presumed  to  write  a  sequel  to  the  Alcibiades, 
in  the  form  of  a  further  dialogue  between  Socrates  and  Alcibiades. 
It  will  be  unmistakably  clear  to  the  reader  that  this  spurious  sequel 
is  not  written  in  anything  like  the  spirit  of  Plato,  but  I  would  not 
like  the  reader  to  think  that  it  is  imbued  with  my  own  feelings. 
This  Pseudo-Alcibiades  should  be  thought  of  as  written  against 
Socrates  by  a  secretary  of  Alcibiades.^  Thus  while  the  Alcibiades 
is  the  warning  of  Wisdom  to  Ambition,  this  is  meant  as  the 
politician's  retort.  That  it  should  be  made  in  the  name  of  such  a 
rogue,  suffices  to  acquit  me  of  any  sympathy  for  the  point  of  view 
presented.  But  its  being  unpleasant  does  not  make  it  any  less  im- 
portant in  fact. 

The  imaginary  conversation  which  the  Pseudo-Alcibiades  purports 
to  report  is  placed  some  sixteen  years  after  that  which  Plato  relates. 
It  occurs  when  Alcibiades  stands  at  the  height  of  his  influence  in 
Athens  and  just  before  he  moves  the  Assembly  to  decide  the  ill-fated 
expedition  against  Syracuse. 

Alcibiades.  I  have  sought  you  out,  Socrates,  because  a  discussion 
we  had  many  years  ago  has  come  to  my  mind.  This  occurred  while  I 

'^  This  excuses  the  fact  that  Socrates  is  here  represented  as  somewhat  weak  in 
argument  (as  some  critics  have  remarked):  an  inevitable  outcome  of  my  not  being  Plato. 

2  ly  jPT 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  I 

was  Still  in  my  teens,  eagerly  awaiting  the  hour  when  I  could  try  my 
hand  at  influencing  the  affairs  of  the  city.  Many  admirers  already 
upheld  the  confidence  I  had  in  my  abilities.  Then  came  your  dis- 
course, admonishing  me  that  I  was  unfit  to  address  the  Assembly  of 
Athenians,  and  exhorting  me  to  acquire  the  moral  wisdom  whereby 
alone  I  would  be  enabled  to  give  my  fellow-citizens  the  right  advice. 
Are  you  aware,  Socrates,  that  you  almost  stopped  my  career?  If  my 
inner  urge  had  not  soon  dispelled  the  impression  made  by  your 
words,  instead  of  being  now  predominant  in  the  city,  and  indeed  the 
most  important  figure  in  Greece,  I  might  still  be  one  of  those  I  see 
in  your  company. 

Socrates.  Would  that  I  had  made  a  more  lasting  impression!  I 
well  remember  the  occasion.  I  feared  that  you  would  move  the 
policy  of  Athens  in  a  rash  manner,  and  events  have  confirmed  my 
fears.  You  did  the  city  a  great  disservice  by  your  successful  efforts  to 
break  the  peace  happily  negotiated  by  Nicias. 

Alcibiades.  However  unwillingly,  you  pay  me,  Socrates,  a  de- 
served tribute.  It  is  true  enough  that  I  seized  the  occasion  of  the 
Argive  defiance  of  Sparta  to  induce  Athens  into  an  alliance  with 
Argos  which  was  (although  many  did  not  immediately  perceive  it), 
incompatible  with  the  peace  of  Nicias.  This  alliance  was  not  easily 
achieved,  the  Argives  doubted  that  they  could  obtain  our  support,  I 
had  to  send  to  them  secretly  inducing  them  to  address  an  embassy 
to  Athens;  its  requests  might  have  been  rejected  when  the  Spartans 
sent  a  counter-embassy  to  remind  us  of  our  obligations.  I  had  to 
trick  the  Spartan  envoys  by  promises  that  they  would  have  full  satis- 
faction upon  Pylus  if  they  forbore  to  tell  the  Assembly  that  they  had 
full  powers  of  negotiation;  and  when  I  had  pushed  them  into  denying 
their  full  powers,  I  turned  against  them,  advising  the  Assembly  not  to 
listen  to  them  under  such  conditions.  It  was  a  cleverly  conducted 
operation,  and  one  difficult  to  achieve  in  the  face  of  the  prestige  enjoyed 
by  Nicias,  and  at  a  time  when  the  Athenians  were  tired  of  a  long  war. 

Socrates.  I  blush  for  you,  Alcibiades,  that  you  should  boast  of 
such  disreputable  conduct! 

Alcibiades.  Are  you  concerned  for  my  reputation,  Socrates.?  It 
stands  very  high  with  the  Athenians,  so  high  indeed  that  now  I  can 
dispense  with  such  deceptions  as  I  practised  in  my  earlier  days.  By 
now  my  political  fortune  is  so  well  established  that  I  can  by  the  mere 
force  of  my  speech  move  them  to  follow  my  policy.  Soon  you  will 
see  a  striking  illustration  of  my  influence. 


CH.  2]  WISDOM  AND  ACTIVITY 

Socrates.  I  have  heard  it  rumoured  that  you  want  us  to  send  a 
major  expedition  against  Syracuse,  and  expect  that  the  Assembly 
will  decide  in  this  according  to  your  counsel.  I  do  hope  that  either 
youwill  give  up  this  foolhardy  and  unjust  project,  or  that  Nicias 
will  prevail  against  you  to  have  it  rejected. 

Alcibiades.  I  shall  not  give  it  up  and  Nicias  will  not  prevail  against 
me.  Can  you  not  realize,  Socrates,  that  I  have  grown  even  more 
proficient  than  Pericles  in  the  handling  of  the  Assembly.^ 

Socrates.  Woe  then  to  Athens ! 

Alcibiades.  Do  you  indeed,  Socrates,  feel  so  strongly  against  this 
expedition? 

Socrates.  Assuredly  I  do. 

Alcibiades.  Then,  Socrates,  allow  me  to  offer  you  a  suggestion.  Do 
not  leave  it  to  Nicias  to  oppose  me  in  the  Assembly,  but  do  yourself 
rise  and  persuade  the  Assembly  against  me ! 

Socrates.  You  are  being  unfair,  Alcibiades.  I  am  not  expert  at 
addressing  crowds.  My  hfe  has  been  spent  in  private  conversations, 
whereby  I  hope  I  have  helped  others,  and  myself,  to  think  more 
clearly.  This,  as  you  know,  I  regard  as  a  duty  in  Man :  since  the  gods 
have  blessed  him  with  the  power  of  thinking,  he  shows  himself 
worthy  of  that  honour  only  in  so  far  as  he  uses  and  develops  this 
power.  We  would  deem  it  a  loss  if  a  man  with  the  hmbs  and  dis- 
position of  an  athlete  did  not  exercise  in  gymnastics.  How  much 
greater  a  loss  not  to  exercise  our  minds !  And  this  is  no  idle  exercise : 
we  can  devote  our  efforts  to  more  or  less  deserving  objects,  and  the 
most  deserving  is  the  acquisition  of  wisdom.  You  are  well  aware  that 
I  have  never  attempted  to  assemble  an  audience  for  my  conversa- 
tions, I  have  been  content  to  speak  with  whoever  was  willing  to 
speak  with  me.  I  made  no  sacrifice  of  earnestness  to  capture  atten- 
tion. Indeed  there  have  been  some  who  have  found  my  mode  of 
conversation  tedious,  and  these  I  have  not  sought  to  retain.  Further, 
those  who  have  persisted  I  have  not  sought  to  best  in  argument,  but 
it  has  been  my  purpose  by  questioning  them  to  make  them  discover 
for  themselves  the  incoherence  of  their  views  and  therefrom  to  grow 
angry  with  themselves  and  gentle  to  others ;  and  thereafter  to  attempt 
the  setting  of  their  own  house  in  order. 

Alcibiades.  You  do  not  have  to  remind  me,  Socrates,  of  your 
method  of  dialogue  and  of  your  purpose. 

Socrates.  But  then,  Alcibiades,  you  must  be  aware  of  the  con- 
trast between  my  approach  to  individuals  and  the  popular  orator's 

19  2-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

approach  to  crowds.  Addressing  a  gathering  of  thousands  involves 
holding  their  attention — that  is,  angling  for  unwilling  hearers — 
which  I  have  not  done,  and  the  purpose  of  the  speech  is  to  cause 
these  thousands  to  veer  to  your  side,  as  against  your  opponent's.  In 
short  it  involves  the  collecting  of  listeners,  and  the  driving  of  these 
listeners  to  some  action  you  have  in  mind. 

Akibiades.  Thank  you,  Socrates,  for  putting  it  better  than  I  would 
have.  It  is  true  that  I  speak  for  the  purpose  of  getting  some  immediate 
and  definite  action  from  those  spoken  to.  My  ability  to  generate 
such  action  is  power,  would  you  not  say? 

Socrates.  Definitely  it  is. 

Akibiades.  And  you  enjoy  no  such  power. 

Socrates.  I  do  not.  Indeed  I  might  not  even  get  the  opportunity 
of  addressing  the  Assembly. 

Akibiades.  You  are  a  citizen. 

Socrates.  So  are  thirty  thousand  others,  maybe  forty  thousand. 
In  any  important  debate,  there  are  some  five  thousand  present,  all 
of  whom  have  the  same  right  to  speak,  many  of  whom  are  eager  to 
exercise  this  right.  It  is  clear  that  in  a  debate  which  lasts  from  sun- 
rise to  sundown,  only  a  few  can  in  fact  speak,  and  it  is  those  who 
enjoy  an  established  political  standing  who  can  reach  the  rostrum. 

Akibiades.  True  enough.  I  am  one  of  these. 

Socrates.  You  are.  And  I  am  not. 

Akibiades.  Well  now,  Socrates,  you  have  been  telling  me  about 
this  ability  to  generate  decisions,  and  this  personal  standing  which  is 
a  requirement  for  the  exercise  of  the  ability.  Would  you  grant  me 
that  these  are  to  be  called  political  standing  and  political  efficiency, 
and  that  the  acquisition  of  this  standing  and  the  development  of  this 
efficiency  constitute  the  craft  of  Politics.? 

Socrates.  I  regard  the  man  who  possesses  such  standing  and 
ability  and  who  does  not  know  what  is  just  and  good  for  the  city,  as 
a  most  unhappy  and  dangerous  man,  and  that  is  why,  Akibiades,  I 
so  urged  you  to  acquire  wisdom  before  rushing  into  Politics. 

Akibiades.  And  so  I  might  have  done,  Socrates,  at  your  persua- 
sion. If  so,  I  would  now  presumably  still  be  one  of  your  followers, 
diligently  engaged  in  the  acquisition  of  that  understanding  of  the 
good  which  you  so  advocate.  But  then  if  some  other  Akibiades  were 
urging  what  I  am  now  urging,  I  would  be  just  as  impotent  as  you 
find  yourself  to  stop  him  from  his  endeavour.  It  may  be  that  I  have 
only  acquired  a  part  of  statecraft,  but  it  is  the  efficient  part.  It  may 

20 


CH.  2]  WISDOM  AND  ACTIVITY 

be  that  you  possess  the  more  important  part,  but  it  is  an  inefficient 
part.   Shall  we  speak  further  of  this  Syracuse  expedition? 

Socrates.   It  is  better  to  talk  about  it  before  than  after. 

Alcibiades.  Do  you  realize  that  if,  as  I  feel  sure,  the  Assembly 
approves  my  suggestion,  many  ships  will  have  to  put  to  sea,  which 
is  costly,  and  thousands  of  Athenians  will  embark  upon  a  venture 
in  which  not  a  few  will  lose  their  lives? 

Socrates.   I  know  this  only  too  well. 

Alcibiades.  This  getting  people  to  perform  costly  and  dangerous 
actions  is  an  art  in  which  you  must  confess  that  I  excel,  while  you, 
Socrates,  are  ignorant  thereof.  How  much  easier  it  would  be  to 
persuade  the  people  against  spending  all  this  money  and  venturing 
all  these  lives,  and  even  this  you  cannot  do !  Indeed  I  can  offer  you 
a  simpler  and  more  striking  proof  of  your  inefficiency.  While  I  was 
still  a  youth,  trailing  after  you  and  awed  by  your  wisdom,  you  tried 
to  persuade  me  to  do  something  which  was  easy  indeed :  you  wanted 
me  to  remain  for  a  few  years  occupied  at  your  side  with  the  problems 
of  wise  government;  even  in  this  modest  effiDrt  you  did  not  succeed. 

Socrates.  It  is  my  purpose  to  offer  opportunities  for  wisdom,  not 
to  drive  people  to  actions  of  my  own  choice. 

Alcibiades.  My  purpose  is  that  which  you  refuse :  it  is  to  induce  in 
others  actions  of  my  own  choosing.  And  you  must  grant  me  this 
proposition:  'Alcibiades  knows  how  to  influence  the  decisions  and 
actions  of  the  Athenians. ' 

Socrates.  That  is  all  too  obvious,  alas ! 

Alcibiades.  Well  then,  you  must  grant  me  that  I  possess  a  form  of 
knowledge  which  you  lack.  You  must  also  grant  me  the  proposition : 
'  Socrates  does  not  know  how  to  influence  the  decisions  and  actions 
of  Athenians. ' 

Socrates.  I  refuse  to  speak  of  this  skill  as  knowledge. 

Alcibiades.  But  you  must,  Socrates.  And  you  must  recognize  that 
it  is  valuable  knowledge.  Think  how  pleased  you  would  be  if  you 
now  found  yourself  possessed  of  it,  and  able  to  prevent  this  expedi- 
tion to  Syracuse,  of  which  you  think  so  ill!  You  love  the  city, 
Socrates,  and  you  are  a  fighter.  Well  do  I  remember  how  you  saved 
my  Hfe  on  the  field  of  Potidea;  it  is  known  that  you  were  a  tower  of 
strength  on  the  unfortunate  day  of  Delion,  when  you  saved  young 
Xenophon.  Such  a  man  as  you  proved  yourself  to  be  on  those 
occasions  would  not  lack  the  courage  to  challenge  a  popular  view  in 
the  Assembly. 

21 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

Socrates.  I  would  not. 

Alcibiades.  As  a  citizen  you  should  oppose  the  proposition  which  you 
deem  harmful  to  the  city  just  as  stoutly  as  you  withstood  the  enemy. 

Socrates.  No  doubt. 

Alcibiades.  And  you  regard  the  expedition  to  Syracuse  as  harmful 
to  the  city.? 

Socrates.  I  do. 

Alcibiades.  Then  if  you  could  stop  me  from  swaying  the  Assembly 
in  its  favour,  you  would.  You  lack  neither  the  judgement,  nor  the 
will,  nor  the  courage  to  do  so.  What  then  do  you  lack?  I  will  answer 
for  you :  you  do  not  know  how  to  do  it.  I  have  carefully  laid  the 
ground  for  the  reception  of  my  proposal  about  Syracuse.  All  this 
designing  and  preparation  leading  up  to  the  decision  and  move  I 
want  constitutes  a  political  operation.  InteUigent  as  you  are, 
Socrates,  you  should  be  able  to  set  up  a  contrary  operation.  But 
you  lack  the  knowledge. 

Socrates.  Surely,  Alcibiades,  you  have  not  forgotten  how  often 
and  clearly  I  have  expressed  my  dislike  of  the  arts  of  persuasion. 
You  may  remember  my  discussion  with  Gorgias.  Boasting  about 
his  art,  he  illustrated  it  by  occasions  on  which  he  goes  with  his 
brother,  the  doctor,  to  the  house  of  a  patient.  'It  may  happen',  said 
Gorgias, '  that  the  patient  will  not  take  the  medicine  prescribed  by 
my  brother,  but  if  I  intervene,  the  patient  is  persuaded. '  I  then 
asked  Gorgias  whether  he  knew  by  himself  whether  this  was  bene- 
ficial or  harmful  medicine,  and  he  admitted  that  such  knowledge 
does  not  pertain  to  his  art.  I  then  taxed  him  with  having  evolved 
procedures  apt  to  make  people  who  do  not  know  what  is  good  for 
them,  trust  a  speaker  who  knows  no  more  than  they.  They  attribute 
to  him  a  knowledge  which  he  does  not  possess  and  therefore  he  may 
persuade  them  to  their  undoing.  In  the  same  manner  you,  Alcibi- 
ades, do  not  know  whether  it  is  good  to  do  what  you  advise.  There- 
fore the  greater  the  scope  of  your  art,  the  more  dangerous  it  is. 

Alcibiades.  You  are  free,  Socrates,  to  spurn  the  art  of  handling  and 
moving  people,  and  the  understanding  and  knowledge  required  for 
that  end.  But  then,  Socrates,  all  your  thinking  about  what  is  for  the 
best  is  bound  to  be  by-passed  by  the  actual  movement  of  politics, 
sparked  off  by  those  who,  like  me,  have  sought  the  knowledge  and 
cultivated  the  skill  you  despise. 

Socrates.  I  do  not  despise  it.  I  dread  it.  I  would  want  those  who 
are  possessed  thereof,  as  you  are,  to  walk  in  constant  fear  of  the  harm 

22 


CH.  2]  WISDOM  AND  ACTIVITY 

they  may  do,  a  fear  which  can  be  laid  low  only  by  the  cultivation  of 
the  knowledge  of  what  is  for  the  best. 

Alcibiades.  You  wanted  me  to  dwell  upon  the  latter  before  I 
developed  and  exercised  the  skill  of  moving  people. 

Socrates.  I  had  indeed  hoped  that  you  would  attain  the  high 
standing  you  now  enjoy,  but  that  you  would  have  acquired  the 
wisdom  which  you  lack. 

Alcibiades.  In  short  you  wanted  me  to  be  two  men  in  one, 
Alcibiades  plus  Socrates :  to  combine  the  influence  I  have  acquired 
with  the  wisdom  I  might  have  gained  in  your  company.  You  warn 
me  that  Alcibiades  by  himself  is  unwise,  but  you  have  to  confess  that 
Socrates  by  himself  is  powerless.  Perhaps  you  would  be  content  if 
we  were  to  combine  forces.  Have  you  not  said  that  'whoever  as  a 
private  man  possesses  the  capacity  of  advising  another  who  rules 
over  a  realm  should  be  called  master  of  the  knowledge  which  the 
ruler  should  have',^  This  points  to  alternative  possibilities:  Alci- 
biades, enjoying  his  influence  over  the  Athenian  people,  either  has 
acquired  the  wisdom  of  Socrates,  or  takes  counsel  from  Socrates. 

Socrates.  The  first  alternative  is  the  better. 

Alcibiades.  Perhaps  also  the  more  unlikely.  Be  that  as  it  may,  in 
any  case  your  idea  is  that  he  who  rules  men  in  turn  should  let 
himself  be  ruled  by  wisdom. 

Socrates.  Well  said,  Alcibiades!  If  only  you  would  bow  to  the 
force  of  your  own  formulation ! 

Alcibiades.  But,  Socrates,  according  to  this  formulation,  the 
abihty  to  influence  men,  which  Alcibiades  possesses,  is  to  be  a  mere 
instrument  in  the  carrying  out  of  the  counsels  of  wisdom. 

Socrates.   It  is  indeed  instrumental,  a  mere  means. 

Alcibiades.  I  know  you  think  so.  But  do  you  deem  it  probable 
that  those  who  are  past  masters  in  this  art  would  be  willing  to  regard 
it  as  subordinate?  Let  us  talk  of  craftsmen,  as  you,  Socrates,  have 
ever  liked  to  do.  It  was  a  current  joke  among  us,  in  the  days  when  I 
was  of  your  followers,  that  we,  who  came  of  the  best  families  to  learn 
wisdom  from  you,  constantly  heard  about  cobblers  and  skin-dressers, 
carpenters  and  smiths,  and  other  such. 

Socrates.  True  enough. 

Alcibiades.  Shall  we  talk  about  weavers?  Have  you  not  likened 
the  statesman  to  the  weaver  who  binds  together  the  warp-threads  of 
many  individual  lives  and  conducts,  weaving  them  into  a  harmoni- 
ous pattern? 

23 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  I 

Socrates.  I  have. 

Alcibiades.  Wherein  does  the  skill  of  the  weaver  reside?  Shall  we 
say  that  he  is  deft  at  inserting  the  woof-thread  by  means  of  which  he 
binds  the  warp-threads,  or  shall  we  say  that  he  has  excellent  taste  in 
the  designing  of  patterns?  If  he  has  this  deftness  without  this  taste, 
shall  we  not  still  call  him  a  weaver? 

Socrates.  Without  question. 

Alcibiades.  But  if  he  has  this  excellent  taste  but  is  quite  clumsy 
in  the  handling  of  the  woof-thread  and  indeed  incapable  of  binding 
his  warp-threads  together,  then  is  he  a  weaver? 

Socrates.  He  is  not. 

Alcibiades.  If  we  now  turn  to  the  political  weaver,  shall  we  call  it 
wisdom  to  devise  an  excellent  pattern  and  skill  to  handle  the  woof- 
thread  and  bind  the  warp-threads?  And  shall  we  say  that  the  first  is 
the  talent  of  Socrates,  but  the  second  the  talent  of  Alcibiades? 

Socrates.  This  is  the  first  sign  of  modesty  I  have  ever  seen  in  you, 
Alcibiades. 

Alcibiades.  And  this,  Socrates,  is  the  first  sign  of  hasty  judgement 
I  have  found  in  you.  For  you  mistake  my  conclusion.  To  go  on:  if 
the  warp-threads  lie  ready  to  the  hand  of  the  weaver,  and  passively 
let  themselves  be  spread  on  the  loom,  it  takes  but  indifferent  skill  to 
insert  the  woof-thread ;  the  weaver  then  need  not  concentrate  upon 
it,  he  can  give  his  attention  to  working  out  an  excellent  pattern,  and 
if  he  is  incapable  of  such  good  designing,  he  must  humbly  let  himself 
be  guided  by  another  who  can,  since  the  facihty  of  his  job  does  not 
entitle  him  to  preen  himself  on  his  talent. 

Socrates.  I  agree. 

Alcibiades.  But  in  Politics,  Socrates,  the  warp-threads  are  indi- 
vidual men  who  are  very  far  indeed  from  lending  themselves  pas- 
sively. Each  warp-thread  is  opinionated  and  elusive;  therefore 
casting  just  one  woof-thread  to  bind  all  these  individuals  in  a 
common  action  takes  a  spell-binder.  I  am  one  such,  Socrates,  and 
know  the  difficulty  of  binding  men  to  my  woof-thread,  a  difficulty 
enhanced  by  there  being  rival  spell-binders  attempting  to  cast  their 
spell  upon  the  same  threads.  And  have  you  not  noticed,  Socrates, 
that  craftsmen,  who  are  willing  to  converse  with  you  while  doing 
their  job  if  it  is  easy,  turn  unwilHng  if  it  is  difficult? 

Socrates.  True. 

Alcibiades.  The  political  weaver,  whose  warp-threads  wriggle  like 
serpents,  cannot  be  patient  with  you.  Nor  can  he  feel  modest  about 

24 


CH.  2]  WISDOM  AND  ACTIVITY 

his  achievement,  nor  can  he  beheve  that  he  must  subordinate  his 
talent  to  the  fulfilment  of  your  design.  He  is  carried  away  by  his 
doing  and  deaf  to  your  telHng. 

Socrates.  Alcibiades,  you  are  foolishly  proud  of  your  spell,  and  I 
fear  that  your  binding  may  shorten  the  threads  of  many  lives. 

Alcibiades.  Socrates,  you  imprudently  despise  the  art  of  winning 
an  Assembly,  and  you  may  regret  it,  if  ever  you  are  subject  to  a 
public  accusation,  and  thus  forced  to  defend  yourself  in  public. 

Socrates.  Should  I  be  unjustly  condemned,  the  shame  thereof 
would  not  be  upon  me. 

Alcibiades.  But  upon  the  Assembly? 

Socrates.  Indeed. 

Alcibiades.  And  thereby  upon  the  people  of  Athens,  upon  your 
beloved  city.  Thus,  for  want  of  the  art  I  praise,  you  would  be  an 
occasion  of  shame  to  Athens. 

Socrates.  Most  unwillingly. 

Alcibiades.  Not  quite  unwillingly,  since  you  might  have  willed  the 
acquisition  of  the  art  which  might  have  prevented  this.  And  shall  I 
tell  you,  Socrates,  why  you  are  unwiUing  to  acquire  it? 

Socrates.  Have  your  say. 

Alcibiades.  We  know  that  men  want,  decide  and  do  what  seems  to 
them  good.  Now  if  there  were  no  difference  between  what  seems 
good  and  what  is  truly  such,  your  whole  activity  would  be  idle,  since 
it  has  consisted  in  driving  men  away  by  argument  from  their  crude 
view  of  the  good.  This  driving  away,  however,  you  have  conducted 
in  personal  arguments,  now  with  one,  now  with  another,  which 
seems  to  imply  that  even  with  the  help  of  your  questioning,  indi- 
vidual men  have  to  make  a  personal  effort  to  overcome  their  dis- 
position to  see  the  good  where  it  is  not.  Now  the  politician  who 
desires  to  obtain  of  great  numbers,  at  short  notice,  a  certain  decision 
or  action,  must  perforce  appeal  to  their  present  view  of  the  good, 
such  as  it  is;  precisely  that  view  which  it  is  your  purpose  to  change. 
The  views  of  the  good  which  are  presently  held  are  the  politician's 
data  which  he  uses  to  move  people  as  he  desires.  That  is  the  way  the 
game  is  played,  and  you  are  not  interested  in  the  game. 

Socrates.  True. 

Alcibiades.  The  politician  conjures  up  some  image  of  the  good  to 
be  achieved  by  the  action  he  recommends,  and  the  constituent  parts 
of  this  image  are  made  up  of  the  ideas  of  the  good  which  are  current 
among  the  people.  For  instance  I  shall  explain  to  Athenians  that  the 

25 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

Syracuse  expedition  will  so  raise  our  reputation  and  add  to  our 
forces  as  to  amaze  Hellas  and  intimidate  Lacedaemon. 

Socrates.  While  in  fact  the  expedition  may  prove  fatal  in  terms  of 
its  avowed  purpose.  Mere  lack  of  success  would  dash  our  reputation, 
disaster  would  waste  the  best  of  our  forces.  A  dangerous  gamble, 
and,  if  successful,  what  is  the  gain.?  Is  it  a  wise  purpose  to  grow  more 
formidable  in  the  eyes  of  our  neighbours?  Will  it  not  increase  their 
envy,  fear,  and  potential  enmity.?  The  good  you  seek  is  twice  doubt- 
ful :  it  is  not  sure  that  it  will  be  attained,  it  is  not  sure  that  it  is  a  good. 

Alcibiades.  But  I  am  sure  that  I  see  it  as  a  good,  and  am  confident 
of  its  attainment.  And  I  am  sure  that  I  can  induce  my  compatriots 
to  want  it  with  my  own  keenness  and  will  it  with  my  own  assurance. 
See  this  hand  which  I  eagerly  stretch  towards  Syracuse !  This  same 
eagerness  shall  arm  twenty  thousand  hands  when  I  have  spoken! 
Socrates,  how  could  you  understand  me.?  You  have  never  ex- 
perienced the  response  of  the  many!  You  do  not  know  what  it  is  to 
stand  in  front  of  a  crowd,  send  out  not  only  words  from  one's  lips, 
but  heat  from  one's  eyes  and  fingertips,  reaching  out  to  that  fellow 
far  away  who  was  idly  scratching  his  ear  and  shifting  his  foot,  and 
who  now  is  coming  to  stare  like  a  man  in  a  trance,  with  all  my 
warmth  working  within  him,  soon  to  explode  in  a  great  shout  of 
approval!  This  is  the  happiness  of  the  politician,  that  the  feelings  he 
expresses  become  those  of  these  many  others  out  there,  come  back  to 
him  multiplied  thousands  of  times  by  the  great  living  echo,  which 
thus  reinforces  them  in  himself.  Brave  echo,  which  not  only  returns 
my  words,  but  turns  them  into  deeds ! 

Socrates.  In  short,  Alcibiades,  your  true  volume  is  not  that  which 
I  see  with  my  eyes.  Applause,  it  seems,  swells  you  out,  so  pre- 
sumably you  shrink  for  lack  of  it. 

Alcibiades.  You  are  joking,  Socrates.  Still  you  are  right  about  the 
hunger  for  response  which  grows  with  the  habit.  One  need  not  be 
without  it,  ever.  One  has  a  number  of  faithful  followers  anyhow. 
Moreover  I  am  sensitive  enough  to  tell  when  I  am  failing  to  carry 
them  with  me ;  I  can  then  shift  to  commonplaces  they  like  to  hear 
and  await  a  more  favourable  occasion. 

Socrates.  In  all  you  say  I  see  no  Knowledge  of  the  good  to  be 
sought  nor  any  effort  to  extend  such  Knowledge  to  others. 

Alcibiades.  Knowing  and  getting  others  to  Know  is  your  pursuit, 
Socrates.  Doing  and  getting  others  to  Do  is  mine.  This  is  where  we 
differ  profoundly.  Were  I  trying  to  get  others  to  Know,  I  should 

26 


CH.  2]  WISDOM  AND  ACTIVITY 

have  an  uphill  task  which  would  interfere  with  my  getting  them  to 
Do,  and  had  I  myself  pursued  this  Knowledge  you  advocate,  I 
would  have  divorced  myself  from  the  feelings  of  those  I  seek  to  move. 

Socrates.  But  your  not  knowing,  Alcibiades,  will  cause  you  to 
bring  disaster  to  Athens. 

Alcibiades.  If  so  it  is  a  disaster  which  your  wisdom,  Socrates,  is 
unable  to  prevent,  since  you  cannot  get  the  people  to  do  other  than 
I  recommend. 

Socrates.  Are  you  content  to  risk  the  ruin  of  the  city? 

Alcibiades.  Frankly,  Socrates,  I  do  not  believe  your  forebodings. 
You  would  have  us  feel  that  we  are  blundering  blind  fellows  unless 
we  go  to  you  for  the  opening  of  our  eyes,  a  difficult  and  lengthy 
process.  This  is  really  somewhat  offensive.  I  do  care  for  the  good 
of  Athens,  and  my  compatriots  whom  I  address  are  not  bereft  of 
judgement. 

Socrates.  Obviously  if  such  seeds  were  not  present,  it  would  be 
idle  to  call  upon  politicians  to  take  a  grave  view  of  their  responsi- 
bihty,  and  idle  to  cultivate  the  judgement  of  the  people.  You  have 
been  busily  explaining  to  me  that  the  craft  of  Politics  consists  in 
building  up  your  standing,  and  developing  an  abihty  to  move  people, 
which  itself  makes  use  of  the  people's  perception  of  what  is  good. 
You  have  also  been  taunting  me  with  my  lack  of  such  craft.  Now,  as 
I  tell  you  that  such  craft  may  lead  to  disaster,  you  suddenly  bring  in 
the  assumption  that  somehow  there  is  a  floating  sense  of  what  is  for 
the  best,  in  you  and  also  in  your  fellows  whom  you  address.  But 
this  brings  us  back  to  our  first  talk,  many  years  ago,  in  which  I 
convinced  you  of  ignorance  precisely  in  this  respect. 

Alcibiades.  True  enough.  Perhaps  I  conceded  too  readily. 

Socrates.  Or  perhaps  you  have  now  come  to  be  too  flushed  with 
your  craft  of  moving  men  to  consider  its  dangers  sanely. 

Alcibiades.  Well,  Socrates,  it  is  an  absorbing  game,  which  brings 
out  the  best  as  well  as  the  worst  within  us.  To  those  who  have  played 
it,  this  is  Politics,  teeming  with  opportunities  and  hazards,  and  the 
understanding  of  this  game  is  the  understanding  of  Politics.  This  is 
how  history  is  made. 

Socrates.  A  tale  of  adventures  and  misadventures,  full  of  sound 
and  fury 

Alcibiades.  A  tale  of  men.  Understand,  Socrates,  that  men  need 
and  enjoy  this  stirring  of  the  blood  which  occurs  when  I  call  them 
to  action  and  make  them  confident  of  its  outcome.  When  I  lend 

27 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  I,  CH.  2 

them  my  imagination  and  they  lend  me  their  forces,  then  are  we 
together  a  joyfully  striding  giant 

Socrates.  Striding  where? 

Alcibiades.  Always  your  question  marks,  tripping  up  our  resolu- 
tion! We  grow  weary  of  them.  Provide  us  instead  with  some  noble 
vision  of  an  ideal  city  to  be  achieved,  a  goal  at  which  we  politicians 
will  aim 

Socrates.  Aye,  and  a  lever  to  move  men. 

Alcibiades.  That  also.  It  lies  in  the  nature  of  Politics  that  whatever 
is  proposed  as  an  end  to  be  served,  serves  as  a  means  to  move  men, 
and  that  the  noblest  dreams  figure  jointly  with  lower  motives  as  the 
inputs  available  to  us  movers  of  men.  No  matter  that  my  imperial 
conception  of  Athens'  good  seems  to  you  paltry,  still  it  will  do  as  an 
illustration.  It  is  true  that  I  regard  the  conquest  of  Syracuse  as  a 
good  to  be  sought,  it  is  no  less  true  that  this  image  serves  to  build  up 
my  following:  a  goal  but  also  a  means;  and  there  is  nothing  which 
does  not  become  a  means  in  our  hands. 


28 


CHAPTER  3 

ON  THE  NATURE  OF  POLITICAL 
SCIENCE 

Political  activity  is  dangerous.  Arising  inevitably  out  of  men's  ability 
to  influence  each  other,  conferring  upon  them  the  benefits  of  joint 
endeavour,  an  indispensable  source  of  social  boons,  it  is  also  capable 
of  doing  great  harm.  Men  can  be  moved  to  injure  others  or  to  ruin 
themselves.  The  very  process  of  moving  implies  a  risk  of  debasement 
for  the  moved  and  for  the  mover. ^  Even  the  fairest  vision  of  a  good  to 
be  sought  offers  no  moral  guarantee,  since  it  may  poison  hearts  with 
hatred  against  those  who  are  deemed  an  obstacle  to  its  achievement.^ 

No  apology  is  required  for  stressing  a  subjective  dread  of  political 
activity:  the  chemist  is  not  disqualified  as  a  scientist  because  he  is 
aware  that  explosives  are  dangerous — indeed  that  chemist  is  danger- 
ous who  lacks  such  awareness. 

This  feeling  of  danger  is  widespread  in  human  society^  and  has 
always  haunted  all  but  the  more  superficial  authors :  very  few  have, 
like  Hobbes,  brought  it  into  the  open;  it  has  hovered  in  the  back- 
ground, exerting  an  invisible  but  effective  influence  upon  their 
treatment  of  the  subject;  it  may  be,  to  a  significant  degree,  re- 
sponsible for  the  strange  and  unique  texture  of  political  science. 

There  are  no  objects  to  which  our  attention  is  so  naturally  drawn 
as  to  our  own  fellows.  It  takes  a  conscious  purpose  to  watch  birds  or 
ants,  but  we  cannot  fail  to  watch  other  men,  with  whom  we  are 

^  'Tel  se  croit  le  maitre  des  autres  qui  ne  laisse  pas  d'etre  plus  esclave  qu'eux',  says 
Rousseau  in  the  first  lines  of  the  Social  Contract.  He  elucidates  in  Emile:  'Domination 
itself  is  servile  when  beholden  to  opinion:  for  you  depend  upon  the  prejudices  of  those 
you  govern  by  means  of  their  prejudices. ' 

^  It  is  a  sobering  exercise  to  count  the  expressions  of  anger  (as  against  those  of  good 
will)  which  occur  in  the  speeches  or  writings  of  political  champions  of  this  or  that  moral 
cause. 

^  Different  voices  denounce  the  encroaching  State,  overbearing  Lords,  an  Established 
Church,  tentacular  unions,  or  the  dominant  party:  yet  such  voices,  however  discordant, 
all  express  distrust  of  some  form  of  established  power.  In  the  same  manner,  emergent 
power  is  deemed  frightening  by  some  when  an  agitator  musters  a  mob,  by  others  in  the 
case  of  a  rising  dictator :  though  one  may  turn  into  the  other.  The  same  feeling  crystal- 
lizes on  different  stems. 

29 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

inevitably  associated,  whose  behaviour  is  so  important  to  us  that  we 
need  to  foresee  it,  and  who  are  sufficiently  hke  us  to  facilitate  our 
understanding  of  their  actions.  Being  a  man,  which  involves  living 
with  men,  therefore  involves  observing  men.  And  the  knowledge  of 
men  could  be  called  the  most  fairly  distributed  of  all  knowledges  since 
each  one  of  us  may  acquire  it  according  to  his  willingness  and  capacity. 

As  Politics  consists  of  nothing  other  than  human  behaviour,  we 
could  expect  its  knowledge  to  have  made  successive  strides  through 
the  accumulation,  comparison  and  systematization  of  observations.  If 
Politics  is  understood  restrictively  as  the  conduct  of  men  in  offices  of 
authority  and  the  consequent  movement  of  public  affairs,  then  all 
those  who,  in  the  course  of  time,  have  held  office  have  found  out 
something  about  political  behaviour.  I  hold  the  view  that  we  should 
regard  as  'political'  every  systematic  effort,  performed  at  any  place 
in  the  social  field,  to  move  other  men  in  pursuit  of  some  design 
cherished  by  the  mover.  According  to  this  view,  we  all  have  the 
required  material :  any  one  of  us  has  acted  with  others,  been  moved 
by  others  and  has  sought  to  move  others. 

It  is  clear  of  course  that  mere  'facts'  can  never  compose  a  know- 
ledge unless  they  are  marshalled,  and  their  marshalling  always  calls 
for  a  'theory'  which  seizes  upon  certain  similar  appearances,  assigns 
to  them  common  names  and  supposes  processes  which  bring  them 
about.  The  processes  we  assume  constitute  in  the  mind  a  sort  of 
model  of  what  occurs  in  observable  reality;  a  necessary  attempt  to 
reduce  phenomenal  diversity  to  intellectual  simplicity.  Such '  theory ' 
has  a  'representative'  purpose;  it  guides  us  in  the  collection  of  facts: 
these  in  turn  call  for  amendments  to  our  theory  in  so  far  as  it 
cannot  account  for  them.  We  move  from  initial  simpHcity  to  in- 
creasing complexity  in  our  theory,  until  a  possibly  quite  different 
one  is  offered  which  achieves  the  representative  function  with 
greater  elegance  and  accuracy. 

Theory  of  this  kind  progresses  with  time,  accounting  for  an  ever- 
increasing  store  of  observations.  All  this  is  trite;  but  it  then  comes 
as  a  surprise  that  political  science  should  offer  no  such  'theory': 
what  is  called  'political  theory'^  is  an  altogether  different  thing.  In 
the  theory  of  astronomy  there  is  no  place  for  Ptolemaeus,  in  the 
theory  of  chemistry  no  place  for  Paracelsus :  not  so  in  political  theory. 

^  Discussed  in  Arnold  Brecht,  Political  Theory  (Princeton,  1959),  and  in  Eric  Weil, 
'Philosophic  politique,  Theorie  politique'.  Revue  franfaise  de  Science  politique,  vol.  xi, 


30 


CH.  3]  POLITICAL  SCIENCE 

The  theory  of  any  science  is  an  integrated  whole  from  which  past 
theories  have  been  discarded.  Pohtical  theory  is  a  collection  of 
individual  theories  which  stand  side  by  side,  each  one  impervious  to 
the  impact  of  new  observations  and  to  the  advent  of  new  theories. 
This  can  be  the  case  only  because  political  theories  are  normative  (that 
is,  are  doctrines)  and  not  meant  to  perform  the  representative  func- 
tion which  the  word  'theory'  evokes  in  the  case  of  factual  sciences. 
Why  is  political  science  rich  in  normative  theories,  deficient  in 
'representative'  theory.^  Only  a  fool  would  opine  that  the  masters  of 
the  past  were  incapable  of  establishing  the  latter :  they  must  have 
been  unwilling.  And  why.^  The  reason  may  lie  in  the  sense  of 
danger  which  I  noted  at  the  beginning. 

Libido  sciendi  is  a  noble  passion:  it  is  inherently  incapable  of 
debasing  the  man  it  possesses,  and  the  dehghts  it  affords  do  not  wait 
upon  the  possession  of  the  object  pursued  but  attend  its  very  pursuit. 
This  libido  is  indispensable  to  the  making  of  a  scientist,^  and  it  seems 
also  sufficient.  Yet  if  one  studies  the  personalities  of  the  great 
scientists,  one  finds  that  their  libido  was  habitually  associated  with 
one  or  both  of  the  motives  expressed  in  Bacon's  timeless  sentence : 
'for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  rehef  of  man's  estate'. 

The  word  'understanding'  denotes  the  grasping  of  a  pattern 
which  underlies  the  waywardness  of  phenomena :  the  scientist  finds 
beauty  in  such  a  pattern,  and  loves  it  the  more  the  higher  its  aesthetic 
quality.  The  word  'discovery'  signifies  the  unveiling  of  what  was 
both  present  and  hidden.  Such  terms  reveal  that  ancient  inquirers 
into  'the  secrets  of  Nature'  (another  telhng  expression)  assumed  the 
existence  of  an  'order' :  and  what  better  warrant  for  it  than  the  behef 
in  creation?  If  everything  that  is  comes  from  the  divine  planning  of 
a  Supreme  Intelligence — 'Dieu  est  geometre' — then  the  design 
which  stands  at  the  source  guarantees  that  far  lesser  intelligences, 
partaking  of  the  same  reason,  can  grasp  some  parts  of  the  design. 

Such  was  the  language  of  scientists  in  the  deist  age  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  who  felt  that  the  displaying  of  some 
Hneaments  of  the  universal  order  was  a  new  pubHcation  of  God's 
wisdom.  Few  scientists  would  today  speak  in  this  manner:^  they 
now  state  that  their  patterns  are  '  made  up '  and  disclaim  that  they 

^  Cf.  Michael  Polanyi,  Science,  Faith  and  Society  (London,  1946). 
^  Nor  was  this  language  so  natural  to  a  more  theological  age:  it  fits  especially  well 
with  deism, 

31 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  I 

'make  out'  the  'true'  structure  of  things.  Subconsciously,  however, 
they  hardly  doubt  that  their  'made-up'  patterns  are  in  someway 
representative  of  a  true  structure.  Nor  do  they  hesitate  to  choose 
between  two  equally  'serviceable'  models  that  which  is  the  more 
beautiful;  and,  though  careful  to  explain  that  this  is  a  mere  prefer- 
ence, in  fact  they  act  no  differently  from  their  predecessors  who 
would  have  said  that  the  more  elegant  model  was  the  most  true,  as 
the  worthiest  of  God's  sapience;  indeed  every  day  scientists  resort 
to  metaphysical  convictions,  such  as  the  Malebranche-Maupertuis 
principle  of  least  action. 

Turning  to  the  second  part  of  Bacon's  sentence,  it  is  true  that 
scientists  have  ever  taken  pride  in  the  practical  results  afforded  to 
their  fellows  by  their  findings.  Just  as  there  has  been  a  high  tide  of 
the  first  Baconian  theme  (Newton)  there  has  been  more  recently  a 
high  tide  of  the  second,  arising  from  the  very  advance  of  technology. 
Science  and  technology  have  not  always  been  wedded.  For  a  long 
time  practical  advances  were  achieved  more  often  by  practical  men^ 
than  by  scientists,  whose  minds  moved  on  a  different  plane.  But  the 
social  impact  of  technology  affected  science,  which  rapidly  became 
what  it  is  today,  the  great  source  of  material  innovations.^  Even 
when  scientists  are  furthest  from  any  specific  concern  for  practical 
applications,  they  cannot  lack  awareness  that  the  high  esteem  in 
which  they  are  at  present  held  is  derived  from  the  general  opinion 
that  the  increase  of  knowledge  promises  an  increase  of  power  :^  so 
much  so  that  the  sciences  which  hold  out  no  promise  of  practical 
applications  are  put  on  a  starvation  diet. 

The  sole  purpose  of  the  foregoing  rough  indications  is  to  stress 
that  two  powerful  motives  in  general  reinforce  the  zeal  of  the 
scientist  for  systematization  of  observable  facts:  these  same  motives, 
however,  assume  negative  values  for  the  student  of  political  pheno- 
mena. He  has  no  occasion  to  delight  in  the  discovery  of  a  seemly 
pattern,  and  every  reason  to  distrust  practical  applications  of  his 
findings. 

^  Cf.  A  History  of  Technology,  by  Singer,  Holmyard  and  Hall  (Oxford,  Clarendon 
Press,  beginning  1954). 

^  Science  now  'changes  the  world':  not  so  in  Chinese  civilization.  Cf.  Needham, 
Science  and  Civilisation  in  China  (Cambridge,  beginning  1954).  Question:  if  science 
does  so,  is  it  not  because  of  an  urge  which  arose  outside  the  scientific  community  and 
challenged  it? 

^  Hobbes's  view :  '  The  end  of  knowledge  is  power . . .  the  scope  of  all  speculation  is 
the  performing  of  some  action,  or  thing  to  be  done. '  (Opening  of  De  Corpore.) 

32 


CH.  3]  POLITICAL  SCIENCE 

While  the  student  of  Nature  can  rejoice  in  the  fundamental 
harmony  he  discovers  beneath  disorderly  appearances,  such  aesthetic 
enjoyment  is  denied  to  the  student  of  Politics.  Never  was  there  any 
such  thorough-going  apologetic  of  universal  order  as  that  of  Leibniz, 
And  never  was  a  sharper  blow  dealt  than  Voltaire's  Candide.  Trust 
this  prince  of  controversialists  to  seek  the  weak  point  of  the  system 
he  attacks:  and  where  does  he  find  it?  Voltaire  carries  the  discussion 
away  from  the  harmonies  of  Nature  to  the  distempers  of  human 
affairs.^  There  is  nothing  here  to  evoke  a  reverent  appreciation  of  the 
course  of  things,  there  is  no  pattern  to  be  found  ('  a  tale  told  by  an 
idiot. .  .signifying  nothing').  And  whenever  our  mind  can  rest  in 
the  acknowledgement  of  'sufficient  reason',  this  is  but  an  uneasy 
repose:  what  is  explained  is  not  justified,  causa  efficiens  is  neither 
justa  causa  nor  visibly  at  the  service  of  a  plausible  causa  finalis. 

We  are  inevitably  more  exacting  when  investigating  human  affairs 
than  in  the  case  of  natural  phenomena :  regarding  the  latter  we  may 
be  content  to  find  an  order,  whatever  it  may  be ;  in  human  society, 
however,  we  are  not  content  to  find  some  pattern,  we  want  it  to  fit 
our  idea  of  justice. 

The  deist  apologetic  of  universal  order  has  exerted  upon  the  social 
sciences  a  most  powerful  influence,  displayed  to  the  full  in  econo- 
mics. Each  man's  striving  for  his  own  advantage  results  in  a  social 
optimum:  this  has  been  taken  as  axiomatic,  and  whatever  went 
wrong  was  attributed  to  'artificial'  obstacles:  restraints  upon  trade 
and  competition  were  first  named;  much  later  'property'  itself  came 
to  be  questioned  as  an  artificial  restraint.^ 

However  questionable  the  philosophic  foundations  of  economic 
science^  they  had  one  great  empirical  virtue :  economists  could  accept 
unquestioningly  the  motives  of  economic  actors,  since  a  good  out- 

^  This  choice  of  ground  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that  Voltaire,  who  originally 
subscribed  to  Leibnizian  optimism,  was  shaken  out  of  it,  so  the  scholars  tell  us,  by  a 
natural  event,  the  disaster  of  Lisbon.  Yet  he  chose  the  ground  of  human  affairs  for  his 
attack.  Note  that  even  on  this  ground,  Voltaire  had  previously  illustrated  Leibnizianism 
(in  Zadig,  as  stressed  by  Hazard).  But  in  so  doing  he  must  have  felt  the  difficulty  and 
thus  when  he  declared  war  upon  the  system  this  was  the  battlefield  he  chose. 

*  This  theme  appears  in  J.  S.  Mill  and  in  our  day  has  been  fully  developed  by  Maurice 
Mais. 

^  These  have  been  less  discussed  than  one  would  wish.  See,  however,  W.  Stark,  The 
Ideal  Foundations  of  Economic  Thought  (London,  1943);  G.  Myrdal,  The  Political 
Element  in  the  Development  of  Economic  Theory  (English  edition,  London,  1953);  L.  M. 
Frazer,  Economic  Thought  and  Language  (London,  1947);  J.  A.  Schumpeter,  History  of 
Economic  Analysis  (London,  1954);  but  above  all,  Vilfredo  Pareto,  Manuel  d' Economic 
Politique  (Paris,  1909). 

3  33  J^^ 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  I 

come  was  expected  from  the  vigour  of  desires.  Economists  may  take 
exception  to  my  statement,  but  I  feel  that  the  'ethical  neutrality' 
which  has  served  them  well  has  been  made  possible  by  a  teleological 
optimism.^  It  is  thanks  to  this  promise  of  good  outcome  that 
intellectual  doctors^  could  move  to  the  business  of  understanding 
economic  activity,  away  from  a  centuries-old  attitude  of  upbraiding 
acquisitiveness. 

Such  a  descent  from  a  moral  pulpit  has  occurred  only  quite  recently 
in  political  science,^  arousing  ardent  controversy.*  There  are  strong 
intellectual  reasons  to  applaud  this  descent  and  call  it  belated;  there 
are  strong  prudential  reasons  to  deplore  this  descent  and  call  it 
treason.  Light  can  be  cast  on  the  matter  only  if  we  reject  the  fiction 
that  the  scientist  can  and  should  be  soulless.  It  is  not  because  the 
economist  is  an  ethical  eunuch  that  he  can  envisage  phenomena  with 
ethical  indifference  but  it  is  because  he  expects  a  desirable  ethical 
outcome  regardless  of  the  ethical  concern  and  enlightenment  of  the 
actors;  his  short-term  or  atomistic  indifference  is  warranted  by  his 
long-range  or  overall  optimism.  The  proof  thereof  lies  in  the  revival 
of  moral  passion  regarding  economic  behaviour  in  the  most  scholarly 
economists  as  soon  as  they  find  reason  or  occasion  to  question  the 
assumption  of  overall  maximization.  Now  in  Politics  such  an 
assumption  seems  untenable. 

The  postulate  that  economic  activity  is  not  to  be  feared  and  that 
the  more  of  it  the  better  is  allegorized  in  Dupont  de  Nemours' 
picture  of  a  giant  in  chains,  with  the  caption :  '  Otez-lui  ses  chaines 
et  le  laissez  aller.  '^  But  in  those  countries  where  political  freedom 
has  been  most  prized  and  practised,  see  what  attention  has  been 
devoted  to  the  formalization  of  political  activity,  and  to  the  imbuing 

^  Openly  stated  by  Adam  Smith,  and  underlying  Pareto's  great  work. 

2  I  have  been  advised  that  my  use  in  this  paragraph  and  elsewhere  of  the  terms 
'actors'  and  'doctors'  might  give  rise  to  misunderstanding,  since  such  general  terms 
are  now  commonly  used  to  denote  specific  professions.  I  am,  however,  unwilling  to  give 
up  the  logical  emplojmient  of  these  terms,  which  are  most  convenient  for  the  sorting  out, 
in  any  field,  of  those  who  are  engaged  in  Doing,  and  causing  others  to  Do :  Actors;  and  of 
those  who  are  engaged  in  Knowing,  and  causing  others  to  Know:  Doctors. 

^  This  is  most  clearly  recounted  in  Robert  A.  Dahl,  The  Behavioral  Approach  in 
Political  Science,  Report  for  Fifth  World  Congress  of  the  International  Political  Science 
Association. 

^  The  most  authoritative  attack  is  that  of  Leo  Strauss,  'What  is  Political  Philosophy.? ' 
m.  Journal  of  Politics  (August  1957).  See  also  Irving  Kristol,  'The  Profanation  of  Politics' 
in  The  Logic  of  Personal  Knoxpledge:  Essays  presented  to  Michael  Polanyi  (London,  1961). 

^  I  allude  to  the  frontispiece  of  Dupont  de  Nemours'  pamphlet  of  1788,  Reponse  aux 
Observations  de  la  Chambre  de  Commerce  de  Normandie. 

34 


CH.  3]  POLITICAL  SCIENCE 

of  political  actors  with  a  public  philosophy!^  We  may  hold  the  view 
that  economic  activities  tend  to  combine  harmoniously:  we  cannot 
hold  it  in  the  case  of  political  activities.  Indeed,  Hobbes  devised  a 
model  displaying  the  chaotic  outcome  of  political  activities  running 
wild.  Rousseau  subscribed  to  the  Hobbesian  picture  in  his  very 
refutation,  since  he  found  it  necessary  to  base  his  opposite  picture 
upon  the  supposition  of  a  tiny,  closed  and  static  society. 

The  barbarians  are  coming,  big  men  with  a  cruel  laughter,  who 
use  the  conquered  as  playthings,  dishonoured  and  tossed  about.  Our 
knees  shake  at  the  very  thought  of  them.  Our  bishop,  however,  goes 
out  in  state  and,  bearing  the  Cross,  he  stands  in  the  path  of  the  fierce 
captain.  Our  town  then  shall  be  spared.  The  strange  chief  with  the 
awesome  mien  will  indeed  become  our  sovereign ;  but,  guided  by  the 
man  of  God,  he  will  be  a  just  master,  and  his  son  will,  at  an  early  age, 
learn  from  the  bishop  the  finest  examples  of  wise  kingship. 

The  bishop,  in  my  apologue,  is  political  philosophy:  its  function 
is  to  civilize  power,  to  impress  the  brute,  improve  its  manners,  and 
harness  it  to  salutary  tasks.  In  dealing  with  our  wild  chieftain  the 
bishop  will  often  say  bluntly:  'You  cannot  do  this.'  That  is  not  a 
factual  statement;  the  very  motive  for  the  utterance  is  that  the 
power-bearer  can  in  fact  do  this  thing.  What  hes  in  the  bishop's 
mind,  behind  the  simple  statement,  is  far  more  complex :  '  He  wants 
to  do  this  and  has  the  means  therefor ;  I  cannot  convince  him — nor 
am  I  certain — that  from  this  bad  action  some  harm  will  come  to  him 
that  he  can  recognize  as  a  harm.  He  must  be  prevented  from  doing 
this,  the  moral  prohibition  therefore  has  to  be  made  in  his  imagina- 
tion a  hard,  concrete  obstacle.  "Hence:  You  cannot....'"  This 
manner  of  speech  is  required  for  preceptive  efficiency. 

Similarly,  when  teaching  the  ruler's  turbulent  child,  the  bishop 
accumulates  examples  of  princely  virtue:  'That',  he  says,  'is  what  is 
done.'  He  means  of  course :  ' . . .  what  is  to  be  done. '  Not  all  that 
has  been  done  by  past  rulers  is  relevant  to  his  purpose,  but  only 
those  praiseworthy  attitudes  and  actions  that  can  contribute  to  the 
forming  of  a  noble  image  which,  being  firmly  implanted  in  the  youth, 
will  exert  its  pull  upon  the  conduct  of  the  grown  man.  Deplorable 

^  It  takes  an  observer  foreign  to  Britain  and  the  United  States  to  note  the  extreme 
formaUty  attending  the  least  political  move  (e.g.  the  decorous  conduct  of  the  most 
insignificant  meeting)  and  to  notice  the  fundamental  orthodoxy  which  underlies  all 
political  differences. 

35  3-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  I 

instances  are  adduced  only  if  they  can  be  joined  with  a  tale  of  ensuing 
disaster.  Not  until  the  love  of  virtue  has  been  firmly  established 
will  the  pupil  be  faced  with  the  hard  saying:  ' . .  .there  be  just 
rulers  to  whom  it  happeneth  according  to  the  work  of  the  wicked; 
again  there  be  wicked  rulers,  to  whom  it  happeneth  according  to  the 
work  of  the  righteous.'^  It  is  the  test  of  virtue  that  this  bleak  truth 
be  accepted  by  the  mind,  yet  serenely  spurned  by  the  soul. 

The  political  learning  which  I  sought  to  describe  by  means  of  an 
apologue  turns  upon  two  sentences:  'You  cannot. . . '  (ideal  of  law) 
and  'This  is  what  is  done'  (right  example).  Such  lessons  are  de- 
signed to  edify:  strange  indeed  that  this  word  should  have  fallen  into 
disrepute,  since  it  means  'to  build  up';  and  surely  it  is  important  to 
build  up  the  virtue  of  the  men  who  rule,  whether  it  be  One,  Few, 
or  Many. 

And  here  we  come  to  the  difficulty  attending  a  factual  science  of 
Politics :  by  its  very  nature  it  pulls  down  what  the  preceptive  science 
endeavoured  to  build  up.  Where  the  preceptive  science  stressed 
'You  cannot',  factual  science  is  bound  to  observe  that  'You  can'; 
and  what  the  preceptive  science  indicated  as  'What  is  done'  is 
denied  by  the  findings  of  factual  science:  actual  doings  are  very 
diiferent.  A  factual  science  in  this  realm  is  therefore  dangerous 
medicine  for  weak  moral  constitutions. 

Imagination,  properly  cultivated  and  addressed,  imparts  a  magic 
prestige,  the  loss  of  which  is  a  pubHc  disaster.^  Madame  de  Stael 
helps  us  here  with  two  pictures : 

The  Constituent  Assembly  ever  believed,  erroneously,  that  there  was  some 
magic  in  its  decrees,  and  that  all  would  stop  in  every  way  at  the  line  it 
traced.  But  its  pronouncements  can  be  compared  to  the  ribbon  which  had 
been  drawn  through  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries  to  keep  the  people  at 
some  distance  from  the  palace ;  while  opinion  remained  favourable  to  those 
who  had  drawn  the  ribbon,  no  one  dreamed  of  trespassing;  but  as  soon  as 
the  people  wanted  no  more  of  this  barrier,  it  became  meaningless,^ 

^  Ecclesiastes,  viii.  14. 

^  This  seems  to  be  the  main  lesson  which  Necker  has  drawn  from  the  great  events  he 
was  so  well  placed  to  witness.  It  impregnates  the  two  main  works  he  wrote  in  his  years 
of  retreat:  Du  Pouvoir  Executif  dans  les  Grands  Etats  (2  vols.,  1792,  no  place  of  publica- 
tion), and  De  La  Revolution  Fran  false  (4  vols.,  1797).  Strangely  enough,  in  view  of  the 
very  important  political  role  played  by  the  author,  these  works  enjoy  a  very  limited 
reputation.  But  a  preoccupation  which  imbues  the  whole  work  of  Necker  is  sharply 
revealed  in  the  two  vivid  paragraphs  written  by  his  famous  daughter,  which  are  here 
quoted. 

3  Baronne  de  Stael,  Considerations  sur  les  Principaux  Evenements  de  la  Revolution 
Franfaise  (3  vols.,  Paris,  181 8),  vol.  i,  p.  416. 

36 


CH.  3]  POLITICAL  SCIENCE 

The  grenadiers  marched  into  the  hall  where  the  representatives  were 
assembled,  and  hustled  them  forward  by  simply  advancing  in  solid  forma- 
tion from  one  end  of  the  room  to  the  other.  The  representatives  found 
themselves  pressed  against  the  wall  and  had  to  flee  through  the  window 
into  the  gardens  of  St  Cloud  in  their  senatorial  gowns.  Representatives  of 
the  people  had  already  suffered  proscription;  but  this  was  the  first  time 
that  political  magistrates  were  ridiculed  by  the  military;  and  Bonaparte, 
who  wished  to  establish  his  power  on  the  degradation  of  bodies  as  well  as 
of  individuals,  delighted  that  he  had  been  able,  in  this  first  moment,  to 
destroy  the  reputation  of  the  people's  representatives.  As  soon  as  the  moral 
power  of  national  representation  was  destroyed,  a  legislative  body,  what- 
ever it  might  be,  meant  no  more  to  the  military  than  a  crowd  of  five  hundred 
men,  less  vigorous  and  disciplined  than  a  battalion  of  the  same  number.^ 

Indeed  the  lav^  is  a  mere  ribbon;  but  traditional  political  science 
has  been  at  great  pains  to  make  it  seem  an  impenetrable  wall.  Indeed 
the  body  of  representatives  is  incapable  of  standing  its  ground  against 
a  battalion,  but  traditional  political  science  has  been  at  great  pains 
so  to  raise  its  prestige  that  battalions  may  never  challenge  it  but 
always  obey.  The  danger  of  the  factual  approach  is  that  it  may  deflate 
these  salutary  prestiges. 

The  dangers  of  the  factual  approach  are  not  yet  manifest  because 
studies  of  this  kind  have  been  addressed  to  'weak'  political  be- 
haviour, such  as  voting.  I  speak  of  weak  political  behaviour  since  it  is 
precisely  a  finding  of  such  studies  that  voters  do  not  care  very  much. 
Strong  political  behaviour  is  that  inspired  by  a  strong  passion,^  and 
into  which  men  throw  themselves  wholeheartedly.  The  picture  of 
Politics  which  is  apt  to  emerge  from  the  analysis  of  strong  political 
behaviours^  may  be  nefariously  suggestive. 

However  little  the  scientist  thinks  of  practical  applications,  when- 
ever they  come  to  his  mind  it  is  with  a  favourable  connotation :  the 
gain  in  efficiency  to  be  expected  from  the  increase  in  knowledge  is  a 
good  thing.  No  such  optimism  is  allowed  in  the  case  of  the  'tech- 
nology' which  may  be  derived  from  increased  factual  understanding 
of  Politics :  political  efficiency  may  be  a  bad  thing.  Knowing  how 
men  are  won  over  and  induced  to  lend  their  energies  is  knowledge 
which  can  be  used  for  good  or  evil.  Indeed  it  is  more  likely  to  be 
used  for  evil.   A  good  man  is  humble  and  therefore  advances  his 

^  Op.  cit.  vol.  n,  pp.  240-1. 

^  E.g.  militantism  in  its  moderate  and  extreme  forms  (conspiracy,  terrorism). 
^  'Behaviours'  is  throughout  used  in  its  technical  sense  of  the  sequence  of  a  given 
individual's  actions  in  the  course  of  time,  which  is  of  course  different  for  each  individual. 

37 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  I 

views  with  some  diffidence;  he  respects  his  fellows  and  therefore  is 
not  likely  to  be  an  aggressive  salesman.  It  is  the  presumptuous,  over- 
bearing man  who  is  most  prone  to  exploit  the  technology  of  moving 
men  for  his  purpose. 

This  thought  is  very  disquieting.  And  it  might  suffice  to  turn  the 
scholar  away  from  a  quest  for  knowledge  which  may  be  ill-used,  if 
the  technology  of  Politics  waited  upon  his  discoveries.  But  such 
is  not  the  case :  the  technology  has  been  mightily  developed  outside 
political  science  during  the  last  half-century,  and  developed  by 
the  very  men  to  whom  the  prudent  scientist  would  like  to  deny  it. 
Naturally  enough  those  who  are  least  sensitive  to  the  aesthetic  and 
ethical  appeal  of  traditional  theory  have  broken  away  from  its  re- 
straints and  guidance;  while  those  with  finer  feelings  are  victims  of 
processes  which  they  cannot  grasp.  In  such  a  position  all  the  harm 
which  a  factual  science  of  Politics  can  do  is  already  let  loose,  and  it 
can  come  as  a  useful  warning. 

It  has  been  suggested  here  that  recognition  of  the  dangers  inherent 
in  political  activity  may  have  held  up  the  progress  of  scientific  inquiry 
in  Politics;  but  however  important  this  factor,  it  can  hardly  serve  as  a 
full  explanation.  A  useful  complement  is  suggested  by  comparison 
with  medical  science :  a  comparison  current  since  the  days  of  Plato.^ 

What  is  the  purpose  of  medicine?  The  health  of  the  body.  What 
therefore  is  the  knowledge  required  in  a  doctor  .f^  The  knowledge  of 
health.  This  seems  a  reasonable  approach  to  medicine :  it  leads  first 
to  the  primacy  of  hygiene,^  but  secondly  to  envisaging  any  disease  as 
a  derangement  of  a  natural  harmony.^  Hence  for  instance  Themi- 
son's  classification  of  diseases :  they  arise  from  an  undue  constriction 
(strktum),  from  an  undue  relaxation  {laxum),  or  from  a  combination 
of  both  {mixtum)^  In  a  case  of  strktum^  antispasmodic,  sedative 
medication  is  indicated;  in  a  case  of  laxum,  tonic,  roborative  reme- 

^  The  two  sciences  are  of  equal  antiquity.  Hippocrates  was  born  c.  460  B.C.,  between 
Socrates  {c.  469)  and  Plato  (c.  427). 

^  '  For  the  worshippers  of  Hygeia,  health  is  the  natural  order  of  things,  a  positive 
attribute  to  which  men  are  entitled  if  they  govern  their  lives  wisely.  According  to  them, 
the  most  important  function  of  medicine  is  to  discover  and  teach  the  natural  laws  which 
will  ensure  a  man  a  healthy  mind  in  a  healthy  body. '  (Rene  Dubos,  Mirage  of  Health 
(London,  i960),  p.  113.) 

^  Galen  said  that  the  duty  of  the  doctor  is  to  conserve  the  natural  condition,  to  re- 
establish it  when  perturbed,  and  to  restore  what  is  lacking  as  far  as  feasible.  (From 
F.  J.  V.  Broussais,  Histoire  des  Doctrines  Medicales  et  des  Systemes  de  Nosologie  (4  vols., 
Paris,  1829),  vol.  i,  p.  200.)  *  Ibid.  pp.  107  ff. 

38 


CH.  3]  POLITICAL  SCIENCE 

dies.  This  is  very  attractive,  so  much  so  that  economic  prescriptions 
of  our  own  day  are  '  Themisonian ' :  if  there  are  congestive  areas 
in  the  economy,  reheve  the  pressure  of  demand  by  the  sedatives 
of  deflation  (including  if  necessary  satgnare^  the  removal  of  ex- 
cess buying  power),  and  if  there  is  laxity  in  the  market,  administer 
stimulants. 

However  reasonable  it  seems  to  take  the  satisfactory  state  of 
affairs  as  the  axial  concept,  it  has  not  paid  off  well  in  medicine :  the 
concept  of  health  led  neither  to  a  close  study  of  diseases  attuned  to 
their  specificity,  nor  to  a  far-reaching  physiology.^  It  is  amazing  that 
the  emphasis  laid  upon  the  proper  functioning  of  the  body  should 
have  sparked  off  so  little  curiosity  about  this  very  functioning. 
Physiology  can  hardly  be  said  to  start  before  Harvey  (b.  1578), 
when  medical  science  was  twenty  centuries  old;  and  it  took  wing 
only  with  Haller  (b.  1708).  I  regard  it  as  encouraging  for  my  view 
of  political  science  that  the  microscope  proved  so  important  an 
instrument  of  physiological  knowledge,  and  finally  led  to  the  dis- 
covery that  many  illnesses  are  not  mere  derangements  of  natural 
harmony  but  arise  from  the  intrusion  of  minute  agents.^ 

When  resorting  to  analogy,  one  should  always  stop  to  note  con- 
trasts between  the  systems  compared.  There  is  a  most  striking 
contrast  between  the  object  studied  by  medical  science,  the  body  of 
man,  and  the  object  of  poKtical  science,  the  body  politic.  In  the 
former  case,  only  the  integrated  whole  has  value  in  our  eyes,  the 
component  cells  are  expendable:  not  so  in  the  case  of  the  body 
politic,  where  the  whole  is  justified  by  its  components,  real  persons. 
But  the  contrast  goes  further.  Human  bodies  are  built  on  the  same 
model,  not  so  poHtical  bodies.  The  health  of  the  human  body  is 
therefore  a  clearer  and  more  distinct  notion  than  a  state  of  health  in 
a  body  politic.  The  anatomy  of  the  human  body  is  a  datum,  political 
anatomy  changes.  Therefore,  if  anatomy  is  already  inadequate  know- 
ledge in  the  former  case,*  how  much  more  inadequate  it  must  be  in 
the  latter ! 

^  Kitchen-Latin  for  'blood-letting'. 

^  Dubos  stresses  that  the  broad  point  of  view  of  orthobiosis  leads  to  '  the  danger  of 
substituting  meaningless  generalities  and  weak  philosophy  for  the  concreteness  of  exact 
knowledge'.   {Op.  cit.  p.  137.) 

^  The  word  'microbe',  now  a  popular  term  abandoned  by  scientists,  was  introduced 
as  late  as  1878. 

*  Claude  Bernard  wrote:  'Descriptive  anatomy  is  to  physiology  what  geography  is  to 
history,  and  as  it  is  not  enough  to  know  a  country's  topography  for  the  understanding  of 
its  history,  it  is  not  enough  to  know  the  anatomy  of  organs  for  the  understanding  of  their 

39 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  I,  CH.  3 

The  'healthy  body  poHtic'  is  an  attractive  starting-point  but  one 
which  leads  to  little  progress  of  knowledge.  If  the  body  politic 
wherein  we  find  ourselves  is  accepted  as  being  at  present  healthy,^ 
we  are  not  given  sufficient  provocation  to  look  into  the  minute  day- 
to-day  processes  which  keep  it  so.  If  we  regard  it  as  now  dis- 
tempered, we  are  apt  to  go  back  to  some  past  moment  of  'health' 
with  great  chances  of  substituting  our  fancy  for  the  true  past,  and 
slight  chance  of  understanding  what  has  changed,  where,  how  and 
why.  Even  worse  is  our  picking  upon  some  body  politic  distant  in 
time  and  using  it  as  our  model  of  health.  This  leads  for  instance  to 
the  ludicrous  mistake  of  the  French  Jacobins  who  wanted  to  build  a 
Sparta,  ignoring  that  it  had  rested  upon  extreme  social  inequality, 
its  renowned  '  equals '  forming  but  a  minute  fraction  of  the  whole 
population. 2 

The  notion  of  healthy  political  body  leads  to  pseudo-restorations 
of  which  the  Germanic  '  Holy  Roman  Empire '  is  a  striking  instance.^ 
It  leads  to  transpositions  which  have  never  worked  out  very  well.* 
It  ceases  altogether  to  be  relevant  if  it  is  recognized  that  one  has  to 
meet  new  needs  by  means  of  new  institutions,  or  if  one  cherishes  the 
fancy  of  building  up  such  a  body  politic  as  has  never  been  seen 
before.  In  either  case,  one  must  form  some  idea  of  the  probable 
working-out  of  new  arrangements.  And  such  an  idea  cannot  even 
be  formed  unless  one  has  acquired  as  much  basic  knowledge  as 
possible  about  the  elementary  forms  of  behaviour  which  are  to  be 
dovetailed  in  a  new  combination.  Thus  we  always  come  back  to 
inquiry  into  elementary  political  behaviour. 

functions.  An  old  surgeon,  Mery,  compared  anatomists  to  those  messengers  who  are  to 
be  found  in  great  cities,  and  who  know  the  layout  of  the  streets,  and  the  numbering  of 
buildings,  but  do  not  know  what  goes  on  inside.  Indeed,  in  tissues,  in  organs,  vital 
physico-chemical  phenomena  occur  v.hich  mere  anatomy  cannot  reveal. '  (Lefons  sur  les 
Phenomenes  de  la  Vie  Commune  aiix  Anirnaux  et  aux  Vegetaiix  (2  vols.,  Paris,  1878), 
vol.  I,  pp.  6-7.) 

^  This  complacency  is  a  most  uncommon  attitude. 

^  Again  when  one  takes  Athens  as  a  model,  one  forgets  that  in  its  age  of  extreme 
democracy  (which  did  not  exclude  slavery)  the  notion  that  'aliens'  could  not  become 
part  of  the  body  politic  was  so  fundamentally  embedded  that  Pericles  himself  was  the 
author  of  a  law  which  struck  from  the  registers  a  large  fraction  of  the  citizenry:  men  who 
could  not  prove  that  they  were  descended  from  both  an  Athenian  father  and  an  Athenian 
mother. 

^  Though  why  the  Roman  Empire  should  have  been  looked  back  upon  as  a  healthy 
political  body  is  beyond  my  understanding. 

*  For  instance  the  transposition  of  the  United  States  constitution  in  Latin  America,  or 
for  that  matter  the  transposition  of  the  Westminster  model  in  Continental  Europe. 

40 


PART  II 


SETTING:  EGO  IN  OTHERDOM 


CHAPTER  I 

OF  MAN 

Man  appears,  a  screaming  bundle  of  flesh,  the  outcome  of  mating. 
He  is  utterly  helpless,  his  existence  hangs  upon  the  nursing  he 
receives.  A  plant  develops  autonomously  from  its  seed;  in  much  the 
same  manner  the  lowest  forms  of  animal  life  are  capable  of  loco- 
motion and  self-nourishment  from  birth :  not  so  the  higher  forms  of 
animal  life,  Man  least  of  all.  'Exposing'  an  infant  amounts  to  killing 
it,  since  it  cannot  live  without  the  care  lavished  upon  it  by  the 
mother,  or  a  substitute.  In  the  case  of  Man,  the  capacity  to  survive 
is  not  inherent  in  the  new-born:  the  means  of  survival  must  be 
provided  to  him  by  others.  Since  no  new-born  can  grow  up  Vv^ithout 
such  provision,  some  form  of  organization  for  the  care  and  protection 
of  children  is  a  vital  condition  of  Man's  existence :  there  would  be 
no  men  but  for  the  family;  whatever  its  form  a  fostering  group  is 
essential. 

Not  only  is  such  a  fostering  group  essential  for  the  survival  of  the 
children,  and  therefore  the  production  of  a  new  generation  of  men, 
but  the  newcomers  require  for  their  development  an  attention  con- 
tinuing over  many  years.  Man  is  slow  in  reaching  adulthood.  There 
seems  to  be  a  correlation  between  a  higher  degree  of  biological 
organization  and  a  slower  pace  of  maturation :  this  in  turn  requires 
that  the  fostering  group  should  endure.  No  matter  how  small,  there 
must  be  a  lasting  society  to  afford  protection  and  food  to  the  new- 
comers in  their  prolonged  period  of  physical  helplessness  or  weak- 
ness. The  natural  necessity  of  protecting  the  children  makes  the 
mutual  protection  of  adults  more  necessary  than  it  would  be,  but  for 
these  cherished  impediments:  a  man  can  flee  from  danger  more 
easily  than  a  family.  Basic  traits  of  human  society  derive  from  the 
cherished  helplessness  of  the  offspring.  Most  animal  species  whose 
young  require  some  period  of  care  display  a  rudiment  of  social 
organization  (a  herd)  within  which  there  are  some  means  of  com- 
munication. Obviously  if  the  young  are  all  born  simultaneously  and 
brought  to  adulthood  in  a  succeeding  season,  the  'league  of  parents' 
may  dissolve  after  the  'turning-out'  of  such  a  new  generation;  not  so 
if  new  births  are  all  the  time  occurring  while  older  children  are  still 

43 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  II 

being  attended  to :  the  establishment  must  then  be  permanent,  the 
social  organization  and  the  means  of  communication  can  develop. 

Man's  prolonged  physical  dependence  upon  his  begetters  is  a 
great  boon,  the  sine  qua  non  condition  of  his  humanity.  Living  for 
many  years  in  the  shadow  of  adults,  he  learns,  partly  by  spontaneous 
imitation  and  partly  through  systematic  coaching,  whatever  skills 
they  possess,  such  forms  of  mastery  over  Nature  as  they  owe  to 
their  own  experience  or  to  tradition.  He  does  not  have  to  find  out 
for  himself  what  is  common  knowledge  in  his  group. ^  The  simplest 
human  societies  care  not  only  for  the  immature  but  also  for  the 
superannuated,  who  provide  the  'public  library'  of  primitive  life.^ 
The  process  of  education,  which  occurs  in  any  human  group,  em- 
braces the  acquisition  not  only  of  skills  but  also  of  moral  notions. 
Pufendorf  noted  that  if  Man  attained  the  fullness  of  his  physical 
powers  at  the  age  of  i8  months,  he  would  be  a  wild  and  dangerous 
animal.  It  is  thanks  to  the  length  of  the  tuition  period  that  the  innate 
force  of  the  passions,  which  drive  Man  to  progress,  can  be  combined 
with  an  acquired  mastery  over  these  passions. 

Men  have  been  found  living  in  tiny  hordes  of  a  few  dozen  souls 
with  a  specific  dialect :  it  is  easy  to  picture  some  such  group  manifest- 
ing a  superior  ability  to  ensure  the  survival  of  its  offspring,  thereby 
swelling  its  population.  If  it  succeeds  in  keeping  descendants  to- 
gether, its  social  organization  becomes  more  complex,  its  language 
more  elaborate,^  and  eventually  it  absorbs  a  number  of  less  prolific 
groups.*  Proficiency  in  the  rearing  of  children  must  have  been  the 
first  principle  of  political  selection  and  social  evolution.^  While 
extensive  rearing  must  have  been  in  the  distant  past  an  essential 
condition  of  progress,  intensive  rearing  is  its  permanent  hallmark: 
we  find  the  period  of  tuition  longer  as  our  eye  moves  from  a  lesser 

^  Pride  all  too  often  impedes  us  from  recognizing  that  what  we  have  'found  out  for 
ourselves'  constitutes  but  an  infinitesimal  part  of  our  knowledge,  almost  all  of  which  has 
been  given  to  us  by  society.  And  indeed  this  is  the  more  true  the  higher  the  state  of 
knowledge  in  our  society. 

2  The  rearing  of  children  is  the  'investment'  indispensable  for  the  continuation  of 
mankind.  One  may  think  of  the  preservation  of  the  elders  as  the  first  'investment  in 
progress'  through  the  procuring  of  'memories'. 

^  Language  is  of  course  essential  to  any  progress  in  co-operation  and  advancement  of 
knowledge.  The  present  dependence  of  advanced  societies  upon  tangible  means  of 
communication  is  but  a  faint  image  of  the  general  dependence  of  social  development 
upon  language. 

*  Which  may  either  be  fully  integrated  or  find  themselves  for  some  time  in  a  position 
of  social  inferiority. 

^  Cf.  L.  Krzywicki,  Primitive  Society  and  Its  Vital  Statistics  (Warsaw,  1934). 

44 


CH.  l]  OF  MAN 

to  a  higher  civiHzation,  and  within  the  latter  as  our  eye  moves  up  the 
social  scaled  The  more  accomplished  the  human  product  sought,  the 
longer  its  'period  of  production',  the  duration  of  Man's  dependence. 
Individual  pride  should  be  dashed  by  recognition  that  only  depen- 
dence has  made  us  what  we  are. 

Man  is  to  be  regarded  as  arising  out  of  group  protection  and  group 
tuition :  but  for  the  former  he  would  not  live,  but  for  the  latter  he 
would  not  acquire  the  traits  of  humanity.  Such  obvious  remarks 
should  suffice  to  dispel  the  fantasy  of  Individual  Man  striding  about 
in  Nature  and  deciding  deliberately  to  come  to  terms  with  his 
fellows.  This  is  an  intellectual  monstrosity:  it  assumes  a  certain 
agent,  full-grown  and  competent  to  fend  for  himself,  while  assuming 
away  the  conditions  of  his  production.  This  agent  freely  joins  forces 
with  others:  what  forces.^  Those  due  to  nurture  within  the  social 
nest. 

'Social  contract'  theories  are  views  of  childless  men  who  must 
have  forgotten  their  own  childhood.  Society  is  not  founded  like  a 
club.  One  may  ask  how  the  hardy,  roving  adults  pictured  could 
imagine  the  advantages  of  the  solidarity  to  be,  had  they  not  enjoyed 
the  benefits  of  a  solidarity  in  being  throughout  their  growing  period; 
or  how  they  could  feel  bound  by  the  mere  exchange  of  promises,  if 
the  notion  of  obligation  had  not  been  built  up  within  them  by  group 
existence.^  Indeed  the  most  ancient  of  contracts,  the  exchange  of 
brides  between  two  groups,  is  a  commutative  reception  into  the 
group :  of  the  brides  in  person  and  of  their  kindred  in  principle. 

Many  intellectual  delusions  dissolve  if  one  cleaves  to  the  simple 
truth  that  we  begin  our  lives  as  infants.  Man  is  not  born  free  but 
dependent.  He  does  not  renounce  rights  when  entering  into  society 
but  he  owes  his  very  existence  and  the  features  of  his  developed 
being  to  the  fostering  group.  Instead  of  speaking  of  homo  sapiens  we 
should  speak  of  homo  docilis^  who  reaches  a  condition  of  more  or  less 
sapient  manhood  thanks  to  his  unfolding  within  a  primary  social 
nest.  Our  claim  to  knowledge  rests  upon  our  ability  to  learn,  far  the 
greater  part  of  which  is  a  receptivity  to  teaching.  It  has  been  shown 
that  chimpanzee  and  human  infants,  for  some  eighteen  initial 
months,  display  much  the  same  receptivity  to  teaching,  after  which 

^  A  long  period  of  tuition  for  all  is  now  regarded  as  a  goal  of  every  advanced  society. 
^  The  question  'Why  do  men  feel  bound  by  their  word?'  is  very  properly  raised  by 
G.  Davy,  La  Foi  Juree  (Paris,  1922). 

45 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  II 

such  receptivity  drops  off  sharply  in  the  ape  as  compared  with  the 
human  being.^  Assume  in  the  individual  of  the  species  a  great  talent 
for  'finding  out'  but  a  low  receptivity  for  registering  what  he  is  told 
about  the  'finding  out'  done  by  others:  the  species  would  then 
progress  in  knowledge  far  less  than  it  would  do  with  a  lower 
individual  talent  and  a  considerable  receptivity. 

These  points  are  obvious.  But  I  find  it  useful  to  stress  Man's 
dependence  upon  the  social  nest  and  his  receptivity  to  teaching.  The 
more  so  as  I  propose  to  deal  with  simple  relationships  between 
individuals:^  I  shall  have  no  occasion  then  to  underline  that  they  are 
not  independent  atoms,  therefore  it  is  well  to  emphasize  here  that 
they  are  deeply  rooted  in  social  soil. 

The  infant  is  born  into  a  humanized  cosmos.  The  sharply  un- 
pleasant sensations  of  cold  and  hunger  are  relieved  by  human 
agency :  the  mother  brings  a  rug  or  gives  her  breast.  However  little 
we  know  about  the  beginnings  of  awareness,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  first  'events'  of  which  the  infant  grows  aware  are  caused  by 
human  actions,  though  not  recognized  as  such.  One  of  our  earliest 
steps  in  our  exploration  of  the  universe  is  to  discover,  behind  an 
occurrence,  a  person :  this  being  our  earliest  perception  of  cause,  we 
long  remain  prone  to  identify  the  notion  of  cause  with  that  of  person, 
a  trait  often  underlined  in  the  case  of  primitive  people. 

As  the  child  has  to  be  sheltered  and  is  near-sighted,  the  screen  of 
human  actions  which  constitute  his  immediate  environment  is  more 
important  to  him  than  what  lies  beyond.  And  therefore  'the  way 
things  are'  is  first  and  foremost  'the  ways  of  our  people'.  These 
ways  form  a  pattern  and  constitute  for  the  individual  a  '  structured 
environment'.  If  this  individual  later  in  life  moves  far  away  from  the 
group  within  which  he  was  reared,  no  matter  where  he  moves,  again 
he  will  inevitably  find  a  structured  environment.  Just  as  the  indi- 
vidual starts  his  life  in  a  condition  of  dependence,  he  starts  his 
operations  in  a  previously  structured  environment.  'Man  is  born 
dependent',  'Man  operates  in  a  structured  environment',  have  the 
force  and  value  of  axioms. 

I  find  it  much  better  to  speak  of  a  structured  environment  than  of 

1  Cf.  W.  N.  and  L.  A.  KeUogg,  The  Ape  and  the  Child  (New  York,  1933).  The 
question  'What  happens  when  you  hit  the  Umits  of  receptivity  to  teaching?'  (which  are 
now  assumed  to  be  much  lower  in  some  men  than  others),  is  raised  by  Sir  George 
Thomson  {The  Foreseeable  Future,  Cambridge,  1955:  'The  future  of  the  stupid'). 

-  From  Part  in  onwards. 

46 


CH.   l]  OF  MAN 

a  society,  not  only  because,  in  our  day,  any  actual  environment  is 
much  smaller  and  more  specific  than  'societ}^',  but  also  because  I 
am  anxious  to  avoid  the  unwarranted  personification  implied  in  such 
expressions  as  'society  and  the  individual'.  Society  is  what  Leibniz 
called  '  a  being  formed  by  mental  aggregation,  owing  its  unity  to  our 
mind  V  and  if  we  w^ant  to  see  things  clearly  we  had  better  think  of  a 
complex  of  people  tied  together  by  a  pattern  of  behaviour.  Such  is 
the  setting  within  which  the  individual  man  (henceforth  called  Ego) 
exercises  his  freedom. 

That  Man  is  free  is  an  unquestionable  axiom.  'Is',  not  'should 
be ' :  it  is  not  here  a  legal  right  claimed  but  a  natural  datum  acknow- 
ledged. Acknowledged  by  the  tyrant  himself  when  he  throws  fear  in 
the  balance  of  choice.  Whenever  we  pray,  advise,  exhort  or  command 
a  certain  man  to  do  (or  not  to  do)  a  certain  thing,  we  thereby  acknow- 
ledge that  the  man  can  do  this  or  not ;  otherwise  our  effort  to  influence 
him  would  be  absurd.  This  simple  proof  of  Man's  freedom  (a  third 
axiom)  implies  a  fourth  axiom:  that  man  is  susceptible  to  prompt- 
ings. Men  forever  inciting  each  other,  with  varying  degrees  of 
success,  to  actions  desired  by  the  prompter:  that  we  shall  find 
essential  to  Politics. 

We  may  take  as  a  fifth  axiom  that  Man  is  forward-looking.  The 
word  'project'  is  formed  from  a  verb  {proicio)  denoting  the  action  of 
casting  ahead :  and  indeed  it  is  a  casting  of  the  mind  into  some  future 
moment  of  time,  where  the  imagination  raises  a  picture  which  be- 
comes a  fixed  point  attracting  our  actions.  Picture  it  as  rope  which 
the  climber  flings  up  to  some  outcrop  towards  which,  when  the  rope 
has  caught,  he  will  haul  himself.  Developed  and  equipped  by 
education,  operating  in  a  structured  field,  conceiving  desirable  goals 
and  calHng  on  his  fellows  to  help  him  to  their  attainment — such  is 
PoHtical  Man.  These  are  trite  remarks  but  necessary  steps. 

^  Cf.  Correspondance  de  Leibniz  avec  Arnauld,  ed.  George  Le  Roy  (Paris,  1957, 
Lettre  xx),  pp.  168-9. 


47 


CHAPTER  2 

HOME 

During  his  pre-natal  months,  Man  is  enclosed  and  protected  in  the 
maternal  womb;  thus  also  in  his  early  years,  he  is  enclosed  and 
protected  in  the  familial  womb.  Psychologists  now  tell  us  that  the 
impressions  received  in  Man's  early  years  are  far  the  most  important. 
If  so,  the  understanding  of  Political  Man  calls  for  the  study  of  the 
attitudes  acquired  in  childhood. 

Parents  give,  the  child  receives.  From  parents  to  child,  there  is  a 
downward  flow  of  services  and  goods,  without  return.  What  the 
parents  do  for  the  child  is  not  in  fulfilment  of  a  contract  passed  with 
it,  or  in  expectation  of  a  quid  pro  quo.  At  all  times,  in  all  societies, 
parents  attend  to  and  provide  for  their  children,  feed,  protect  and 
cherish  them:  any  exception  arouses  scandal.  Indeed  the  human 
being  is  never  so  diligently  served  as  while  he  is  incapable  of '  bar- 
gaining' or  'standing  up  for  his  rights'.  Naturally,  therefore,  we 
carry  over  into  our  existence  as  grown  men  some  remnant  of  the 
expectation  to  be  liked,  humoured  and  helped  which  was  fostered  in 
our  childhood. 

This  expectation  is  overlooked  in  those  pictures  of  society  which 
seem  to  assume  a  club  of  celibates:  here  human  relations  are  all 
bargaining,  making  and  carrying  out  of  contracts,  observance  of 
commutative  justice.  It  seems  forgotten  that  mankind  could  not  go 
on  if  there  were  no  giving;  that  the  boon  is  more  essential  than  the 
exchange. 

No  idea  of  a  'return'  due  for  the  kindness  received  enters  the 
child's  mind.  Proof  of  this  assertion  is  easily  adduced:  if  parents 
unwisely  seek  to  foster  such  a  notion,  they  surprise  and  antagonize 
the  child. ^  He  takes  for  granted  the  role  of  the  parent.  On  the  other 
hand  he  quite  early  begins  to  mimic  that  role  in  relation  to  some  toy, 
pet,  or  younger  child.  He  thus  displays  his  ability  to  think  himself 
into  a  part:  the  first  which  he  tries  out,  that  of  mock-parent,  is 
highly  significant.  It  denotes  that  a  non-circular  flow  of  free  services 
underlies  in  any  society  relations  of  exchange.  The  child  will  never 

''•  It  seems  that  this  mistake  is  made  by  parents,  only  when  and  Si  quid  pro  quo  has  been 
impressed  upon  them  as  the  basic  pattern  of  relations  in  society. 

48 


PT.  II,  CH.  2]  HOME 

'repay'  his  parents  for  the  free  gifts  received  from  them,  but  will,  in 
due  time,  provide  similar  boons  to  his  offspring.  The  role  of  mock- 
parent,  a  shadow  of  things  to  come,  is  tried  out  very  soon  and  then 
laid  aside,  to  be  resumed  in  earnest  much  later  in  life. 

However  useful  it  is  that  commutative  justice  should  obtain 
between  those  who  travel  side  by  side  in  the  stream  of  time,  they 
could  not  have  started  on  their  journey  without  a  waterfall  of 
liberality  at  its  origin,  and  they  must  in  turn  be  the  head  of  another 
waterfall  of  liberality.  That  is  essential,  and  any  view  of  society 
which  does  not  bring  it  to  the  fore  must  be  misleading. 

As  it  is  necessary  that  Man  should  at  one  stage  of  his  life  receive 
without  returning,  and  at  another  stage  give  without  a  return,  it  is 
hardly  surprising  that  his  attitude  towards  his  fellows  should  display 
traces  of  both  his  child-role  and  his  parent-role,  some  expectation  to 
be  taken  care  of,  and  some  disposition  to  take  care  of  others.  These 
two  propensities  are  surely  present  in  every  one  of  us  but  in  very 
different  proportions.  The  role  of  parent  impHes  taking  care  of  a 
very  few  others :  therefore  it  is  not  easy  to  impart  to  this  propensity 
a  very  large  span,  and  only  a  few  tend  to  become '  a  tower  of  strength ' 
to  many;  while  the  habit  of  having  one's  needs  attended  to  by  others 
dies  hard,  and  the  demand  for  'protection'  remains  widespread  in  a 
generation  of  adults,  an  important  political  datum. 

The  child  grows  up  in  the  shadow  of  towering  adults.  They  have 
forces  he  lacks,  the  abihty  to  do  what  he  cannot.^  Power  properly 
means  nothing  other  than  ability  to  do.  The  adults  who  can  do  what 
the  child  cannot,  have  superior  power.  In  his  eyes,  they  are  Great 
Powers.  As  such  they  are  impressive:  hence  a  propensity  to  obey 
them.  I  deny  that  the  child's  obedience  is  rooted  in  fear.  An  assured 
voice  falling  from  a  great  height  has  a  momentum  of  its  own,  without 
any  imphed  threat.  If  a  child  has  never  suffered  the  infliction  of  the 
parent's  strength,  he  does  not  imagine  its  being  turned  against  him 
and,  when  this  occurs,  feels  amazed. 

There  are  of  course  huge  differences  in  parental  attitudes  towards 
children,  a  matter  of  social  fashion  as  well  as  of  individual  character. 
Anthropologists  report  attitudes  far  milder  than  those  related  by 
Latin  authors.  Xenophon's  example  has  been  too  little  followed :  we 
need  studies  linking  education  to  political  mores. 

But  even  where  parental  attitudes  are  far  more  repressive  than  we 
^  The  emphasis  is  upon  'cannot':  there  is  no  question  here  of 'may  not'. 

4  49  J  FT 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  II 

now  like  them  to  be,  the  Great  Powers  at  whose  feet  the  child  plays 
are  primarily  helpful  and  beneficent.^  The  more  so  in  the  earliest 
childhood,  since  then  the  main  figure  is  the  mother.  The  Great 
Power  is  constantly  available  to  remedy  any  difficulty  experienced  by 
the  child.  The  infant  places  itself  in  real  or  fancied  jeopardy,  calls 
out,  and  is  unfailingly  rescued.  This  relationship  persists  as  the  child 
grows  up.  Indeed  the  very  fact  that  the  child  survives  and  develops 
testifies  to  the  protective  efficiency  of  the  Great  Powers.  Such  ex- 
perience accustoms  Man-in-formation  to  regard  Authority  as  acces- 
sible to  his  calls,  prompt  to  intervene  in  his  favour.  However 
essential  the  difference  between  the  superior  power  of  the  parent 
(which  inheres  in  the  person,  is  due  to  his  being  a  fully  developed 
adult)  and  the  superior  power  of  the  governor  (which  is  made  up  of 
the  obedience  of  his  equals  in  natural  powers),  the  notion  of  an 
attentive,  responsive,  and  helpful  superior  power  tends  to  be  trans- 
ferred from  one  to  the  other.  Such  an  expectation  relative  to 
Authority  is  satisfied  much  better,  in  adult  life,  by  the  'Boss'  who 
'will  take  care  of  my  problem',  than  by  the  magistrate  who  has  no 
regard  to  persons  and  merely  'follows  the  law'.  Those  who  dwarfed 
us  when  we  were  'small'  proved  accessible  and  helpful:  this  we 
expect  as  adults  when  we  feel  'weak'  or  'in  trouble'  from  those  who 
tower  above  us  in  positions  of  Authority. 

Parents  are  naturally  stronger  and  more  knowledgeable  than  we 
are,  and  naturally  inclined  to  procure  our  welfare.  It  is  a  great 
convenience  for  the  government  of  men  that  we  are  prone  to  assume 
these  same  traits  in  our  rulers,  however  often  experience  proves  our 
assumption  to  be  ill-founded  (which  usually  leads  to  no  more  than  a 
transfer  of  our  expectation). 

The  child  lives  in  a  stable  universe:  this  stability  is  diligently 
maintained  by  that  shock-absorbing  agency,  the  family  group.  No 
matter  what  waves  hit  the  group,  as  far  as  possible  the  child's  quiet 
pool  is  preserved  from  their  impact.  For  the  child  a  patch  of  cer- 
tainty is  secured  in  an  uncertain  world,  and  therefrom  an  expectation 
of  continuing  orderliness  in  human  society. 

The  familiar  formulation  'law  and  order'  reveals  a  juristic  origin. 
A  psychologist  would  no  doubt  emphasize  that  the  notion  of  order 

^  Since  this  was  written  I  have  seen  the  interesting  paper  of  Robert  D.  Hess  and 
David  Easton,  'The  child's  changing  Image  of  the  President',  Public  Opinion  Quarterly ^ 
vol.  XXIV,  winter  i960. 

50 


CH.  2]  HOME 

is  much  prior  to  the  idea  of  law.  Order  is  what  we  expect;  and  laws 
are  features  thereof  which  we  find  it  possible  to  pick  out  and  express. 
In  the  sciences  of  Nature,  of  course,  we  proceed  from  a  general 
postulate  of  order  to  the  spelling  out  of  some  specific  regular 
relations.  Surely  the  first  human  laws  were  derived  in  the  same 
manner. 

Ask  a  child  to  describe  'the  ways  of  the  home':  if  he  can  be 
induced  to  the  intellectual  feat  implied,  you  will  find  that  the  result 
looks  somewhat  like  the  'Twelve  Tables'  of  the  Roman  law.  The 
child  will  have  picked  out  the  way  some  things  are  done  'when  they 
are  done  right'.  His  statements  could  be  pretentiously  described  as 
sociological  observations  restricted  to  favourable  cases.  It  is  very 
probable  that  the  first  laws  formulated  in  human  societies  were  of 
this  kind,  and  probable  moreover  that  the  effort  of  formulation  was 
made  because  of  the  accession  of  aliens  who  had  to  be  told  what  the 
members  of  the  group  were  aware  of. 

The  contrast  drawn  by  philosophers  between  the  descriptive '  laws 
of  Nature'  and  the  prescriptive '  laws  of  the  City'  maybe  narrowed 
down,  if  we  go  back  far  enough.  Primitive  laws  are  simultaneously 
descriptive  and  prescriptive:  'this  is  the  way  things  are  done  by  our 
good  people,  and  must  be  done  by  aW.  Like  the  laws  of  Nature, 
they  describe  courses  which  have  been  observed ;  but  the  courses  of 
men  are  not  as  uniform  as  those  of  Nature.  The  statement :  '  this  is 
the  way  things  are  done  by  good  people '  of  itself  carries  a  strong 
suggestion,  which  may  well  suffice;  but  in  times  of  perturbation, 
when  Ego  comes  to  doubt  whether  others  will  follow  the  'proper' 
course,  the  imperative  intervenes  to  restore  his  confidence.  Thus 
while  primitive  laws  as  well  as  the  laws  of  Nature  start  as  assertions 
of  facts,  in  the  case  of  the  human  law  its  purpose  is  not  only  to  make 
the  facts  known,  but  to  make  them  more  true:  or  in  other  terms  to 
combat  the  frequency  of  departure  from  the  pattern  stated.^ 

The  child  needs  a  reliable  environment.  So,  to  a  lesser  degree, 
does  the  grown  man.  In  the  case  of  the  child,  there  is  an  agency  for 
the  provision  of  a  reliable  environment:  the  enfolding  family  group. 
In  the  case  of  the  man,  reconcihation  of  reHability  with  freedom  and 
change  poses  the  most  difficult  problems  of  Politics. 

Man  appears  within  a  family,  and  in  time  forms  a  family.  But  the 
family  he  forms  as  an  adult  is  then  only  a  special  and  privileged 

^  Therefore  periods  of  legislative  activity  tend  to  occur  in  times  of  trouble. 
51  4-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  II 

segment  of  his  human  contacts,  while  at  the  outset  all  his  human 
contacts  are  within  the  family  which  fosters  him.  We  are  'home- 
made' and  derive  therefrom  certain  expectations  concerning  our 
relations  with  our  fellows,  which  are  more  or  less  sharply  dis- 
appointed when  we  move  out  of  the  home;  their  vigour  is  attested 
by  our  readiness  to  espouse  the  ideal  of  a  nation-wide  or  world-wide 
family. 

The  urge  to  collectivism  is  present  to  some  degree  in  most  men, 
whether  consciously  or  not,  stemming  from  the  experience  of  our 
childhood.  The  more  definite  its  wording,  the  more  clear  it  becomes 
that  the  picture  is  drawn  from  the  model  of  the  family.  '  One  for  all 
and  all  for  one,  from  each  according  to  his  capacity,  to  each  according 
to  his  needs':  these  are  the  'natural  ways'  of  the  home. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  here  to  discuss  whether  a  social  edifice  com- 
prising tens  or  hundreds  of  millions  can  be  built  on  the  same  lines  as 
one  which  comprises  only  a  few  individuals.  Galileo's  law  should 
be  kept  in  mind,  stating  that  a  structure,  solid  and  serviceable  at  a 
given  size,  cannot  stand  if  one  seeks  to  reproduce  it  in  a  different 
order  of  size;  that  the  much  greater  edifice  has  to  be  built  on 
different  lines.^ 

But  it  is  relevant  to  note  that  primitivist  nostalgia,  widespread  in 
classical  literature  and  strikingly  displayed  by  Rousseau,  must  be 
granted  some  factual  foundation.^  Very  early  societies  comprising  a 
few  dozen  members  did  have  the  character  of  'large  famiHes':  the 
child  growing  up  therein  could  look  upon  all  elders  as  'uncles'  or 
'  aunts ',  and  the  playmates  of  his  early  years  were  the  fellows  of  his 
manhood.^ 

The  man  born  into  such  a  society,  in  fact,  never  'left  home'.  The 
setting  of  his  infancy  was  also  that  of  his  maturity,  and  the  social  lore 
of  the  household  remained  valid  in  the  city.  Under  such  conditions, 
the  development  of  the  individual  did  not  proceed  very  far,  but  his 
affinity  to  his  fellows  was  very  strong.  Surely  the  affinity  between 
two  persons  taken  at  random  in  such  a  society  is  far  stronger  than 

^  Galileo's  law  is  expressed  in  his  Discorsi  e  Dimostrazioni  matematiche,  intorno  a  due 
scienze  nuovi. .  .and  is  thoroughly  discussed  in  that  most  admirable  book  by  D'Arcy 
Wentworth  Thompson,  On  Growth  and  Form  (Cambridge,  2nd  edition,  1942). 

^  On  Primitivism,  cf.  A.  O.  Lovejoy  and  G.  Boas,  Primitivism  and  Related  Ideas  in 
Antiquity  (Baltimore,  1935)  and  G.  Boas,  Essays  on  Primitivism  and  Related  Ideas  in 
the  Middle  Ages  (Baltimore,  1948). 

^  An  immense  and  entrancing  literature  exists  on  family  relationships  in  Naturvolker. 
What  I  say  here  of  'uncles'  and  'aunts'  is  of  course  a  brutal  simplification,  but  all  that 
is  needed  for  my  purpose. 

52 


CH.  2]  HOME 

between  two  persons  taken  at  random  in  our  modern  society? 
Whatever  the  merits  of  the  large,  open,  heterogeneous  society,  it 
bears  the  psychological  handicap  that  average  bilateral  affinity  is 
weak. 

The  material  benefits  afforded  by  a  large  society  are  conditional 
upon  uprooting  and  mixing  processes  which  thrust  Ego  into  com- 
panies characterized  by  a  low  degree  of  mutual  affinity.  This  is  one 
of  the  main  causes  of  the  unease  or  anxiety  which  is  so  commonly 
attributed  to  modern  man :  the  feehng  indeed  seems  the  more  pro- 
nounced the  more  'advanced'  the  society.  That  Ego  should  find 
himself  with  uncongenial  fellows  is,  given  the  conditions,  the  most 
probable  situation,  but  not  one  to  which  Ego  is  condemned.  The 
open  society  affords  him  opportunities  of  finding  congenial  associ- 
ates, with  whom  he  can  achieve  an  affinity  much  higher  in  quality 
than  that  which  is  naturally  given  in  the  small,  closed  society. 
Dissatisfaction  with  the  haphazard  cluster  in  which  Ego  finds  him- 
self and  the  eager  search  for  more  suitable  companionship  are  basic 
attitudes  which  have  their  impact  on  the  political  plane:  if  in- 
adequate harmony  with  one's  given  environment  can  be  imputed  to 
some  specific  institution,  if  the  search  for  affinity  can  be  channelled 
towards  companionship-at-arms  in  a  movement,  important  political 
phenomena  are  generated.  It  does  not  affect  their  generation  that 
the  military  comradeship  proves  transitory  and  the  removal  of  the 
institution  incapable  of  estabHshing  the  desired  harmony. 

The  child  survives  thanks  to  services  v/hich  natural  affection 
inspires.  The  grown  man  goes  through  life  requiring  affection,  and  is 
fortunate  indeed  if  he  obtains  it  from  worthy  persons  whose  expecta- 
tions spur  him  on  to  achievements.  Geniuses,  it  is  said,  can  do 
without  such  a  climate,  not  so  ordinary  men.  We  are  affective 
creatures,  and  moved  by  our  affections. 

Working  upon  men's  affections  is  characteristic  of  PoHtics.  Fol- 
lowers are  won,  not  hired.  A  man's  services  can  be  obtained  in 
exchange  for  something  which  he  wants,  and  this  is  basic  to  economic 
relationships.  In  that  case  the  man  does  not  want  to  do  what  he  is 
doing,  but  he  does  it  for  the  sake  of  a  quite  different  desire  of 
his  own;  therefore  it  is  rational  for  him  to  pay  the  least  possible 
price  for  what  he  wants.  Political  urging,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
a  stirring  up  of  a  man's  own  passions,  and  what  he  will  then  do  in 
the  direction  suggested  depends  upon  their  vigour. 

53 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS   [PT.  II,  CH.  2 

Man  is  capable  of  love,  devotion,  admiration,  respect,  resentment, 
fear,  envy,  anger,  vengefulness,  cruelty.  His  passions  are  essential  to 
Politics,  and  therefore  we  are  justified  in  drawing  attention  to  their 
early  shaping  within  the  home.  The  development  of  the  child  should 
receive  a  great  deal  of  attention  from  students  of  Politics — the  form 
of  adult  activity  wherein  the  traits  of  childish  behaviour  are  best 
preserved. 


54 


CHAPTER  3 

OTHERDOM 

A  'new  boy'  stands  in  the  courtyard  of  the  boarding-school  to  which 
his  father  has  just  brought  him.  He  is  lost  in  uncharted  territory, 
among  an  alien  people:  he  feels  a  solitary  intruder  in  a  strange 
cosmos,  the  parts  of  which  have  no  name  or  meaning  for  him,  and  in 
which  he  has  no  place  or  significance.  He  is  exposed  to  the  queries, 
demands  and  commands  of '  the  others '  who,  at  first,  appear  to  him 
as  a  many-voiced  and  many-limbed  giant,  unaccountable  and  over- 
powering. How  can  he  single  anything  out,  when  behind  so  many 
surrounding  windows  are  unknown  rooms,  and  behind  so  many  faces 
unknown  characters.?  He  perceives  only  an  ancient,  all-pervading 
and  omnipotent  presence  to  which  he  must  bow.  This  subjective 
appraisal  I  denote  by  the  expression:  'Ego  in  Otherdom'. 

I  could  say  that  the  child  is  an  immigrant  in  an  established  society. 
But  here  I  shun  the  latter  term,  because  it  suggests  a  form  of  know- 
ledge which  pertains  to  the  observer,  not  to  the  subject.  When  we  look 
down  upon  a  human  cluster  from  a  position  of  intellectual  vantage, 
when  we  treat  it  as  an  obj  ect  of  thought  whereof  we  consider  the  funda- 
mental structure,  then  what  we  hold  under  our  eyes  can  properly  be 
spoken  of  as  a  society.  But  the  new  boy  enjoys  no  such  detachment, 
can  achieve  no  such  masterful  vision.  From  his  humble  point  of  entry, 
he  gropes  forward  almost  blindly,  feels  his  way  by  methods  akin  to 
the  sense  of  touch,  venturing  and  then  drawing  back  when  he 
encounters  a  check.  His  knowledge,  empirical  and  subjective,  extends 
irregularly  in  different  directions  by  reason  of  the  contacts  achieved: 
it  is  no  more  than  a  growing  famiharity  with  certain  places,  paths, 
and  persons.  Society  known  in  this  manner,  from  the  viewpoint  of  the 
individual  experimentally  coming  to  terms  with  it,  I  call  Otherdom. 

The  word  is  so  chosen  as  to  convey  the  feehng,  immanent  in  the 
knower's  approach,  that  what  he  moves  in  is  the  realm  of  the  others, 
wherein  he  is  subject  to  the  demands  of  the  others.  Which  others.? 
All  the  others,  and  this  is  the  important  point. 

By  one  whose  attention  is  focused  upon  government,  a  school  may 
be  described  as  a  monarchic  Rechtsstaat.   Bound  by  fundamental 

55 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  II 

laws  and  inspired  by  a  more  or  less  clear  view  of  the  benefits  which 
should  be  afforded  to  the  subjects,  the  Principal  has  legislative  and 
judicial  powers  and  is  Chief  Executive.  His  ministers  in  executive 
offices,  whether  his  agents  or  junior  partners,  whether  appointed  by 
himself  or  by  the  same  superior  who  appointed  him,  may  as  a 
Senate  of  Professors,  or  House  of  Lords,  share  to  different  degrees 
his  decision-making,  or  simply  assist  him  with  their  advice  if  and 
when  sought.  Whatever  the  various  combinations  possible  in  theory 
and  practice,  the  Principal  is  the  supreme  authority  within  the 
school.  And  it  is  to  him  that  the  father  entrusted  his  boy,  to  him 
that  the  father  will  utter  whatever  protest  he  may  eventually  feel 
inclined  to  make.  Indeed  the  father  feels  that  the  boy  has  become, 
for  a  time  and  a  purpose,  a  subject  of  a  Master,  owing  obedience  to 
the  Principal's  rules  and  decisions. 

However  suitable  this  may  be  as  a  formal  definition  of  the  child's 
situation,  it  utterly  fails  to  convey  his  position  as  he  experiences  it. 
The  child  is  exposed  to  pressures  which  are  not,  by  any  means, 
confined  to  the  rules  and  commands  of  school  authorities :  requests 
and  promptings  proceed  in  far  greater  number  from  his  fellows,  who 
form  a  complex  company,  with  its  common  customs,  its  rival  clans, 
its  competing  leaders. 

'Those  first  days  [at  school],  like  your  first  days  in  the  army,  were 
spent  in  a  frantic  endeavour  to  find  out  what  you  had  to  do.'^ 
Practically  everything  I  wish  to  say  is  packed  in  that  sentence. 
Awareness  that  there  are  things  you  have  to  do,  ignorance  as  to 
what  they  are,  fear  of  failing  to  do  the  right  thing  or  of  doing  the 
wrong  thing,  extreme  responsivity  to  directions,  which  makes  you  a 
ready  prey  for  malicious  misdirection,^  incapacity  to  discriminate 
between  the  various  promptings :  indeed  at  this  initial  stage,  any  and 
every  voice  is  deemed  an  expression  of  Otherdom's  collective  will. 

The  new  boy  painfully  finds  out  that  marching  to  this  or  that 
bidding  has  brought  him  under  this  or  that  fire,  and  instinctively 

^  The  sentence  quoted  is  from  C.  S.  Lewis,  Surprised  by  Joy  (p.  74  of  the  Fontana 
edition).  In  that  beautiful  book,  two  chapters,  'Bloodery'  and  'Light  and  Shade', 
describe  the  encounter  of  the  boy  Lewis  with  the  'tribe'  of  the  Wyvern  schoolboys.  They 
constitute  an  entrancing  anthropological  analysis  of 'tribal'  customs;  but,  even  more  to 
my  point,  they  recount  the  experiences  of  'finding  out',  illustrating  the  approach  here 
designated  by  the  expression  'Ego  in  Other dom'.  While  I  can  think  of  no  more  im- 
pressive treatment  of  the  subject,  I  am  aware  that  the  theme  'new  boy  at  school'  occurs 
in  many  works  of  literature.  In  our  day  of  sociological  studies,  it  would  seem  worth- 
while to  make  a  collection  of  such  accounts,  the  comparison  of  which  would  yield  lessons. 

^  Cf.  the  misdirection  by  one  Fribble  in  C.  S.  Lewis,  op.  cit. 

56 


CH.  3]  OTHERDOM 

seeks  an  equilibrium  path^  between  pressures  the  diversity  of  which 
he  comes  to  reaHze.  Such  a  path  is  indeed  very  different  from  mere 
obedience  to  formal  authority;  and  if  the  father  has  instructed  the 
child  to  submit  in  all  cases  to  established  authority,  the  boy  will  find, 
by  incurring  the  mockery  and  indignation  of  others,  that  this  is  not 
the  optimal  course,  the  tracing  of  which  is  altogether  more  complex. 
What  to  do,  when,  with  whom,  and  how,  is  learned  by  a  process  of 
interaction  with  the  collective,  a  process  whereby  the  boy  acquires  a 
worldly  prudence  attuned  to  this  specific  Otherdom, 

Man  finds  himself  similarly  in  a  maze  when  he  enters  a  profession, 
is  recruited  into  a  firm,  is  received  in  a  military  body,  takes  up  a 
situation,  is  admitted  to  a  club  or  into  a  circle.  The  new  member  of 
parliament  is  in  no  very  different  situation  from  the  new  boy  at 
school :  he  hardly  feels  at  once  one  of  those  who  share  equally  in  the 
existence  of  a  body,  rather  he  senses  at  first  that  he  comes  alone  into 
an  ancient  and  exacting  presence.  He  stands  before  the  Sphinx, 
doubting  his  ability  to  answer  the  riddles.  Problems  of  behaviour  in 
a  new  environment  are  indeed  riddles  to  a  newcomer,  who  is  in- 
timidated, ill  at  ease,  and  consequently  sensitive,  and  easily  resentful. 
He  suspects  that  he  may  be  making  a  false  step,  fears  to  be  laughed 
at  or  penahzed. 

This  feeling  of  being  a  solitary  junior,  exposed  to  ridiculous  or 
disastrous  mistakes,^  affects  even  the  elderly  and  more  or  less  famous 
man  who  has  just  been  elected  to  the  French  Academy.  Every  man 
is  at  some  time,  and  maybe  several  times,  a  raw  newcomer  in  a 
pre-existing  company.  Bonaparte  himself  was  a  bewildered  'new 
boy'  at  Brienne,  and  one  might  mark  out,  in  the  career  of  this  most 
forceful  of  men,  successive  critical  moments  when  he  had  to  find  his 
bearings  in  new  environments. 

Each  man  begins  operating  within  a  field  already  settled,  wherein 
he  finds  prior  occupants,  and  an  established  complex  of  relations  and 
manners.  Such  priority  of  Otherdom  relatively  to  the  individual 
should  be  remembered  as  the  basic  datum  of  political  science. 

The  psychological  position  of  inferiority  which  I  have  stressed  is 
not  at  all  conveyed  when  one  says  that  Ego  becomes  a  member  of 
'society'.  This  word,  borrowed  from  the  juristic  vocabulary,  has 

^  A  line  of  advance  which  presents  such  features  that  there  is  no  sufficient  reason  to 
stray  to  its  left  or  right. 

^  Cf.  Balzac,  Un  Debut  dans  la  vie. 

SI 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  II 

retained  juristic  connotations  which  are  misleading.  Just  as  socius 
means  a  companion  you  have  dehberately  chosen,  one  with  whom 
you  have  contracted  an  alHance,  societas  means  an  association  you 
have  entered  upon  by  an  expHcit  meeting  of  wills,  a  contract.  Indeed 
jurists  have  commonly  used  the  term  society  to  designate,  not  only 
the  situation  arising  from  a  given  contract,  but  that  very  contract.^ 
Thus  when  the  complex  of  human  relations  had  been  (as  I  believe, 
unsuitably)  designated  by  the  name  fitting  a  voluntary  and  ter- 
minable partnership,  by  a  natural  association  of  ideas  it  was  assumed 
that  a  'social  contract'  must  underlie  it. 

All  this  suggests  an  agreement  reached  by  Ego  on  a  footing  of 
equaUty  with  all  the  other  members  figuring  in  the  agreement,  ut 
singulis.  But  if  one  insists  upon  thinking  in  terms  of  contract,  the 
subjective  impression  of  Ego  is  that  he  signs  on  the  dotted  line,  as 
one  weak,  solitary  party,  subscribing  willy-nilly  to  the  conditions 
laid  down  by  all  the  others  together,  which  appear  to  him  to  make 
demands  with  the  collective  force  of  one  powerful  body.  And  while 
this  is  nothing  but  Ego's  fancy,  it  is  none  the  less  operative. 

If  I  may  digress  for  a  moment,  the  idea  of  social  contract  entered 
literature  in  the  guise  of  what  we  would  now  call  a  government 
contract.  In  any  political  doctrine  it  is  recognized  that  the  ruled 
have  obligations  towards  the  rulers  and  the  rulers  obligations  to- 
wards the  ruled.  This  can  be  represented  as  an  implicit  exchange  of 
promises :  indeed  it  can  give  rise  to  an  explicit  exchange  of  promises.^ 
This  view  of  things  is  quite  advantageous  to  freedom  since  civil 
obedience  to  the  governor  is  now  conditional  on  his  keeping  the 

^  Thus  Domat:  'La  societe  est  une  convention  entre  deux  ou  plusieurs  personnes' 
(Jean  Domat,  Les  Loix  Civiles,  livre  i,  tit.  viil,  sec.  i:  folio  ed.,  Paris,  1735,  p.  82). 
Thus  Ferriere:  'La  societe  est  un  contrat  du  Droit  des  Gens. . . '  {Institutes. .  .avec  des 
Observations,  hvre  lli,  tit.  xxvi,  ed.  Paris,  1701,  vol.  v,  p.  144). 

On  the  ambiguity  of  the  word  societe,  cf.  my  article  on  'Societe:  Contribution  au 
Dictionnaire  des  Termes  Fondamentaux  de  la  Philosophie  et  de  la  Pensee  Politique', 
Revue  Internationale  de  Philosophie,  no.  55  (1961),  fasc.  i. 

2  Sir  Ernest  Barker  puts  it  very  vi^ell : '  Feudalism  generally  vi^as  a  system  of  contract, 
under  which  each  man  could  say  to  his  lord:  "I  will  be  to  you  faithful  and  true. .  .on 
condition  that  you  keep  me  as  I  am  willing  to  deserve,  and  all  that  fulfil  that  our  agree- 
ment was,  when  I  to  you  submitted  and  chose  your  will"  {sic).  It  was  part  of  this  general 
system  of  contract  that  the  feudal  king,  at  his  coronation,  entered  into  an  explicit  con- 
tract with  his  feudatories  when  he  exchanged  a  coronation  oath,  pledging  him  on  his 
side  to  good  government,  for  their  reciprocal  oath  of  homage  and  fealty. '  (Introduction 
to  Social  Contract  in  the  World's  Classics  edition.)  Note  the  resemblance  with  the 
'contract'  between  leaders  and  militants  in  a  party  of  today.  If  the  leading  team  does  not 
keep  its  promises  in  the  judgement  of  some  fraction  of  the  militants  they  are  justified  in 
a  withdrawal  of  their  loyalty. 

58 


CH.  3]  OTHERDOM 

promise  he  made.  Presumably  it  was  in  order  to  erase  reference  to  a 
ruler  that  the  idea  was  shifted  to  that  of  a  contract  of  each  with  all : 
little  did  the  liberty-minded  authors  of  this  shift  suspect  that  thereby 
a  commutative  contract  was  changed  to  a  leonine  one.  For  I  can 
break  my  contract  with  the  ruler  if  he  has  not  observed  its  clauses, 
but  I  cannot  break  off  from  'all  the  others'  if  I  deem  myself 
misused. 

You  can  tell  me  that  the  social  field  in  which  I  find  myself  has 
rules  and  customs  which  I  would  be  foolhardy  to  infringe,  that  I 
shall  arouse  enmity  if  I  show  no  deference  to  the  values  current 
therein,  that  I  shall  suffer  if  I  do  not  meet  the  demands  made  upon 
me;  that  moreover  I  should  cultivate  my  affection  for  my  fellows  and 
thus  become  chary  of  offending  them ;  that  I  should  also  seek  to 
understand  what  is  estabhshed  so  that  my  conforming  shall  come 
from  rational  assent  rather  than  from  timorousness ;  but  it  is  too 
much  to  tell  me  that  I  have  of  my  own  free  will  entered  into  an 
association  with  men  most  of  whom  I  shall  never  know,  and  signed 
a  contract  rife  with  clauses  which  I  can  in  fact  discover  only  bit  by 
bit.  This  is  equivalent  to  producing  an  endless  document  in  illegible 
print  to  which  my  signature  has  been  faked.  Non-conformity 
thereby  becomes  forfeiture.  My  dependence  upon  all  the  others 
seems  in  itself  enough  to  bind  me  down  without  the  forging  of  my 
signature. 

Indeed  Otherdom  encircles  and  constrains  Ego.  It  can  be  sensed 
as  more  or  less  oppressive.  Consider  a  mathematician  thrown  in  with 
a  company  of  horsemen :  he  feels  baffled  because  he  does  not  under- 
stand what  he  is  told,  because  he  lacks  the  skill  to  do  what  is  expected 
of  him;  but  these  handicaps  of  unfamiharity  might  perhaps  be  over- 
come; more  fundamental  is  his  lack  of  affinity  with  the  company:  he 
does  not  ardently  desire  to  become  a  good  horseman,  has  no  respect 
for  the  values  here  prevailing,  and  is  deeply  offended  by  the  spurning 
of  his  values.  He  might  accept  being  laughed  at  during  the  period  of 
clumsiness  preceding  his  earning  acceptance,  but  he  cannot  tolerate 
contemptuous  rejection  of  what  he  holds  dear. 

Such  a  situation  is  quite  common  in  advanced  societies:  it  is 
inconceivable  in  a  primitive  society.  Here  is  no  sharp  contrast  be- 
tween 'home'  and  'otherdom',  in  fact  here  is  no  'Otherdom':  the 
society  wherein  the  adult  will  move  is  no  more  than  the  extension  of 
the  family  which  reared  him.  He  is  destined  to  live  with  his  'peers' : 

59 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  II 

peers  not  in  the  narrow  sense  of  different  men  with  equal  rights,  but 
in  the  true  deep  sense  of  men  with  similar  tastes  and  principles.^ 

Being  thrown  as  an  unknown  into  a  company  where  one  knows 
nobody  and  the  manners  of  which  one  is  unaccustomed  to  is  an 
experience  common  to  modern  Man,  but  this  never  happens  to  the 
primitive.  His  birth  has  been  noticed  by  a  variety  of  kinsfolk  and 
practically  the  whole  village;  as  he  begins  to  run  around  he  accom- 
phshes  his  'Grand  Tour'  of  the  human  cosmos  which  is  to  be  his 
life-setting.  All  his  seniors  participate,  to  different  degrees,  in  his 
education,  which  is  a  continuous,  informal  process,  teaching  him  to 
meet  the  actual  situations  of  daily  life,  in  his  people's  way.  Here  the 
cosmos  of  the  adult  is  congruent  with  the  cosmos  of  the  child,  the 
behaviour  which  will  be  expected  of  the  adult  is  that  which  he  has 
observed  and  mimicked  as  a  child. 

There  is  no  call  for  any  sudden  and  painful  adjustment.  Yet  many 
societies  of  this  kind  have  their  rites  de  passage^  ordeals  and  cere- 
monies of  graduation,  meant  to  note  and  consecrate  the  shifting  of 
children  into  a  teenage  class  and  behaviour,  or  into  an  adult  class 
and  behaviour.  The  ceremonies  deepen  the  awareness  of  the  in- 
cumbents that  a  new  behaviour  is  now  demanded,  the  ordeals  give 
them  confidence  in  their  ability  to  meet  the  standards  of  the 
superior  age-group.  Even  though  such  primitive  societies  can  be 
encompassed  by  the  eye,  even  though  their  every  child  has  from  an 
early  age  known  all  the  members  and  undergone  a  ceaseless  process 
of  acclimatization,  it  is  deemed  necessary  to  stress  and  play  up  the 
participant's  change  into  higher  gear.  Surely  this  can  be  interpreted 
as  a  once-for-all  process  of  adaptation.  Nothing  similar  obtains  in 
the  various  circles  of  complex  modern  society:  the  individual  enter- 
ing a  new  circle  is  expected  to  solve  by  himself  the  problem  of 
adaptation,  a  long-drawn-out  operation,  which  he  often  fails  to 
complete  successfully.  Modern  anthropology  seems  to  confirm  that 

^  Note  that  I  need  not  'stand  on  my  rights'  when  I  am  in  a  company  of  like-minded 
people.  There,  I  cannot  be  eager  to  step  forward  when  I  have  nothing  to  contribute,  nor 
will  my  companions  ever  hold  me  back  if  I  have  something  to  contribute.  As  'mine'  and 
'thine'  do  not  matter  in  marriage  except  when  divorce  occurs,  'rights'  become  valuable 
in  proportion  to  the  loss  of  affinity  between  Ego  and  his  environment.  Just  as  a  man 
moving  in  deep  water  or  in  outer  space  needs  an  insulating  suit  to  preserve  his  organism 
from  an  unfavourable  environment,  so  does  Ego,  in  similar  social  conditions,  need  the 
protective  armour  of  his  'rights'.  Indeed  this  train  of  thought  leads  to  the  suggestion 
that  individuals  are  not  in  need  of 'equal'  armour,  but  the  more  different  the  individual 
is  from  the  environment  the  heavier  the  armour  he  must  have.  The  'deviant'  is  smothered 
by  pressure  unless  he  obtains  special  protection. 

60 


CH.  3]  OTHERDOM 

the  age  of  primitive  societies  was  indeed  the  Golden  Age,  from  the 
viewpoint  of  harmony  betsveen  Ego  and  his  social  cosmos. 

The  situation  of  'Ego  in  Otherdom'  has  been  experienced  by 
every  man  to  different  degrees;  the  problem  set  to  Ego,  however 
different  its  form,  is  familiar  to  all;  it  has  given  rise  to  expressions 
of  the  widest  currency :  fitting  in,  feehng  one's  way,  finding  one's 
place,  learning  one's  way  around,  or  even  learning  how  to  get  by. 
All  these  formulations  denote  getting  used  to  Otherdom,  coming  to 
terms  with  it,  a  vital  necessity  for  the  individual;  since  indeed  the 
all-important  power  in  his  life  is  Otherdom  (not  government). 

Various  individuals,  introduced  in  a  given  environment,  proceed 
in  very  different  ways.  I  find  it  tempting  to  venture  a  rough  classifi- 
cation of  attitudes,  based  upon  picturing  Ego's  approach  to  Other- 
dom, as  a  shape.  The  retiring  Ego  will  assume  that  shape  which 
subjects  it  to  minimum  pressure  from  Otherdom,  filling  up  less 
social  space  than  it  might,  in  order  to  reduce  its  surface  of  contact  to 
the  minimum.  Far  the  most  frequent  attitude  will  be  that  of  the 
conforming  Ego,  taking  that  shape  which  fits  readily  into  a  prepared 
nook,  as  a  new  crystal  adds  itself  to  a  crystalline  structure.  The 
opportunist  Ego  takes  advantage  of  every  cleft  and  opening  in  the 
structure  of  Otherdom,  expanding  through  infiltration :  it  will  occupy 
a  maximum  volume  while  accepting  a  strange  shape.  The  solid  Ego 
assumes  its  own  shape  coming  into  conflict  with  Otherdom;  and 
finally  the  forceful  Ego  systematically  undertakes  modifications  in 
the  structure  of  Otherdom.  The  third  type  of  conduct  is  favourable 
to  advancement  within  an  unchanged  structure,  the  fourth  and  fifth 
types  generate  changes  in  the  environment  even  if  eventuating  in 
personal  failure. 

Venturing  further,  one  might  suggest  that  different  attitudes  are 
different  compounds  of  Ego's  propensity  to  expand,  and  of  Ego's 
propensity  to  escape  pressures,  possibly  also  of  Ego's  propensity  to 
assume  a  specific  shape.  But  such  simplification  is  to  be  shunned 
when  deaHng  with  a  situation  which  manifests  human  complexity. 
It  takes  the  sensitivity  of  artists  to  do  it  justice.  ' Ego  in  Otherdom' 
constitutes  the  very  essence  of  the  modern  novel.  While  the  art  of 
tragedy  enHghtens  the  political  scientist  because  it  displays  the  clash 
of  characters  in  a  moment  of  crisis,  the  art  of  the  novel  is  no  less 
enlightening  because  it  displays  the  hero's  total  relationship  with  his 
environment. 

61 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  II 

For  our  limited  purpose,  we  may  distinguish  two  schools  of 
noveHsts.  Authors  such  as  Dostoevsky  or  Kafka  bring  out  the 
loneliness  and  anxiety  of  the  hero,  the  pressures  exerted  upon  him 
by  his  contacts,  the  wounds  he  suffers  in  dealing  with  others.  Other 
writers,  foremost  among  them  Balzac,  describe  the  efforts  made  by 
Ego  to  estabhsh  himself  successfully  in  Otherdom;  in  the  latter  case, 
it  can  be  said  that '  the  micropolicies  of  Ego '  play  a  great  part  in  the 
novel,  often  affording  it  its  visible  thread.  Thus  Balzac  shows  us 
Rastignac  successfully  upgrading  himself  in  his  new  Parisian  en- 
vironment while  another  provincial,  Rubempre,  also  launched  in  the 
great  city,  goes  from  initial  success  to  final  disaster.  Stendhal  leaves 
us  in  no  doubt  that  his  heroes  are  'micro-imperiahsts',  following  a 
Napoleonic  archetype. 

Such  writers  have  offered  us  unforgettable  pictures  of  individuals 
oppressed  by  the  environment  or  swimming  therein  with  vigorous 
opportunism.  These  pictures  are  essential  to  the  understanding  of 
pohtical  dispositions.  Men  who  are  ill  at  ease  in  an  environment  are 
susceptible  to  the  offers  of  a  patron  who  promises  to  fit  them  in  or  of 
a  leader  who  proposes  to  pull  down  the  edifice  to  which  they  have 
remained  alien  and  to  build  another  more  suitable. 

The  anxiety  experienced  by  Ego  when  inducted  in  a  new  Other- 
dom is  a  global  feehng  impervious  to  analysis.  But  the  outside 
observer  can  note  the  various  factors  which  intervene  eventually  for 
its  removal,  and  therefore  a  contrario  assign  a  variety  of  causes  for 
its  initial  existence. 

Otherdom  is  bewildering  to  the  freshman  by  its  mere  unfamili- 
arity.  This  is  an  environment  about  which  he  has  no  information, 
where  events  occur  around  him,  and  to  him,  in  what  seems  a  random 
manner.  The  pressures  to  which  he  is  exposed  come  as  surprises,  so 
do  the  reactions  evoked  by  his  actions  or  attitudes.  He  has  no  store 
of  precedents  to  draw  upon,  whereby  he  might  say:  'At  this  time, 

that Under  such  conditions,  this '    He  has  no  key  to  the 

messages  which  reach  him,  can  neither  decipher  them  nor  assign  to 
them  relative  weights.  Such  a  condition  of  no-information  is  in- 
tolerable and  utterly  paralysing :  how  can  Ego  do  anything  when  he 
cannot  at  all  foresee  what  will  come  of  it.?  But  such  a  condition  does 
not  last,  the  initial  dizziness  will  be  dispelled  as  Ego  accumulates 
information,  as  noise  turns  into  meaning,  and  movements  fall  into  a 
pattern.    Ego  will  come  to  know  where  he  stands,  and  what  is 

62 


CH.  3]  OTHERDOM 

expected  of  him.  Indeed  it  takes  very  little  time  to  learn  some  paths 
and  some  routines. 

The  condition  of  such  learning,  be  it  noted,  is  that  the  environ- 
ment should  be  reasonably  stable.  The  newcomer  would  be  'at  sea' 
if  the  environment  had  no  enduring  consistence  and  regularity.  Re- 
turning to  our  schoolboy,  suppose  that  his  classmates  were  changed 
every  day,  and  the  hours  and  places  of  classes,  his  bewilderment 
could  not  be  overcome.  This  yields  us  one  obvious  remark:  Ego 
requires  an  environment  about  which  he  can  rapidly  acquire  reliable 
information,  therefore  an  environment  with  a  low  degree  of  entropy. 

This  condition  is  of  course  fulfilled  in  a  human  cluster  pervaded 
by  routines.  It  is  the  less  easily  fulfilled  the  more  the  members  of 
the  cluster  depart  from  routines.  Whenever  Alter  departs  from  the 
course  which  Ego  assigns  to  him  on  the  basis  of  precedent,  this  is  a 
perturbation  in  Ego's  Otherdom.  The  stabiHty  of  Otherdom,  neces- 
sary to  Ego,  is  made  up  of  a  general  adherence  of  individuals  to 
typical  behaviours,  the  concatenation  of  which  forms  an  environ- 
ment capable  of  being  known. 

Let  us  fancy  Ego  shrunk  to  the  size  of  an  atom  and  projected 
into  a  world  of  atoms.  Because  their  courses  are  random.  Ego 
would  have  zero  foresight,  could  never  know  what  would  come 
of  any  action  of  his,  could  not  decide  on  any  action;  his  will 
would  be  useless,  and  his  consciousness  merely  a  source  of  misery.^ 

I  am  inclined  to  stress  this  point  because  of  late  certain  mathema- 
ticians have  taken  frequency  of  departure  from  predicted  behaviour 
as  an  index  of  freedom.  It  should  be  noted  that,  as  the  degree  of 
such  departure  increases,  the  conditions  of  purposeful  behaviour  by 
Ego  are  impaired.^  Therefore  the  more  individuals  may  depart  from 
predicted  behaviour,  the  more  necessary  it  is  that  'negentropic'^ 
agencies,  some  moral,  some  concrete,  should  be  at  work,  to  maintain 
the  reliability  of  Ego's  environment. 

^  The  idea  is  borrowed  from  Erwin  Schrodinger,  What  is  Life?  (Cambridge,  1948). 

^  Any  imaginative  behaviour  by  Ego  rests  upon  the  assumption  of  routine  behaviour 
by  Alter,  as  can  be  illustrated  by  a  simple  tale.  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  living  in  somewhat 
distant  homes,  are  wont  to  meet  under  a  certain  tree  which  stands  in  between.  On  a 
certain  day,  the  ardent  Daphnis  starts  early  and  decides  to  intercept  Chloe  on  her  way 
to  the  tree.  But  Chloe  has  also  started  early,  and  has  wanted  to  deck  herself  with  flowers; 
with  this  intention,  she  goes  to  the  trysting-place  by  way  of  meadows  where  she  picks 
flowers.  Thus  the  boy  languishes  at  his  post  on  the  path  she  has  not  taken,  and  the  girl 
is  desolate  under  the  tree  to  which  Daphnis  has  not  come. 

^  The  term  is  borrowed  from  Leon  BriUouin,  Science  and  Information  Theory  (New 
York,  1956). 

63 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  II 

Ego  may  learn  about  his  Otherdom  and  still  not  like  it.  He  now 
knows  what  is  expected  of  him  in  his  present  position,  but  the 
obHgations  are  to  him  painful.  The  'price'  (e.g.  attitudes,  perform- 
ances) which  he  must  pay  for  being  accepted  in  that  position  seems 
to  him  heavy.  This  does  not  imply  that  the  price  is '  objectively'  high : 
Alter,  in  the  same  position,  may  find  that  the  attitudes  and  per- 
formances called  for  are  no  burden  at  all,  indeed  he  may  enjoy  them. 
Again  Ego  may  feel  that  the  perquisites  of  his  present  position  are 
very  unsatisfactory;  he  may  look  up  to  another  position,  which  seems 
to  him  desirable.  There  is  also  a  'price'  (in  achievements)  required 
for  the  attainment  of  that  preferred  position:  but  this  'price'  he  is 
unable  to  pay  (let  it  be  for  instance,  in  a  school,  proficiency  in  some 
game).  Ego  then  has  both  a  feehng  of  being  burdened  and  a  sense 
of  inferiority.  This  may  go  no  further  than  generating  unhappiness 
if  Ego  is  unaware  of  other  talents  and  subscribes  to  the  values  of 
Otherdom.^  If  aware  of  other  talents  which  are  badly  priced  in  this 
environment,  he  may  realize  that  his  'terms  of  trade'  with  Otherdom 
are  unfavourable,  and  hope  for  a  change  in  the  pricing  system.  He 
may  be  quite  slow  to  pass  from  that  merely  wishful  attitude  to 
indignant  rejection  of  the  prevailing  price  system. 

What  I  call  the  'price  system'  is  very  complex.  Take  Shake- 
speare's Coriolanus.  His  outstanding  valour  and  generalship  have 
qualified  him  for  the  highest  distinction  in  Rome.  But  in  order  to 
attain  the  Consulate,  there  is  a  complementary  requirement :  let  him 
bare  his  wounds  in  public;  a  braggart  might  enjoy  such  display,  to 
Coriolanus  it  is  demeaning.  Let  him  ask  his  compatriots  for  the  votes 
he  feels  due  to  his  deserts. 

Coriolanus.  You  know  the  cause,  sir,  of  my  standing  here. 
Third  Citizen.  We  do,  sir;  tell  us  what  hath  brought  you  to  it. 
Coriolanus.  Mine  own  desert 

Coriolanus.  Well  then,  I  pray,  your  price  o'  th'  consulship.'' 

^  No  society  could  endure  if,  as  is  sometimes  implicitly  assumed,  its  members  became 
hostile  to  it  by  reason  of  and  in  proportion  to  their  lowly  status  within  it.  Should  you  so 
plan  a  society  as  to  establish  and  maintain  equality  in  every  respect  you  can  think  of, 
there  would  naturally  be  a  restoration  of  scarce,  desirable  positions,  by  nature  attainable 
only  by  a  minority.  You  can  allot  equal  time  to  each  member  of  an  Assembly:  but  you 
cannot  ensure  that  each  will  command  equal  attention.  You  can  chase  unequal  (more  or 
less  log-normal)  distributions  out  of  one  field  after  another:  they  will  reappear  in  new 
fields.  Nor  are  men  so  base  as  to  be  disaflfected  from  any  ordering  in  which  they  are 
low-placed :  they  are  indeed  lavish  in  the  precedence  they  afford  to  those  who  excel  in 
performances  they  value.  What  exasperates  them  is  a  system  of  qualifying  values  which 
seems  to  them  scandalous,  a  social  scaling  which  jars  with  their  scoring  cards. 


64 


d 


CH.  3]  OTHERDOM 

First  Citizen.  The  price  is,  to  ask  it  kindly. 

Coriolanus.  Kindly !  Sir,  I  pray  let  me  ha't :  I  have  wounds  to  show  you, 
which  shall  be  yours  in  private.  Your  good  voice,  sir;  what  say  you.? . . . 

Coriolanus.  Rather  than  fool  it  so. 

Let  the  high  office  and  the  honour  go 
To  one  that  would  do  thus.^ 

It  is  not  because  he  is  denied  the  office,  but  because  the  price  which 
he  is  asked  to  pay  seems  to  him  scandalous,  that  Coriolanus  revolts. 
Nothing  is  more  hackneyed  nowadays  than  an  attitude  of '  revolt 
against  society'.  This  is  no  place  to  discuss  its  gradual  develop- 
ment, which  seems  to  have  coincided  with  the  dissolution  of  hard- 
and-fast  customary  patterns  of  behaviour,  to  have  risen — a  trouble- 
some thought — with  the  very  flexibility  of  the  social  price  system : 
as  this  moves  under  the  free  play  of  many  actions  in  society,  it  seems 
to  evoke  more  protests.  There  is  of  course  no  one  'Big  Person' 
called  Society  which  can  be  blamed  for  it;  but  such  blames  addressed 
to  a  mythological  person  are  a  standing  invitation  to  use  govern- 
mental powers  for  the  rationalization  of  the  social  price  system, 
though  of  course  there  can  be  no  assurance  that  the  system  rational- 
ized in  any  one  way  would  meet  a  diversity  of  complaints.  Obviously 
public  policies  are  of  greater  personal  (as  distinct  from  patriotic)  con- 
cern in  proportion  as  they  are  more  involved  in  setting  social  prices. 

I  have  left  for  the  last  the  pleasantest  part  of  this  exploration  of 
Otherdom.  The  new  environment  is  one  which  is  initially  sensed  as 
hostile,  that  is  where  Ego  sees  no  friendly  face.  His  making  friends 
therein  is  the  most  important  transfiguration  of  Otherdom.  The  '  I 
and  Thou '  relationships  is  Man's  greatest  boon  under  the  sun,^  and 
Sulla  was  much  mistaken  in  calling  himself  Felix  by  reason  of  his 
successes,  an  adjective  more  suitable  in  the  man  rich  in  mutual 
affections.  The  formation  of  friendships  is  like  the  surging-up  of 
hospitable  islands  in  the  open  sea  of  Otherdom. 

Few  men  have  been  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  never  experienced 
the  intense  happiness  of  communion.  Those  who  have  missed  its 
most  complete  fulfilment  in  true  marriage,  who  have  not  achieved 
enriching  companionships,  have  at  least  glimpsed  it  in  rough  cordial 
partnerships  such  as  those  of  war. 

^  Act  2,  scene  3. 

^  As  beautifully  described  by  Martin  Buber  in  /  and  Thou  and  Between  Man  and  Man. 

^  Ecclesiastes  ix.  9. 

5  65  JPT 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS      [PT.  II,  CH.  3 

But  the  better  the  thing,  the  worse  its  caricature.  The  community 
which  arises  out  of  love  or  friendship  cannot  be  contrived  by  decree, 
the  intensive  emotions  which  it  is  proposed  to  extend  wear  thin. 
Such  is  our  hankering  for  union  with  our  fellows  that  the  less  we 
achieve  it  in  our  daily  commerce,  the  more  we  dream  of '  instituting ' 
it  at  large — a  dream  which  has  proved  to  generate  hate  more  often 
than  harmony.  Also,  the  network  of  well-wishers  which  naturally 
fosters  the  happiness  of  Ego,  if  used  by  him  in  furtherance  of  some 
eagerly  sought  prize,  changes  in  character.  The  prize-seeker  had 
better  recruit  a  coalition  on  the  basis  of  common  interests  or  a 
shared  passion,  or  a  spoils-sharing  covenant.  Then,  however,  there 
is  no  one-to-one  linking,  but  a  banding  together :  this  is  self-seeking 
in  company.^ 

I  have  merely  skimmed  the  surface  of  the  'Ego  in  Otherdom' 
theme.  This  is  enough  for  my  purpose.  As  I  plan  to  discuss  Politics 
at  the  'micro'  level  of  action  of  individual  upon  individuals,  I 
deemed  it  necessary  to  stress  at  the  outset  that  these  individuals  do 
not  operate  in  a  void,  but  are  situated  in  an  environment. 

^  Cf.  Martin  Buber  on  conviviality  in  Between  Man  and  Man,  pp.  50-1  of  Fontana 
edition. 


66 


PART  III 


ACTION:  INSTIGATION  AND  RESPONSE 


5-2 


CHAPTER  I 

INSTIGATION 

I  propose  to  consider  the  simple  case  of  two  men,  one  of  whom 
prompts  the  other  to  perform  a  certain  action.  Throughout  this 
discussion,  A  will  stand  for  the  speaker,  B  for  the  man  spoken  to, 
and  i7  for  the  action  suggested.  First,  A  suggests  to  B  the  action  //, 
and  we  call  this  an  instigation;  secondly,  B  performs  H  and  we  call 
it  a  compliance,  or  he  does  not  and  we  call  it  a  non-compliance.  An 
instigation  followed  by  compliance  is  called  efficient,  and  inefficient 
if  not  so  followed.  That  is  all  I  want  to  deal  with  at  present;  but  I 
hope  to  deal  with  it  exhaustively,  thereby  laying  the  foundation  for 
the  analysis  of  complex  situations. 

This  formulation  brings  the  situation  within  the  general  class  of 
the  stimulus-and-response  relationships.  The  statement  made  by  A 
is  a  stimulus  appHed  to  the  subject  B^  and  to  which  the  latter 
responds  or  fails  to  respond.  It  is  assumed  that  the  response  is  all 
or  nothing. 

It  is  important  that  nothing  should  be  read  into  the  foregoing 
exposition  beyond  what  has  been  explicitly  stated.  It  comes  naturally 
to  clothe  in  flesh  the  relation  enunciated  in  abstract  terms  and  to 
picture  A  as  in  some  way  '  entitled '  to  obtain  H,  or  as  in  some  way 
enjoying  some  initial  superiority  over  B.  These  are  possible  specifica- 
tions of  the  situation  studied ;  but  the  specifications  may  be  quite 
opposite :  the  action  called  for  by  A  may  be  a  sheer  favour  which  A 
craves  from  the  superior  power  of  B.  Specifications  will  in  time 
claim  our  attention,  but  they  should  be  regarded  as  circumstantial 
additions  to  the  formal  relation. 

For  the  sake  of  convenience  we  shall  use  the  expression:  ''A  tells 
BtodoH^:'  telling ',  however,  should  be  thought  of  as  embracing  all 
possible  varieties  of  address  from  the  bluntest  bidding  to  the  most 
humble  entreaty.  Indeed,  the  imperative '  Come ! '  can  just  as  well  be 
aimed  upwards,  by  a  sinner  imploring  God,  as  downwards  by  a 
warder  ordering  a  convict.  '  Give  me '  may  refer  to  a  pure  grace  as 
well  as  to  an  unquestionable  claim.  In  order  to  clear  the  relation  of 
any  psychological  associations,  we  would  have  to  say:  'That  B 

69 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

should  do  //,  is  the  suggestion  of  A^  to  which  B  responds  or  not. ' 
This  very  inelegant  expression  makes  it  plain  that  we  are  studying 
the  relation  between  the  suggestion  of  an  action  by  one  man  and  the 
performance  of  an  action  by  another  man. 

It  is  obviously  untrue  that  every  A  suggestion  is  followed  by  a  ^ 
compliance;  also  it  is  obviously  untrue  that  no  A  suggestion  is  ever 
followed  by  a  5  compliance.  Thus  faced  with  the  problem :  '  There 
is  an  A  suggestion,  will  there  hea  B  compHance.?'  we  can  recognize 
it  as  a  formal  problem  which  acquires  precise  meaning  only  when 
Aj  H,  and  B  are  specified,  and  even  then,  as  we  shall  see,  the  ques- 
tion can  be  answered  with  certainty  only  after  the  event.  As  a  formal 
problem,  ours  can  be  met  only  with  the  formal  answer :  there  is  an 
unknown  probability  of  response,  ranging  between  nought  and  one, 
and  which  may  be  narrowed  down  by  increasing  knowledge  of  the 
specifications. 

It  is  immediately  apparent  that  the  formal  problem  enunciated, 
while  itself  following  the  general  pattern  of  the  stimulus-and- 
response  relationship,  has  a  wide  scope  of  its  own,  and  embraces  as 
special  cases  many  problems  commonly  dealt  with  by  political 
scientists.  Take  civil  obedience :  in  our  terms  this  is  the  response  of 
the  citizen  (B)  to  what  (H)  he  is  told  by  the  law-maker  or  the  lawful 
authority  (A).  Take  sedition:  again  in  our  terms,  this  is  the  response 
of  the  citizen  (B)  to  what  (H)  he  is  told  by  the  agitator  (A).  Surely 
it  is  an  advantage  of  our  treatment  that  situations  which  are  fancied 
to  be  of  different  natures  should  fit  into  the  same  procedure  of 
representation:  civil  obedience  is  the  response  of  the  ^s  to  the 
lawful  As,  sedition  their  response  to  other  As,  which  implies  lack 
of  response  to  the  former.  Incidentally,  such  lack  of  response  may 
arise  if  the  lawful  As  demand  an  unlawful  or  inopportune  H.  But 
of  this  more  anon. 

The  formulation  offered  embraces  political  relationships  but  also 
embraces  relationships  thought  of  as  non-political,  ^s,  for  instance, 
may  be  induced  to  strike,  or  simply  to  adopt  a  fashion.  It  is  custom- 
ary to  set  apart  phenomena  connected  with  the  attribution  and 
exercise  of  public  authority,  but  I  regard  this  practice  as  regrettable 
in  so  far  as  it  leads  to  divorcing  them  from  phenomena  of  the  same 
character,  lacking  this  connection.  What  we  are  engaged  upon  here 
is  the  understanding  of  some  elementary  human  relations  wherever 
they  occur  and  in  whatever  context. 

70 


CH.  l]  INSTIGATION 

Some  A  suggestions  obtain  some  B  compliance.  This  we  know 
full  well  from  experience.  Within  a  single  day  we  often  respond 
positively  to  the  wants  expressed  by  others,  and  others  to  ours.  Let 
us  imagine  a  human  universe  where  no  B  would  comply  with  any  A 
suggestion :  in  such  a  case  society  could  not  exist.  If  I  could  never 
induce  any  other  man  to  lend  a  hand  to  my  purpose,  indeed  if  I 
could  never  induce  him  to  stay  his  hand  when  he  might  injure  me, 
then  the  proximity  of  my  fellows  would  afford  me  no  services  and 
offer  only  dangers.  Nor  could  the  resulting  state  of  'war  of  all 
against  all',  linked  to  the  deafness  of  each  to  each,  be  repaired  by  the 
institution  of  Government :  since  if  no  B  complied  to  any  ^'s  bidding. 
Government  would  command  in  vain;  but  moreover  Government 
could  not  come  into  existence,  as  its  very  existence  depends  upon 
habitual  compHance  to  its  biddings.  Indeed  we  cannot  drive  our 
imagination  to  conceive  a  universe  of  non-compliance :  it  would  be 
empty  of  men,  since  nothing  is  more  inherent  in  human  nature  than 
the  give  and  take  of  bidding  and  compliance. 

Here  again  I  must  stop  to  cleanse  what  is  being  discussed  of 
undesirable  psychological  associations.  Children,  who  are  told  what 
to  do,  commonly  yearn  for  the  time  of  life  when,  as  they  believe, 
they  will  not  be  told  and  indeed  will  tell  others,  which  seems  to  them 
a  grand  thing.  Children  who  have  been  unfortunate  in  their  up- 
bringing tend  to  associate  compliance  with  humiliation  and  therefore 
attach  to  it  a  very  unfavourable  value  judgement.  Such  childish  dis- 
positions are  all  too  often  carried  through  life,  implying  an  inordinate 
appreciation  of  telling '  and  an  inordinate  depreciation  of  being  told ' . 

It  seems  therefore  necessary  to  stress  that  the  propensity  to 
comply,  far  from  being  a  sign  of  weakness,  is  the  most  excellent  and 
essential  social  virtue,  the  condition  and  fount  of  every  progress. 
While  we  shall  say  much  about  the  instigator,  I  want  it  clearly 
understood  that  it  is  not  the  spirit  of  this  work  to  build  him  up  as 
the  social  hero.  In  fact  the  propensity  to  comply  is  a  thing  good  in 
itself,  while  the  instigation  may  be  bad  as  well  as  good.^ 

Moreover  it  should  be  remembered  that,  in  the  relation  between 
A  and  5,  while  the  initiative  lies  with  A  (by  definition),  the  decision 

^  If  I  say  no  more  about  this,  the  reason  is  that  the  present  work  does  not  deal  with 
moral  problems.  If  I  say  this  much,  the  reason  is  that  I  mean  to  avoid  any  possible  con- 
fusion of  my  methodological  emphasis  upon  the  instigator  with  'hero-worship',  for 
which  I  have  little  sympathy. 

71 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

lies  with  B  (also  by  definition).  Therefore,  while  A  enjoys  a  certain 
form  of  superiority  over  B  in  that  the  action  His  that  which  A  wants 
(thus  what  is  in  question  is  A's  choice),  B  enjoys  another  form  of 
superiority  in  that  he  may  refuse  to  perform  H  (thus  he  holds  A's 
satisfaction  in  his  hands).  Nor  is  B\  power  of  refusal  ever  blotted 
out  by  attendant  circumstances.  These  may  be  such  that  it  is 
dangerous  for  B  to  refuse,  but  it  is  never  impossible.  Such  attendant 
circumstances  are  anyhow  *  accidents'  of  the  relationship;  they  are 
not  part  of  its  essence,  which  reduces  to  a  suggestion  advanced  by 
A  and  giving  rise  to  a  choice  hy  B.  In  short,  the  relation  of  A  with 
B  impHes  no  assumption  or  connotation  of  inequality  between  the 
protagonists.  On  the  other  hand,  the  formulation  does  recognize  a 
fact  all  too  often  ignored :  that  in  all  human  relations,  what  occurs 
is  the  result  of  an  initiative  by  a  certain  party. 

Efficient  instigation  can  be  thought  of  in  terms  of  the  action  H 
which  results,  or  again  in  terms  of  the  agreement  reached  by  A  and 
B.  We  have  analysed  the  process  into  two  stages:  A  speaks  and  B 
acts,  and  this  breakdown  is  suitable  to  our  purpose;  indeed  as  we 
propose  to  conduct  our  investigation  from  the  angle  of  the  outside 
observer,  who  witnesses  a  stimulus  and  a  response  (or  lack  of 
response),  it  may  be  inadvisable  to  break  down  the  process  any 
further.  But  such  further  breakdown  may  serve  to  shed  light  upon 
the  spirit  of  our  inquiry.  For  that  special  object  let  us  then  dis- 
tinguish four  successive  stages:  A  states  what  he  desires,  B  under- 
stands it  (receives  the  message),  B  agrees  to  it  (sends  a  Yes  signal), 
and  finally  B  does  it.  This  indicates  that  there  is  a  moment  of 
agreement  between  A  and  B^  which  follows  upon  A's  initiative. 

I  regard  it  as  regrettable  that  the  time-sequence  between  initiative 
and  agreement  should  so  often  be  blurred  or  neglected  in  writings 
dealing  with  the  social  sciences.  Consider  a  committee  which  reaches 
a  unanimous  decision;  surely  it  is  less  reahstic  to  regard  such  a 
unanimous  decision  as  a  single  indivisible  fact  than  to  distribute  the 
occurrences  over  time.  First,  a  given  member  moved  a  resolution, 
then  another  one  supported  it,  and  unanimity  was  cumulatively 
reached :  anyone  experienced  in  such  things  will  admit  that  unanim- 
ity in  fact  reached  on  a  certain  decision  is  no  proof  that  a  majority 
might  not  have  been  obtained  for  a  quite  different  resolution  if  that 
had  been  advanced  at  the  start  of  the  meeting.  I  have  been  careful 
to  stress  that  the  relation  between  an  A  suggestion  and  a  B  response 
implies  no  subordination  of  ^  to  ^ ;  what  it  does  imply,  however,  is 

72 


CH.  l]  INSTIGATION 

a  time-sequence  between  the  suggestion  of  i/ and  its  performance: 
it  underlines  the  role  of  initiative.  This  underlining  is  useful  in  a  day 
when  people  are  prone  to  regard  collective  bodies  as  moving  by 
themselves:  any  move  of  a  collective  body  must  originate  in  the 
suggestion  of  some  real  person. 

The  last  four  sections  have  been  devoted  to  the  dispelling  of 
possible  misunderstandings.  They  constitute  nothing  more  than 
footnotes  to  the  first  section,  and  they  would  have  been  unnecessary 
had  it  been  certain  that  the  initial  statements  would  be  taken  at  face 
value.  But  it  is  not  to  be  expected  in  the  moral  sciences.  As  they 
deal  with  ourselves,  we  find  it  difficult  to  follow  an  argument  as 
dispassionately  as  if  it  dealt  with  angles  or  atoms.  Indeed,  in 
geometry  itself  some  initial  effort  is  called  for  to  divorce  the  formal 
notion  of  line  from  our  empirical  knowledge  of  a  stick.  Incomparably 
greater  is  the  effort  needed  to  divorce  the  formal  notion  of  a  relation 
between  suggestion  and  compliance  from  our  experiences.  Perhaps 
this  effort  will  be  lessened  as  Pure  Politics  comes  to  estabhsh  itself 
as  a  science  (the  difficulty  seems  to  be  overcome  in  Pure  Economics), 
but  in  the  meantime  it  must  be  taken  into  account,  and  this  explains 
the  many  cautionary  statements  which  have  been  made.  Also  this 
difficulty  induces  us  to  resort  to  concrete  illustrations  as  far  as 
possible.  This  we  shall  do  to  illustrate  that  capital  feature  of  the 
'political  animal',  the  propensity  to  comply. 

I  am  driving  along  rapidly  at  night  on  a  dark  road.  Ahead  a 
flashlight  is  waved  up  and  down.  I  do  not  know  who  is  signalling  or 
for  what  ulterior  purpose :  all  I  do  know  is  that  someone  wants  me 
to  slow  down  or  stop ;  immediately  I  brake,  slow  down,  and  prepare 
to  stop  abreast  of  the  flashlight-wielder  (note  my  initial  compliance, 
his — X's — first  suggestion  has  been  efl[icient);  now  I  reach  him, 
receptive  to  his  second,  or  elaborated,  suggestion. 

He  may  be  a  road-worker  posted  to  apprise  me  and  others  of  some 
obstruction  on  the  way,  and  my  slowing  down  may  have  been  all  he 
required  of  me.  But  he  may  also  be  a  policeman  requesting  to  see 
my  papers,  or  he  may  be  a  stranded  motorist  hoping  to  borrow  a 
tool  he  lacks,  or  again  a  tired  hitch-hiker  wanting  a  lift.  I  may  be 
confronted  with  the  victims  of  an  accident  needing  transport  to  the 
nearest  hospital,  or  with  a  group  of  roughnecks  whom  I  may  be 
fearful  of  letting  into  my  car.  Indeed,  I  may  be  ambushed.  A  quick 

73 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

judgement  by  sight  may  cause  me  to  clamp  down  my  foot  upon  the 
accelerator  without  even  listening  to  the  demand :  but  this  will  occur 
only  if  I  am  a  very  timorous  man  or  if  the  danger  is  manifest.  In 
most  cases  I  shall  stop  and  find  out  what  the  suggestion  is.  If  I  am 
dealing  with  a  policeman,  it  is  extremely  improbable  that  I  shall 
drive  away;  but  it  is  no  less  improbable  if  I  am  dealing  with  casual- 
ties :  in  these  two  cases  the  motives  for  my  compliance  will  be  quite 
different  but  my  compliance  will  be  the  same.  Finally,  if  I  am  deal- 
ing with  hitch-hikers,  my  response  will  depend  very  much  upon 
their  looks,  and  to  some  degree  upon  my  haste  and  mood. 

This  tiny  scene  from  life  brings  out  some  features  of  man  as  we 
know  him.  Ready  to  obey  an  imperative  signal,  he  is  willing  to  hear 
out  what  is  demanded  of  him,  and  he  is  inclined  to  do  it  rather  than 
not  to  do  it.  His  decision  will,  of  course,  depend  upon  the  circum- 
stances and  his  character :  but  by  itself  the  request  exercises  some 
pressure,  which  bids  fair  to  be  operative  in  the  absence  of  strong 
motives  to  the  contrary. 

These  features  constitute  or  manifest  what  we  call  the  propensity 
to  compliance,  which  is  to  be  thought  of  as  a  cardinal  virtue  of 
social  man,  since  all  services  which  man  affords  to  man  are  derived 
from  and  dependent  upon  this  disposition.  As  in  the  case  of  all 
virtues,  its  exercise  calls  for  discrimination. 

The  suggestion-response  pattern  is,  of  course,  an  empty  form 
which  has  to  be  filled  in  with  concrete  specifications.  '  How  probable 
is  it  that  B  will  perform  the  action  H  called  for  by  A}'\  such  a 
question  becomes  determinate  only  when  we  have  substituted  real 
terms  in  place  of  the  signs.  Let  us  illustrate  this  substitution.  I  find 
myself  in  a  friend's  office.  His  telephone  rings :  he  unhooks  the 
receiver,  an  automatic  response  to  an  imperative  signal.  I  do  not 
hear  what  the  caller  says  but  obviously  he  begins  by  stating  who  he 
is,  and  then  goes  on  to  state  what  he  wants.  From  my  friend's 
expression,  I  gather  that  he  thinks  highly  of  ^,  the  caller,  and  is  there- 
fore favourably  disposed  towards  the  impending  request  before  he  has 
any  knowledge  of  what  it  will  be.  But  as  the  one-sided  conversation 
proceeds,  my  friend's  face  grows  troubled,  and  I  infer  that  the 
suggestion  is  not  to  his  hking.  Finally,  I  hear  him  saying:  'Well,  I 
shall  give  it  due  consideration  but  I  am  afraid  I  will  not  be  able  to  do 
it':  which,  of  course,  means  'No'.  In  this  case  the  subject  of  the 
experiment  has  not  responded. 

74 


CH.  l]  INSTIGATION 

The  foregoing  example  offers  a  contrast  of  the  who  and  of  the 
what  factors :  the  who  factor  miHtated  in  favour  of  comphance,  but 
the  what  miHtated  against :  however  receptive  my  friend  was  to  the 
author  of  the  proposition,  its  nature  did  not  suit  him.  Had  the 
action  suited  him,  he  would  have  complied,  no  matter  how  indiffer- 
ent the  instigator  was  to  him.  Had  he  been  only  mildly  reluctant 
to  perform  the  action,  his  friendly  or  respectful  disposition  towards 
the  caller  might  have  sufficed  to  overcome  this  reluctance.  But  in  this 
case  the  reluctance  was  such  that  the  prestige  of  A  (whatever  its 
nature)  was  powerless  to  sway  B.  If,  however,  my  friend's  reluc- 
tance is  not  very  great,  he  may  yet  change  his  mind,  if  called  upon 
by  some  other  A  who  carries  more  weight  with  him  than  the  first,  or 
again  by  several  As  who  do  not  individually  carry  more  weight,  but 
whose  independent  prestiges  add  up  in  some  way  towards  the  same 
outcome.  Thus  B's  response  is  affected  both  by  the  nature  of  the 
proposition  and  the  weight  of  authorship  or,  to  put  it  more  precisely, 
by  his  subjective  valuations  of  the  proposition  itself  and  of  its  author. 

The  valuations  are  subjective:  for  different  Bs  the  same  A  will 
carry  more  or  less  weight,  and  to  different  Bs  the  same  H  will  seem 
more,  or  less,  suitable.  Moreover,  different  ^s  will  attach  different 
degrees  of  importance  to  the  authorship  of  a  proposition  as  against 
its  substance.  This  last  point  is  clearly  brought  out  in  Shakespeare's 
Julius  Caesar^  the  first  two  acts  of  which  are  the  story  of  an  instigation. 

The  action  to  be  performed  {H)  is  the  murder  of  Caesar.  Cassius 
is  the  instigator.  He  urges  Brutus :  Shakespeare  makes  it  quite  clear 
that  the  latter  is  not  swayed  by  his  regard  for  Cassius  but  by  his 
growing  conviction  that  the  action  proposed  is  becoming  to  Brutus. 
Brutus  states  at  the  outset  the  condition  for  his  being  moved :  '  If  it 

be  aught  toward  the  public  good '  Thus  H  will  be  performed  by 

Brutus  if  and  only  if  it  is  in  itself  an  action  he  regards  as  suitable. 
This  we  may  call  a  pure  H  motivation,  meaning  that  the  response 
owes  nothing  to  the  identity  oi  A.  Such  an  attitude  is  most  cleverly 
contrasted  with  that  of  Antony,  who  states:  'When  Caesar  says  "do 
this"  it  is  performed':  this  we  may  call  a  pure  A  motivation,  mean- 
ing that  the  substance  of  i7  does  not  determine  or  affect  5's  response, 
caused  solely  by  the  identity  of  A.  The  fellow-conspirators  are 
represented  as  falling  between  these  extreme  attitudes:  while  in- 
cHned  towards  the  murder,  yet  they  need  as  a  decisive  touch  that 
Brutus,  instead  of  Cassius,  should  assume  formally  the  role  of 

75 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

instigator.  In  the  great  orchard  scene,  it  is  Brutus,  not  Cassius,  who 
bids  the  others  'Give  me  your  hands  all  over':  he  has  in  fact  taken 
over  the  part  from  Cassius,  or  rather  Cassius  has  cast  him  for  it. 
Why?  Because  Brutus  enjoys  a  personal  prestige  which  Cassius 
lacks.  This  prestige  element  is  most  unmistakably  stressed  when 
Casca  explains  the  need  for  Brutus : 

O !  he  sits  high  in  all  the  people's  hearts ; 
And  that  which  would  appear  offence  in  us 
His  countenance,  like  richest  alchemy. 
Will  change  to  virtue  and  to  worthiness. 

Thus,  in  time,  Brutus  will  stand  between  the  conspirators  and  the 
people,  his  'countenance'  winning  the  latter  to  the  belief  that  the 
murderers  have  done  well.  But  even  before  this,  the  conspirators 
themselves  will  have  drawn  assurance  from  being  able  to  regard 
Brutus,  and  not  Cassius,  as  their  leader. 

Something  is  asked  of  me.  Who  asks  it,  and  what  is  it?  The 
chances  of  favourable  response  are  compounded  of  the  credit  en- 
joyed in  my  eyes  by  A,  and  of  the  lure  of  H.  But  these  two  weights 
may  be  combined  in  different  degrees  according  to  my  character. 
I  may  be  prone,  even  as  Antony  in  the  foregoing  quotation,  to 
consider  mostly  who  asks;  or  as  Brutus,  what  is  asked. 

It  is  therefore  tempting  to  form  a  class  of  those  subjects  which  are 
the  most  impervious  to  the  A  factor  and  look  only  to  the  substance 
of  the  suggestion,  regardless  of  its  author.  Such  a  classification  is 
indeed  operationally  important.  We  must  be  careful,  however,  not  to 
interpret  it  in  terms  of  moral  superiority.  For  the  class  thus  formed 
will  be  morally  heterogeneous.  It  contains  men  of  strong  convic- 
tions, indifferent  to  any  personal  prestige,  and  who  consider  solely 
whether  the  proposition  fits  in  with  their  principles.  But  also  it 
contains  heedless  fools,  who  scoff  at  their  superiors  in  wisdom,  and 
are  ready  to  fall  in  with  any  suggestion  which  suits  their  whim  or 
passion.  Thus  pure  H  motivation  may  be  associated  with  extreme 
levity  as  well  as  with  extreme  austerity;  it  may  lead  to  very  different 
actions,  or  indeed  to  the  same  actions  performed  in  a  very  different 
spirit:  it  is  not  unusual  to  find  rogues  allied  with  fanatics  in  seditious 
movements. 

We  do  not  want  to  delve  into  the  motivations  of  responding 
subjects.    It  is  enough  to  have  pointed  out  that  the  probability  of 

76 


CH.  l]  INSTIGATION 

response,  other  things  being  equal,  is  a  function  of  the  subjective 
values  set  upon  the  author  and  the  substance  of  the  proposition,  with 
different  weights  attached  to  these  two  valuations  in  the  case  of 
different  subjects.  Such  valuations  do  not  only  vary  from  subject  to 
subject  but  also  from  time  to  time,  according  to  circumstances  and 
indeed  to  moods.  Thus  there  is  always  some  degree  of  uncertainty 
about  the  response  of  a  given  man  to  a  given  proposal  made  by  a 
given  author.  Masters  of  intrigue  have  ever  boasted  of  their  ability 
so  to  time  a  suggestion  that  it  obtained  a  response  while  on  any 
other  day  it  might  have  misfired. 

A  moves  B.  In  so  simple  a  statement,  B  can  stand  for  a  stone  just 
as  well  as  for  a  man.  And  indeed  it  is  important  to  mark  that 
instigation  is  a  'push'.  That  B  should  move  as  a  consequence  of  a 
'shove'  from  ^  is  a  phenomenon  as  fundamental  to  political  science 
as  it  is  to  physics.  But  also  it  is  important  to  mark  the  difference. 
The  'force'  which  moves  a  stone  is  something  objective  and  measur- 
able, not  so  the  'force'  which  moves  a  man.  Indeed  the  seat  of  the 
force  which  moves  me  (a  B  subject  in  this  instance)  when  I  respond 
to  the  instigation  of  A^  does  not  lie  in  A,  it  hes  in  me.  Even  if  I 
perform  the  H  action  requested,  not  at  all  because  I  recognize  it  as 
suitable  but  merely  because  I  am  under  the  spell  of  A's  prestige, 
still  this  prestige  sways  me  only  because  it  exists  for  me,  because  it 
is  a  subjective  phenomenon  within  my  imagination.  It  is  vital  to 
remember  that  'being  moved'  in  the  case  of  a  human  subject  is 
indeed  an  activity  of  that  subject. 

In  Racine's  tragedy,  the  pleading  of  Esther  results  in  a  complete 
reversal  of  attitude  on  the  part  of  King  Ahasuerus  towards  the 
Jews.  Should  we  say  that  this  was  due  merely  to  the  force  inhering 
in  Esther  which  would  have  produced  the  same  effect  whoever 
happened  to  sit  on  the  throne  of  Ahasuerus?  It  seems  obvious  that 
the  personality  of  Ahasuerus  was  decisive.  In  other  words,  response 
displays  the  personality  and  disposition  of  the  subject. 

Napoleon  is  admittedly  one  of  the  most  outstanding  examples  of 
an  impressive  personality.  On  his  adventurous  return  from  Elba,  he 
was  confronted  at  Grenoble  by  a  regiment  sent  to  arrest  him:  he 
walked  towards  them  alone  and  they  rallied  to  him  in  a  turmoil  of 
enthusiasm:  this  is  the  sheer  weight  of  personality  operating;  but  is 
it?  On  the  most  decisive  day  of  his  career,  when  he  seized  power, 
the  same  man  entered  the  council  room  of  the  Five  Hundred,  and 

77 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

instead  of  mustering  the  majority  which  had  been  carefully  pre- 
pared, he  was  completely  discountenanced  and  the  situation  had  to 
be  retrieved  by  his  accomplices  who  ordered  the  soldiers  into  the 
room,  a  move  which  had  not  been  foreseen  as  necessary. 

There  is  no  simpler  (or  more  important)  phenomenon  in  human 
relations  than  that  A  moves  B.  But  the  simplicity  of  the  phenome- 
non should  not  induce  us  to  assume  the  simplicity  of  the  cause,  to 
say  that  this  follows  from  a  quaHty  inhering  in  A.  When  A  moves 
B,  this  manifests  a  relationship  which  cannot  be  tracked  down  to  a 
single  factor.  It  is  a  simple  event  but  should  not  be  regarded  as  the 
outcome  of  a  simple  cause. 

It  is  impossible  to  foretell  that  a  given  instigation  will  be  efficient 
whoever  the  subject  may  be.  Further  it  is  impossible  to  predict 
with  certainty  that  a  given  instigation  will  be  efficient  in  the  case  of 
a  given  subject.  Regarding  the  first  point,  great  is  the  variety  of  our 
dispositions,  which  have  deep  roots  in  our  individual  past.  The 
lasting  impressions  made  by  education  and  example,  the  habits  con- 
tracted, the  ingrained  beliefs  or  prejudices,  all  these  enter  into  our 
present  individual  disposition.  Operari  sequitur  esse:  we  act,  and 
react,  according  to  our  being,  which  is  a  creature  of  our  past.  In 
criminal  cases,  so  much  is  made  of  the  culprit's  past  that  we  need  not 
labour  the  point.  Conversely,  we  are  haunted  by  images  of  proper, 
noble,  admirable  conduct,  and  such  images  can  be  quickened  by 
present  instigation. 

When  Napoleon  presented  himself  to  soldiers  in  1815,  they  were 
moved  by  memories,  personal  or  vicarious,  of  this  great  general 
leading  the  French  army  to  victory,  and  their  orders  to  seize  him 
seemed  absurd.  When  Bonaparte  presented  himself  to  the  Five 
Hundred,  even  some  who  had  been  prepared  to  accept  his  accession 
to  power  suddenly  saw  him  as  Caesar  and  remembered  their 
admiration  for  Brutus,  which  moved  them  against  him. 

This  underhnes  the  extreme  importance  of  behavioural  images 
implanted  in  minds  favourable  to  the  reception  of  certain  instigations 
and  unfavourable  to  the  reception  of  others.  Whatever  one  regards 
as  good,  it  is  certain  that  a  'good'  behavioural  image  implanted  in 
the  mind  is  to  a  '  good '  instigation  almost  what  the  fixed  point  is  to 
the  lever  of  Archimedes. 

Almost  but  not  quite.  There  is  a  fluidity  in  our  disposition  which 
makes  it  impossible  to  predict  the  response  of  a  given  man  however 
much  we  know  about  him.  In  dramatic  circumstances,  I  sought  to 

78 


CH.  l]  INSTIGATION 

guess  respective  reactions  to  competing  instigations  in  the  case  of 
men  I  knew  very  well  and  found  myself  with  a  poor  score  of  good 
guesses. 

We  have  been  dealing  with  instigation-and-response  in  general. 
Let  us  now  consider  the  additional  circumstances  of  a  prior  com- 
mitment of  B,  relevant  to  the  occasion.  The  simplest  case  is  the 
following :  A  tells  B  to  do  //,  and  B  had  in  fact  previously  promised 
the  performance  of  H\  obviously  B  is  now  in  a  situation  quite 
different  from  that  which  would  obtain  if  he  were  not  committed. 
At  this  present  moment  I  feel  no  inclination  to  perform  i7,  nor  does 
the  prestige  o^A  stand  so  high  with  me  as  to  overcome  my  reluctance. 
In  short,  I  would  not  respond  to  the  instigation  by  itself;  still  I  do 
perform  H.  My  previous  commitment  can  be  regarded  as  the  main 
cause  of  my  action,  or  again  it  can  be  regarded  as  a  reinforcing 
factor  of  the  present  instigation.  This  latter  presentation,  which  fits 
into  our  model,  is  authorized  by  an  illustration  again  borrowed  from 
Shakespeare. 

When  the  conspirators  meet  in  Brutus'  orchard,  Cassius  says: 
'And  let  us  swear  our  resolution.'  Brutus  retorts:  'No,  not  an 
oath. '  Then  he  explains  that  if  the  motives  were  weak,  then  the 
potential  performers  might  well  need  the  spur  of  an  oath :  not  so  in 
this  case.  Incidentally  he  makes  the  important  point  that  the 
necessity  for  an  oath  might  prove  the  weakness  of  motives.  Thus  we 
are  led  to  regard  prior  commitment  as  necessary  in  human  relations 
to  ensure  the  performance  of  an  H  action  at  some  future  time  if  it  is 
now  deemed  that  pure  instigation  may,  at  that  point  in  the  future, 
lack  efficiency.  In  all  societies  it  happens  that  A  asks  B  to  give  his 
word,  to  swear  an  oath,  in  order  to  remedy  the  assumed  future  weak- 
ness of  the  A  instigation. 

No  doubt  what  has  just  been  said  calls  to  the  reader's  mind  the 
public  authority  which  stands  surety  for  commitments  between 
private  persons.  And  it  is  fitting  that  the  first  mention  of  the  pubHc 
authority  in  this  work  should  occur  in  that  context.  For  indeed  it  is 
an  essential  function  of  any  public  authority  anywhere  to  hold  men 
to  their  word.  There  is  no  simpler  civil  suit  than  that  wherein  A 
claims  the  execution  of  H  by  B,  consequent  to  ^'s  promise.  But  it 
is  far  from  true  that  the  public  authority  stands  surety  for  every 
promise :  Law  looks  to  the  form  and  content  of  the  promise.  Quite 
a  number  of  promises  are  not  legally  binding,  we  feel  bound  by  them 

79 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

none  the  less.  An  authentication  of  the  promise  which  affords  it  the 
backing  of  the  pubhc  authority  is  an  additional  surety;  but  the 
promise  by  itself  is  a  bond.  Hobbes,in  my  view,  speaks  of  it  all  too 
lightly:  'the  bonds  of  words  are  too  weak  to  bridle  men's  ambition, 
avarice,  anger,  and  other  passions,  without  the  fear  of  some  coercive 
power '.^  The  bond  may  indeed,  in  many  cases,  prove  too  weak:  but 
it  is  by  no  means  negligible,  and  with  some  men  it  is  an  unbreakable 
chain :  we  have  all  heard  of  Regulus  who,  freed  on  parole  by  the 
Carthaginians,  came  back  to  deliver  himself  into  their  hands. 

In  fact,  forgetting  for  the  moment  that  some  promises  have  the 
backing  of  the  public  authority,  we  may  state  that  commitment  by 
previous  promise  is  a  factor  in  the  disposition  of  ^  at  the  time  of  his 
instigation  by  A :  it  belongs  to  the  natural  realm  of  relations  between 
men. 

The  same  may  be  true  of  a  prior  commitment  different  in  kind; 
that  is,  a  commitment  to  obey  A.  Assuredly  no  commitment  of  that 
nature  can  be  so  binding  in  fact  that  whatever  A  happens  to  demand, 
B  will  do  it.  Even  when  B  has  in  a  way  delivered  himself  into  the 
hands  oiA  by  submitting  to  a  hypnotic  trance,  B  will  fail  to  respond 
to  certain  commands.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  fact  of  experience 
that  men  will  feel  bound  to  do  certain  things  because  of  the  allegi- 
ance they  have  promised  to  some  A.  This  phenomenon  is  displayed 
in  the  conduct  of  members  of  Parliament  who  frequently  vote 
against  their  own  judgement  upon  request  of  the  Party  Whip. 
Commitment  by  allegiance  reaches  a  frightening  pitch  within  Com- 
munist parties.  But  within  fortunately  narrower  limits  it  is  a  most 
common  social  phenomenon.  The  term  of  'loyalty  to  the  organiza- 
tion' is  current  quite  outside  the  field  of  Politics.  It  is  generally 
invoked  as  a  reinforcing  factor  in  order  to  induce  B  to  do  something 
which  he  does  not  want  to  do,  or  indeed  which  he  should  not  do; 
also  it  occurs  when  B  seeks  to  justify  in  the  eyes  of  others  or  in  his 
own  something  he  knows  he  should  not  have  done. 

Prior  commitments  may,  of  course,  work  against  a  given  instiga- 
tion just  as  they  may  work  in  its  favour.  Just  as  I  may,  however 
reluctantly,  perform  H  because  I  have  so  promised,  or  comply  with 
A's  demand  because  I  have  given  him  my  allegiance,  also  I  may, 
however  reluctantly,  deny  my  compliance  to  an  instigation  because 

^  Leviathan,  part  i,  ch.  14  (p.  89  of  the  Oakeshott  edition  published  by  Basil  Blackwell, 
Oxford,  1946). 


80 


J 


CH.  l]  INSTIGATION 

it  conflicts  with  my  previous  promise  or  prior  allegiance.  In  the 
latter  situation,  the  instigation  may  or  may  not  overcome  the  com- 
mitment. For  instance,  though  their  heart  was  with  the  Allies,  the 
French  soldiers  in  Syria  during  the  last  war  resisted  the  appeal  to 
join  with  the  British  because  of  their  allegiance  to  the  Government 
of  Vichy.  Conversely,  in  1815  Marshal  Ney,  who  had  sworn  allegi- 
ance to  Louis  XVIII,  and  indeed  promised  to  bring  back  Napoleon 
'in  a  cage',  could  not  resist  the  Emperor's  instigation  and  joined 
him. 

The  murder  of  Caesar  served  in  this  chapter  as  a  concrete  instance 
of  the  action  H.  For  purposes  of  clarification,  let  us  compare  the 
murder  of  Clarence  as  described  by  Shakespeare  in  AT/Vz^i^^V/^^r^///. 
A  brief  quotation  brings  out  the  contrast : 

Second  Murderer.  Faith,  some  certain  dregs  of  conscience  are 

yet  within  me. 
First  Murderer.  Remember  our  reward  when  the  deed's  done. 
Second  Murderer.  Zounds,  he  dies:  I  had  forgot  the  reward. 
First  Murderer.  Where's  thy  conscience  now.'' 
Second  Murderer.  O,  in  the  duke  of  Gloucester's  purse. 

These  men  are  in  no  way  like  the  associates  of  Cassius,  who  have 
been  won  over  by  him  to  regard  their  evil  deed  as  good,  who  are  now 
driven  to  it  by  their  own  consciences.^  To  them,  Brutus  can  mention 
'the  even  virtue  of  our  enterprise. .  .the  mettle  of  our  spirits',  and 
exclaim:  'What  need  we  any  spur  but  our  own  cause .^' 

The  murderers  of  Clarence  have  in  no  way  espoused  the  cause  of 
Gloucester.  He  wants  Clarence  to  die,  they  want  money;  a  bargain 
is  struck,  and  carried  out.  The  quid  pro  quo  relationship  between 
Gloucester  and  the  murderers  is  utterly  different  from  the  relation- 
ship between  Cassius  and  his  partners.  It  would  be  absurd  to  deny 
the  importance  of  quid  pro  quo  relationships  in  the  political  realm, 
but  no  greater  mistake,  I  feel,  could  be  made  than  to  regard  them  as 
essential  to  and  characteristic  of  that  realm.  It  is  the  'moving' 
achieved  by  Cassius  which  is  typical  of  political  action. 

This  is  a  basic  chapter  of  a  treatise  on  Pohtics.  I  deem  it  im- 
portant to  stress  that  no  mention  has  been  made  of  the  State,  of 
sovereignty,  of  the  constitution  or  functions  of  pubhc  authority,  of 

^  Cf.  Pascal:  'Jamais  on  ne  fait  le  mal  si  pleinement  et  si  gaiement  que  quand  on  le 
fait  par  conscience.'  (Pensees,  vol.  xxiv,  p.  43.) 

6  81  JPT 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS     [PT.  Ill,  CH.  I 

political  obligation,  etc.  If  some  illustrations  have  been  drawn  from 
political  history,  for  the  sake  of  their  force,  what  has  been  dealt 
with  throughout  is  the  relationship  between  private  individuals.  It 
has  been  outlined  that  men  seek  to  move  other  men  to  certain 
actions,  that  we  have  a  certain  general  disposition  to  respond,  that 
our  actual  response  depends  upon  our  subjective  impressions  regard- 
ing the  nature  of  the  action  suggested  and  the  person  of  the  instiga- 
tor; that  these  impressions  are  in  turn  subject  to  our  personality, 
shaped  by  our  past  and  by  our  convictions;  that  some  constraints  are 
placed  upon  our  response  by  our  prior  commitments  relative  to 
deeds  or  leaders.  All  this  holds  true  in  fields  far  wider  than  what  is 
thought  of  as  the  realm  of  Politics. 

In  fact  what  is  commonly  thought  of  as  Politics  is  merely  a 
natural  and  necessary  outgrowth  of  fundamentally  political  relations 
which  spontaneously  arise  whenever  men  are  brought  together  and 
thereby  are  given  the  opportunity  to  act  upon  one  another.  There  is 
no  difference  in  nature  between  social  relations  and  political  rela- 
tions :  it  is  just  a  matter  of  relations  between  men. 


82 


CHAPTER  2 

RESPONSE 

The  man  who  speaks  to  others  and  carries  them  to  the  actions  he 
desires :  there  is  the  man  who  makes  history.  Yes,  but  there  is  one 
who  decides  whether  our  'hero'  shall  indeed  make  history:  it  is  the 
man  spoken  to. 

The  landing  of  William  of  Orange  in  1688  might  have  been  mere 
anecdote:  response  turned  it  into  'the  Glorious  Revolution';  the 
landing  of  Bonnie  Prince  Charlie  might  have  been  'the  Glorious 
Restoration':  lack  of  response  turned  it  into  an  anecdote.  In  the 
early  twenties  of  the  present  century,  Hitler  met  with  initial  failure 
where  Mussolini  had  succeeded;  and  there  was  a  time  after  the 
2ihoTtiye  putsch  of  November  1923  when  Hitler's  chances  in  Germany 
seemed  weaker  than  those  of  a  Blue  Shirt  leader  in  France  called 
Georges  Valois.  Response  to  the  latter,  however,  rapidly  fell  off, 
while  response  to  Hitler,  after  lagging,  soared. 

Respofise^  there  is  the  king-maker : 

Your  nobles  will  not  hear  you,  but  are  gone 
To  offer  service  to  your  enemy.^ 

They  will  not  hear  you,  and  there  goes  your  might.  For  the  might 
of  man  is  not  as  the  Lord's  might,  an  indefeasible  and  permanent 
attribute:  it  is  an  ability  to  move  others,  and  those  others,  by  re- 
fusing to  be  moved,  deny  and  destroy  this  might.  The  king's  power 
seems  a  thing  sohd  and  heavy  like  a  block  of  ice,  but  it  is  capable  of 
running  off  like  water  and  crystallizing  elsewhere.  A  voice  moved 
men  and  now  it  has  lost  its  virtue  while  another  is  Hstened  to. 

The  theme  of  shifting  allegiance  runs  through  Shakespeare's 
historical  plays.  The  king  calls  his  barons  to  meet  a  challenge,  and 
as  they  shift  to  his  challenger,  so  does  the  crown.  The  stripping  away 
of  the  king's  power  by  a  cumulative  process  of  desertions  is  most 
strikingly  depicted  in  King  Richard  11.  As  Richard  lands  in  Wales, 
he  comforts  himself  against  alarming  news  with  the  thought  that  all 
will  respond  to  his  voice : 

This  earth  shall  have  a  feeling,  and  these  stones 
Prove  armed  soldiers ^ 

^  Shakespeare,  King  John,  Act  5,  scene  i.  ^  /^/„^  Richard  II,  Act  3,  scene  2. 

83  6-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

Yet  when  Salisbury  greets  him,  the  first  exchange  proves  dis- 
quieting : 

King.  Welcome,  my  lord:  how  far  off  lies  your  power? 
Salisbury.  Nor  near  nor  farther  off,  my  gracious  lord. 

Than  this  weak  arm . . . 

For  all  the  Welshmen . . , 

Are  gone  to  Bolingbroke.^ 

The  melting  away  of  the  'power'  which  Salisbury  had  assembled 
for  the  king's  service  is  the  beginning  of  Richard's  loss  of  support 
which  moves  him  in  despair  to  exclaim: 

Discharge  my  followers,  let  them  hence  away. 
From  Richard's  night,  to  Bolingbroke's  fair  day.^ 

The  use  of  the  simple  image  'Richard's  night',  contrasted  with 
'Bolingbroke's  fair  day',  is  most  telling,  coming  only  a  scene  after 
Richard's  brave  words,  likening  his  own  reappearance  to  that  of 
the  sun .         g^  ^j^^^  ^j^-^  ^j^-^^^  ^j^-^  traitor,  Bolingbroke, 
Who  all  this  while  hath  revelled  in  the  night, 
Whilst  we  were  wand'ring  with  the  antipodes. 
Shall  see  us  rising  in  our  throne  the  east. 
His  treasons  will  sit  blushing  in  his  face. 
Not  able  to  endure  the  sight  of  day ^ 

The  day  was  then  Richard's  attribute,  and  night  Bolingbroke's. 
Now  the  images  have  been  changed  around.  What  has  intervened  to 
justify  this  change.^  The  king's  return  has  failed  to  dispel  Boling- 
broke's following,  the  king's  call  has  failed  to  elicit  response. 

Response  is  a  fact,  a  hard  fact,  a  measurable  fact.  This  the 
gardener  makes  clear  to  Richard's  queen,  meeting  her  distress  with 
pity  but  her  disbelief  with  sober  explanation : 

In  your  lord's  scale  is  nothing  but  himself. 

And  some  few  vanities  that  make  him  light; 

But  in  the  balance  of  great  Bolingbroke, 

Besides  himself,  are  all  the  English  peers; 

And  with  that  odds  he  weighs  King  Richard  down.^ 

What  a  play  for  kings  and  rulers !  How  sharply  it  brings  out  the 
nature  of  power !  It  is  precarious  even  as  Salisbury's  army : 

O,  call  back  yesterday,  bid  time  return. 

And  thou  shalt  have  twelve  thousand  fighting  men! 

Today,  today,  unhappy  day  too  late ^ 

^  King  Richard  11,  Act  3,  scene  2.  ^  /^/^  3  /^^-^^ 

*  Ibid,  scene  4.  ^  Ibid,  scene  2. 

84 


CH.  2]  RESPONSE 

Let  us  descend  from  high  tragedy  to  everyday  life.  The  individual 
is  exposed  to  suggestions,  indeed  to  competing  suggestions,  he  is 
called  this  way  and  that  by  different  voices.  The  experience  of  such 
a  situation  is  so  com.mon  that  writers  have  always  drawn  upon  this 
experience  in  order  to  depict  vividly  the  somewhat  different  situation 
of  a  man  worried  by  an  internal  conflict :  the  man  is  represented  as 
struggling  against  a  temptation  which  is  endowed  allegorically  with 
external  existence,  or  as  hearing  out  the  debate  between  various 
motivations,  again  represented  as  external  voices  seeking  to  sway 
him.  Thus  the  special  case  of  a  man  in  doubt  is  described  in  terms 
of  the  more  general  case  of  a  man  subject  to  different  sohcitations. 

It  is  not  suprising  that  the  individual  should  be  thus  besieged.  It 
could  be  otherwise  only  if  man  were  useless  and  indifferent  to  his 
neighbour.  In  fact,  as  we  well  know,  any  Ego  can  improve  his 
position  and  further  his  purpose  if  he  succeeds  in  causing  some 
change  in  the  attitudes,  actions,  behaviours  of  other  men.  These  he 
therefore  naturally  looks  upon  as  'means',  capable,  if  he  sways  them, 
of  contributing  to  the  achievement  of  his  goal.  There  is  almost  no 
goal  which  Ego  may  set  himself  which  does  not  depend  for  its 
attainment  upon  some  connivance  and  contribution  from  some  other 
men.  The  scope  of  Ego's  project  may  be  narrow  or  far-reaching;  its 
character  may  be  sordid  or  noble :  in  any  case  moving  other  men  is  a 
requisite.  It  would  be  unreaHstically  cynical  to  omit  mentioning  that 
Ego  may  indeed  wish  to  alter  other  men's  behaviour  for  their  own 
good,  but  this  can  easily  be  fitted  into  the  general  picture  if  Ego's 
interest  is  thought  of  as  anything  he  is  interested  in,  ranging  from 
his  own  personal  advancement  to  the  salvation  of  his  brother's  soul. 
What  I  wish  to  stress  here  is  that  everyone  is  naturally  a  target  for 
beckoning  messages. 

It  must  be  so  since  the  individual  is  the  ultimate  source  of  energy. 
We  are  accustomed  to  contrast  the  might  of  large  social  bodies  with 
the  weakness  of  the  individual:  this  is  partly  a  delusion.  It  is  no 
doubt  true  that  even  a  rich  individual's  income  is  paltry  compared  to 
that  of  a  giant  corporation;  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  corporation's 
income  depends  upon  the  securing  of  a  great  many  individual 
decisions  to  spend  portions  of  individual  incomes  upon  the  wares 
offered  by  the  corporation.  It  is  even  more  true  that  any  social 
might  results  from  the  spending  of  many  individual  energies  in  its 
service,  and  that  the  greatest  human  authority,  if  it  ceases  to  obtain 
response,  goes  out  like  a  candle. 

85 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

The  individual  has  the  alternative  of  responding  to  a  suggestion  or 
failing  to  respond;  when  faced  by  several  suggestions,  he  has  the 
choice  between  them.  In  a  very  real  sense  he  has  the  last  word;  but 
he  is  seldom  aware  of  it  and  the  less  so  the  greater  the  number  of 
individuals  to  whom  the  same  prompting  is  simultaneously  ad- 
dressed. Obviously  a  motor-car  manufacturer  who  responds  to  the 
suggestion  of  his  research  department  that  a  certain  new  type  of  car 
be  put  into  production  is  more  conscious  of  making  a  decision  im- 
portant to  others  than  the  customer  who  decides  whether  to  buy 
this  new  type  or  not.  But  ultimately  the  clearly  important  decision 
made  by  the  manufacturer  is  vaHdated  or  not  validated  by  the 
apparently  unimportant  decisions  made  by  the  individual  customers. 
In  the  same  manner  the  most  absolute  ruler's  decision  to  follow  this 
rather  than  that  advice  is  subject  in  the  last  resort  to  the  test  of 
compliance  by  the  subjects. 

Any  historical  relation  must  perforce  be  focused  upon  'prime 
movers'  who  have  proved  successful  in  generating  streams  of  actions 
performed  by  many.  Such  concentration  on  heroes  (in  the  loosest 
sense)  is  necessary  to  procure  coherence.  How  futile  it  would  be  to 
write  the  history  of  the  sixteenth  century  without  mention  of  Luther 
or  Calvin!  For  any  deep  understanding  of  the  phenomena,  however, 
it  is  indispensable  to  explore  the  dispositions  obtaining  in  the  social 
field,  the  given  propensities  to  respond. 

We  may  think  of  instigations  as  initial  investments  some  of  which 
are  utterly  lost  while  a  few  pay  oif  fantastically.  And  the  story  of  the 
former  remains  untold,  while  the  success  of  the  latter  is  to  a  con- 
siderable degree  due  to  their  harmony  with  propensities  to  respond. 

People  are  apt  to  say  that  they  keep  their  minds  open  to  any 
suggestion :  this  is  quite  untrue,  and  fortunately  so.  If  minds  were 
indeed  believed  to  be  so  wide  open,  they  would  be  flooded  with 
suggestions  of  all  kinds  and  from  all  sources,  which  would  so  inter- 
fere with  one  another  as  to  produce  nothing  but  'noise'.  The  human 
mind  may  be  thought  of  as  receiving,  deciphering,  appraising 
messages  and  deciding  appropriate  actions :  obviously  a  given  indi- 
vidual has  a  limited  capacity  of  understanding  messages,  an  even 
more  limited  capacity  of  appraisal  and  a  still  more  limited  capacity 
of  taking  action.  Indeed  we  know  from  experience  that  while  we  are 
taking  action  in  consequence  of  a  message  which  has  obtained  our 
sanction,  we  cannot  at  the  same  time  deliberate  upon  another  with- 

86 


CH.  2]  RESPONSE 

out  taking  our  mind  off  the  action  in  progress,  which  leads  to  mis- 
carriage. Nor  can  we,  while  deliberating  upon  a  message  received, 
ingest  other  messages  without  loss  of  concentration,  resulting  in  an 
ill-considered  decision.  Moreover,  our  passing  a  judgement  is  made 
more  difficult  when  our  task  is  not  merely  to  choose  between  '  Yes ' 
or  'No'  to  a  given  suggestion,  but  to  choose  between  a  number  of 
suggestions.  It  follows  from  these  rough  indications  that  our  intake 
of  messages  must  be  limited.  We  are  protected  against  an  excessive 
influx  of  instigations  by  its  being  generally  known  that  suggestions 
of  a  certain  nature  would  be  wasted  upon  us.  The  range  of  sugges- 
tions which  have  some  chance  of  moving  us  is  an  important  charac- 
teristic. We  can  regard  it  as  a  social  characteristic  that  a  certain 
suggestion  at  a  given  moment  is  likely  to  move  only  very  few  people 
in  a  given  society;  we  can  regard  it  as  an  individual  characteristic 
that  a  given  suggestion  has  but  a  slender  chance  of  moving  a  certain 
person.  We  can  think  of  patterns  of  responsiveness,  and  we  can 
think  of 'vanishing  points',  forming  the  Hmit  between  the  suggestion 
which  will  be  accepted  by  some  one  person  in  a  society  or  which  has 
a  minute  chance  of  being  accepted  by  one  person,  and  the  suggestion 
without  any  individual  response  in  society  or  any  chance  of  response 
from  a  given  individual. 

The  foregoing  paragraph  covers  a  lot  of  ground  very  rapidly.  This 
rapidity  does  not  imply  that  the  subject  deserves  no  greater  elabora- 
tion but  rather  that  such  elaboration  calls  for  more  work  than  we 
can  perform  at  this  stage  or  with  our  individual  efforts.  It  is  enough 
for  our  present  purpose  to  introduce  the  notions  of  social  and  indi- 
vidual 'patterns  of  responsiveness',  which  can  be  thought  of  as 
ordering  suggestions  according  to  probability  of  response,  from  one 
to  zero.  Suggestions  with  zero  probability  of  response  are  those 
which  will  not  even  be  considered,  suggestions  with  probability  of 
response  equal  to  one  will  be  acted  upon  automatically. 

At  both  these  extremes  suggestions  give  no  work  of  appraisal  and 
decision,  though  suggestions  which  are  automatically  carried  out  do 
give  work  of  another  kind.  The  suggestions  falling  between  these 
extremes,  in  the  case  of  an  individual,  do  give  rise  to  an  expenditure 
of  time  and  attention;  they  are  painful. 

I  attach  great  importance  to  the  painfulness  of  decision-making. 
Decision-making  is  man's  birthright  but  it  is  also  a  strain.  There  is 
no  more  honourable  office  than  that  of  judge  but  this  is  no  light  task: 
every  man  sits  as  a  judge,  giving  decisions  in  his  inner  court,  previous 

87 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

to  carrying  out  with  his  own  forces  his  own  sentence.  The  individual, 
Hke  the  judge,  cannot  ponder  more  than  a  few  decisions  in  a  given 
period  of  time  and  therefore  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that 
the  great  majority  of  the  sohcitations  reaching  the  individual  should 
give  occasion  for  no  deUberation,  classified  outright  in  the  class  One, 
'to  be  performed  automatically',  or  in  the  class  Zero,  'to  be  rejected 
without  examination'.  Nor  should  one  say  that  in  such  cases  the 
individual  does  not  manifest  his  freedom,  for  built-in  criteria  of 
immediate  acceptance  and  refusal  are  part  and  parcel  of  his  per- 
sonahty.  In  cases  which  call  for  a  debate  within  our  inner  court,  it 
is  clear  that  our  principles  and  habits  are  as  helpful  to  us  as  law  and 
precedent  to  the  judge.  As  the  judge  leans  on  the  law  and  precedent, 
so  the  individual  upon  the  internal  structure  of  his  convictions  and 
character. 

A  judge  would  be  regarded  as  unworthy  of  the  Bench  if  his 
successive  verdicts  were  quite  inconsequent,  if  he  gave  contrary 
decisions  in  similar  cases,  and  denied  today  the  principles  he 
affirmed  yesterday.  In  like  manner  an  individual  seems  unreliable  if 
his  attitudes  and  actions  display  no  coherence.  Dealings  with  such 
a  person  should  be  avoided :  he  is,  properly  speaking,  a  man  of  no 
character,  since  our  character  consists  precisely  in  the  internal  coher- 
ence of  our  behaviour.  A  man's  character  is  what  reconciles  his 
freedom  with  the  predictability  of  his  actions  by  others.  A  man  who 
acts  according  to  his  character  surely  acts  freely;  but  also  his  action 
can  be  foreseen  by  another  party  who  knows  his  character.  Un- 
fortunately the  view  has  arisen  in  our  day  that  a  man's  freedom  is 
measured  by  the  disappointment  of  other  men's  expectations :  such 
a  freedom  is  nothing  but  randomness.  Each  man's  character  is  very 
much  his  own;  it  is  not  given  once  for  all  but  grows  up  as  the  fruit  of 
his  confrontation  with  Otherdom  and  consultation  with  himself 
But  we  do  reasonably  expect  a  man  of  a  given  society,  of  a  given 
standing  or  occupying  a  given  office,  to  display  the  character  pertain- 
ing to  this  society,  standing  or  office.  Such  expectation  does  not  im- 
ply the  individual's  thraldom  but  his  virile  acceptance  of  obligations. 

All  this  intervenes  to  narrow  down  the  range  of  other  men's 
doubts  about  a  given  person's  actions,  because  it  intervenes  to 
narrow  down  that  person's  hesitations.  Nevertheless,  it  would  still 
be  inconvenient  for  Ego  to  weigh  each  solicitation  reaching  him  'on 
its  merits'  alone.  This  has  formerly  been  called  'pure  i/ motivation'. 
The  difficulties  attending  it  deserve  to  be  stressed. 


1 


CH.  2]  RESPONSE 

'Being  totally  destitute  of  all  shadow  of  influence,  natural  or 
adventitious,  I  am  very  sure  that,  if  my  proposition  were  futile  or 
dangerous,  if  it  were  weakly  conceived,  or  improperly  timed,  there 
was  nothing  exterior  to  it,  of  power  to  awe,  dazzle,  or  delude  you.'^ 
The  exordium  of  Burke,  here  quoted,  neatly  stresses  the  distinction 
we  drew  between  the  intrinsic  appeal  of  a  suggestion  (the  action,  //, 
suggested  has  its  own  appeal),  and  the  super-added  appeal  it  owes  to 
the  regard  one  has  for  its  author,  either  because  of  his  personality 
(natural  influence)  or  because  of  his  position  of  office  (adventitious 
influence). 

Were  the  case  such  as  Burke  represents  it  with  somew  hat  rhetorical 
modesty,  the  disposition  of  his  hearers  would  owe  nothing  to  his 
authorship,  the  proposition  would  be  assessed  'on  its  merits'  alone: 
which  of  course  means  according  to  each  several  hearer's  subjective 
assessment  of  the  proposition's  merits.  Reverting  to  the  terminology 
of  the  previous  chapter,  while  it  is  the  person  A  who  tells  the  person 
B  to  perform  the  action  //,  the  person  B  reacts  according  to  his 
judgement  of  the  action  i/,  taking  no  account  of  the  person  A.  At 
first  sight  this  seems  a  superior  sort  of  reaction  to  that  which  takes 
A  into  account.  Surely  if  I  decide  to  do  H  solely  because  H  seems 
good  to  me,  the  action  is  more  my  own  than  if  I  do  it  because  it  is 
a  certain  A  who  requests  or  recommends  it :  this  seems  very  clear. 
But  such  apparent  clarity  is  delusive. 

Let  us  first  take  the  problem  at  a  low  level,  and  assume  that  doing 
H  or  not  doing  it  is  simply  a  matter  of  expediency :  for  instance  it  is 
the  problem  of  the  banker  deciding  to  grant  or  refuse  a  loan.  If  it  be 
an  unsecured  loan  with  a  purpose  unspecified,  obviously  the  grounds 
of  acceptance  or  refusal  are  afforded  by  the  banker's  appraisal  of  the 
borrower's  character  and  status;  5's  response  in  this  case  is  entirely 
dependent  upon  his  appreciation  of  A^  not  of  H.  Now  let  the  loan 
be  secured  by  a  mortgage :  in  that  case,  the  lender's  decision  will  not 
be  determined  by  the  personality  of  the  borrower,  but  it  will  be 
determined  by  the  appraisal  of  the  asset  pledged:  this  appraisal, 
however,  will  be  achieved  by  an  appraiser;  and  therefore  the  banker 
will  in  fact  grant  the  loan  on  the  strength  of  the  opinion  of  another 
man,  the  appraiser.  Let  us  go  one  step  further:  this  time  the 
borrower  is  seeking  funds  to  carry  out  a  project  and  the  banker  will 
provide  the  funds  only  if  he  is  convinced  that  the  project  is  sound; 

'^  Burke:  Speech  on  'Conciliation  with  America'  (22  March  1775),  in  Works  (1808 
edition,  vol.  in,  p.  30). 

89 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

thus  it  is  only  on  the  merits  of  i/ that  the  decision  will  be  taken;  but 
how  will  the  banker  make  up  his  mind  about  the  merits  of  the 
project?  By  seeking  expert  opinion,  and  therefore  he  will  be  acting 
on  the  strength  of  some  other  man's  recommendation.  We  can 
analyse  the  last-mentioned  operation  in  the  following  manner, 

Aj^  asks  B  to  do  H;  B  is  determined  to  take  no  account  oiA^  and 
to  decide  upon  the  merits  of  i/ alone;  but  in  order  to  measure  these 
merits  he  turns  to  A^,^  an  expert.  Finally,  therefore,  he  will  grant 
the  funds  at  the  'secondary'  instigation  of  ^3.  Thus,  in  the  banker's 
case,  the  idea  of  an  autonomous  appraisal  of  H  dissolves  upon 
examination:  ^'s  reaction  may  possibly  be  quite  independent  of  any 
regard  for  A-^^  but  it  is  dependent  upon  his  regard  for  A^.  From  this 
simple  illustration,  two  important  conclusions  can  be  derived:  one 
is  that  'deciding  a  case  upon  its  merits  alone'  may  well  mean  in 
practice  deciding  it  upon  the  surety  of  a  third  party's  opinion,  and 
by  virtue  of '  secondary '  authorship,  while  on  the  contrary  he  finds 
himself  launched  upon  a  difficult  process  if  he  feels  that  he  cannot 
even  trust  to  secondary  authorship.  This  last  point  is  most  obvious 
in  the  case  of  the  banker  who  could  not  perform  his  function  if  he 
had  to  investigate  personally  the  prospects  of  each  loan. 

Let  us  now  go  to  the  other  extreme :  doing  H  or  not  is  a  matter  of 
moral  Tightness.  The  action  H is  recommended  to  me  hy  Aj\  I  am 
quite  determined  to  do  it  only  if  it  is  right.  But  if  I  think  highly  of 
^I's  moral  character,  this  constitutes  in  my  mind  a  strong  presump- 
tion that  H  is  right.  Assuming  that  this  presumption  fails  to  deter- 
mine my  decision,  I  shall  naturally  seek  the  advice  of  other  persons 
whom  I  deem  good  judges  of  ethics.  Is  it  true  that  by  so  doing  I 
shall  be  shunning  a  personal  decision.?  Not  entirely  so,  since  my 
choice  of  advisers  is  quite  as  personal  as  my  acceptance  of  principles: 
my  belief  in  these  men  as  good  men  is  part  of  my  overall  beliefs.  If 
these  A^s  agree  that  H  should  be  done,  their  secondary  instigations 
will  reinforce  the  primary  instigations  of  ^^i  and  I  shall  seldom  with- 
stand this  combination.  Note  the  basic  assumptions  that  I  think 
highly  of  ^i  and  have  chosen  the  A^s:  therefrom  results  a  combined 
moral  weight  of  primary  and  secondary  authorships,  or  of  authorship 
and  guarantors;  obviously  there  will  be  no  such  moral  weight  if  the 
instigating  A^  inspires  me  with  no  respect  and  if  the  same  is  true  of 
concurring  A^s  intervening  without  my  having  called  upon  them. 
Take  for  instance  Luther :  he  had  first  conceived  a  poor  opinion  of 
the  high  dignitaries  of  the  Church  in  his  day,  as  a  consequence  of 

90 


CH.  2]  RESPONSE 

which  the  coahtion  of  their  views  against  his  carried  httle  moral 
weight  with  him.  The  weight  of  the  initial  authorship  and  of  the 
supporting  sponsorship  taken  into  account  in  our  assessment  of  a 
proposition  is,  of  course,  a  function  of  our  subjective  valuation  of  the 
primary  and  secondary  authors. 

I  wish  to  concentrate  upon  the  foregoing  statement.  I  am  re- 
quested to  do  H  and  this  request  originates  with  a  certain  A^^  while 
it  may  also  be  backed,  more  or  less  directly,  by  the  surety  of  some 
A^s.  What  has  just  been  said  is  that  the  'authorship  factor'  will  be 
meaningful  to  me  in  proportion  to  my  subjective  valuation  of  the 
authors,  primary  and  secondary.  It  is  a  fact  that  my  favourable 
valuation  of  the  instigating  A^  (and  eventually  of  the  supporting  A^fi) 
in  itself  lends  weight  to  the  suggestion.  We  are  now  discussing  the 
axiom  (or  rather  the  pseudo-axiom)  that  the  best  way  to  make  such 
a  decision  is  to  discount  such  weight:  this  is  unnatural,  the  fact  is 
that  there  is  such  a  weight,  subjectively  assessed  by  me;  but  further, 
I  shall  show  that  it  is  irrational. 

My  being  asked  to  do  something  about  which  there  is  in  my  mind 
an  element  of  doubt  poses  a  problem.  To  solve  this  problem  I  must 
bring  into  play  all  the  elements  at  my  disposal.  I  may  find  myself 
ill-equipped  with  means  to  assess  the  worth  of  the  suggestion,  while 
at  the  same  time  I  find  myself  equipped  with  the  knowledge  (or 
belief )  that  the  author  of  the  suggestion  (or  a  certain  adviser  to  whom 
I  may  turn)  is  competent  to  pass  judgement  upon  the  merits  of  the 
suggestion.  My  assessment  of  these  individuals  is  then  part  of  my 
endowment  for  the  solution  of  my  problem  and  it  makes  no  sense  to 
forbid  myself  the  use  of  this  part  of  my  means.  Indeed,  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases  I  shall  find  it  necessary  to  trust  my  judgement  of 
the  judgement  of  other  individuals.  Consider  the  case  in  which  I 
recognize  that  the  chances  of  my  making  the  wrong  decision  are 
equal  to  the  chances  of  my  making  the  right  one ;  assume  that  there- 
fore I  decide  to  postpone  my  decision  until  I  have  considerably 
increased  my  chances  of  being  right;  but  such  improvement  may 
take  a  good  deal  of  time,  and  in  most  instances  this  will  be  practically 
equivalent  to  a  'No'  decision.  But  this  has  equal  chances  of  being 
wrong,  and  therefore  more  chances  of  being  wrong  than  the  decision 
requested  or  recommended  by  a  person  to  whose  answer  I  assign  a 
high  probability  of  rightness. 

Responding  on  grounds  of  authorship  is  the  general  and  unavoid- 

91 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

able  practice  of  mankind.  Intellectuals  have  a  strong  prejudice 
against  it,  which  is  understandable  enough  in  view  of  our  specific 
function  which  is  to '  make  up  our  minds '  on  some  definite  problems, 
regardless  of  the  effort  expended  and  without  any  time  limit.  It 
would  therefore  be  sheer  treason  on  our  part  to  take  short  cuts, 
while  they  are  necessary  whenever  an  immediate  or  near-immediate 
decision  is  wanted.  But  even  in  the  case  of  our  specific  task,  we  take 
a  great  deal  for  granted  on  the  authority  of  fellow-scholars. -"^ 

The  word  'Authority'  has  now  been  uttered.  While  the  term  has 
a  great  variety  of  meanings,^  the  simplest  is  that  which  is  closely 
linked  with  the  word  '  authorship ' :  a  statement  is  authoritative  by 
virtue  of  the  credit  afforded  to  its  particular  author.  Should  /  state 
that  there  can  be  a  speed  greater  than  that  of  light,  I  should  provoke 
laughter;  but  should  Professor  Heisenberg  say  so,  his  authority 
would  command  world-wide  attention.  Requiring  scientists  to  give 
an  equal  chance  to  the  statement  whatever  its  author  would  be  quite 
unreasonable.  It  is  widely  believed  that  if  statements  were  con- 
sidered regardless  of  authorship,  there  would  be  more  of  a  chance 
for  novel  truths ;  but  this  is  a  mistake.  If  every  one  of  us  assessed 
statements  on  grounds  of  his  own  judgement,  without  regard  to 
authority,  the  great  majority  of  us  would  not  believe  that  the  sun  is 
but  one  of  the  most  minute  of  all  stars :  a  statement  which  is  part  of 
our  knowledge  because  we  have  accepted  it  from  competent  authori- 
ties. Our  modern  Age  of  Science  is  certainly  not  characterized  by 
my  critical  examination  of  every  statement  offered  to  my  belief,  but 
on  the  contrary  by  my  own  uncritical  acceptance  of  any  statement 
vouched  for  by  competent  authorities.^ 

My  mind  is  stocked  with  a  great  number  of '  is  so '  statements,  of 
which  no  doubt  some  few  are  erroneous;  but  on  the  whole  my 
wealth  in  'is  so'  statements  is  good  and  indeed  necessary:  I  could 
not  enjoy  it  if  I  never  accepted  an  'is  so'  statement  without  checking 
it  personally.  Let  me  illustrate  this :  suppose  that  I  refused  to  con- 
sume any  drug  until  I  had  analysed  it  in  my  own  laboratory,  to  take 
any  food  until  I  had  tested  its  wholesomeness,  etc.  My  life  would 
be  made  impossible,  and  moreover  the  process  is  at  some  point 
self-contradictory:  even  if  I  do  test  everything,  the  means  I  shall  use 

^  Cf.  Michael  Polanyi,  Personal  Knowledge  (Routledge,  1958),  p.  217. 
2  Cf.  Authority,  edited  for  the  American  Society  of  PoUtical  and  Legal  Philosophy  by 
Carl  J.  Friedrich  (Harvard  Press,  1957). 
^  Cf.  Polanyi,  op.  cit.  passim. 

92 


CH.  2]  RESPONSE 

for  testing  are  those  which  have  been  recommended  to  me  by  trust- 
worthy authors;  my  checking  of  a  given  man's  affirmation  always  at 
some  stage  imphes  my  relying  upon  some  other  man's  affirmation. 
It  is  entirely  beyond  my  scope  to  dwell  upon  the  deeper  implications 
of 'checking';  for  my  purpose  it  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that  any 
checking  implies  '  costs '  which  may  be  so  high  as  to  make  checking 
impossible.  Our  suspicious  consumer  might  find  himself  starved 
out;  in  the  same  manner  a  suspicious  learner  would  find  himself  very 
poor  in  knowledge.^  In  the  case  of  'is  so'  statements,  it  is  equally 
impossible  for  us  to  believe  every  statement  and  to  check  every 
statement:  therefore,  it  is  a  vital  necessity  that  we  should  accept  a 
great  many  statements  by  reason  of  their  source. 

It  is  just  the  same  in  the  case  of '  should  do '  statements.  Respond- 
ing to  every  one  is  materially  impossible;  weighing  the  merits  of  each 
places  upon  us  an  unmanageable  burden;  therefore  the  criterion  of 
authorship  is  extremely  useful,  indeed  it  is  indispensable.  I  certainly 
do  not  mean  that  this  is  the  sole  criterion  we  apply  or  should  apply  in 
our  choice  of  responses,  but  that  it  is  and  has  to  be  a  very  important 
factor. 

Prejudice  and  Authority  are  commonly  contrasted  with  active 
individual  choice.  The  relationship  is  in  fact  of  considerable  com- 
plexity. If,  as  I  do,  one  regards  active  personal  choice  as  the  supreme 
manifestation  of  human  dignity,  then  it  follows  that  one  must  regard 
as  good  the  conditions  necessary  to  such  activity.  This  is  a  costly 
one  in  terms  of  time  and  attention.  Therefore  it  should  not  be 
frittered  away  on  a  great  variety  of  objects.  A  man  who  carefully 
shops  around  to  buy  the  most  becoming  and  cheapest  shirts  does  not 
thereby  display  an  outstanding  capacity  for  decision-making,  but 
merely  wastes  decision-making  energy  on  an  unworthy  object.  I 
have  summed  up  views  which  seem  to  me  unquestionable,  in  the 
three  following  statements : 

Decision-making   is   the   supreme   manifestation    of  human 
dignity. 

Decision-making  is  an  expenditure  of  energy. 

This  energy  should  be  wisely  spent. 
Of  these  three  statements,  the  first  is  basic  to  modern  western 
society,  which  has  derived  it  from  Christianity.  When  the  human 
mind  moved  from  regarding  God  as  mighty  to  regarding  him  as 

^  Polanyi,  op.  cit. 

93 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  Ill 

good,  the  question  arose:  'Why,  in  his  supreme  Goodness,  has  he 
allowed  his  children  to  stray  into  evil  paths?'  The  question^  can  be 
answered  only  by  postulating  that  he  has  willed  them  to  determine 
themselves  freely,  that  he  has  set  a  supreme  value  on  their  freedom. 
And  this  we  all  take  over  from  theology.  While  the  first  statement 
made  here  is  basic  to  western  ethics,  the  second  statement  has 
attracted  next  to  no  attention.  In  modern  society  and  thinking, 
decision-making  is  always  dealt  with  as  an  enjoyable  right,  never  as 
a  painful  task.  Indeed,  there  has  been  considerable  acceptance  of 
Gide's  extreme  view^  that  man's  freedom  is  displayed  to  the  utmost 
when  he  acts  for  no  end  and  out  of  no  motive  other  than  to  experi- 
ence his  freedom.  While  if  we  consult  our  own  experience,  we 
recognize  that,  when  the  occasion  arises  for  us  to  make  a  decision, 
we  find  it  a  considerable  strain  to  choose  one  which  we  can  deem 
right,  whether  this  'rightness'  be  one  of  morality  or  merely  of 
expediency. 

When  engaged  upon  such  a  process  of  decision,  I  sit  as  a  judge. 
And  the  more  prone  I  am  to  make  my  own  decisions  on  some  cases, 
the  more  prone  I  must  logically  be  to  throw  out  of  court  other  cases, 
to  be  settled  outright  on  a  basis  of  prejudice  or  authority.  This  seems 
to  me  quite  obvious,  but  apparently  the  point  has  to  be  elaborated 
since  I  have  never  seen  it  mentioned.  Surely  attention  is  for  every 
one  of  us  a  scarce  commodity,  and  in  order  to  devote  the  proper 
amount  of  attention  to  one  question  we  must  refuse  our  attention  to 
other  questions.  It  is  an  undesirable  position  to  have  to  face  a  great 
number  of  questions,  as  anyone  who  has  held  a  press  conference  can 
testify.  Therefore,  it  may  not  be  cowardice  but  husbandry  to  reject 
or  accept  without  discussion  many  suggestions  in  order  to  con- 
centrate upon  those  which  one  regards  as  justifying  careful  examina- 
tion. Consider  a  man  at  a  desk  with  a  heavily  loaded  'In'  tray:  he 
will  give  himself  most  chances  of  dealing  with  the  items  which  are 
both  doubtful  and  important  if  he  gets  rid  most  rapidly  of  the 
items  which  are  either  not  very  important  or  not  very  doubtful. 
Indeed,  he  is  a  fortunate  executive  if  his  secretary  does  not  even  put 
into  the  tray  those  queries  which  by  reason  of  their  nature  or  source 
deserve  acceptance  or  rejection.  The  part  played  by  the  secretary  in 
this  familiar  scene  is  played  by  the  unconscious  or  by  the  sub- 
conscious in  our  daily  treatment  of  suggestions  received.  The  choice 

^  The  problem  is  raised  most  clearly  in  Bayle's  Dictionnaire  at  the  article  'Pauliciens'. 
^  Gide's  point  is  illustrated  in  his  famous  novel,  Les  Caves  du  Vatican. 


94 


\ 


CH.  2]  RESPONSE 

of  response  to  instigations  is  a  process  of  decision-making :  it  falls 
under  the  general  law  of  economy  which  applies  to  decision-making 
in  general  and  which  we  shall  deal  with  at  another  stage. 

'Prejudice'  is  a  word  of  ill-repute :  but  this  is  absurd;  it  merely 
means  that  we  have  some  built-in  principles  by  virtue  of  which  some 
cases  need  not  be  brought  up  before  our  court  of  justice,  as  the 
decision  of  these  cases  is  implicitly  given  by  our  principles.  This 
spares  us  a  lot  of  work,  and  it  spares  others  who  deal  with  us  a  lot  of 
conjecture,  it  allows  them  to  say:  'No  need  to  ask:  B  will  refuse'  or 
'If  asked  of  j5,  it  will  be  done.'  Again  'Authority'  is  a  word  of  ill- 
repute  ;  but  it  takes  on  another  colouring  if  it  is  thought  of  as  the 
surety  which  B  will  accept  when  in  doubt  about  an  action. 


95 


PART  IV 

AUTHORITY: 
^POTESTAS'  AND  'POTENTIA' 


J  FT 


CHAPTER   I 

ON  BEING  HEARD 

I  wake  up  in  an  Arab  town.  Because  inhabitants  are  tightly  packed, 
I  hear  many  voices ;  because  I  am  idle,  I  am  aware  of  them ;  and 
because  I  do  not  understand  the  language,  my  attention  is  not 
turned  off  by  a  feeling  of  indiscretion.  Therefore  I  let  the  tones  of 
voices  play  upon  my  mind.  It  is  easy  to  tell  that  this  voice  is  re- 
counting events,  these  two  are  engaged  in  bargaining,  while  children 
at  play  near  by  are  taunting  each  other.  But  now  suddenly  a  voice 
is  raised,  immediately  followed  by  a  clatter  of  feet :  in  response  to 
that  voice,  children  have  assembled.  Somewhat  later  I  notice  that  a 
discussion  is  warming  up:  voices  wax  loud  and  angry,  others  join  in 
excitedly:  then  a  new  voice  cuts  in  and  the  shouting  abates.  Thus  in 
a  short  time  I  have  observed,  through  sounds  alone,  the  immediate 
efficiency  of  two  voices :  the  voice  which  mustered  and  the  voice 
which  appeased.  And  it  comes  naturally  to  call  them  both  'voices 
of  authority'. 

Both  manifest  a  phenomenon  central  to  Politics:  the  pressure  of 
words  upon  the  behaviour  of  others.  When  the  uttering  of  words  by 
one  affects  the  behaviour  of  many,  this  is  objective  proof  that  the 
words  have  weight.  We  know  in  general  that  if  streams  of  activity  are 
deflected  by  the  intervention  of  a  new  factor,  this  factor  effects  work, 
which  testifies  to  its  energy.  The  working  of  words  upon  actions  is 
the  basic  political  action.  Shakespeare  exhibits  it  in  the  scene  of 
Mark  Antony's  oration  over  Caesar's  body:  when  the  orator  has 
done,  his  listeners  move  violently  in  the  direction  he  has  suggested ; 
as  Antony  observes  in  an  aside :  '  Now  let  it  work.  Mischief,  thou 
art  afoot.' 

The  scene  induces  us  to  reflect  that  in  this  case  the  effect  of  the 
speech  has  gone  very  far  beyond  what  Brutus  expected  when  he 
allowed  it;  and  surely  Shakespeare  meant  this  great  reversal  of  the 
citizens'  attitudes  to  come  as  a  dramatic  surprise  to  the  pubhc.  It  is 
profitable  to  distinguish  the  ex  post  observed  efficiency  of  a  speech 
from  its  ex  ante  expected  efficiency.  Now  if  we  place  ourselves  in  the 
ex  ante  position,  as  outside  observers,  we  do  not  know  what  the 
speaker  will  say  nor  the  manner  of  its  expression.  Therefore  our 

99  7-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS        [PT.  IV 

surmise  must  be  based  upon  the  standing  of  the  speaker  relative  to 
the  audience.  This  is  the  initial  'capital'  with  which  he  starts  the 
operation  which  will  prove  more  or  less  productive. 

In  this  part  of  the  treatise,  the  speaker's  capital  is  the  main  theme. 
Obviously  this  capital  is  not  'a  thing  in  itself,  it  expresses  the  ex 
ante  relation  between  the  speaker  and  the  audience.  The  word 
'capital'  suggests  an  asset,  but  it  should  be  clear  that  we  are  dealing 
with  an  intangible  asset,  which  has  the  nature  of  a  credit  valid  here  and 
now.  The  same  speaker,  facing  a  different  audience  at  the  same 
moment,  might  there  enjoy  a  very  different  credit;  and  he  may  in 
the  same  setting,  over  a  period  of  time,  increase  or  lose  his  credit. 

This  gives  rise  to  no  difficulty.  What  is  difficult  is  the  naming  of 
this  capital.  The  obvious  name  is  'authority':  but  here  we  run  into 
semantic  difficulties. 

I  want  to  use  the  word  'authority'  to  denote  the  position  in  which 
A  finds  himself  in  relation  to  Bs  who  'look  up  to  him',  'lend  him 
their  ears',  have  a  strong  propensity  to  comply  with  his  bidding. 
This  then  is  something  which  has  dimensions:  it  has  an  extensive 
dimension :  more  or  fewer  people  may  look  up  to  a  given  A ;  it  also 
has  an  intensive  dimension:  any  one  of  those  who  has  this  propensity 
towards  A  may  have  it  to  a  greater  or  lesser  degree.  In  either  of  these 
dimensions,  the  authority  of  A  is  capable  of  increase  and  decrease 
in  the  course  of  time. 

This  use  of  the  word,  however,  conflicts  with  the  usage  of  jurists. 
To  them.  Authority  (I  shall  spell  it  with  a  capital  whenever  the 
word  is  taken  in  their  sense)  means  the  right  to  command,  implying 
a  corresponding  duty  to  obey.  Constitutional  law  delimits  positions 
of  Authority  and  their  competence :  that  is,  it  seeks  to  dispel  any 
uncertainty  regarding  the  scope  of  control  and  also  to  narrow  down 
the  uses  to  which  such  control  may  be  put.  Whether  a  given  B  is 
susceptible  to  the  authority  of  a  given  A  (in  my  sense)  is  a  matter  of 
observation;  not  so  in  the  case  of  a  juristic  Authority.  If  the  position 
of  a  given  A  is  known,  then  it  is  immediately  known  whether  a 
given  B  lies  within  or  without  the  field  of  exercise  of  this  Authority. 
And  no  change  in  the  persons  occupying  the  position  of  Authority 
makes  any  difference  to  its  extent.  Moreover,  though  with  a  far 
lesser  degree  of  uncertainty,  the  jurist  at  least  seeks  to  draw  a  line 
between  those  actions  which  the  person  in  Authority  can  demand 
with  Authority  and  those  he  may  not:  of  this  more  later. 


100 


i 


CH.  l]  ON  BEING  HEARD 

Clearly  Authority  and  authority  are  different  concepts :  Authority 
is,  and  in  view  of  its  salutary  purpose  must  be,  a  static  concept;  how 
disastrous  for  society  were  the  Authority  of  magistrates  to  vary 
ceaselessly!  On  the  other  hand  authority  is  a  dynamic  concept 
called  for  to  describe  the  actual  process  of  Politics  wherein  personali- 
ties are  forever  gaining  or  losing  in  'stature'  and  'weight'.  I  regret 
that  I  could  not  find  two  distinct  words  to  denote  the  two  distinct 
concepts. 

Words  generate  deeds :  their  efficiency  is  enhanced  if  spoken  with 
authority,  but  far  more  if  uttered  from  a  position  of  Authority.  The 
difference  is  measurable.  For  some  charitable  purpose,  an  appeal  is 
launched  by  a  group  of  people  who  are  highly  thought  of  and  looked 
up  to:  the  funds  thus  raised  are  minute  by  comparison  with  the 
proceeds  of  a  tax  levied  for  the  same  purpose  by  the  Authorities.  Or 
suppose  that  the  best  medical  authorities  urge  vaccination:  the 
response  is  by  no  means  equivalent  to  that  obtained  when  vaccina- 
tion is  required  by  Authority. 

Therefore  men  who  want  to  generate  deeds  naturally  seek  to 
climb  upon  existing  platforms  of  Authority  from  which  their  words 
will  fall  with  the  momentum  imparted  by  the  high  place.  If  success- 
ful in  such  climbing,  they  will  then  find  it  easy  to  obtain  what  their 
bare  authority  could  not  have  achieved. 

And  what  is  needed  in  order  to  gain  a  footing  on  the  existing 
platform.''  Let  us  suppose  that  this  position  is  filled  by  the  choice  of 
the  people.  Then  our  candidate  is  in  fact  seeking  to  move  for  his 
election  the  very  same  agents  whom  he  feels  he  cannot  move  by  his 
bare  utterances  to  the  deeds  he  has  in  mind.  But  moving  them 
towards  his  election  is  an  altogether  lighter  task.  Ex  hypothesi  the 
position  exists,  is  open,  has  to  be  filled.  All  our  candidate  needs  to 
win  it,  is  to  be  preferred  to  his  competitors.  His  credit  with  his 
fellow-citizens  must  be  somewhat  greater  than  that  of  his  rivals.  In 
other  words  while  his  authority  is  quite  inadequate  to  make  the 
people  do  what  he  advocates  while  he  remains  on  a  level  with  them, 
it  is  adequate  to  raise  him  to  the  position  from  which  he  can  com- 
mand what  he  has  in  mind. 

Let  us  take  the  analysis  a  step  further.  Our  man  is  not  alone  on 
the  platform  of  command,  but  a  member  of  a  deciding  'college'. 
This  college  has  to  make  decisions :  in  the  deciding  process  our  man 
can  prevail  if  he  has  some  superiority  of  authority  in  the  eyes  of  his 

lOI 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS       [PT.  IV 

colleagues.  The  important  word  throughout  this  description  is 
'some'.  At  the  outset  our  man  lacked  the  weight  of  authority 
necessary  to  generate  the  deeds  he  had  in  mind.  Finally  he  does 
generate  them,  thanks  to  the  powers  of  established  Authority,  and  to 
succeed  therein,  all  that  he  needed  was  a  margin  of  authority  over 
his  competitors  for  the  office  and  then  his  colleagues  in  the  office. 

To  illustrate,  here  is  a  legislator  who  has  attached  his  name  to  a 
bill  prescribing  certain  behaviour.  This  behaviour  he  could  not  have 
obtained  in  his  private  capacity,  not  even  in  his  own  constituency, 
not  even  of  all  those  who  have  given  him  their  votes.  The  system  of 
established  Authority  has  proved  a  formidable  multiplier  of  his  will. 
A  system  of  established  Authority  can  be  characterized  by  the  dis- 
proportion of  the  results  obtained  with  the  personal  authority  of  the 
men  who  operate  it.  Indeed,  I  shall  have  occasion  to  note^  that  the 
'authority'  required  to  work  one's  way  up  within  the  system  is  not 
only  much  less  than  that  which  would  be  necessary  for  direct 
comphance,  but  also  may  be  different  in  kind. 

A  system  of  well-established  Authority  can  be  run  by  men  of 
mediocre  authority:  indeed,  I  would  be  tempted  to  stress  that  it 
requires  such  men,  because  its  multiplier  effect  is  so  great  as  to 
make  it  very  dangerous  in  the  hands  of  a  man  with  huge  personal 
authority.  It  is  therefore  not  unreasonable  that  there  should  be  a 
tendency  to  recruit,  into  anciently  established  systems  of  Authority, 
individuals  with  decreasing  ability  to  move  people  on  their  own 
account.  But  in  time  this  slowly  rots  the  collective  Authority  of  the 
system,  while  on  the  other  hand  competing  authority  rears  its  head 
outside  the  system:  these  combined  phenomena  finally  result  in  a 
violent  change. 

The  wealth  of  relationships  existing  in  a  society  sustains  or  gives 
rise  to  a  diversity  of  authorities.  In  societies  where  family  ramifica- 
tions are  of  great  account,  the  head  of  a  gens  speaks  with  great  effect 
when  addressing  his  own  clan,  and  therefore  is  also  listened  to  with 
deference  when  addressing  others.  Even  where  the  gentilic  organiza- 
tion has  utterly  disappeared,  inherited  name  (e.g.  'Roosevelt'  in 
America)  can  lend  a  great  deal  of  weight  to  a  speaker.  Also,  even 
where  religion  has  been  shifted  from  its  central  place  in  Society,  an 
eminent  position  in  a  religious  hierarchy,  which  carries  great  weight 
with  the  faithful,  also  carries  some  with  others.  The  authorities 

1  Part  IV,  ch.  3. 
102 


CH.  l]  ON  BEING  HEARD 

which  have  been  quoted  can  be  called '  subsisting  authorities ',  bound 
to  ancient  institutions,  and  the  hearing  which  they  procure  is  in  fact 
due  to  established  position.  Though  such  positions  are  of  non- 
governmental character,  because  the  hearing  is  here  assured  by 
reason  of  place,  as  in  the  case  of  Authorities,  I  feel  inclined  to  say 
that  here  we  have  not  so  much  'authority'  as  'quasi-Authority'. 

What  I  am  concerned  to  stress  here  is  the  contrast  between  the 
claim  to  compliance  attached  to  a  given  position  and  the  current 
accumulation  of  propensities  to  comply  achieved  by  a  man  who 
gradually  builds  up  his  credit.  In  the  latter  case,  we  have  a 
phenomenon  of 'emergent  authority'.^ 

The  building  up  of  authority  outside  the  framework  of  Authorities 
can  be  exemplified  by  the  trade-union  movement  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  first  union  leaders  were  not  men  who  sought  prefer- 
ence over  competitors  to  fill  established  positions  of  Authority.  They 
were  men  who  slowly,  by  a  laborious  process,  induced  their  fellows 
to  an  unfamiliar  mode  of  action.  Let  us  follow  a  founder  in  his 
promoting  process. 

The  promoter  is  a  working  man  respected  by  his  fellows:  he 
broaches  his  project  to  those  who  are  closest  to  him,  and  as  they  are 
persuaded,  his  status  rises  in  their  eyes.  In  turn,  they  spread  the 
idea,  and  as  it  becomes  clear  that  they  cluster  around  him,  this 
makes  him  more  important  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  are  successively 
approached.  His  first  associates  are  his  lieutenants  who  also  form 
his  council.  Here  is  the  beginning  of  a  political  structure. 

Progress  must  be  considerable  before  a  meeting  is  called.  This 
meeting  can  be  regarded  as  the  equivalent  of  the  initial  coming 
together  for  the  foundation  of  a  commonwealth,  in  Hobbes  and 
Rousseau.  But  how  different  is  reality  from  theory !  In  theory  the 
meeting  is  the  beginning  of  everything :  not  so  in  reality.  How  could 
the  meeting  even  occur  if  contrivers  had  not  set  a  place,  date  and 
hour.?  How  could  it  be  attended,  if  the  contrivers  had  not  worked  to 
arouse  curiosity  and  interest.?  What  chances  of  success  would  it  have, 
if  the  contrivers  had  not,  by  conversations  with  the  men  one  by  one, 
prepared  a  disposition  which  is  now  to  be  displayed  collectively? 
Further,  however  successful  the  meeting  may  be,  it  certainly  does 

^  Cases  can  be  cited  (e.g.  .^^rchbishop  Makarios  of  Cyprus)  where  such  'emergent 
authority'  has  been  built  from  the  starting-point  of  a  'quasi- Authority''.  But  the  case  is 
rare  rather  than  frequent. 

10^ 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV 

not  result,  as  both  Hobbes  and  Rousseau  postulated,  in  a  once-for- 
all  commitment  of  each  to  behave  as  subjects  to  all,  in  a  giving  up  of 
individual  rights  henceforth  entrusted  to  all  (Rousseau)  or  to  some 
(Hobbes).  The  best  that  can  be  hoped  for  is  that  a  feeling  of 
solidarity  is  generated,  and  regard  for  the  promoter  enhanced.  It  is 
a  good  meeting  if,  at  its  end,  the  members  of  the  audience  are  dis- 
posed in  greater  proportion  and  to  a  greater  degree  than  before  to 
act  upon  the  word  of  the  promoter:  that  is,  if  his  authority  has 
increased  extensively  and  intensively. 

But  the  crucial  moment  will  come  with  the  first  strike.  If  it  ends 
in  disastrous  defeat,  the  authority  of  the  leader  will  be  impaired  or 
destroyed.  If  the  latter  the  body  will  cease  to  exist:  for  it  has  not  as 
yet  acquired  any  durable  consistency;  it  is  his  creation,  and  dis- 
appears with  his  authority.  If  on  the  contrary  the  strike  can  in  any 
way  be  regarded  as  a  victory,  then  the  authority  of  the  leader  is 
increased  and  the  body  acquires  more  consistency.  In  time  the  body 
will  come  to  acquire  the  character  of  an  institution.  When  its  leader 
disappears,  the  union  endures  and  there  is  now  an  established 
position  to  be  filled.  Someone  has  to  be  preferred  for  the  filling  of 
that  position :  it  may  be  one  who  could  not  have  built  the  institution, 
though  the  contrast  is  not  apt  to  be  sharp  at  the  first  succession :  it 
will  become  sharper  in  the  succeeding  choices. 

As  displayed  in  the  foregoing  example,  the  promoter  owes  what 
authority  he  enjoys  to  his  own  efforts :  he  has  proved  a  valiant,  wise, 
trustworthy  leader,  and  over  the  years  an  increasing  number  of 
people  have  looked  to  him  with  increasing  respect  and  confidence. 
The  propensities  to  comply  which  he  can  count  upon  at  any  given 
moment  are  those  he  has  earned  up  to  that  moment.  If  they  are 
thought  of  as  a  capital,  this  capital  is  the  fruit  of  his  labours. 

Different  indeed  is  the  case  of  the  man  who  accedes  to  a  pre- 
existing position  of  Authority.  The  compliance  he  can  expect  is 
addressed  not  to  him  but  to  the  position  he  occupies:  any  other 
occupant  would  be  entitled  to  the  same  homage  of  deference  and 
tribute  of  obedience.  This  latter  point  has  been  stressed  with  bitter 
derision  by  Shakespeare: 

Lear.  What!  Art  mad?  A  man  may  see  how  this  world  goes  with  no  eyes. 
Look  with  thine  ears :  see  how  yond  justice  rails  upon  yond  simple  thief. 
Hark  in  thine  ear :  change  places  and,  handy-dandy,  which  is  the  justice, 
which  is  the  thief?  Thou  hast  seen  a  farmer's  dog  bark  at  a  beggar? 

104 


CH.  l]  ON  BEING  HEARD 

Gloucester.  Ay,  sir. 

Lear.  And  the  creature  run  from  the  cur?  there  thou  mightst  behold  the 
great  image  of  authority — a  dog's  obeyed  in  office. 

Harsh  words  these.  While  here  it  is  a  dethroned  king  who  realizes 
with  amazement  that  all  the  weight  of  his  utterance  has  passed  away 
with  his  crown  and  robe,  the  '  dog-in-office '  judgement  comes  more 
naturally  to  a  man  of  self-made  authority  who  is  shocked  to  find  that 
the  mere  donning  of  a  mantle  immediately  affords  the  wearer  a  far 
greater  hearing  than  he  himself  has  gained  by  persistent  labours. 

He  is  like  a  struggling  entrepreneur  who  feels  at  the  same  time 
more  deserving  and  less  favourably  placed  than  a  rentier.  These  two 
expressions,  borrowed  from  another  field,  seem  suitable  here.  I 
shall  indeed  make  much  of  the  concepts  of  political  entrepreneurship 
and  political  enterprise.  Political  entrepreneurship  I  have  defined 
elsewhere^  as  '  the  activity  which  tends  to  the  banding  and  bunching 
of  men  in  order  to  create  a  force  capable  of  exerting  pressure  upon  a 
social  field,  large  or  small'.  No  more  need  be  said  about  it  at  present. 
What  I  propose  to  stress  here  is  not  only  the  difference  of  position 
between  the  political  entrepreneur  and  the  political  rentier^  but, 
further,  the  mutual  antipathy  which  must  normally  reign  between 
them. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  entrepreneur  is  prone  to  regard 
the  occupant  of  a  pre-existing  authority  with  feelings  of  envy  and 
more  or  less  pronounced  contempt.  In  turn  the  man  installed  in  an 
established  position  is  apt  to  regard  'the  new  force'  built  by  this 
parvenu  as  a  threat.  It  is  a  threat  to  the  man-in-office  whatever  the 
nature  of  the  'new  force'. 

Three  possibilities  can  be  shortly  considered.  In  the  first  case, 
the  new  force  has  an  extra-governmental  purpose  (e.g.  a  trade 
union) :  then  it  is  disturbing  to  the  man-in-of!ice  as  a  molehill  which 
arises  in  the  social  field  and  poses  new  and  possibly  troublesome 
problems.  In  the  second  case,  the  new  force  is  designed  for  legiti- 
mate operations  within  the  established  political  structure  (e.g.  a  new 
party) :  it  is  aimed  at  the  conquest  of  existing  political  strongholds, 
positions  of  legitimate  authority;  thereby  it  threatens  the  tenure  of 
present  occupants.  In  the  third  case,  the  new  force  is  of  a  revolu- 
tionary character.  It  is  aimed  not  at  piecemeal  conquest  of  existing 
political  strongholds  v/ithin  accepted  rules  of  the  game,  but  thrown 

^  In  my  paper  'Thoughts  on  a  Theory  of  PoHtical  Enterprise',  University  of  Detroit 
Law  Journal,  vol.  xxxvi,  no.  2,  December  1958. 

105 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV 

against  the  whole  fabric  of  the  poHtical  estabHshment  to  bring  it 
down  and  with  it  many  or  most  estabhshed  positions  of  a  social, 
non-governmental,  complexion. 

This  is  meant  as  a  suggestive,  not  an  exhaustive,  enumeration. 
What  is  suggested  is  that  entrepreneurship  offers  a  challenge  to 
existing  Authorities  in  more  ways  than  one.  It  seems  to  me  that 
political  science  has  been  prone  to  consider  only  what  figures  above 
as  the  second  case  (e.g.  legitimate  competition  for  established  offices), 
eliminating  the  first  category  not  as  unimportant  but  as  falling  out- 
side the  realm  of  Politics  narrowly  defined  (i.e.  government),  and 
eliminating  the  third  category  again  not  as  unimportant  but  as 
scandalous,  monstrous No  doubt !  But  surely  not  to  be  dis- 
regarded in  fact. 

Established  positions  of  authority  are  strongholds  controlling  the 
surrounding  countryside.  Their  occupants  have  some  psychological 
dispositions  which  are  required  of  them  by  the  very  office.  They 
must  want  the  fort  to  endure  and  to  control  the  vicinity:  this  follows 
from  their  being  its  entitled  custodians.  Wanting  this,  they  must 
regard  with  anxiety  any  ganging-up  which  occurs  in  bush-country, 
and  constitutes  a  separate  company  escaping  their  control.  This  they 
have  to  suspect  even  if  the  purpose  of  the  group  is  not  aggressive  in 
respect  to  their  position,  if  its  purpose  is  quite  different  from  the 
taking-over  of  the  citadel :  the  distinctive  grouping  and  the  distinct 
authority  are  a  sort  of  defiance.  The  case  is  much  worse  if  the 
avowed  purpose  of  the  bush-rangers  is  to  assault  the  citadel,  if  they 
propose  to  raze  it  and  set  up  something  utterly  different. 

In  the  former  case,  it  pertains  to  the  duties  of  office  to  get  the 
outlying  group  under  control,  chartering  it  maybe  if  its  purpose  can 
be  approved.  In  the  latter  case  it  pertains  to  the  duties  of  office  to 
break  up  the  bush-rangers. 

In  the  framework  of  democratic  institutions,  there  is  a  duty  in- 
cumbent upon  the  holders  of  the  citadel  to  permit  the  operations  of 
an  outlying  group  which  proposes  to  lay  siege  to  the  stronghold 
according  to  well-established  rules  of '  political  siege ',  it  being  under- 
stood that  if  the  besiegers  win,  there  is  no  more  to  be  feared  from 
them  than  the  turning  out  of  the  present  commander  and  his 
supersession  by  the  commander  of  the  attacking  force. 

This  is  the  pohtical  equivalent  of  the  courteous,  formal  and 
humane  war  of  siege  practised  in  the  eighteenth  century.  These 

1 06 


CH.  l]  ON  BEING  HEARD 

practices  which  so  happily  kept  down  the  violence  of  conflict  did  not 
endure  for  any  length  of  time,  and  those  who  elegantly  persisted  in 
them  went  down  to  defeat  before  the  roughness  of  the  revolutionary 
and  Napoleonic  armies. 

In  time,  emergent  authority  always  wins,  and  its  victory  goes 
far  beyond  a  mere  replacement  of  personnel  within  established 
positions.  Established  positions  of  authority  are  the  shells  generated, 
captured,  extended,  destroyed  and  replaced  by  the  play  of  political 
enterprise.  History  is  a  museum  of  broken  shells  and  a  workshop 
of  new  forms. 

The  ground  which  has  been  covered  in  this  chapter  requires  more 
careful  exploration  of  its  several  areas :  but  it  seemed  necessary  to 
take  a  somewhat  panoramic  view,  in  order  to  stress  the  importance 
of  emergent  authority,  the  active  force  in  Politics.  It  may  also  be 
useful  to  deal  briefly  with  a  frequent  delusion  according  to  which  a 
state  of  affairs  could  exist,  characterized  by  the  absence  of  any 
authority  besides  established  Authorities. 

The  reasons  which  render  such  a  state  of  affairs  desirable  in  the  eyes 
of  many  involve  major  ethical  issues  which  I  do  not  propose  to  dis- 
cuss here.  I  address  myself  merely  to  the  problem  of  practicability. 

There  are  two  ways  of  achieving  a  situation  wherein  there  is  no 
authority  besides  estabHshed  Authority:  one  is  to  discourage  and 
prevent  the  formation  of  any  authority  within  the  social  field ;  the 
other  is  to  recruit  into  the  structure  of  established  Authorities  any 
authority  which  does  assert  itself  upon  the  social  field.  Not  only  is 
the  first  course  objectionable,  but  also  it  involves  all  the  practical 
difficulties  of  suppression.  The  second  course  seems  at  the  same 
time  far  more  desirable  and  far  more  feasible.  At  first  sight  it 
appears  obvious  that  a  system  of  direct  suffrage  which  calls  those 
subject  to  a  given  position  of  authority  to  choose  its  holder^  must 
result  in  the  attribution  of  each  position  of  legal  command  to  the 
man  who  ex  ante  commanded  the  most  attention. 

Many  reasons,  however,  intervene  to  balk  this  result.  One  of  them 
can  be  expounded  as  follows.  Cleaving  to  a  leader  imphes  an 
intensive  assent;  the  majority  choice  of  a  man  to  fill  a  given  position 
implies  an  extensive  preference.  Extensive  preference  often  works 
in  favour  of  a  man  incapable  of  arousing  intensive  assent.    By 

^  Note  that  modern  democracies  fall  far  short  of  this  supposition,  which  would  for 
instance  imply  the  election  of  military  officers  by  their  own  soldiers. 

107 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV,  CH.  I 

definition  followers  are  willing  to  do  a  great  deal  at  the  call  of  their 
leader.  Electors  on  the  other  hand  may  well,  in  picking  the  occupant 
of  a  position  from  which  much  can  be  demanded  of  them,  choose  a 
candidate  whom  they  judge  likely  to  demand  little. 

A  trivial  comparison  may  perhaps  cast  some  light  on  the  subject. 
A  great  number  of  investors  have  most  of  their  funds  tied  up, 
whether  they  like  it  or  not,  in  a  vast  investment  fund,  and  are  called 
upon  to  choose  its  manager.  Some  few  of  them  have  enthusiastic 
confidence  in  a  bold  Primus  whose  advice  they  follow  in  the  handling 
of  their  free  funds  and  whom  they  would  like  to  put  in  control  of 
the  great  fund.  But  most  of  the  investors  are  frightened  of  this 
daring  fellow  and  their  choice  will  in  fact  lie  between  two  less 
colourful  personaHties,  Secundus  and  Tertius:  let  the  winner  be 
Secundus.  After  some  time,  it  appears  that  the  management  of 
Secundus  has  been  poor  and  that  the  followers  of  Primus  have  done 
well:  the  prestige  of  Primus  will  rise  in  the  eyes  of  many:  an  in- 
creasing number  will  abide  by  his  word  in  the  management  of  their 
free  funds;  the  discrepancy  between  established  Authority  and 
authority  will  become  extensive. 

Even  though  this  example  is  deplorably  trivial,  it  can  serve  to 
introduce  another  element  of  the  situation.  It  is  improbable  that 
the  unorthodox  Primus  will  even  find  it  possible  to  stand  for  the 
position  of  manager.  In  the  case  of  any  well-established  positions  of 
Authority,  however  open  the  electoral  process  may  be  in  principle, 
there  is  always  some  degree  of  control  exercised  by  'insiders',  which 
in  effect  screens  the  candidate.  Thus  Primus  may  not  only  be  unable 
to  muster  a  majority  if  he  stands,  he  may  also  be  unable  to  stand. 

Therefore,  even  in  a  system  which  would  seem  likely  to  fill 
positions  of  Authority  with  the  men  of  most  authority,  there  is 
a  discrepancy,  which  perhaps  tends  to  become  more  pronounced 
as  the  system  ages.  It  is  not  our  business  here  to  discuss  current 
institutions,^  but  the  theory  of  politics.  What  was  germane  to  this 
purpose  was  to  stress  the  distinction  between  established  Authority 
and  emergent  authority,  to  underline  the  great  importance  of  the 
latter  and  to  show  that  the  two  things  do  not  regularly  merge,  and 
that  they  therefore  give  rise  to  tensions  more  or  less  pronounced  at 
different  moments. 

^  If  we  did  that,  we  should  have  to  discuss  the  new  trend  towards  the  choice  of  a 
Chief  Magistrate  with  considerable  personal  authority,  and  the  resulting  change  in  the 
balance  of  legal  powers. 

io8 


CHAPTER  2 

THE  LAW  OF  CONSERVATIVE 
EXCLUSION 

Instigation  was  discussed  in  part  iii.  We  posited  the  'radical'^  of 
political  action : '  A  tells  B  to  do  H' ;  and  pointed  out  that  the  reaction 
of  B  is  uncertain  (which  can  be  signified  by  writing  ABW),  and 
that  the  probability  of  its  being  positive  is  a  function,  on  the  one 
hand  of  his  positive  appreciation  of  H,  on  the  other  of  his  positive 
valuation  of  A.  Now  in  part  iv,  attention  is  focused  upon  the  re- 
inforcing factor  ofA's  speech  constituted  by  his  position  of  relative 
authority  in  respect  of  B  (which  can  be  denoted  by  AIB),  a  relation 
which  can  arise  from  y^f's  occupation  of  a  position  of  established 
Authority,  or  more  simply  from  his  having  built  up,  accumulated, 
some  propensity  towards  compliance  on  the  part  of  B :  authority 
simpliciter. 

As  we  have  ever  lived  in  the  shadow  of  established  Authority,  it 
seemed  necessary  to  stress  that  simple  authority  is  a  ubiquitous, 
dynamic  and  logically  prior  phenomenon.  At  the  end  of  the  last 
chapter  it  was  shown  briefly  that  a  state  of  affairs  where  there  exists 
no  authority  besides  established  Authority  cannot  be  achieved.  Here 
it  will  be  formally  proved  that  a  state  of  affairs  where  there  would  be 
no  estabhshed  Authority  would  be  intolerable.  For  this  demonstra- 
tion, we  shall  assume  such  a  state  of  affairs  at  the  outset,  and  from 
its  consideration  the  necessity  of  some  established  Authority  will  be 
made  clear. 

Such  a  demonstration  may  seem  redundant.  Almost  no  one  is  a 
consistent  anarchist,  pursues  to  its  logical  conclusion  the  beHef  that 
there  should  be  no  command:  practically  all  men  take  for  granted 
that  there  must  be  some  pronouncements  binding  upon  everyone. 
But  the  very  function  of  a  'theory  of  politics'  is  to  substitute  for  a 
hazy  awareness  an  articulated  edifice  of  sharply  defined  and  logically 
dovetailed  notions. 

^  I  am  anxious  that  the  reader  should  bear  in  mind  that  the  relation  referred  to  is 
'cut  out'  by  intellectual  analysis,  from  complex  situations  wherein  it  figures  as  a  basic 
component.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  character  is  properly  denoted  by  the  term  'radical', 
which  for  that  reason  I  persist  in  using,  although  advised  that  it  lacks  elegance. 

109 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV 

If  we  clearly  perceive  how  the  necessity  of  command  arises  from 
the  facts,  this  will  cast  light  upon  the  disputes  concerning  the  scope 
of  command.  That  will  become  apparent  as  we  proceed. 

I  shall  here  take  as  my  starting-point  an  objection  which  has  been 
raised  against  my  taking  'A  tells  B  to  do  //'  as  the  radical  of  political 
action.  It  is  an  objection  which  I  regard  with  great  respect,  as 
coming  from  excellent  minds.  Meeting  it  at  this  point  is  not  at  all 
out  of  place,  since  its  discussion  will  lead  us  straight  into  the  heart 
of  the  subject  of  Authority. 

The  objection  can  be  formulated  as  follows:  'What  you  are  doing 
in  this  work  is  discussing  in  general  the  moving  of  man  by  man,  or 
the  attempt  to  do  so.  You  claim  that  such  a  call  to  move  is  a  very 
general  phenomenon  in  human  relations,  and  this  is  not  to  be  denied. 
But  it  is  too  general :  calls  to  move  are  present  throughout  the  social 
life  of  men,  and  far  the  greater  part  of  them  can,  by  no  stretch  of  the 
imagination,  be  regarded  as  pertaining  to  Politics.' 

I  do  not  deny,  on  the  contrary  I  affirm,  the  obvious:  that  this 
moving  of  man  by  man  occurs  everywhere  within  the  social  field ; 
and  I  readily  acknowledge  that  far  the  greater  part  of  such 
activity  is  not  commonly  thought  of  as  'political'.  What  I  hold  is 
that  a  more  dynamic  understanding  of  what  is  commonly  recognized 
as  Politics  is  obtained  if  this  moving  of  man  by  man  is  defined  as  the 
elemental,  basic  political  action.  The  very  objection  which  I  en- 
counter will  serve  to  demonstrate  that  my  definition  of  political 
action  provides  a  high  road  of  entry  into  the  problems  which  are 
generally  acknowledged  to  lie  in  the  field  of  Politics. 

The  objection  is  rooted  in  the  fact  that  'man  moving  man'  is,  and 
is  inevitably,  present  wherever  men  are  together.  So  shall  my 
demonstration  be  rooted. 

Consider  a  cluster  of  men;  it  is  agreed  between  us  that  within  this 
cluster  there  are  at  any  moment  some  men  who  are  attempting  to 
move  some  others.  For  the  sake  of  simplicity  let  us  reduce  the 
number  of '  movers '  to  only  two,  Paul  and  John.  Before  considering 
whom  these  movers  seek  to  move,  let  us  concentrate  on  what  they 
call  for.  Paul  calls  for  an  Hp  action  and  John  for  an  Hj  action. 
These  two  different  calls,  uttered  by  two  different  callers,  may  be 
addressed  to  two  different  persons,  whom  we  shall  assume  to  be 
responsive,  and  we  shall  denote  them  as  follows,  Bp  and  Bj. 

The  situation  can  be  made  more  concrete  if  we  picture  the  scene 

no 


CH.  2]  CONSERVATIVE  EXCLUSION 

as  laid  in  a  primitive  village.  Paul  calls  upon  one  man  to  come  fishing 
with  him  and  John  upon  another  to  give  him  a  hand  in  felling  a  tree. 
The  situation  gives  rise  to  no  difficulty.  There  may  be  some  diffi- 
culty, if  the  two  calls  happen  to  be  addressed  to  the  same  man :  the 
two  actions  required  of  him  are  incompatible  at  the  level  of  the 
individual  B\  he  has  to  choose,  and  in  so  doing  may  antagonize 
either  Paul  or  John.  But  this  need  not  be  a  serious  situation. 

Now  let  us  consider  the  case  where  Paul  and  John  address  their 
calls  to  the  incompatible  Hp  and  Hj  actions  to  the  villagers  at  large. 
Suppose  that  some  of  the  latter  respond  to  the  call  of  Paul,  some  to 
the  call  of  John,  possibly  some  to  neither.  This  sorting  out  of  the 
villagers  into  Paul-followers,  undertaking  //p,  and  John-followers, 
undertaking  //j,  again  creates  no  difficulty  provided  that  the  actions 
Hp  and  Hj  are  compatible  at  the  level  of  the  set.^  The  fact  that 
«j,  members  go  fishing  with  Peter  does  not  conflict  with  the  fact 
that  Uj  members  go  felling  trees  with  John. 

This  situation  can  be  described  as  the  uttering  of  competing 
signals  Sp  and  Sj  addressed  to  the  whole  set,  incompatible  at  the 
level  of  the  individual  but  compatible  at  the  level  of  the  set.  If  the 
actions  indicated  are  compatible  at  the  level  of  the  set,  the  signals  are 
competing  but  not  conflicting. 

The  more  complex  the  subject — and  we  are  here  entering  into 
complexities — the  more  familiar  the  illustrations  should  be.  Let  me 
therefore  instance  competing  but  not  conflicting  signals  by  two  neon 
advertisements  standing  side  by  side  on  a  dark  road :  one  of  these 
calls  upon  drivers  to  stop  at  Paul's  restaurant,  the  other  to  stop  at 
John's  restaurant.  These  are  competing  signals  but  their  competition 
is  harmless.  Not  so  if  we  substitute  for  these  two  Hghted  signs  a  pair 
of  others,  one  of  which  states  'Keep  Left'  and  the  other  'Keep 
Right'.  Havoc  must  result  if  some  drivers  choose  to  comply  with 
the  'right'  signal  and  some  with  the  'left'  signal.  Such  signals  are 
incompatible  at  the  level  of  the  set,  one  of  them  must  be  struck  down. 

This  simple  observation  leads  us  to  the  heart  of  political  organiza- 
tion. Any  set  of  people  in  some  way  dependent  upon  one  another 
must  have  some  provision,  explicit  or  implicit,  for  the  elimination  of 
signals  which  would  conflict  at  the  level  of  the  set.  Signals  which  do 
not  conflict  at  the  level  of  the  set  may  freely  compete,  but  signals 
which  are  incompatible  at  the  level  of  the  set  cannot  be  allowed  to 

^  The  word  'set'  is  used  throughout  as  in  mathematics,  meaning  here  the  well-defined 
collection  of  people  to  whom  the  calls  discussed  can  in  practice  be  addressed. 

Ill 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV 

compete.  This  is  the  Law  of  Conservative  Exclusion  which  is 
essential  to  any  body  poHtic. 

The  Law  of  Conservative  Exclusion  is  not  a  law  in  the  sense  that 
it  operates  at  all  times  inevitably.  It  is  not  a  law  in  the  sense  of  its 
having  been  edicted  by  some  Authority.  It  is  a  law  in  the  sense  of 
its  being  a  necessary  condition  for  the  persistence  of  a  body  politic. 
Whenever  and  wherever  competing  instigations  would  conflict,  from 
different  signals  to  do,  one  is  selected  and  the  others  are  eliminated. 
There  is  room  for  only  one  signal  and  moreover  compliance  to  this 
one  signal  must  be  enforced.  There  is  a  name  for  this  single,  mono- 
poHstic,  obedience-exacting  signal:  it  is  a  command.  The  contrast 
between  suggestion-communication  and  command-communication 
is  stark.  In  the  former  case,  any  member  of  the  set  may,  with  widely 
different  chances,  seek  to  move  all  or  some  other  members  to  the 
action  he  desires,  and  any  member  of  the  set  may  choose  to  respond 
to  this  or  that  suggestion  or  none.  Quite  different  is  the  case  of 
command ;  it  squeezes  out  competing  suggestions  which  would  con- 
flict with  it,  and  requests  compliance. 

The  natural  basis  for  the  Law  of  Conservative  Exclusion  can  be 
instanced  very  simply.  A  tribe  hears  that  strangers  are  advancing  to 
its  hunting  grounds.  Paul  calls  upon  his  fellow-warriors  to  attack 
these  invaders  while  John  urges  the  people  to  meet  the  newcomers 
with  presents.  If  then  some  pick  up  their  spears  for  the  ambush 
while  others  gather  fruit  for  the  bearing  of  presents,  the  Paulist 
attack  will  fail  and  the  Johnists  will  suffer  reprisals.  Clearly  the 
actions  of  the  members  cannot,  without  disaster,  divide  according 
to  their  preference  for  the  Paul  or  the  John  suggestion.  The  actions 
of  all  members  of  the  set  must  be  consistent.  And  for  that  purpose, 
the  two  conflicting  calls  to  action  cannot  be  allowed  to  sound  upon 
the  social  field :  only  one  is  permissible. 

What  shall  this  call  be?  The  call  to  bear  arms  or  to  carry  fruit.?  The 
policy  of  Paul  and  that  of  John  may  both  be  advanced,  provided  only 
that  they  are  not  presented  as  direct  calls  to  do,  but  as  opposing 
propositions  to  make  the  call  to  action  this  or  that. 

This  looks  more  like  PoHtics  as  it  is  currently  understood  and 
described  than  does  the  ABH  relation  of  which  so  much  has  been 
made  in  this  exposition.  For  instance  the  proposal  of  Alcibiades  to 
the  Athenian  Assembly  is  that  the  expedition  to  Syracuse  should  be 
undertaken  while  the  proposal  of  Nicias  is  that  it  should  not  be. 

112 


CH.  2]  CONSERVATIVE  EXCLUSION 

Conflicting  proposals  compete  for  selection;  one  is  retained  and 
becomes  command,  the  other  is  altogether  eliminated. 

But  even  if  we  have  come  a  long  way  round  to  state  what  is 
familiar,  it  was  not  a  useless  way.  For  indeed  the  understanding  of 
the  direct  moving  of  man  by  man  has  brought  us  to  reaHze  that  in 
cases  where  conflicting  instigations  to  do  would  result  in  placing 
members  of  the  set  in  attitudes  destructive  of  the  set  as  a  working 
system,  as  an  ordered  field,  then  there  must  be  elimination  of  con- 
flicting instigations,  one  of  which,  and  one  alone,  is  elevated  to  the 
position  of  a  'command',  which  alone  can  be  uttered  and  which 
precludes  the  utterance  of  any  conflicting  instigation. 

Now  this  immediately  brings  out  three  features  fundamental  to 
any  political  system. 

(i)  There  must  be  some  selection  between  possible  instigations 
whenever  it  would  not  be  tolerable  to  have  more  than  one :  that  is, 
when  two  or  more  would  prove  incompatible  at  the  level  of  the  set. 
And  therefore,  there  must  be  some  selective  process. 

(2)  When  the  selective  process  has  been  completed,  there  must 
be  a  proclamation  of  the  result.  This  proclamation  must  be  such  that 
the  'call  to  do'  now  uttered  is  unmistakably  recognized  by  all  as 
utterly  different  in  nature  from  an  instigation  which  they  would  be 
free  to  respond  to  or  not.  This  is  now  a  command,  and  the  abstract 
difference  must  be  brought  home  by  a  visible  majesty. 

(3)  When  the  command  has  been  proclaimed,  there  is  no  freedom 
to  utter  an  instigation  conflicting  with  it. 

Remembering  that  what  is  here  sought  is  to  preclude  a  clash  of 
conducts,  we  see  clearly  that  the  reception  of  the  proclamation  is  all- 
important.  This  causes  us  to  stress  the  majesty  which  must  attend 
the  proclamation.  There  must  therefore  be  'a  high  place',  from 
which  the  words  of  the  proclamation  are  uttered  in  quite  a  different 
guise  than  words  of  simple  instigation  would  be. 

In  most  countries  of  the  world,  at  most  times,  commands  have 
been  handed  down  from  a  throne,  raised  by  steps:  they  have  been 
spoken  by  a  man  sitting  in  state,  clad  in  robes  of  majesty,  bearing  a 
crown,  holding  a  sceptre.  And  his  words  have  been  heralded  by  a 
sounding  of  trumpets.  All  this,  which  may  now  seem  to  us  empty 
ceremonial,  proved  necessary  to  impress  upon  the  listeners  that  here 
was  not  instigation  but  a  command.  The  raising  of  the  speaker  upon 
a  throne  was  no  more  irrational  than  is  the  raising  of  a  weight  to  a 

8  113  JPT 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV 

certain  height,  in  order  that  it  may  fall  with  greater  energy.  The 
means  of  endowing  an  utterance  with  majesty  change  with  time,  but 
some  means  there  must  be. 

Nor  do  they  become  less  necessary  if  the  previous  discussions  of 
the  proposals  vying  for  the  status  of  command  have  been  prolonged 
and  public.  The  debate  closed,  many  of  us,  members  of  the  public, 
feel  that  the  proposal  selected  was  not  the  best,  or  indeed  that  it  is 
bad.  The  same  feeling  may  be  found  in,  and  voiced  by,  some  mem- 
bers of  the  ultimate  decision-making  committee.  If  so,  that  will 
detract  from  the  impressiveness  of  the  pronouncement  made  by  that 
committee.  It  is  now  necessary  that  proposals  which  it  was  proper 
to  champion  at  an  earlier  stage  but  which  have  been  eliminated  by 
the  selective  process  should  be  'rubbed  out'  of  our  minds.  And  the 
best  way  to  achieve  this  is  that  the  proposal  finally  selected  should  be 
proclaimed  by  an  agency  which  had  no  part  in  the  controversy. 
Failing  this  agency  of  majesty,  the  ultimate  decision-making  com- 
mittee must  change  its  tone  from  argument  to  proclamation. 

Even  with  the  seal  of  majesty,  and  a  fortiori  without,  it  may  prove 
difficult  to  clear  away,  after  utterance  of  the  command,  the  proposals 
which  have  been  its  unsuccessful  competitors.  This  is  a  requirement 
which,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  not  been  considered. 

Let  us  restate  it : '  When  the  command  has  been  proclaimed,  there 
is  no  freedom  to  utter  an  instigation  competing  with  it.'  This 
follows  logically  from  the  very  justification  of  command  here 
repeated. 

Premiss  A :  a  diversity  of  instigations  is  intolerable  when  it  would 
lead  to  a  destructive  conflict  of  behaviours. 

Premiss  B:  Z  is  such  an  occasion. 

Conclusion:  therefore  a  diversity  of  instigations  cannot  be 
tolerated  on  issue  Z. 

Since  the  very  justification  of  command  is  to  preclude  the  diversity 
of  instigations  when  such  diversity  would  cause  harmful  clashes  (and 
Z  is  ex  hypothesi  such  an  occasion),  then  after  proclamation  of  a 
command  C^  on  this  issue,  the  revival  or  introduction  of  an  instiga- 
tion clashing  with  that  command  restores  precisely  that  diversity 
which  the  command  was  meant  to  eliminate.  Indeed  it  does  more 
than  this :  challenging  in  this  one  instance  the  efficiency  of  the  procla- 
mation, it  tends  thereby  to  weaken  such  efficiency  in  general. 

How  can  I  justify  such  an  instigation.?  If  I  subscribe  to  premiss 


114 


i 


CH.  2]  CONSERVATIVE  EXCLUSION 

A  and  to  premiss  B^  if  my  proposal  has  been  considered  in  the 
procedure  of  selection  of  the  command,  then  my  taking  up  as  an 
instigation  what  has  been  rejected  as  a  candidate  to  command  is 
'political  interloping'.  For  instance  the  Paulists  have  opposed  the 
proposal  to  levy  a  certain  tax:  it  has  been  carried  against  their 
opposition  and  now  they  call  upon  taxpayers  to  refuse  their  con- 
tributions. Such  political  interloping  is  always  a  challenge  to  the 
political  system  and  often  to  the  very  existence  of  the  body  poHtic. 
The  extreme  form  of  political  interloping  will  be  an  appeal  by  a 
defeated  peace  party  not  to  participate  in  a  war  decided  upon  in  spite 
of  their  opposition,  or  conversely  the  committing  of  acts  of  war  by 
a  defeated  war  party.^ 

PoHtical  interloping  seeks  justifications  and  finds  them  in  the 
statement  that  the  selective  procedure  has  not  been  observed,  or 
again  in  the  more  far-reaching  statement  that  it  does  not  accept  the 
selective  procedure  in  use.  It  may  seek  a  higher  justification  in  the 
plea  of  conscience,  holding  that  it  is  more  important  to  act  in  con- 
formity with  one's  conscience  than  to  secure  the  body  politic  against 
the  destructive  effect  of  incompatible  behaviours :  then  it  negates  pre- 
miss A.  But  an  altogether  simpler  defence  is  the  negation  of  premiss 
B :  that  is,  the  interloper  then  pleads  that  the  issue  Z  was  not  one  on 
which  the  diversity  of  instigations  is  intolerable.  And  this  raises  a 
point  of  great  interest. 

Above  I  have  quoted  simple  examples  where,  quite  clearly,  the 
call  to  do  this  and  the  call  to  do  that  could  be  uttered  side  by  side 
without  harm  to  the  body  politic.  While  the  different  actions  called 
for  are  incompatible  at  the  level  of  the  individual  (he  cannot  do  both) 
they  are  compatible  at  the  level  of  the  set  (it  does  not  matter  that 
some  do  one  and  some  the  other).  Against  those  I  have  quoted 
simple  examples  displaying  cases  where  two  different  calls  to  action, 

^  There  are  disguised  indirect  forms  of  'political  interloping'  of  which  Thucydides 
gives  an  instance.  After  Alcibiades  had  carried  the  Athenian  Assembly  with  him  on  the 
matter  of  the  expedition  to  Syracuse,  and  when  the  expedition  was  on  its  way  with 
Alcibiades  one  of  its  generals,  the  worsted  peace  party  taxed  Alcibiades  with  having, 
before  his  departure,  participated  in  or  led  a  defacing  of  the  Mercuries.  And  as  his 
winning  voice  was  lacking,  as  well  as  the  support  of  the  young  and  the  sailors,  all  away 
in  Sicily,  a  proposal  could  therefore  be  carried  taxing  him  with  profanation  and  bidding 
him  return  to  purge  himself  of  the  accusation.  It  may  well  be  that  his  recall  lost  Athens 
its  sole  chance  of  victory,  which  lay  in  a  celerity  natural  to  Alcibiades  and  altogether 
foreign  to  Nicias,  his  former  opponent  in  the  Assembly,  on  whose  shoulders  the  burden 
of  military  leadership  now  fell. 

115  8-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV 

if  Uttered  side  by  side  and  if  followed,  one  by  some  and  the  other 
by  some  others,  would  create  a  disastrous  situation.  The  examples 
have  been  chosen  for  their  simplicity  and  forthrightness :  there  could 
be  no  doubt  in  some  of  the  cases  that  there  was  no  need  to  eliminate 
competing  signals  to  do,  and  no  doubt  in  some  other  cases  that  there 
was  room  only  for  one  signal. 

Generahzing,  we  come  naturally  to  the  notion  that  all  conceivable 
signals  to  do  fall  into  two  classes:  class  i  is  formed  of  the  cases  where 
competing  signals  would  be  incompatible  at  the  level  of  the  set,  and 
this  defines  the  realm  of  command  where  one  signal  and  one  only  is 
permissible ;  class  2  is  formed  of  the  other  cases  where  competing 
signals  are  not  incompatible  at  the  level  of  the  set,  and  therefore  this 
is  the  realm  of  free  instigation. 

Such  a  division  is  meaningful:  in  zone  i,  there  may  be  competing 
proposals  that  the  signal  to  do  be  this  or  that,  but  there  must  be  a 
selection  among  these  proposals  and  the  elevation  of  one  of  them  to  the 
dignity  of  command.  There  must  then  be  a  selecting  and  dignifying 
agency,  corresponding  to  the  notions  of  government  and  sovereignty. 

Such  a  division  is  useful,  since  it  affords  justification  to  command 
in  zone  i  and  denies  it  in  zone  2. 

But  is  such  a  division  in  practice  easily  made?  Can  we  draw  a 
hard-and-fast  frontier  once  and  for  all  between  zone  i  and  zone  2} 
The  answer  is  that  we  cannot.  The  frontier  between  the  realm  of 
command  and  that  of  free  instigation  shifts  in  time  and  is  at  any 
time  itself  an  issue.  And  it  is  natural  that  it  should  be  so. 

Consider  a  Paulist  team  which  seeks  to  promote  on  the  issue  Z 
the  action  Hzp.  At  the  moment  /q,  the  Paulist  team  feels  that  it  can 
get  some,  but  not  many,  members  of  the  body  politic  to  do  the 
action //gp.  The  expectation  'some  but  not  many'  leads  the  PauHsts 
to  present  the  issue  Z  as  one  which  does  not  fall  within  the  realm  of 
command.  If  it  fell  within  the  realm  of  command,  at  this  moment, 
^o,  the  proposal  that  all  members  of  the  body  politic  behave  in  the 
same  manner  relative  to  the  issue  Z  would  lead  to  the  adoption  of 
some  action  other  than  Hzp  and  therefore  would  exclude  the  instiga- 
tion of  this  action  desired  by  the  Paulists.  But  at  some  later  moment, 
?^,  the  prospects  of  the  Paulists  have  changed;  now  they  can  hope 
for  a  majority  in  favour  of  the  proposal  that  the  action  Hzp  be 
commanded.  So  now  they  say  that  the  issue  Z  lies  within  the  realm 
of  command. 

116 


CH.  2]  CONSERVATIVE  EXCLUSION 

Thus  the  same  group  of  people  on  the  same  issue  at  two  different 
moments  of  time  may  plead  that  this  is  a  matter  in  which  individuals 
should  be  left  free  to  respond  to  competing  suggestions,  or  that  this 
is  a  matter  in  which  individuals  should  comply  to  one  command ;  the 
reason  for  their  shift  being  that  if  they  took  the  latter  line  at  the 
earlier  moment  their  instigation  would  be  squeezed  out  by  an 
adverse  command,  while  by  taking  the  latter  line  at  the  later  moment 
they  hope  to  ensure  that  their  proposal,  attaining  the  status  of 
command,  will  squeeze  out  competing  instigations. 

This  simple  pattern  goes  a  long  way  towards  explaining  the 
vagaries  of  the  'liberty'  battle-cry.  Freedom  of  suggestion  and  re- 
sponse is  highly  valued  by  a  group  at  present  anticipating  weak 
response,  but  the  maintenance  of  such  freedom  becomes  a  dis- 
utility to  this  group  if  it  comes  to  a  position  enabling  it  to  enforce 
its  proposal  as  mandatory  for  all.  Consider  for  instance  the  history 
of  the  labour  movement  in  the  United  States.  At  an  early  stage, 
what  is  claimed  is  the  liberty  to  organize  and  to  join;  at  a  later  stage 
what  is  emphasized  is  the  requirement  that  any  worker  in  an 
organized  establishment  should  be  required  to  join. 

Such  shifts  do  not  display  cynicism.  If  the  Paulists  deem  an  action 
or  behaviour  good,  they  naturally  seek  to  obtain  it  from  the  greatest 
possible  number;  and  for  that  purpose  invoke  tolerance  when  their 
expectations  are  low,  coherence  when  their  expectations  are  high. 
Since  a  given  group's  attitude  towards  the  inclusion  of  a  given  issue 
in  the  realm  of  command  or  its  exclusion  therefrom  is  a  function  of 
its  expectations,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  subjective  appreciation 
of  the  ideal  dividing  Hne  should  be  subject  to  change.  But  objective 
appreciation  itself  is  difficult. 

It  is  difficult  simply  because  coherence  is  not  only  a  question  of 
men's  actions,  but  a  question  of  men's  feelings  about  men's  actions. 
It  may  be  that  actions  Hzp  and  Hzj  are  not  in  fact  incompatible,  but 
that  action  Hzj  so  antagonizes  the  Paulists  as  to  provoke  them  to  the 
action  Hzpjp  which  is  incompatible  with  Hzj-  In  other  terms, 
subjective  appreciations  are  objective  elements  of  the  situation. 


117 


CHAPTER  3 

PLACE  AND  FACE 

In  the  museum  at  Corinth  there  are  two  statues,  artistically  worth- 
less, which  testify  to  the  fashion  under  Roman  rule  of  setting  up  in 
a  place  of  vantage  the  standing  figure  of  the  governor.  The  sculptor 
has  reproduced,  with  uninspired  exactitude,  every  detail  of  the 
military  costume  borne  upon  occasions  of  state  by  the  representative 
of  the  civitas  imperans.  Only  the  head  is  lacking,  nor  is  it  by  accident : 
a  hollow  between  the  shoulders  reveals  grooves  designed  for  the 
fitting  of  a  removable  head  upon  the  massive  body.  Thus  were  the 
citizens  spared  the  expense  of  putting  up  a  new  statue  to  honour  a 
new  governor :  the  old  face  was  taken  down  and  a  new  face  was  set 
in  its  stead. 

This  can  serve  to  symbolize  established  Authority.  The  statue  has 
been  set  up  at  some  previous  time  and  lasts  through  many  genera- 
tions; but  the  face  must  be  that  of  a  living  and  active  magistrate.  The 
end  of  a  life,  or  of  a  term,  removes  the  transient  head  from  the 
enduring  shoulders.  There  is  now  a  void  to  be  filled,  an  opportunity 
for  a  new  man  to  lift  his  head  on  to  the  shoulders  of  the  statue.  The 
aspiring  politician  who  seeks  to  raise  his  face  on  top  of  the  standing 
statue  undertakes  an  operation  far  different  from  the  raising  of  the 
statue  itself,  which  requires  slighter  efforts,  and  skills  different  in 
kind.  Therefore  men  who  come  to  occupy  positions  of  established 
Authority  are  seldom  of  the  same  type  as  the  Founders.  But  if  there 
have  been  founders  in  the  past,  as  attested  by  the  existing  statues, 
there  are  also  potential  founders  at  present.  The  less  likely  they  are 
to  become  occupants  of  established  positions,  the  more  prone  they 
are  to  challenge  the  standing  statues. 

A  new  face  can  be  raised  on  to  the  shoulders  of  the  existing  statue 
by  four  main  procedures:  heredity,  nomination  from  above,  co- 
optation,  election  from  below.  A  complex  political  system  comprises 
many  statues,  and  the  procedures  for  lifting  heads  on  to  them  are 
diverse.  Take  Great  Britain  at  the  time  of  writing:  succession  to  the 
throne  is  by  heredity;  seats  in  the  House  of  Lords  are  filled  by 
heredity  but  also  by  nomination  from  above  (the  new  peers) ;  offices 

ii8 


PT.  IV,  CH.  3]  PLACE  AND  FACE 

with  great  powers  of  decision,  civil  or  military,  are  filled  by  nomina- 
tion from  above;  co-optation  predominates  in  the  selection  of  judges. 
Election  to  a  position  of  Authority  by  those  subject  to  that  Authority, 
while  it  is  the  essential  idea  of  democratic  polities,  in  fact  fills  but 
a  small  minority  of  the  positions  of  Authority.  As  it  is  the  main 
idea,  and  apphes  to  key  positions,  we  shall  concentrate  upon  that 
procedure. 

Knowledge  of  the  formal  procedure  is  one  thing,  understanding  of 
the  efficient  process  another.  To  take  a  simple  illustration,  in  order 
to  obtain  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons,  it  is  necessary  and  suffi- 
cient to  gain  a  relative  majority  in  any  constituency  at  the  time  of 
election.  But  if  we  say  only  that  much,  we  afford  no  practical  guid- 
ance to  an  aspiring  politician.  The  very  first  concrete  specification 
we  must  add  is  that  he  cannot  stand  with  any  chance  of  success  until 
he  has  been  adopted  as  candidate  by  one  of  three  existing  parties. 
As  soon  as  this  is  said,  we  must  go  into  some  details  regarding  this 
adoption.  Such  details  make  it  clear  that  before  our  man  offers 
himself  to  all  the  people,  he  must  have  satisfied  a  small  number  of 
people,  who  control  avenues  of  access. 

Suppose  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  by-election.  Our  man's  name 
must  be  placed  on  a  list  sent  from  party  headquarters  to  the  con- 
stituency. Party  headquarters  will  not  put  in  just  any  name  which 
happens  to  be  sent  in :  a  first  discrimination  is  made  by  a  few  people 
there.  The  result  is  still  quite  a  long  list  sent  to  the  constituency, 
where  it  is  cut  down  to  a  shorter  list,  again  by  a  few  people.  The 
men  who  remain  on  the  short  list  are  then  called  up  before  a  con- 
stituency committee,  comprising  this  time  a  few  dozen  people,  who 
make  the  final  selection.^  All  this  occurs  before  our  man  can  offer 
himself  (with  any  chance  of  success)  to  the  electorate.  The  two  or 
three  individuals  who  finally  compete  for  the  votes  of  the  people 
have,  in  each  case,  been  selected  by  'insiders'. 

It  can  hardly  be  otherwise.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  give  the 
people  a  choice  without  narrowing  it  down.  Take  what  is  possibly 
the  greatest  position  of  Authority  in  our  day,  the  American  Presi- 
dency:  if  one  wished  to  suppress  any  process  of  selection  prior  to  the 
opening  of  the  campaign,  this  would  imply  granting  equal  treatment 

^  David  Butler  states  that  the  selection  meetings  are  'typically  attended  by  30  to  100 
members  of  the  constituency  [party]'  {The  British  General  Election  of  igsg,  London, 
i960,  p.  122).  Cf.  R.  T.  McKenzie's  British  Political  Parties,  and  his  report  on 
The  Political  Activists  and  Some  Problems  of  Inner  Party  Democracy  in  Britain  to  the 
Fifth  World  Congress  of  the  International  Pohtical  Science  Association. 

119 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV 

to  all  individuals  deciding  to  stand,  and  utter  confusion  would  result. 
The  logical  necessity  of  prior  selection  can  be  simply  proved  by 
referring  to  the  most  democratic  system  ever  worked,  that  of  Athens 
in  the  fifth  century  B.C.  All  important  decisions  were  taken  by  the 
Assembly  of  all  citizens,  called  together  for  one-day  sessions,  ten  to 
forty  times  a  year.  Even  though  only  a  small  minority  of  the 
citizenry  attended,  obviously  it  was  impossible  to  'give  the  floor'  to 
any  one  of  the  three  to  five  thousand  participants,  each  of  whom  had 
an  equal  right  to  speak.^  Therefore  there  must  have  been  some  ex 
ante  process  of  nomination  of  speakers,  of  which  we  are  ignorant. 
It  can  be  stated  as  a  general  proposition  that  the  greater  the  number  of 
potential  participants^  the  sharper  must  be  the  selecting  process?' 

It  is  also  true  that  the  larger  a  decision-making  body,  the  more 
necessary  it  is  that  the  choice  offered  to  it  be  narrowed  down  to  a 
simple  alternative  (which  incidentally  gives  a  dangerous  opportunity 
to  slant  the  question  if  posed  by  a  single  man  or  team,  not  by  rival 
teams).  That  is  another  subject,  linked  to  our  main  theme  in  this 
chapter  only  because  it  again  emphasizes  the  narrowing  down  which 
is  always  required  when  great  numbers  are  called  upon  to  make  a 
choice. 

Such  narrowing  down  is  an  operational  necessity.  Going  back  to 
the  bottlenecks  through  which  our  would-be  candidate  to  the 
British  House  of  Commons  has  to  pass,  these  can  be  said  to  restrict 
the  people's  choice :  but  it  is  far  more  reasonable  to  stress  that  they 
make  for  an  orderly  choice.  The  more  democratic  the  regime  the 
greater  their  role. 

The  'straits'  through  which  the  aspiring  politician  must  go  are 
held  by  insiders,  'screening'  or  'monitoring'  groups.  Obviously  a 
great  deal  hangs  upon  the  character  of  the  insiders.  If  assembled  on  the 
basis  of  a  special  interest,  they  will  bias  the  recruitment  of  competi- 
tors finally  offered  to  the  choice  of  the  people.  But  more  naturally 
they  tend  to  be  correlated  with  a  high  degree  of  individual  pre- 
occupation with  the  public  interest. 

Anywhere,  at  any  time,  citizens  differ  very  sharply  in  the  intensity 
of  their  preoccupation  with  pubHc  affairs.  If  we  could  measure  this 
interest,  we  should  find  it  at  a  high  point  in  a  few  and  falling  off* 

^  The  citizen  body  possibly  comprised  forty  thousand  people,  probably  a  good  deal 
fewer.  Attendance  at  assemblies  sometimes  fell  as  low  as  two  thousand,  seldom  reached 
five,  Cf.  G.  Glotz,  La  Grece  au  V'  siecle  (Paris,  1931). 

*  Cf.  B.  de  Jouvenel,  'The  Chairman's  Problem',  The  American  Political  Science 
Review,  vol.  lv,  no.  2  (June  1961). 

120 


CH.  3]  PLACE  AND  FACE 

rapidly  as  we  embrace  successively  greater  numbers.^  It  is  natural 
that  those  whose  interest  is  high  should  gravitate  to  groups  guarding 
straits,  and  thereby  exercise  an  influence  commensurate  with  their 
interest.^  It  is  possible  moreover  that  interest  in  public  affairs  takes 
various  forms.  People  who  mainly  think  about  what  should  be  done 
are  less  apt  to  occupy  straits  than  people  who  care  about  who  gets  in. 

*  Getting  in'  is  of  course  the  immediate  problem  of  the  politician. 
We  find  it  natural  to  say  that  a  certain  man  'has  gone  into  Polities', 
an  expression  quite  shocking  in  terms  of  democratic  theory,  accord- 
ing to  which  every  citizen  is  personally  committed  to  the  seeking  of 
the  public  good.  What  we  mean  of  course  is  that  this  man  has 
entered  the  cursus  honorum,  is  trying  to  occupy  successively  more 
important  positions  of  Authority.  There  are  many  positions  dotting 
the  Hill  of  Command  at  various  heights,  there  are  a  number  of  paths 
leading  up  and  up.  There  are  a  number  of  men  climbing  up  these 
paths  (and  some  sliding  down),  and  there  are  also  on  these  paths  a 
number  of  people  who  are  not  cHmbing  but  guarding  avenues,  those 
who  have  been  called  'insiders'.  All  this  constitutes  a  population 
of  hill-dwellers,  and  when  we  say  that  a  man  has  gone  into  Politics, 
we  mean  that  he  has  joined  this  population  of  hill-dwellers,  which 
we  sharply  contrast  in  our  mind  with  the  population  of  plain- 
dwellers  to  which  we  belong.  It  is  possible  to  be  a  plain-dweller 
with  eager  concern  for  the  public  good,  and  not  all  hill-dwellers  are 
dedicated  to  it.  The  principle  of  distinction  is  different,  and  has  been 
made  clear  enough. 

Moving  from  the  plain  to  the  hill  is  moving  into  an  Otherdom, 
which  requires  learning  one's  way,  fitting  in.  I  can  here  refer  back 
to  what  has  been  said  in  part  11.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  same 
man  should  fail  to  make  his  way  up  the  Hill  of  Command  and  succeed 
in  raising  up  on  the  plain  a  hillock  of  his  own  making. 

^  Prima  facie  one  may  assume  that  such  interest  is,  as  mathematicians  say,  'log- 
normally  distributed'.  On  the  causes  which,  in  general,  produce  such  a  distribution, 
of.  J.  Aitchison  and  J.  A.  C.  Brown,  The  Lognormal  Distribution  with  Special  Reference  to 
its  uses  in  Economics  (Cambridge,  1957). 

^  R.  T.  McKenzie  has  estimated  the  number  of  those  who  are  continually  active  in 
Politics  (and  whom  he  calls  'political  activists')  at  some  60,000  in  each  major  British 
party.  And  he  says,  'The  activists  are  in  effect  a  tiny  "stage  army"  continuously 
marching  across  the  political  scene,  encouraging  as  best  they  can  the  illusion  that  they 
represent  the  vast  numbers  of  equally  committed  and  interested  millions  who  make  up 
the  paper  membership  of  the  great  parties . . .  [they]  exert  an  influence  vastly  dispro- 
portionate to  their  numbers  within  the  British  political  system. '  (From  R.  T.  McKenzie's 
report  on  The  Political  Activists  quoted  above.) 

121 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV 

Any  established  upward  path  is  guarded  by  some  group,  usually 
quite  small,  which  holds  the  pass.  Some  who  come  to  the  pass  are 
admitted  and  some  are  turned  down.  In  a  complex  system  there  are 
a  number  of  paths  held  by  quite  different  groups.^  Each  of  these 
groups  has  its  specific  character  and  style,  tends  to  perpetuate  its 
being  and  to  conserve  its  hue.  In  short,  even  where  such  a  group 
controls  promotion  in  a  revolutionary  party,  its  temper  regarding 
itself  is  traditionalist  and  conservative.  Thus  in  the  case  of  the 
French  Communist  party,  its  younger  men  have  of  late  bitterly 
complained  about  the  conservatism  of  the  '  Old  Guard '  retaining 
control  in  aged  hands  and  reluctant  to  move  from  the  eulogy  of 
Stalin  and  the  assertion  of  a  progressive  deterioration  in  the  con- 
dition of  the  proletariat.^  The  '  Old  Guard '  attitude  of  such  groups 
has  also  been  apparent  in  the  case  of  the  British  Labour  party,  where 
a  majority  of  the  party  insiders  were  unwilling  to  move  from  a 
doctrinal  position  which  the  Leader  of  the  party  and  most  of  its 
members  of  parliament  felt  to  be  outmoded,  and  for  which  the  bulk 
of  the  party's  electorate  cared  little.^ 

It  is  characteristic  of  such  groups  that  some  persons  quite  bereft 
of  any  influence  outside  the  group  carry  great  weight  within  it.  For 
this  reason  the  control  exerted  by  such  a  group  is  often  called 
'esoteric'.  However,  nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  a  group 
which  has  a  specific  spirit  should,  in  terms  of  this  spirit,  make  much 
of  people  who  seem  its  best  representatives:  these  then  are  the 
group's  own  notables. 

These  'group  notables'  (often  in  France  called  bonzes)  set  the 
tone.  They  decide  whether  a  newcomer  will '  do '.  They  are  prompt  to 
detect  the  wrong  style,  the  possibility  of  an  unsuitable  behaviour;  and 
the  arbiters  of  the  most  radical  circle  are  apt  to  be  far  more  severe 
than  those  of  the  most  exclusive  club.  As  we  shall  see,  there  is  a 
great  deal  to  be  said  for  such  canniness.  However,  it  does  tend 
to  keep  out  or  to  keep  down  some  vigorous  personalities.   Dis- 

^  It  is  easy  to  observe,  on  a  great  many  different  occasions,  the  controlling  influence 
exerted  by  a  few.  These  few  then  loom  large.  But  it  is  sheer  fantasy  to  lump  together 
the  few  found  to  exercise  control  at  some  point  in  society,  with  the  quite  different  few 
who  also  exercise  a  similar  control  but  at  a  quite  different  point.  All  these  sets  are  much 
alike  as  to  their  technique  but  sharply  contrasted  as  to  their  composition,  style  and 
principles.  They  are  established,  but  they  do  not  altogether  form  'an  Establishment'. 

^  This  is  the  theory  known  to  Marxists  as  'absolute  immiseration'. 

^  Cf  the  survey  conducted  by  Mark  Abrams,  published  in  Socialist  Commentary  from 
May  i960  onwards,  recently  republished  by  Penguin  Books  as  Must  Labour  Lose? 


122 


CH.  3]  PLACE  AND  FACE 

cussing  such  groups,  which  he  called  'political  guilds',  Max  Weber 
said: 

It  has  been  impossible  for  a  man  who  was  not  of  their  hue  to  climb  high  in 
the  circle  of  those  notables  who  made  their  petty  positions  their  lives. 
I  could  mention  names  from  every  party,  the  Social  Democratic  party  of 
course  not  excluded,  that  spell  tragedies  of  political  careers  because  the 
persons  had  leadership  qualities,  and  precisely  because  of  these  qualities 
were  not  tolerated  by  the  notables.  All  our  parties  have  taken  this  course 
of  development  and  have  become  guilds  of  notables.^ 

Having  formerly  referred  to  the  British  political  system,  I  can 
point  out  that  even  the  man  who  has  found  his  way  into  the  House 
of  Commons  may  be  excluded  from  any  important  role.  In  order  to 
occupy  any  ministerial  office,  high  or  low,  he  must  be  called  to  it  by 
the  Prime  Minister,  who  may  see  a  menace  in  the  man's  very  ability, 
or,  if  more  generous,  may  be  hampered  from  employing  this  talent 
by  fear  of  frictions  with  other  ministers.  A  famous  example  is 
afforded  by  the  case  of  Winston  Churchill,  who  was  systematically 
excluded  from  ministerial  office  under  the  Coalition  and  Conserva- 
tive Governments,  from  193 1  to  1939. 

When  the  workings  of  the  system  tend  to  keep  out  or  keep  down 
vigorous  personalities,  these  then  are  apt  to  seek  the  employment  of 
their  gifts  outside  the  system,  either  in  a  different  field  (e.g.  union- 
building)  or  in  playing  the  political  game  outside  the  framework 
inhospitable  to  them  (e.g.  by  forming  a  revolutionary  movement). 
Debarred  from  an  existing  position  of  Authority,  they  build  up  a 
position  of  their  own.  And  through  this  process  every  system  of 
estabhshed  Authority  ultimately  comes  to  grief. 

Men  of  high  position  are  often  mediocre  and  we  chafe  under  the 
obligation  of  obeying  their  commands ;  at  the  same  time  we  readily 
respond  to  the  promptings  of  an  individual  who  lacks  any  established 
Authority.  It  therefore  comes  naturally  to  us  to  regard  our  relation- 
ship with  the  latter  (Secundus)  more  favourably  than  our  relation- 
ship with  the  former  (Primus).  Secundus  is  the  better  man:  the 
proof  thereof  lies  in  our  listening  to  him,  though  he  does  not  speak 
from  the  altitude  of  the  statue,  while  we  would  not  listen  to  Primus  if 
he  spoke  from  our  own  level.  Further,  we  feel  that  our  compliance 
to  Secundus  is  an  exercise  of  our  freedom  while  our  compliance  to 

^  Max  Weber,  'Politics  as  a  Vocation',  in  Gerth  and  Mills,  From  Max  Weber  (New 
York,  1958). 

123 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  IV 

Primus  entails  an  impairment  of  our  freedom.  I  am  not  bound  to  do 
what  Primus  asks;  if  his  suggestion  is  distasteful  to  me  I  need  not 
follow  it.  It  is  not  so  when  Primus  speaks  from  on  high :  I  am  aware 
that  I  must  act  as  he  requires,  like  it  or  not.  Therefore  my  balance 
of  preference  Hes  heavily  in  favour  of  informal  authority. 

This  is  an  authority  which  I  personally  grant,  day  by  day,  on  each 
several  occasion.  Such  is  our  preference  for  that  type  of  authority 
that  we  are  invited  to  see  the  Authority  of  Primus  in  that  light;  but 
no  amount  of  legal  fiction  will  make  it  psychologically  true  that, 
because  I  have  at  some  past  moment  participated  in  the  election  of 
Primus  (possibly  casting  my  vote  against  him)  I  now  want  to  do 
what  at  this  moment  he  prescribes.  We  know  full  well  that  this  is 
not  true;  there  exists  no  form  of  government  under  which  we  can 
feel  just  as  free  when  obeying  the  bidding  of  Primus  as  when 
responding  to  the  instigation  of  Secundus. 

Informal  authority  is  the  better  liked :  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is 
the  best.  Informal  authority  is  natural^  and  the  power  it  gives  is 
natural.  But  all  power  is  dangerous,  and  natural  power  far  the  most 
dangerous.  It  is  true  that  Primus  has  a  hold  upon  us  through  an 
artefact,  the  statue.  But  because  of  this,  the  hold  is  defined  and 
circumscribed.  Formal  Authority  can  demand  obedience  because  it 
invokes  a  right:  but  the  right  which  it  invokes,  because  it  is  a  right, 
has  its  legitimate  scope  and  its  assigned  boundaries. 

It  is  meaningful  to  say  that  an  Authority  is  diverted  from  its 
proper  object  or  exercised  ultra  vires:  such  statements  are  meaning- 
less in  the  case  of  an  informal  authority.  If  the  mayor  of  a  town 
ordered  the  municipal  poHce  to  forbid  the  delivery  of  goods  to 
certain  plants  or  shops,  he  would  obviously  be  exercising  his 
Authority  ultra  vires.  But  if  the  'boss'  of  a  teamsters'  union  in- 
structs all  drivers  to  cease  such  deliveries,  and  if  they  comply,  he 
thereby  demonstrates  that  his  authority  stretches  that  far.  It  is 
absurd  in  his  case  to  say  that  the  action  is  ultra  vires,  just  as  it  would 
be  absurd  to  say  that  a  stream  is  exerting  a  force  beyond  its  force 
when  it  carries  away  a  bridge.  In  the  case  of  a  natural  force,  we  can 
never  say  that  its  force  is  less  than  its  work  proves  it  to  be.  Indeed 
our  only  way  of  measuring  its  extent  is  to  test  its  utmost  efficiency. 

^  When  I  say  that  informal  authority  is  natural,  I  should  not  be  understood  to  say  that 
it  naturally  inheres  in  the  person  who  exercises  it.  It  is  the  relationship  which  is  natural, 
that  is,  I  spontaneously  respond  to  Secundus.  Throughout  this  work,  authority  is  not  an 
attribute  of  a  person  but  denotes  the  character  of  the  relationship. 

124 


CH.  3]  PLACE  AND  FACE 

Herein  resides  the  great  difference  between  formal  Authority  and 
informal  authority.  Both  are  capable  of  moving  men,  and  both 
therefore  have  the  capacity  to  effect  what  the  combined  forces  of  the 
men  they  set  in  movement  are  adequate  to  achieve :  and  this  ability 
to  do,  through  the  energies  of  other  men,  is  power.  But  in  the  case 
of  informal  authority,  anything  and  everything  it  is  in  fact  capable 
of  getting  done  is  its  power.  Not  so  in  the  case  of  a  formal  Authority : 
it  rests  upon  an  idea  which  defines  and  hmits  its  exercise,  so  that  its 
legitimate  achievements  differ  from  its  possible  efficiency. 

The  point  is  well  brought  out  in  the  following  quotation  from 
Locke : 

The  power  which  a  general  commanding  a  potent  army  has,  may  be 
enough  to  take  more  towns  than  one  from  the  enemy:  or  to  suppress  a 
domestic  sedition ;  and  yet  the  power  of  attaining  those  benefits,  which  is 
in  his  hands,  will  not  authorize  him  to  employ  the  force  of  the  army 
therein,  if  he  be  commissioned  only  to  besiege  and  take  one  certain  place. 
So  it  is  in  a  commonwealth.^ 

The  thought  is  clear  enough :  the  number  of  men  who  will  march 
at  the  general's  signal  is  adequate  to  take  more  towns  than  one,  or  to 
suppress  a  domestic  sedition :  thus  the  power  he  has  in  his  hands  is 
adequate  for  such  objects.  However,  the  soldiers  owe  him  obedience 
by  virtue  of  a  commission  which  directs  him  to  take  only  the  one  town : 
such  are  his  powers.  It  would  be  convenient  to  find  two  different 
words  to  designate  the  two  different  notions.  An  attentive  perusal  of 
Cicero's  works,  and  specially  of  De  Re  Publica^  reveals  that  when  he 
speaks  of  those  who  are  powerful,  he  says  potentes,  and  when  he  refers 
for  instance  to  the  powers  which  pertain  to  the  consular  office,  he 
says  potestas.  This  is  a  very  helpful  duahty  of  words  which  allows 
us  to  recast  the  expression  of  Locke's  thought  as  follows :  though  the 
potentia  in  the  hands  of  the  general  is  adequate  to  the  larger  or  different 
purpose,  yet  his  potestas  is  limited  to  the  taking  of  the  one  town. 

Potestas  is  a  source  oi potentia:  the  men  obey  the  general  because 
he  has  a  title  to  their  obedience;  hut  potestas  also  limits  the  use  of 
potentia  to  its  vaHd  purpose.  That  it  does  not  always  do  so  in  fact  is 
attested  by  many  historical  instances:  for  instance  the  potestas  of 
Caesar  assuredly  forbade  him  to  cross  the  Rubicon  at  the  head  of  his 
'power '.2  He  did  so  none  the  less.  But  there  must  have  been  some 

^  Locke's  Third  Letter  on  Toleration. 

^  Shakespeare  quite  often  calls  an  army  a  'power';  thus  in  Richard  III:  'How  far  ofiF 
lies  your  power? '  (Act  3,  scene  2). 

125 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS        [PT.  IV 

hesitation  in  his  mind,  inexistent  in  the  case  of  a  leader  of  brigands 
who  wields  a  pure  potentia :  in  the  case  of  the  latter,  who  has  no 
potestas,  his  companions  are  under  no  obligation  to  follow  him,  but 
as  long  and  as  far  as  they  will  follow  him,  he  can  do  anything  which 
the  willing  forces  he  commands  are  capable  of  achieving.  And  this 
is  obviously  dangerous.  Potentia  is  so  capable  of  harm  that  it  seems 
safer  where  it  is  rooted  in  and  limited  by  potestas  than  in  its  crude 
state. 

The  willingness  of  the  followers  does  not  make  the  potentia  it 
constitutes  more  consonant  with  freedom  than  potestas.  A  man 
called  Paul  has  aroused  enthusiastic  response  from  me  and  a  number 
of  others,  we  act  upon  his  signals  and  behave  as  'Paulists'  quite 
freely.  Indeed  we  are  apt  to  feel  that  our  being  associated  under  his 
leadership  enlarges  our  individual  freedom,  because  our  strengths 
united  can  accomplish  what  we  could  not  hope  to  do,  one  by  one. 
But  what  is  the  impact  of  our  Paulist  association  upon  others? 

We  would  not  follow  Paul  if  we  did  not  feel  that  it  was  in  some 
way  'good'.  And  therefore  it  seems  to  us  correspondingly  'bad'  not 
to  follow  him.  We  pity  or  despise  the  weak-minded,  the  faint- 
hearted, who  prove  irresponsive  to  Paul.  Must  we  not  hustle  them 
into  the  fold?  Thus  the  company  of  the  willing  presses  hard  upon  the 
unwilling  and  drives  them  along  by  intimidation.  Such  a  pheno- 
menon can  be  observed  in  a  society  of  boys  where  reluctant  indivi- 
duals are  carried  in  the  wake  of  an  assertive  band.  Moreover,  if  it  is 
already  'wrong'  in  our  eyes  not  to  go  along  with  us,  it  is  even  worse 
to  oppose  us:  opponents  should  be  battered  into  submission. 

Thus  every  pleasant  trait  which  our  company  has,  when  regarded 
by  itself,  has  its  unpleasant  counterpart,  when  the  impact  upon 
others  is  considered.  We  follow  Paul  of  our  own  will,  freely,  but,  by 
so  doing,  we  constitute  a  force  which  can  coerce  others  into  obeying 
Paul  against  their  will,  unfreely.  Between  members  of  the  company 
there  obtains  a  warm  comradeship,  which  is  surely  far  superior  to  the 
tepid  sympathy  which  we  show  to  our  fellow-citizens  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  things:  here  is  real  community  revived.  Yes,  but  this  gain 
in  affection  within  our  circle  is  paid  for  in  feelings  of  contempt  to- 
wards non-joiners,  in  feelings  of  indignation,  anger,  rage,  hatred, 
against  opponents.  What  a  pleasure  it  is  to  love  and  honour  our 
leader,  and  how  preferable  that  feeling  to  the  formal  deference  we  pay 
to  the  colourless  John  who  happens  to  be  established  in  Authority! 

126 


CH.  3]  PLACE  AND  FACE 

Indeed;  but  the  support  we  afford  to  Paul  makes  him  to  others  a 
threatening,  frightening,  fiendish  figure.  Rooted  in  love,  potentia 
bears  fruits  of  terror. 

A  company  of  volunteers  gathered  around  a  standard-bearer 
becomes  a  warring  tribe,  a  conquering  army,  capable  of  subjecting 
some  and  dictating  terms  to  others.  And  here  we  have  a  pattern 
endlessly  repeated  in  history.  It  is  most  conspicuous  when  the 
company  takes  over  a  foreign  country,  as  did  that  of  William  the 
Conqueror  or  Cortes.  But  the  company  more  often  operates  within 
its  country  of  origin  for  the  wholesale  capture  of  political  power. 
Our  own  times  offer  all  too  many  examples  of  this.  Moreover,  while 
Cicero  is  our  source  for  the  doings  of  a  Catiline  or  a  Clodius  Pulcher, 
in  our  day  we  can  refer  to  a  variety  of  foreign  observers  for  descrip- 
tions and  evaluations  of  such  phenomena.  Appreciations  tend  to  be 
favourable  in  so  far  as  the  observer  contrasts  the  enthusiasm, 
activity  and  dedication  of  the  Paulists  with  the  political  listlessness 
and  'idiotism'  (i.e.  concentration  upon  narrow  private  concerns)  of 
most  citizens;  and  as  he  contrasts  Paul's  disposition  to  take  bold 
steps  with  the  timid  avoidance  of  any  hazardous  steps  by  men 
established  in  Authority.  The  horror  which  the  latter  express  for  the 
dynamism  of  the  Paulist  faction  is  then  readily  interpreted  as  the 
defence  of  oligopoly  against  a  vigorous  competitor.  And  such  indeed 
it  is :  but  such  defence  may  also  be  in  the  pubhc  interest. 

One  of  the  most  obvious  features  of  any  system  of  established 
Authorities  is  an  unspoken  soHdarity  between  the  'hill-dwellers', 
who  tend  to  keep  out  exceptional  personalities  and  also  to  impede 
the  extra  muros  activities  of  the  latter.  It  is  easy  to  say  that  the 
system  weakens  itself  by  failing  to  recruit  'born  leaders'  and  thereby 
gradually  'loses  face',  being  filled  with  relatively  faceless  indi- 
viduals. It  is  easy  moreover  to  point  out  that  keeping  out  in  the  cold 
the  men  of  natural  authority  induces  them  to  generate  extra  muros 
the  warmth  which  may  bring  down  the  edifice  of  established 
Authorities.  All  this  is  no  doubt  true:  but  letting  Paul  in  is  even 
more  immediately  dangerous.  Examples  drawn  from  the  life  of 
Cicero  prove  the  point. 

Twice  defeated  for  the  Consulate,  and  thus  denied  potestas, 
Catiline  built  up  a  threztGnin^  potentia :  but  his  lack  of  potestas  made 
it  relatively  easy  to  destroy  him  altogether,  with  most  of  his  faction. 
A  far  lesser  man,  Clodius  Pulcher,  went  further  because  he  obtained 

127 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS   [PT.  IV,  CH.  3 

the  potestas  of  tribune.  With  his  potentia  thus  bolstered  up,  he  could 
subject  Rome  to  his  gang-rule  and  drive  Cicero  into  exile.  Only 
his  murder  by  Milo  put  an  end  to  his  mischief.  It  was  thanks  to 
the  pot  est  as  he  had  enjoyed  for  five  years  as  leader  of  the  army  in 
Gaul  that  Caesar  could  achieve  his  capture  of  Rome.  The  final 
undoing  of  the  Republic  and  Cicero's  own  death  were  determined 
by  the  entrusting  of  pot  est  as  to  Octavius.  The  record  shows 
that  dangerous  men  are  more  dangerous  when  admitted  to 
potestas  than  when  denied  it:  the  Nazi  challenge  to  the  Weimar 
Republic  was  not  successfully  countered  by  calling  Hitler  to  the 
chancellorship.  Therefore  while  it  is  possible  to  speak  derisively 
of  'the  eunuchs  of  the  seraglio'  keeping  out  the  more  vigorous 
personalities,  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  it. 

Our  purpose  here  is  not  to  discuss  what  is  or  is  not  wise  policy. 
We  meant  to  bring  out  the  duality  of  Authority  and  authority  and 
the  natural  tension  existing  in  this  respect,  a  feature  of  all  political 
systems. 


128 


PART  V 


DECISION 


JPT 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  PEOPLE 

Wherever  there  is  a  high  place  from  which  decisions  are  handed 
down,  concrete  questions  arise :  which  man  (or  men)  will  occupy  the 
high  place,  which  of  several  proposals  will  be  chosen  as  a  command? 
There  is  a  competition  of  men  and  a  conflict  of  proposals,  and 
these  constitute  the  most  familiar  aspects  of  Politics.  Behind  these 
manifestations  stand  fundamental  questions :  what  is  the  spirit  of  the 
men  who  compete  for  or  occupy  the  high  place?  what  is  the  specific 
character  of  the  work  impHed  in  selecting  one  proposal  out  of  two 
or  more?  what  are  the  different  attitudes  which  can  be  taken  towards 
this  function? 

Before  we  come  to  these  fundamental  questions,  it  may  be  helpful 
to  consider  the  limit  case^  of  Perfect  Democracy,  of  a  body  politic  in 
existence  without  any  established  Authority;  this  may  throw  some 
Hght  upon  what  is  to  follow. 

Thus  in  this  chapter  we  shall  speak  of  the  People  as  existing  in  a 
pure  state,  that  is,  when  self-government  is  a  reality.  It  does  not 
matter  that  this  is  simply  a  model,  provided  we  can  learn  something 
from  it. 

Let  us  proceed  slowly  and  systematically.  When  we  think  of  an 
established  Authority,  the  very  notion  implies  our  thinking  of  three 
categories  of  people:  subjects  to  whom  commands  are  addressed, 
agents  who  carry  out  commands,  choosers  who  decide  the  contents 
of  the  commands. 

It  is  obvious  that  an  Authority  must  have  subjects:  when  we  call 
it '  estabhshed '  we  thereby  imply  that  a  given  set  of  people  acknow- 
ledge it  as  a  source  of  commands,  are  in  general  prepared  to  receive 
its  utterances  solemnized  by  Proclamation.  People  who  bear  that 
relation  to  Authority  are  subject  to  it,  and  it  is  proper  to  call  them 
its  subjects.  The  term  has  gone  out  of  favour,  due  to  a  long-prevailing 
substitution  of  flattering  and  vague  terms  for  those  which  describe 
subordination.  Be  it  noted  that  the  situation  of  'subject  to  a  certain 
authority'  can  be  circumstantial  and  temporary:  when  driving  a  car, 

^  The  situation  obtained  by  pushing  a  certain  tendency  to  the  extreme. 

131  9-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  V 

I  am  subject  to  the  Traffic  Authority.  Further,  even  in  relation  to 
the  most  exacting  Authority,  it  is  understood  that  I  am  subject  to  it 
ratione  materiae;  for  instance  as  a  soldier  what  I  write  to  my  wife 
does  not  lie  in  the  realm  of  obedience  to  the  military  Authority. 

While  a  subject  is  defined  as  one  who  acknowledges  allegiance  to 
a  certain  Authority,  it  does  not  follow  that  each  and  every  command 
is  well  received  by  each  and  every  subject.  There  is  a  problem  of 
reception  of  commands;  there  is  also  a  problem  of  the  carrying  out 
of  commands. 

It  is  not  obvious  that  an  Authority  must  have  agents,  but  it  is 
increasingly  uncommon  that  it  should  lack  them.  It  is  conceivable 
that,  as  a  driver,  once  I  am  fully  informed  of  the  traffic  regulations  I 
should  be  left  to  observe  them  without  any  traffic  agents  to  oversee 
my  conduct;  that,  as  a  taxpayer,  I  should  be  fully  informed  of  the 
scale  of  income-tax  and  left  to  assess  myself  and  pay  into  the 
Exchequer,  without  any  tax  agents  to  revise  my  declaration  and 
exact  my  payment.  It  is,  in  short,  conceivable  that  the  carrying  out 
of  commands  should  be  left  to  each  subject  individually,  operating 
as  his  own  enforcement  agent. 

Such  identification,  one  for  one,  of  subjects  with  agents  would  be 
an  ideal  state  of  things.  It  would,  however,  be  wrong  to  beheve  that 
there  is  an  approximation  to  it  in  a  condition  of  imperfect  identifica- 
tion, where  a  large  part  of  the  subjects  function  as  agents  in  regard 
to  themselves,  and  moreover  as  overseers  in  regard  to  their  neigh- 
bour. Subjects  who  function  as  their  neighbour's  overseer  exert  a 
lateral  pressure  which  is  apt  to  be  far  more  oppressive  than  that  of 
specialized  agents. 

Before  the  command  is  proclaimed,  its  content  must  have  been 
chosen.  This  brings  us  to  the  choosers:  and  again  we  can  imagine 
identification  of  choosers  with  subjects;  if  it  is  a  perfect  (one-to-one) 
identification,  then  obviously  established  Authority  is  without  pur- 
pose or  justification:  we  have  the  self-governing  body  politic  in  pure 
form.  Let  us  start  from  there. 

We  assume  a  body  politic  wherein  every  command  addressed  to 
all  has  been  chosen  by  all  together.  The  identification  between  sub- 
jects and  choosers  is  perfect  if  it  is  one-for-one,  that  is,  if,  during  the 
process  of  selection,  each  one  has  been  in  favour  of  the  command 
chosen.  Then  obviously  there  will  be  no  problem  of  reception,  and 
no  problem  (other  than  operational)  of  carrying  out  the  command. 

132 


CH.  l]  THE  PEOPLE 

Each  subject  receives  well  the  command  in  favour  of  which  he 
decided  as  chooser,  and  is  a  willing  agent  to  carry  it  out. 

This  seems  at  first  sight  a  most  improbable  situation.  We  do  not 
now  think  in  terms  of  unanimous  decisions  but  of  majority  decisions. 
If  we  have  only  a  majority  decision,  then  those  who  have  stood 
against  it  as  choosers  will  not  take  to  it  as  subjects,  or  carry  it  out  as 
agents,  as  wilhngly  as  the  members  of  the  majority.  The  incon- 
venience of  imperfect  identification  between  subject  and  agent,  noted 
above,  will  naturally  follow  from  the  imperfect  identification  between 
chooser  and  subject. 

However  improbable  the  perfect  identification  between  choosers 
and  subjects,  it  is  not  an  inconceivable  and  not  an  impossible  state 
of  affairs.  Rousseau  described  it  as  follows  :^ 

The  first  man  to  propose  them^  merely  says  what  all  have  already  felt, 
and  there  is  no  question  of  factions  or  intrigue  or  eloquence  in  order  to 
secure  the  passage  into  law  of  what  everyone  has  already  decided  to  do 
provided  he  is  sure  that  all  the  others  will  do  it  as  well. 

Within  Rousseau's  'Committee  of  All'  there  is  no  difference  of 
opinion.  Only  one  proposal  is  advanced  and  all  agree  to  it.  Indeed 
members  agree  not  because  they  have  been  won  over,  convinced, 
persuaded,  by  the  first  speaker,  but  because  their  feelings  run  in  the 
direction  which  the  speaker's  words  advocate.  It  might  be  said  that 
under  such  conditions  no  command  is  necessary:  to  this  Rousseau 
would  reply  by  pointing  to  the  last  words  of  the  paragraph  'provided 
he  is  sure  that  all  the  others  will  do  it  as  well'.  Light  is  cast  upon 
this  sentence  by  Rousseau's  discussion  elsewhere  of  man's  need  for 
assurance  that  he  will  not  handicap  himself  by  complying  with 
prescriptions  which  others  will  violate.^ 

Rousseau's  model  is  imaginary :  modern  anthropology  has,  however, 
proved  that  it  is  not  absurd.  There  is  a  ' camp-fire  democracy'  which 
works  on  the  principle  of  unanimous  decisions,  though  they  are  not 
reached  as  spontaneously  as  Rousseau  fancied.  Let  us  hear  about 
the  Navahos : 

Navahos  have  no  notion  of  representative  government.  They  are  accus- 
tomed to  deciding  all  issues  by  face-to-face  meetings  of  all  individuals 
involved — including,  most  decidedly,  the  women.  The  native  way  of 

^  Social  Contract,  Book  iv,  ch.  i. 

^  'Them'  refers  to  new  laws,  but  might  as  well  apply  to  executive  decisions. 
^  See  the  so-called  'suppressed  chapter'  of  the  Social  Contract,  meant  as  a  reply  to 
Diderot's  article  'Droit  Naturel'  in  the  Encyclopedie. 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  V 

deciding  an  issue  is  to  discuss  it  until  there  is  unanimity  of  opinion  or 
until  the  opposition  feels  that  it  is  no  longer  worthwhile  to  urge  its  point 
of  view .... 

To  the  People  [i.e.  the  Navahos]  it  is  fundamentally  indecent  for  a 
single  individual  to  presume  to  make  decisions  for  a  group.  Leadership, 
to  them,  does  not  mean  '  outstandingness '  or  anything  like  untrammelled 
power  over  the  actions  of  others.  Each  individual  is  controlled  not  by 
sanctions  from  the  top  of  a  hierarchy  of  persons  but  by  lateral  sanctions. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  decisions  at  meetings  must  be  unanimous.  To 
white  persons  this  is  an  unbelievably  tiresome  and  time- wasting  process. 
But  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  experiments  with  '  group  decision '  in  war 
industry  have  shown  that  the  greatest  increase  in  production  has  been 
attained  when  all  workers  in  a  unit  concurred.  Majority  decisions  often 
brought  about  disastrous  results.^ 

We  see  here  clearly  that  unanimity  is  required  for  a  decision  but 
that  such  unanimity  is  not  spontaneous,  as  Rousseau  imagined.  It  is 
arrived  at  by  an  exhaustive  process  of  arguing  things  out,  in  the 
course  of  which  there  is  a  cumulative  building-up  of  assent.  This  is 
probably  what  occurs  far  more  rapidly  in  the  case  of  communities 
smaller  and  less  advanced  than  the  Navaho.  When  we  are  dealing 
with  the  very  small  bands,  such  as  the  first  political  bodies  must  have 
been,2  all  naturally  sit  together  in  the  evening,  constituting  an  in- 
formal committee;  this  is  what  we  hear  about  the  Bushmen  and  the 
Bergdama. 

In  effect  the  affairs  of  a  band  are  among  both  peoples  managed  by  its  men 
generally.  They  foregather  every  evening  around  the  central  camp-fire, 
and  as  the  need  arises  to  discuss  what  should  be  done,  they  plan  the 
following  day's  hunting,  and  periodically  decide  upon  such  other  matters 
as  moving  camp  or  burning  the  veldt  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  new 
plants:  among  Bergdama  they  occasionally  also  plan  raids  upon  nearby 
Herero  cattle-posts,  or  prohibit  food  gathering  in  localities  where  the 
fruits  are  still  green.  From  time  to  time  they  organize  initiation  cere- 
monies for  boys;  among  Bergdama  they  consult  with  the  women  about 
selecting  wives  for  the  young  men,  and  among  Bushmen  they  occasionally 
have  to  decide  upon  abandoning  feeble,  old  people  when  forced  to  migrate 
rapidly.  They  arrange  trading  and  other  visits  to  friendly  neighbours  and 
take  steps  to  resist  aggression  or  to  retaliate  against  enemies.^ 

^  Clyde  Kluckhon  and  Dorothea  Leighton,  The  Navaho  (Cambridge,  Mass.,  1946). 

^  It  has  been  argued  that  the  size  of  'the  People'  is  the  smaller  the  lower  the  tech- 
nology. See  Ludwik  Krzywicki,  Primitive  Society  and  Its  Vital  Statistics  (Warsaw, 
1934).  The  reasoning  of  this  author  and  the  evidence  marshalled  in  support  of  his  thesis 
seem  to  me  impressive. 

^  I.  Schapera,  Government  and  Politics  in  Tribal  Societies  (London,  Watts,  1956), 
p.  85. 


CH.  l]  THE  PEOPLE 

Unanimous  decision  and  common  action  brought  about  by  the 
cumulative  eifort  of  persistent  advocacy  seem  to  me  strikingly 
illustrated,  in  the  case  of  the  most  elementary  body  politic,  by  this 
scene,  which  a  missionary  among  'Stone-Age  men'  recounts: 

Late  one  day  I  came  out  of  the  bush  to  a  camp  where  Yakangaiya  and  his 
married  sons  were  sitting  quietly  in  groups  by  the  fire,  cooking  fish  and 
waiting  for  their  wives  and  mothers  to  come  with  fire  and  firewood.  For 
an  hour  or  more  Damilipi,  the  oldest  of  Yakangaiya's  wives,  partially 
bUnd,  stark  naked  and  switching  flies  with  a  bunch  of  twigs,  strode  up  and 
down  haranguing  and  insulting  her  men,  accusing  them  of  cowardice  and 
laziness  in  not  raiding  their  hereditary  enemies  and  continuing  a  feud 
which  was  dying  out  by  mutual  consent.  Damilipi's  campaign  was  con- 
tinued for  two  days,  and  as  other  women  joined  her  the  horde  was  roused 
to  the  point  of  organizing  a  killing  party.  Weeks  later  the  men  attacked, 
and  in  the  reprisals  two  of  Damilipi's  sons  and  a  daughter-in-law  were 
killed.i 

What  we  find  here  is  not  in  fact  a  proposal  laid  before  a  more  or 
less  formal  committee,  but  an  instigation,  which,  by  a  process  of 
cumulative  stimulation,  finally  moves  the  body  politic  as  a  whole. 
It  is  quite  plain  that  common  action  is  taken  not  in  response  to  a 
command  issued  by  an  established  Authority,  but  because  of  the 
strong  inner  coherence  of  the  body  politic,  a  coherence  such  that  its 
members  cannot  conceive  of  not  moving  together,  and  have  no  will 
to  resist  a  mood  which  gains  momentum  within  the  group.  We  have 
here  a  form  of  consensus  such  as  Rousseau  desires,  but  which  does 
not  necessarily  run  to  the  wisest  decisions  as  he  seems  to  assume.^ 

Where  the  emotional  coherence  of  the  body  is  such,  obviously  the 
parts  of  choosers,  subjects,  and  agents  are  not  distinct,  and,  just  as 
obviously,  the  notion  of  a  majority  is  meaningless:  there  is  a  chain 
reaction,  more  or  less  rapid,  each  partner  who  successively  responds 
positively  to  the  suggestion  adding  to  the  demonstration  eflfect, 
which  pulls  in  with  increasing  ease  the  as  yet  silent  remnant. 

Observation  of  such  phenomena  is  of  extreme  importance  for  the 
understanding  of  basic  political  processes,  but  in  cases  of  this  kind, 

^  Wilbur  Chaseling,  Yulengor:  Nomads  of  Arnhem  Land  (London,  1957),  pp.  63-4. 

^  'As  long  as  several  men  in  assembly  regard  themselves  as  a  single  body,  they  have 
only  a  single  will  which  is  concerned  with  their  common  preservation  and  general  well- 
being.  In  this  case  all  the  springs  of  the  Commonwealth  are  vigorous  and  simple  and 
its  rules  clear  and  luminous :  there  are  no  embroilments  or  conflicts  of  interests.  The 
common  good  is  everywhere  clearly  apparent  and  only  good  sense  is  required  to  perceive 
it.'  {Social  Contract,  Book  iv,  ch.  i.) 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  V 

while  we  certainly  find  a  body  politic,  we  do  not  find  an  established 
Authority.  In  fact  the  lateral  ties  within  the  body  politic  are  of  such 
strength  that  an  Authority  is  not  called  for.  Men  are  impelled  to  act 
with  their  fellows  not  because  a  majority  has  so  decided  and  a 
proclamation  has  been  issued  to  which  the  minority  must  bow,  but 
because  in  such  a  social  condition  it  comes  naturally  to  go  with  the 
others. 

It  is  hard  for  men  coming  from  countries  where  an  established 
Authority  with  a  title  to  compliance  from  subjects  is  taken  as  a  fact 
of  nature  to  understand  a  body  politic  without  such  establishment; 
and  therefore  such  explorers  or  conquerors  have  ever  been  inclined 
to  believe  that  'chiefs'  of  more  or  less  primitive  folk  were  sovereigns. 
This  is  brought  out  very  well  in  the  case  of  Burmese  people  in  the 
following  quotation: 

Throughout  this  chapter  I  have  stressed  that  the  status  of  the  individual 
whom  I  describe  as  chief  (duwa)  is  primarily  defined  in  terms  of  prestige 
symbols.  One  can  say  then  that  the  office  of  chief  is  a  ritual  though  not  a 
chiefly  office  in  the  sense,  for  example,  that  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London 
has  a  ritual  though  not  a  priestly  office.  But  how  far  is  the  Kachin  chief's 
office  also  a  political  office  of  real  power.?  Here  the  empirical  situation  (in 
1940)  was  greatly  confused  by  the  fact  that  the  British  Administration  had 
always  taken  it  for  granted  that  a  Kachin  chief  ought  to  be  an  autocrat. 
He  was  expected  to  execute  without  question  all  instructions  received 
from  the  British  District  Officer ...  by  way  of  the  Government  Native 
Officer;  furthermore  he  was  made  responsible  for  the  collection  of  house 
tax  and  he  was  entitled  to  a  commission  on  his  collection;  he  was  also 
responsible  for  the  law  and  order  of  his  community  and  for  adjudicating 
upon  matters  of  native  law  and  custom.  Nearly  all  these  functions  are 
quite  alien  to  the  traditional  role  of  a  duwa  and  most  chiefs  under  the 
British  found  themselves  in  an  awkwardly  ambiguous  position ^ 

Under  the  British,  the  Government-recognized  chief  was  responsible 
for  making  a  great  number  of  day-to-day  executive  decisions,  but  he  did  so 
simply  as  an  agent  of  the  paramount  power.  The  executive  decisions  which 
had  to  be  made  by  the  Kachins  themselves  without  waiting  for  orders 
from  above  concerned  such  matters  as  where  to  make  a  field  clear,  when 
to  burn  the  felled  brushwood,  when  to  make  the  first  sowing,  where  to 
place  a  house  site.  The  decision  here  rested  not  with  the  chief  or  with  any 
particular  individual  but  with  the  salang  hpawng  (i.e.  council  of  the  leaders 
of  principal  lineages)  as  a  whole.  Mostly  this  body  of  elders  seems  to  act 
by  precedent;  where  precedent  gives  no  clear  guide  resort  is  made  to 
divination  or  soothsayers.  So  again  there  is  a  conflict  between  theory  and 

^  E.  R.  Leach,  Political  Systems  of  Highland  Burma  ^  a  Study  of  Kachin  Social  Structure. 
London  School  of  Economics  (London,  1954),  p.  183. 

136 


CH.  l]  THE  PEOPLE 

practice.  Kachin  theory  is  that  the  chief  rules  {up)  with  autocratic  power; 
in  my  actual  fieldwork,  I  seldom  identified  any  instruction  which  had 
issued  from  a  chief  acting  upon  his  own  initiative.  Where  he  gave  an  order 
it  was  as  mouthpiece  of  the  Government  or  of  the  salang  hpawng  or  of 
some  oracle  which  he  had  first  consulted.^ 

In  fact  chieftainship  in  the  case  of  the  simpler  peoples  seems  to 
have  as  its  office  essentially  the  preservation  of  the  given  coherence 
of  the  People,  a  coherence  which  is  highly  valued.  There  is  no 
question  of  making  decisions  to  which  all  are  subject,  but  of  solving 
conflicts  which  disintegrate  the  People. 

The  Pawnee  (Nebraska)  chief,  far  from  being  a  Sovereign  ruler,  was  above 
all  a  peace-maker  and  guardian  of  the  village,  his  Hidatsa  colleague  was 
'  a  man  of  general  benevolence  who  offered  smoke  to  the  old  people  and 
feasted  the  Poor'.  Their  counterpart  among  the  Plains  Cree  was  not  only 
expected  to  exercise  generosity  but  to  sacrifice  his  property  for  the 
maintenance  of  order,  nay  to  forgo  vengeance  if  one  of  his  kinsmen  was 
slain.  Correspondingly,  a  Winnebago  (Wisconsin)  chief  constantly  dis- 
tributed his  possessions  and  interceded  between  evildoers  and  their 
revengeful  victims ;  he  went  so  far  as  to  mortify  his  own  flesh  in  order  to 
arouse  the  pity  of  the  aggrieved.  In  these  tribes,  then,  the  chief  was 
essentially  an  appeaser  working  by  cajolery? 

The  Bergdama  or  Bushman  chief  has  no  legislative  or  judicial  functions, 
nor  are  there  official  tribunals  of  any  other  kind.  Among  Bergdama,  it  is 
true,  people  sometimes  ask  elderly  men  to  arbitrate  their  disputes,  but 
such  requests  are  not  obligatory  nor  are  the  decisions  necessarily  accepted. 
Both  here  and  among  Bushmen,  persons  who  arouse  general  hostilit}^,  for 
example  by  repeated  acts  of  violence  or  by  committing  incest,  may  be 
punished  by  thrashing,  expulsions  from  the  band  or  even  death.  There 
seems  to  be  no  formal  trial ;  the  data  indicate  merely  that  the  decision  to 
act  against  the  offender  is  reached  casually  round  the  camp-fire  and  if 
necessary  the  younger  men  are  then  told  to  enforce  it.  Private  disputes, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  usually  settled  by  self  help.^ 

Endless  quotations  of  this  general  meaning  could  be  amassed, 
persuading  us  that  established  Authority  as  we  understand  it  must 
have  been  a  late-comer  in  the  histor}^  of  mankind.  We  have  seen 
already  what  makes  it  necessary;  that  is,  the  possibihty  of  divisive 


^  E.  R.  Leach,  op.  cit.  p.  189. 

^  Lowie's  Selected  Papers  in  Anthropology,  ed.  Lora  du  Bois  (University  of  California 
Press,  i960),  pp.  252-3;  italics  mine. 

^  L  Schapera,  Government  and  Politics  in  Tribal  Societies  (London,  Watts,  1956), 
p.  87. 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  V 

Before  coming  to  discuss  situations  more  familiar  to  us,  I  have 
deemed  it  important  to  bring  out  the  basic  moral  content  of  the 
expression  which  we  so  commonly  use — 'the  People'.  As  I  see  it, 
this  term  is  most  properly  used  when  we  think  of  a  set  of  people 
tightly  bound  together  by  lateral  ties,  so  that  each  member  of  the  set 
has  a  high  propensity  to  go  along  with  the  others,  will  not  only  feel 
in  honour  or  in  duty  bound  to  accept  and  execute  the  decision  in 
which  he  has  not  concurred  (a  'later'  attitude)  but  will  in  fact  concur 
in  the  decision  which  at  its  first  proposal  did  not  strike  him  favour- 
ably, if  and  because  the  others  rally  to  it.  In  every  social  setting  we 
do  find  such  phenomena  of  contagion,  but  they  are  surely  weakened 
when  we  come  to  societies  within  which,  by  virtue  of  complexity, 
there  are  increasing  differences  of  interests  and  attitudes. 

Both  Rousseau  and  Marx  assume  in  primitive  society  a  low  degree 
of  opposition  of  interests  and  a  strong  community  feeHng;  both 
regard  the  course  of  history  as  an  increasing  departure  from  this 
initial  situation,  a  heightening  of  interest-conflicts  and  a  weakening 
of  community  spirit,  attended  by  increasing  strife.  Rousseau  regards 
this  development  as  inevitably  attending  a  larger  and  more  complex 
society.^  Marx  regards  it  moreover  as  essential  to  the  development 
of  productive  forces.^  Rousseau  regards  the  outcome  of  this  develop- 
ment as  irretrievable  and  calling  for  a  Hobbesian  government.  Marx 
assumes  a  U-shaped  political  development:  when  the  process  of 
economic  development  has  reached  an  adequate  stage,  the  antagon- 
isms which  were  aggravated  in  the  course  of  development  come  to  a 
crisis  in  consequence  of  which  they  are  wiped  out.  Both,  however, 
regard  disintegration  of  the  consensus  as  characteristic  of  the  process 
of  development.  Hobbes  of  course  is  concerned  to  raise  the  status  of 
established  Authority  in  order  to  counter  the  conflict  of  interests. 
Alone  among  the  great  authors  of  the  past,  Machiavelli  has  found 
words  of  praise  for  internal  strife,  as  a  dynamizing  factor  in  the  body 
politic.^ 

But  let  us  descend  from  great  authors  to  familiar  illustrations  as  I 
have  sought  to  do  throughout  this  treatise.  I  shall  set  the  scene  with- 
in a  company  of  actors:  this  wiU  be  our  body  politic,  and  we  assume 

^  Cf.  Social  Contract,  Book  iv,  ch.  i,  and  the  whole  Discourse  on  the  Origin  of  In- 
equality among  Men. 

^  This  is  most  clearly  brought  out  by  Engels  in  the  Anti-DUhring. 
^  Cf.  Discorsi,  Book  I,  ch.  6. 

138 


CH.  l]  THE  PEOPLE 

that  it  is  a  self-governing  body,  that  all  its  members  have  an  equal 
voice  in  decisions  affecting  the  company.  As  a  young  actor  I  join 
this  company,  which  has  been  formed  to  perform  Shakespeare's 
plays,  and  traditionally  plays  nothing  else.  Therefore  I  expect  to 
play  parts  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  the  other  members  of  the  company 
expect  it  of  me :  so  far  so  good,  we  can  speak  of  a  basic  homogeneity 
of  expectations. 

However,  within  the  sharply  defined  pattern  of  Hamlet  I  may 
want  to  move  from  playing  the  part  of  Bernardo  to  that  of  Horatio, 
and  thence  to  the  part  of  Hamlet.  This  is  promotion  within  an 
estabhshed  structure,  and  we  can  range  my  efforts  to  obtain  the 
role  of  Hamlet  in  preference  to  rival  claimants  under  the  terms: 
'politics  of  position'.  For  the  sake  of  simplicity  let  us  assume  that 
I  have  one  rival  only,  thus  my  ambition  will  be  fulfilled  if  the 
majority  of  the  company  will  vote  me  into  the  part  rather  than  the 
other  man. 

How  shall  I  win?  Let  us  look  into  the  matter  closely;  I  have  some 
good  friends  in  the  company  and  so  has  my  opponent.  Can  we  base 
our  respective  expectations  on  these  particular  friendships.'^  Not  to 
any  considerable  degree.  It  is  important  to  each  member  of  the 
company  that  the  part  of  Hamlet  should  be  so  played  as  to  ensure 
collective  success.  Each  member  of  the  company  has  some  idea  of 
my  ability  to  fill  this  role  and  of  my  opponent's  ability.  They  are  more 
likely  to  go  by  this  judgement  of  capacity  than  by  personal  sym- 
pathy. Only  those  members  who  see  no  great  difference  between  the 
abiHty  of  competitors  are  likely  to  be  swayed  by  my  campaign.  The 
important  thing  to  each  and  every  one  is  that  the  play  should  not  be 
a  failure.  If  I  happen  to  be  defeated,  and  the  other  man  plays 
magnificently,  I  may  still  feel  aggrieved,  but  my  strongest  sup- 
porters of  yesterday  will  rejoice  that  the  play  has  gone  well,  and 
they  certainly  will  not  resent  our  defeat. 

Now,  still  assuming  that  I  am  an  actor  of  a  Shakespearean  com- 
pany, let  us  suppose  that  I  have  a  design  quite  different  from  that 
which  has  just  been  discussed.  I  want  this  company  to  give  a  play 
by  Noel  Coward.  It  does  not  matter  why  I  want  this.  Possibly  I  feel 
that  I  am  unlikely  to  shine  in  a  Shakespearean  role  while  I  would 
be  superb  in  a  Coward  part :  in  that  case  personal  frustration  is  my 
motive.  Or  I  may  feel  that  we  shall  make  a  great  deal  more  money 
by  performing  a  Noel  Coward  play,  in  that  case  'collective  welfare' 
is  my  motive.  Or  again  I  believe  that  one  should  be  'modern',  and 

139 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  V  ; 

I 

this  can  be  called  loosely  an  ideological  motive.  Anyhow,  'Not  j 
Shakespeare  but  Coward'  is  my  battle-cry.  Now  it  is  immediately  j 
evident  that  in  order  to  win  over  the  company  I  shall  have  to  work  ; 
upon  the  members  of  the  company  a  great  deal  more  and  in  a  very  i 
different  manner  than  for  the  securing  of  the  Hamlet  part.  The  idea  ! 
is  far  more  surprising.  The  members  have  far  more  difficulty  in  : 
picturing  themselves  acting  a  Coward  play  than  in  picturing  me  i 
acting  the  role  of  Hamlet;  there  is  far  more  uncertainty  about  the  i 
success  of  this  much  greater  change  and  far  more  room  for  diversity  ' 
of  appreciation.  This  time  it  is  quite  another  business  to  wrest  a  I 
majority  decision  in  my  favour.  Previously  I  was  asking  people  to  j 
trust  my  abiHty  (reasonably  well  known  to  them)  to  play  a  part  \ 
(thoroughly  well  known);  now  I  am  asking  them  to  trust  my  judge-  j 
ment  that  they  should  embark  with  me  upon  a  hazardous  venture  ; 
and  rely  upon  my  capacity  to  procure  the  success  of  this  venture.  , 
The  job  of  majority-building  is  this  time  of  a  different  kind.  But ! 
further,  the  winning  of  a  majority  will  not  necessarily  be  as  decisive  ! 
or  final  as  previously.  Say  that  I  have  won  a  majority  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  Coward  play.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  members  of  j 
the  minority  will  break  away  from  the  company.  j 

We  can  easily  imagine  a  spokesman  for  this  minority  saying:  'We  ; 
[meaning  the  members  of  the  company]  came  together  as  performers  ' 
of  Shakespeare's  plays.  Now  you  [meaning  the  members  of  the  i 
majority]  have  decided  to  perform  Noel  Coward  instead.  But  we  i 
[meaning  this  time  the  members  of  the  minority]  are  not  interested  i 
in  this  different  activity.  And  therefore  we  secede  from  the  com-.! 
pany. '  Note  in  this  imaginary  speech  the  two  successive  and  con-  ; 
trasting  uses  of  the  term  'we'.  The  former  '  we-all'  has  been  split  up  i 
and  now  there  is  a  'we'  applying  to  the  minority,  another  applying  \ 
to  the  majority.  This  is  not  at  all  the  same  division  as  that  occurring  i 
when  the  point  at  issue  was  whether  I  or  another  would  have  the  ] 
part  of  Hamlet.  If  the  issue  is  merely  'Who  will  have  the  part  of  j 
Hamlet.? ',  then  those  who  did  not  fancy  me  for  the  role,  when  j 
beaten  in  a  vote,  will  submit  to  the  decision.  The  probabiHty  of  any  '■■. 
one  of  them  refusing  to  stay  with  the  company  is  very  slight :  except  i 
in  the  case  of  my  rival,  the  preference  given  to  me  makes  no  differ-  | 
ence  to  their  individual  performances.  Thus  if  an  opposition  to  my  ] 
taking  the  part  manifested  itself  in  the  vote,  its  existence  is  fugitive,  I 
it  constitutes  no  team  of 'bolters'  ceasing  to  'belong'.  The  'we-all'  j 
of  the  company  is  not  permanently  affected.   If,  however,  the  issue  ; 

140  j 


CH.  l]  THE  PEOPLE 

upon  which  I  have  carried  the  majority  is  that  of  a  change-over  to 
performing  Noel  Coward,  the  minority  is  very  hkely  to  leave  the 
company. 

In  the  case  of  the  Coward  vote,  what  is  demanded  of  the  members 
of  the  company  is  not  that  they  should  allow  me,  rather  than  another, 
to  take  the  part  of  Hamlet  while  leaving  them  individually  playing 
the  same  parts  as  before  the  vote;  what  is  demanded  is  that  they 
should  agree  each  and  all  to  change  their  own  individual  perform- 
ances. That  the  majority  does  agree  by  no  means  entails  that  those  in 
disagreement  will,  after  the  vote,  meekly  accept  the  roles  allotted  to 
them  in  the  new  play.  So  while  they  belonged  to  the  'we-group'  or 
'people'  of  the  Shakespeare  company,  they  may  well  break  away 
from  the  we-group  of  the  Coward  company,  cease  to  belong  to  that 
people.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  circumstances  precluding  them  from  a 
physical  break-away:  for  instance,  there  are  no  alternative  jobs  open 
to  them.  In  that  case  a  physical  break-away  will  be  replaced  by  a 
moral  secession.  The  minority  remains  visibly  'of  the  company'  but 
psychologically  it  does  not  remain  'in  the  company';  or  in  larger 
terms,  it  is  still  in  the  people  but  not  of  the  people. 

The  point  of  the  foregoing  tale  is  that  a  '  politicking '  individual 
affects  the  social  body  in  a  very  different  manner  when  he  seeks  a 
given  position  within  an  existing  pattern  from  when  he  seeks  to 
change  the  pattern.  In  the  former  case  he  aspires  to  play  a  part 
known  in  advance,  and  all  the  participants  in  the  election  have  only 
to  ask  themselves  whether  they  regard  him  as  the  most  suitable  to 
fill  this  role.  They  may  well  differ  in  their  judgements  but  each 
elector  is  engaged  in  the  same  operation,  that  is,  measuring  the  man 
against  the  part.  It  is  to  this  operation  that  Montesquieu  refers  when 
he  states : '  The  people  are  admirably  fitted  to  choose  those  to  whom 
they  must  entrust  some  portion  of  authority. '^  Montesquieu 
develops  his  thought  as  follows : 

The  people  can  then  base  their  decision  wholly  upon  things  they  know 
and  facts  of  which  they  are  aware.  They  know  that  this  man  has  gone  to 
the  wars  and  acquitted  himself  successfully,  and  knowing  this  they  can 
pick  him  as  general.  The  people  know  that  a  certain  judge  is  painstaking 
and  that  many  of  those  who  have  appeared  before  him  have  lauded  his 
judgement  while  there  has  been  not  the  slightest  rumour  of  corruption : 
this  is  enough  information  to  elect  a  praetor .... 

^  The  Spirit  of  Laws,  Book  i,  ch.  2. 

141 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  V 

Obviously  what  our  author  says  here  is  entirely  relevant  to  the 
election  by  a  dramatic  company  of  one  of  their  number  to  play  the 
part  of  Hamlet.  What  makes  a  difference  to  each  and  every  member 
of  the  company  is  how  well  the  part  will  be  played.  The  case  is  very 
different  indeed  if  a  change  of  pattern  is  suggested.  A  change  of 
pattern  means  that  each  and  every  member  must  now  consider 
whether  the  part  to  which  he  may  be  called  in  the  new  play  is  more 
or  less  to  his  advantage  than  before;  and  more  than  that,  whether  he 
likes  or  dislikes  the  new  play. 

All  members  of  the  company  gain  by  choosing  the  best  Hamlet. 
But  by  going  over  to  Noel  Coward  some  will  gain  (have  a  more 
important  part)  and  some  will  lose  (have  a  less  important  part).  Thus 
the  very  nature  of  the  suggestion  causes  each  to  look  to  his  own 
interest.  Nor  is  it  a  matter  of  interest  alone  but  also  of  meaning.  The 
word  'interest'  is  ambiguous,  but  we  shall  follow  custom  if  we  use 
it  to  designate  the  advantages  which  are  objectively  measurable.  For 
instance,  we  can  tell  an  actor  that  the  change  is  in  his  interest  if  he 
has  more  lines  to  speak  in  the  new  play,  or  again  we  can  argue  that 
it  is  in  his  interest  if  we  can  show  him  that  even  while  speaking  less 
lines,  he  will  get  far  more  pay  as  his  proportional  share  in  overall 
increased  receipts.  If  that  is  the  sort  of  thing  we  mean  by  'interest', 
it  is  plain  that  there  are  other  powerful  considerations  here  subsumed 
under  the  word  'meaning'.  To  a  certain  actor  it  means  something  to 
perform  Shakespeare  and  he  is  robbed  of  that  meaning  when  made 
to  perform  Noel  Coward.  Thank  God  it  is  not  true  that  men  evaluate 
a  general  change  wholly  on  grounds  of  their  personal  safety  and 
perquisites;  their  affections  are  deeply  involved  in  the  shape  of 
things  around  them,  in  the  nature  of  the  play.  Who  would  deny  that 
some  Romans  were  deeply  hurt  by  the  fall  of  the  RepubHc,  some 
Englishmen  by  the  beheading  of  Charles  I,  some  Frenchmen  by  the 
beheading  of  Louis  XVI  .^  Who  doubts  that  national  independence  is 
regarded  as  a  positive  value  to  which  men  willingly  make  sacrifices.? 
Who  questions  the  chagrin  caused  by  a  national  humiHation.?  Who 
would  argue  that  an  officer  in  a  prison  camp,  secure  from  danger  and 
well  taken  care  of,  is  then  better  off  than  in  the  toughest  campaign? 
The  very  zest  for  living  may  vanish  if  people  are  torn  from  what 
means  much  to  them. 

The  Tasmanians  bravely  resisted  the  Whites,  till,  having  been  reduced  to 
hundreds  from  thousands,  they  submitted.  The  remnants  that  remained 
were  presented  with  sheep  and  received  annuities.  In  a  word,  in  compari- 

142 


CH.  l]  THE  PEOPLE 

son  to  the  uncertain  life  of  a  hunter,  these  remnants  were  surrounded  with 
plenty  and  secured  as  to  their  morrow.  And  yet  they  kept  dying  out !  In 
order  to  understand  the  inevitability  of  their  dying-out,  we  must  take  into 
consideration  the  breaking  up  of  their  inner  life  by  the  changed  conditions 
of  existence.  For  many  centuries  the  Tasmanians  had  lived  on  their 
island,  sometimes  exposed  to  famine  (when,  probably,  they  saved  them- 
selves by  devouring  children)  and  always  subject  to  various  anxieties,  but 
for  the  most  part  their  life  was  a  happy  one.  Those  migrations  of  theirs, 
when  moving  from  one  forest  clearing  to  another,  from  one  forest  fastness 
to  another,  doubtless  gave  rise  to  a  host  of  impressions  of  the  most  various 
kinds  and  to  many  pleasant  thrills.  Their  hunts  together,  their  assemblies 
and  corroborees,  their  initiation  ceremonies,  and  many  other  events,  broke 
the  monotony  of  their  lives,  awoke  their  imagination,  touched  the  strings 
of  their  sentiment  and  gave  a  charm  to  life.  But  the  white  settlers  came, 
and  after  years  of  struggle  they  transported  the  little  groups  which  re- 
mained to  Flinders  Island.  They  were  surrounded  with  the  outward 
semblance  of  material  well-being,  but  they  were  deprived  of  their  former 
abundance  and  vitality  of  impressions  and  emotions.  The  Tasmanians, 
restricted  to  a  small  area,  had  parted  with  all  that  had  made  up  the  life  of 
their  forebears  for  ages.  A  more  and  more  dominant  home-sickness  began 
to  afflict  them.  Sometimes  they  would  assemble  on  an  eminence  from 
which,  in  favourable  weather,  they  could  see  the  indistinct  outline  of  their 
native  island,  and  they  would  gaze  at  it  helplessly.  When  a  poor  gin,  with 
eager  look  and  pointing  finger,  asked  a  gentleman  if  he  saw  the  white, 
snowy  crest  of  the  towering  Ben  Lomond,  then  just  looming  in  the 
distance,  the  tears  rolled  down  her  swarthy  cheeks,  as  she  exclaimed: 
'that-me-country!'.  Life  lost  its  charm  for  them.^ 

The  attitude  of  the  Tasmanians  offers  in  extreme  form  the  reaction 
which  may  in  some  members  of  a  social  body  result  from  a  change  of 
pattern  which,  on  the  other  hand,  may  exhilarate  other  members  of 
the  same  group,  thereby  creating  a  moral  schism. 

Such  changes  of  pattern  therefore  are  harmful  to  that  psycho- 
logical cohesion  which  Rousseau  deemed  so  important :  such  changes 
being  on  the  other  hand  inherent  in  the  history  of  an  evolving 
society,  it  follows  that  its  institutions  cannot  rest  upon  the  basis  of 
that  psychological  cohesion.  This  is  indeed  what  Rousseau  argued : 
the  body  politic  comes  to  depend  increasingly  upon  established 
Authority.  It  is  only  in  a  small,  rustic,  and  conservative  community 
that  the  role  of  established  Authority  can  be  slight  or  insignificant. 

The  role  of  established  Authority  must  inevitably  increase  as  the 
body  politic  grows  in  size,  complexity  and  heterogeneity.  This  is  a 
'Dimensional  law'  which  has  been  stated  in  various  terms  by  all 

^  Ludwik  Krz3rwicki,  Primitive  Society  and  its  Vital  Statistics  (Warsaw,  1934). 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  V 

classical  writers,  and  with  especial  clarity  by  Rousseau.^  But  another 
point  should  be  stressed.  In  a  'State'  as  distinct  from  a  'People' 
(described  above),  decisions  of  Authority  imply  instructions  to  act 
which  are  addressed  immediately  to  agents  of  Authority  rather  than 
to  the  people  at  large.  Take  the  decision  to  carry  out  an  afforestation 
programme :  this  implies  great  activity  on  the  part  of  the  Department 
of  Agriculture,  none  from  the  citizens,  some  of  whom  will  be  subject 
to  the  taking-over  of  land  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  programme.  In 
the  modern  state  no  one  citizen  is  aware  of  every  decision  taken  by 
established  Authorities,  nor  need  he  be,  since  the  very  great  majority 
of  such  decisions  imply  instructions  to  specific  agents.  In  fact  the 
whole  modern  trend  is  away  from  direct  instructions  to  citizens :  for 
instance,  in  the  recovery  of  taxes,  the  practice  of  'withholding' 
transforms  what  would  have  been  a  demand  addressed  to  a  great 
many  taxpayers  into  a  demand  addressed  to  a  far  smaller  number  of 
employers,  who  find  themselves  for  the  occasion  in  the  position  of 
'agents'. 

PoHtical  analysis  at  the  level  of  the  State — which  we  are  not  con- 
cerned with  here — involves  asking  the  question :  '  Who  is  requested 
to  carry  out  this  specific  decision.?'  The  importance  of  the  question 
can  be  brought  out  by  a  simple  example :  suppose  that  a  popularly 
elected  government  decides  to  develop  biological  warfare,  and  sup- 
pose even  that  it  obtains  for  that  purpose  the  backing  of  a  majority 
of  the  electorate ;  but  suppose  also  that  the  biologists  refuse  to  carry 
out  this  work:  the  government  is  stymied.  This  extreme  case  brings 
out  what  is  too  often  forgotten :  that  any  government  is  naturally 
dependent  upon  those  whose  actions  are  required  to  carry  out  its 
instructions. 

How  right  was  Hume  to  say: 

As  FORCE  is  always  on  the  side  of  the  governed,  the  governors  have  nothing 
to  support  them  but  opinion.  'Tis  therefore  on  opinion  only  that  govern- 
ment is  founded ;  and  this  maxim  extends  to  the  most  despotic  and  mili- 
tary governments,  as  well  as  the  most  free  and  popular.  The  soldan  of 
Egypt,  or  the  emperor  of  Rome,  might  drive  his  harmless  subjects  like 
brute  beasts,  against  their  sentiments  and  incHnation :  but  he  must  at  least 
have  led  his  mamalukes  or  praetorian  bands  like  men,  by  their  opinion.^ 

This  statement  is  perhaps  the  most  important  of  all  political 
science.    It  helps  us  to  understand  the  true  basis  of  oppressive 

^  Cf.  Social  Contract,  Book  in,  chs.  i  and  2. 

^  David  Hume,  Essays  and  Treatises  on  Various  Subjects,  2  vols.  (London,  1757), 
essay  iv:  'Of  the  First  Principles  of  Government',  p.  31. 

144 


CH.  l]  THE  PEOPLE 

government,  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  intense  soHdarity  with  its 
head  of  a  minority  whose  organization  and  activity  allow  it  to 
intimidate  every  other  subject.  It  sharpens  our  awareness  that,  in  a 
simple  body  where  decision-makers  have  no  specific  agents  of  execu- 
tion or  enforcement — such  as  the  People  described  above — it  would 
not  much  matter  in  fact  if  formally  decision-making  rested  with 
One,  called  Absolute :  because  in  such  a  situation,  the  execution  of 
decisions  devolving  upon  each,  the  formal  decision-maker  is  entirely 
dependent  upon  their  willingness  to  execute  and  can  therefore  com- 
mand only  what  the  'subjects'  will  be  wilHng  to  carry  out.  It  is  not 
so  when  a  state  apparatus  is  developed.  Decision-makers  are  always 
naturally  dependent  upon  the  goodwill  of  those  who  carry  out 
decisions ;  but  as  this  carrying  out  shifts  from  members  of  society  to 
members  of  the  apparatus,  so  does  this  dependence.  As  ideas  are  of 
practical  efficiency,  such  a  shift,  which  Hes  in  the  nature  of  things, 
can  be  checked  to  some  degree  by  emphasizing  that  subjects  are 
'citizens'  and  calling  agents  'instruments':  but  the  underlying  facts 
may  break  out.^  Further,  the  established  Authorities  who  want  some 
decision  carried  out  must  naturally  attach  a  major  importance  to  the 
co-operation  of  any  individuals  or  groups  in  society  whose  help  can 
be  decisive.  If  there  exists  a  social  condition  wherein  local  lords 
carry  great  weight,  the  government  will  seek  to  enrol  them  as 
special  agents  for  the  enforcement  of  its  decisions,  and  in  order  to 
involve  them  will  invite  them  to  participate  in  the  making  of 
decisions.  If  a  social  condition  exists  wherein  trade  union  leaders 
carry  great  weight,  then  they  will  be  consulted  in  order  to  procure 
their  involvement  and  co-operation.^ 

Tell  me  to  whom  authorized  decision-makers  look  for  the  imple- 
mentation of  their  commands:  from  this  I  shall  derive  my  idea  of  the 
State  considered,  and  my  assessment  of  the  forces  with  which  the 
Authorities  must  bargain.  The  character  of  a  State  changes  with  the 
agencies  and  procedures  whereby  what  has  been  said  gets  done. 

^  E.g.  the  political  pretensions  of  the  army. 

^  An  illustration  comes  to  hand  at  the  time  of  my  final  revision.  The  convening  of 
trade  union  and  business  leaders  in  the  newly  formed  National  Economic  Development 
Council  corresponds  to  the  same  governmental  need  as  the  first  convening  of  parHaments. 
People  who  are  well  placed  in  society  to  procure  the  carrying  out  of  a  policy  are 
invited  to  participate  in  its  elaboration  (i.e.  'Come  and  let  yourselves  be  convinced'). 


145  JPT 


I 


CHAPTER  2 

THE  COMMITTEE, 
I  (JUDICIAL  OR  POLITICAL?) 

Wherever  there  is  an  estabhshed  Authority,  the  decisions  it  utters 
must  first  be  chosen.  Whenever  more  than  one  person  does  the 
choosing,  differences  can  arise.  These  differences  form  the  subject 
of  the  present  chapter. 

To  clarify  my  intention,  I  shall  explicitly  exclude  what  I  do  not 
propose  to  discuss  at  this  point:  (i)  to  what  set  of  people  should  a 
certain  category  of  decisions  be  entrusted;  (2)  whether  there  is 
perfect  coincidence  between  those  entitled  to  participate  in  the 
decision-making  and  those  effectively  participating;  (3)  by  what 
method  (majority  or  other)  the  decision  is  made,  differences  not- 
withstanding; (4)  how  the  decision  is  to  be  carried  out. 

The  picture  of  the  decision-making  set  which  I  have  in  mind  is 
one  which  comprises  more  than  one  person  but  not  a  large  number. 
For  the  sake  of  convenience  I  shall  call  this  set  'the  committee'.  It 
seems  reasonable  to  think  in  terms  of  a  small  set.  Even  when  the 
decision  belongs  to  many,  the  debate  must  in  fact  be  limited  to  a  few.^ 
On  the  other  hand,  when  decision  belongs  to  one,  he  will  be  apt  to  seek 
the  views  of  a  few  advisers ;  and  even  if  he  does  not,  the  several  courses 
he  contemplates  in  solitude  can  be  regarded  as  several  opinions. 

The  theme  is  thus  delimited.  Several  men  are  engaged  in  choosing 
a  decision  to  be  issued  authoritatively.  In  what  various  ways  can 
they  differ?  To  answer  this  question,  we  shall  begin  by  considering 
different  kinds  of  decision. 

I  am  a  juryman  sitting  with  eleven  others  throughout  a  trial. 
What  is  the  nature  of  the  decision  I  am  called  upon  to  make? 
Formally  speaking  I  am  not  called  upon  to  decide  what  shall  be  done 
in  the  future  to  Smith,  the  accused,  but  to  say  what  Smith  has  done 
at  some  moment  in  the  past.  My  decision  bears  upon  the  truth  of  a 
bygone  occurrence :  '  Did  Smith,  on  such  a  date,  commit  a  certain 

^  See  my  paper:  'The  Chairman's  Problem',  American  Political  Science  Review, 
vol.  LV,  no.  2  (Jime  1961). 

146 


PT.  V,  CH.  2] 

action?'  This  I  do  not  know  as  I  first  take  my  seat.  But  the  matter 
has  been  looked  into  (this  is  of  course  the  hteral  meaning  of  in- 
quisitio) :  there  has  been  an  inquest,  inquiry,  investigation,  thanks  to 
which  'evidence'  is  laid  before  the  jury.  As  etymology  testifies, 
evidence  is  designed  to  manifest  what  was  hidden,  to  make  me  see 
what  I  have  not  seen.  When  all  the  evidence  has  been  produced, 
marshalled  on  both  sides  and  summed  up  by  the  judge,  I  should  be 
able  to  recognize  the  truth ;  which  is  what  I  am  here  for :  the  function 
of  the  jury  is  recognitio  veritatis. 

Clearly  such  recognitio  is  not  equivalent  to  a  cognitio.  However 
much  the  evidence  accumulates  against  Smith,  I  can  never  know 
for  certain  what  he  has  done.  I  can  only  hold  the  opinion  that 
Smith  is  guilty  and  feel  that  the  chances  of  its  being  mistaken  are 
neghgible. 

What  now  can  be  the  nature  of  the  difference  arising  between  me 
and  a  fellow-juryman?  It  is  not  a  difference  in  the  understanding  of 
our  function :  he  and  I  are  jointly  engaged  in  a  recognitio  veritatis. 
Also  we  are  both  convinced  that  there  is  a  truth  to  be  known.  Even 
in  our  time  when  it  is  fashionable  to  say  with  Pilate  Quid  est  Veritas? 
it  is  hardly  doubted  that  a  question  of  fact  is  capable  of  a  'Yes'  or 
'No'  answer. 

What  then  is  our  difference?  The  evidence  which  has  convinced 
me  has  failed  to  convince  him.  The  opinion  of 'guilty'  seems  to  him 
doubtful. 

What  sort  of  feehng  should  his  doubt  evoke  in  me?  Unless  I 
account  his  judgement  for  zero,  which  is  presumptuous,  his  contrary 
view  must  make  me  less  sure  that  my  opinion  is  true.  I  have  no  good 
reason  to  be  angry  with  him  for  failing  to  share  my  views,  but  reason 
rather  to  thank  him  for  saving  me  from  a  precipitate  judgement. 

In  this  case  it  seems  obvious  that  I  must  practise  tutiorism^  a  term 
of  moral  theology  which  denotes  a  preference  for  the  safest  course. 
Tutiorism  is  the  general  rule  in  criminal  law.  It  is  displayed  in  the 
maxim  that  the  accused  should  have  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  in  the 
EngHsh  requirement  that  the  jury  should  be  unanimous  to  'find  for' 
guilt  vahdly,^  but  above  all  in  the  leisureliness  of  criminal  procedure. 

^  Though  in  fact  the  unanimity  rule  in  England  seems  due  to  the  antiquity  of  the 
institution.  The  jury  system,  indeed  for  other  purposes  than  those  of  criminal  law,  was 
at  work  in  England  long  before  the  idea  occurred  that  a  majority  could  stand  for  con- 
sensus. This  is  a  modern  notion,  hard  to  justify  in  logic.  It  is  because  this  modern 
notion  had  come  to  be  established  that  the  countries  in  which  a  jury  system  was  intro- 
duced at  a  late  date  (such  as  France)  have  a  majority  rule.    Statistically  speaking  the 

I4'7  10-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  V 

The  inconvenience  of  delaying  a  decision,  the  cost  of  gathering  more 
information,  are  disregarded  as  against  the  danger  of  incomplete 
information:  'expeditive  justice'  is  no  justice.^ 

The  most  extreme  example  of  tutiorism  inMecision-making  is 
afforded  by  the  process  of  canonization  in  the  Roman  Cathohc 
Church.2  There  we  have  a  quite  remarkable  case,  because  estabhshed 
Authority  is  in  the  position  of  denying  a  recognition  of  saintliness 
demanded  by  the  people.  A  number  of  centuries  may  elapse  before 
ultimately  sanctification  is  obtained  for  a  memory  which  has  been 
constantly  cherished.  Established  Authority  waits,  to  see  whether 
the  popular  fame  increases  over  time:  expect  at  ut  videat  utrumfama 
ista  sanctitatis  et  miraculorum  evanescat,  an  incrementum  capiat.  If  so, 
no  less  than  three  successive  procedures  are  required,  lengthy  and 
separated  by  great  stretches  of  time.  In  the  case  of  each,  estabhshed 
Authority  stands  as  it  were  on  the  defensive,  raising  doubts.  The 
question  is  repeatedly  asked:  ''An...tuto  procedi  possit?''  Is  it 
possible  to  proceed  safely,  with  full  confidence? 

Now,  for  a  violent  contrast,  let  us  consider  an  army  in  a  tight  spot 
(the  'Blue'  army),  and  suppose  that  its  general  calls  a  council  of  war, 
in  which  I  am  included.  Whatever  is  to  be  done  must  be  done 
quickly  and  therefore  it  is  impossible  to  decide  tuto. 

There  are '  hard  facts '  of  the  situation  such  as  the  present  positions 
of  the  various  Blue  forces  and  of  the  various  opposing  Red  forces. 
I  call  these  hard  facts  because  they  are  accomplished  facts,  by  nature 

majority  rule  affords  less  guarantee  to  the  accused  (see  below),  but  of  course  a  greater 
reluctance  to  find  guilt  can  compensate  for  this. 

A  full  discussion  of  the  guarantees  afforded  respectively  by  the  unanimity  and  the 
majority  rule  can  be  found  in  Condorcet's  Essai  sur  V Application  de  Vanalyse  a  la 
probabilite  des  decisions  vendues  d  la  pluralite  des  voix  (Paris,  1785).  If  one  wants  the 
chance  of  condemning  an  innocent  man  to  fall  below^  one  in  a  hundred  thousand,  this 
can  be  achieved  in  a  majority  system  only  if  each  individual  juryman  has  less  than  eight 
chances  in  a  hundred  of  going  wrong,  but  it  can  be  achieved  with  a  unanimity  system  if 
each  juryman  has  less  than  thirty-seven  chances  in  a  hundred  of  being  wrong,  as  anyone  can 
find  out  from  tables  of  the  cumulative  binomial.  Simple  answers  such  as  this  one  can  be 
given  only  on  the  unrealistic  assumption  that  the  jurymen  do  not  influence  each  other. 

*  It  is  noteworthy  that  the '  safest  course '  maxim  which  works  in  favour  of  the  accused 
in  normal  times  is  reversed  in  favour  of  'the  State',  'the  People',  'the  Party',  'the 
Revolution',  'the  Cause'  in  troubled  times.  Then  what  is  called  'safest'  is  what  is  most 
apt  to  strike  terror  in  the  hearts  of  the  actual  or  potential  opposition:  the  condenuiation 
of  the  innocent  will  do  as  well  as  that  of  the  guilty. 

2  Cf.  Vacant  et  Mongenot,  Dictionnaire  de  Theologie  Catholique,  Fasc.  XV :  'Cano- 
nisation dans  I'Eglise  Romaine',  with  an  extensive  bibliography. 

148 


CH.  2]  THE  COMMITTEE,! 

capable  of  being  thoroughly  known.  But  they  are  not  at  present 
known  to  me  as  the  positions  of  white  and  black  pieces  on  the  chess- 
board are  known  to  a  chess-player.  Regarding  these  hard  facts  I  have 
information  which  I  deem  reliable  for  some  items  and  more  or  less 
doubtful  in  the  case  of  others.  I  cannot  wait  to  improve  my  informa- 
tion since  this  implies  staying  in  the  same  positions  while  the  enemy 
moves  and  this  may  turn  out  to  be  the  most  disastrous  course. 

Even  if  I  had  perfect  knowledge  of  present  Red  and  Blue  positions, 
I  could  not  with  any  considerable  degree  of  assurance  foretell  the 
effect  of  a  certain  decision  now  made,  because  I  cannot  tell  how  it 
will  be  carried  out  by  the  various  Blue  forces  nor  what  Red  will  do 
in  the  meantime.  Thus  even  with  perfect  information  my  decision 
would  be  a  gamble.  But  I  am  gambling  even  more  wildly  because  my 
information  is  so  incomplete. 

In  such  circumstances,  proposals  to  the  council  of  war  are  a 
matter  of  character  more  than  mental  speculation.  The  first  to 
indicate  a  bold  course  is  apt  to  rally  those  of  similar  temperament 
and  to  be  opposed  by  those  of  a  more  timid  disposition. 

Our  council  of  war,  its  situation  characterized  by  the  necessity  of 
making  a  momentous  decision  in  the  course  of  a  single  sitting,  is  of 
course  an  extreme  case.  Even  so,  if  we  think  of  a  spectrum  at  one 
end  of  which  we  set  our  criminal  procedure,  with  our  council  of  war 
at  the  other  end,  executive  decisions  stand  nearer  to  the  latter  than 
to  the  former.  They  are  more  like  the  latter,  not  only  because  they 
cannot  be  long  delayed,  but  also  because  delay  is  not  necessarily 
conducive  to  the  increase  of  information  and  therefore  to  a  safer 
decision.  The  decision  to  be  taken  is  meant  to  affect  the  future  and 
the  best  way  open  at  the  moment  t^  may  well  have  closed  by  the 
time  it  has  been  investigated.  While  politicians  are  discussing  what 
the  situation  calls  for,  the  situation  is  in  fact  changing.  No  doubt 
there  are  many  cases  in  which  the  situation  changes  slowly  enough 
to  justify  an  interval  spent  in  the  collecting  of  more  information ; 
while  it  may  be  true  that  the  decision  taken  at  a  later  moment  implies 
action  from  a  worsened  position,  the  improvement  of  information 
may  be  such  as  to  improve  the  odds  in  favour  of  getting  good  results 
from  the  action  decided.  But  all  too  often  the  case  is  different:  the 
need  for  full  information  is  felt  only  when  the  situation  is  worsening 
rapidly,  so  much  so  that  the  information  called  for  is  doomed  to 
obsolescence  before  it  can  be  used. 

149 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  V 

Whoever  has  given  a  good  deal  of  attention  to  the  course  of  events 
knows  how  things  are  apt  to  go.  There  is  a  long,  slow  subterranean 
progress  to  a  problem.  You  point  to  this  mole-track  and  you  are  told : 
'There  is  nothing  there';  or  perhaps  they  will  admit:  'Yes,  there  is 
a  problem  there  which  we  may  have  to  deal  with  some  day,  but  there 
is  plenty  of  time.  Things  have  been  that  way  for  a  long  time  and 
they  are  not  moving,  you  know.'  It  is  true  that  'things'  have  a 
deceptive  trick  of  moving  slowly,  giving  the  He  to  Cassandra.  But 
however  long  this  may  last,  one  day,  suddenly,  there  they  are  in 
the  open. 

Now  they  are  discovered,  discussed,  there  is  a  scurrying  and 
people  come  triumphantly  bearing  as  their  great  idea  some  sugges- 
tion which  was  made  about  the  problem  a  long  time  ago,  when  it 
might  perhaps  have  been  effective.  While  people  are  discussing  this, 
matters  move  at  a  pace  which  is  forever  accelerating  towards  a  real 
crisis.  This  is  the  time  when  the  stewards  of  the  public  interest  come 
to  make  a  decision.  And  they  are  in  the  condition  of  our  council  of 
war.  They  need  not  have  been,  but  there  they  are. 

A  chess-player  who  has  been  dilatory  in  his  first  moves  is  apt  to 
find  himself  in  time-trouble  just  as  things  come  to  a  crisis:  much  the 
same  usually  happens  in  Politics.  It  is  of  great  interest  to  discuss 
how  decisions  should  be  made :  not  least  for  purposes  of  contrast  with 
the  actual  manner  of  their  making. 

We  have  compared  sitting  on  a  jury  and  sitting  in  a  council  of 
war.  The  immediately  striking  contrast  lay  in  the  attitude  of  the 
decision-maker  to  time :  in  the  former  case  time  can  be  freely  spent 
to  buy  more  information;  not  so  in  the  latter  case.  This  contrast 
regarding  time  turns  upon  the  fact  that  the  same  decision  produces 
the  same  effect,  whatever  its  date,  in  the  first  case,  not  in  the  second. 
This  constitutes  a  fundamental  difference  between  a  judicial  and  an 
executive  decision.  It  is  related  to  '  the  behaviour  of  facts '  relevant 
to  the  different  processes.  The  facts  upon  which  the  juryman  (or  the 
judge  as  the  case  may  be)  passes  judgement  'stand  still'  while  the 
decision  is  being  elaborated.  The  facts  in  respect  of  which  the 
military  or  political  committeeman  (or  sole  executive)  must  make  a 
decision  are  'on  the  move'  while  the  decision  is  being  elaborated. 
The  'standstill'  of  facts  is  so  essential  to  judicial  decision-making 
that  the  only  precipitate  measures  taken  in  judicial  procedure  are 
directed  to  immobihzing  the  facts:  measures  of  conservation  tending 

150 


CH.  2]  THE  COMMITTEE,  I 

to  preserve  the  evidence  or  to  secure  that  the  object  claimed  does  not 
disappear  or  suffer  irreparable  alteration. 

Over  the  centuries  a  continuing  effort  has  been  made  to  improve 
the  administration  of  justice.  Its  excellence  we  regard  with  good 
reason  as  an  admirable  trait  in  a  body  politic.  We  are  prone  to  take 
it  as  an  ideal  model,  and  would  like  political  decision-making  to 
imitate  judicial  decision-making.  This  imitation  is  very  apparent 
whenever  we  formulate  our  requirements  in  the  political  realm :  we 
feel  that  the  deciding  pohtical  body  should  carefully  possess  itself  of 
all  the  facts  and  that  it  should  patiently  hear  out  arguments  on  both 
sides,  freely  developed.^  Time-pressure,  however,  is  likely  to  impede 
the  fulfilment  of  these  requirements.  For  instance,  when  President 
Truman,  in  1950,  decided  upon  intervention  in  Korea,  had  he 
waited  for  an  exhaustive  collecting  of  the  facts,  and  for  a  full-dress 
discussion  of  the  reasons  for  and  against  intervention,  this  would  in 
fact  have  amounted  to  a  decision  of  non-intervention.  This  is  indeed 
what  happened  in  March  1936  when  the  question  arose  for  France 
whether  to  answer  by  military  intervention  the  German  remilitariza- 
tion of  the  Rhineland. 

Many  political  decisions — and  those  the  most  important — cannot 
be  made  according  to  a  procedure  as  careful  as  that  which  is  required 
in  the  administration  of  justice.  They  can  be  reviewed  afterwards, 
but  whether  this  review  approves  or  condemns  the  decision  taken,  it 
can  never  undo  its  effects.  And  indeed  because  the  political  decision 
has  produced  effects,  subsequent  approval  or  condemnation  of  the 
decision  will  not  turn  upon  a  reconsideration  of  the  same  facts  or 
arguments  which  the  decision-makers  considered  at  the  time  or 
which  were  available  to  them:  the  approval  or  condemnation  will 
depend  essentially  on  the  new  facts  produced  or  deemed  to  have  been 
produced  by  the  decision. 

And  this  brings  us  to  a  difference  between  judicial  and  political 
decision-making  far  more  essential  than  those  previously  recapitu- 
lated. The  one  looks  back  to  the  past,  when,  it  is  alleged.  Primus 
committed  a  certain  criminal  action  or,  if  it  is  a  civil  suit,  injured  the 
rightful  interests  of  Secundus.  The  other,  on  the  contrary,  looks 
forward  to  the  outcome  of  the  decision  now  being  formed.  Practically 
everything  that  is  said  in  the  course  of  a  trial  or  lawsuit  is  couched  in 
the  past  tense;  not  so  in  the  case  of  a  political  debate:  here  the  future 
tense  is  sure  to  be  used. 

^  Other  analogical  requirements  could  be  mentioned  but  are  not  relevant  at  this  stage. 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  V 

In  essence  a  judicial  decision  is  a  finding  that  some  person  or 
persons  did  at  some  past  moment  unduly  affect  the  then  existing 
state  of  the  world  ;^  while  a  political  decision  is  an  endeavour  to 
affect  the  future  state  of  the  world.  Such  an  endeavour  implies 
surmising  how  the  decision  will  work  out,  and  therefore  taking  into 
account  facts  yet  to  come,  contingencies. 

If  facts,  lying  in  the  past,  have  been  properly  ascertained,  and  if 
the  relevant  rule  is  duly  applied  to  them,  then  a  judicial  decision  is 
correct.  Here  the  decision-makers  are  not  required  to  consider  the 
practical  consequences  of  their  decision  ;2  it  can  even  be  argued  that 
they  should  not  consider  these  consequences;  at  least  it  is  clear 
that  they  must  not  choose  their  decision  according  to  the  various 
consequences  they  could  foresee  as  flowing  from  this  or  that 
choice. 

Let  me  illustrate.  I  am  a  juryman  sitting  in  1956  in  Smith's  trial 
for  a  murder  allegedly  committed  in  1955.  The  evidence  regarding 
Smith's  character  is  unfavourable,  but  the  evidence  regarding  the 
alleged  action  is  very  inadequate.  I  would  act  in  a  most  improper 
fashion  if  I  decided  for  Smith's  guilt  on  the  following  grounds :  '  I 
cannot  tell  whether  Smith  has  committed  murder  in  1955,  but  I 
regard  him  as  likely  to  do  so  in  the  future,  and  therefore  I  shall  so 
speak  as  to  preclude  a  future  evil. '  My  correct  behaviour  is  to  say 
'not  guilty'  and  should  Smith  commit  a  murder  in  1958,  my  1956 
decision  will  not  thereby  be  proved  incorrect.  My  business  was  not 
to  foresee  the  future  and  I  was  not  to  take  my  present  decision  on 
consideration  of  its  future  effects.  It  is  quite  the  contrary  in  the  case 
of  a  political  decision. 

For  instance,  as  Secretary  for  War  I  consider  the  case  of  General 
Smith,  a  worthy  man  with  an  excellent  record.  Let  us  suppose  that 
his  seniority  now  calls  him  to  a  position  of  major  responsibility  and 
that  I  have  no  choice  other  than  thus  promoting  him  or  retiring  him. 
The  latter  course  seems  unfair  in  view  of  the  evidence  collected 

^  The  purpose  of  restoration  (redde)  pervades  the  administration  of  justice.  Any 
future  effects  of  a  judicial  decision,  punishment,  restitution,  etc.,  follow  from  the  finding 
of  an  illegitimate  perturbation. 

2  An  instance  comes  to  hand  during  final  revision  of  this  chapter.  The  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  finding  that  the  holding  of  a  large  portion  of  General  Motors  shares  by 
Du  Pont  is  against  the  law,  requires  the  latter  company  to  divest  itself  of  them,  and  re- 
gards the  harm  which  may  accrue  to  General  Motors'  individual  stockholders  from  the 
consequent  dumping  of  shares  upon  the  market  as  beyond  its  purview. 

152 


CH.  2]  THE   COMMITTEE,  I 

about  his  past.  It  is,  however,  my  feehng  that  the  man's  mind  is  not 
elastic  enough  to  adjust  to  rapidly  changing  forms  of  warfare.  I  may 
then  quite  correctly  retire  General  Smith  because  my  concern  is  to 
provide  for  the  future.  Should  I  regard  myself  as  bound  by  all  the 
past  facts  in  favour  of  Smith,  and  give  him  the  major  position,  and 
should  Smith  at  some  later  date  perform  incompetently,  my  decision 
will  then  be  attacked  and  my  defending  it  on  the  ground  that  his  past 
record  called  for  the  nomination  will  be  irrelevant  and  immaterial. 
My  business  was  to  do  the  best  for  our  future  defence. 

The  contrast  here  drawn  is  of  major  importance.  It  seems  un- 
desirable to  allow  the  Secretary  for  War  a  great  deal  of  discretion  in 
the  promotion  of  generals.  He  may  then  abuse  his  power  to  advance 
men  towards  whom  he  has  a  personal  leaning,  possibly  independent 
of  their  merit.  Therefore  one  wishes  to  bind  him,  setting  rigid  rules 
of  advancement.  If  so,  every  promotion  becomes  a  judicial  decision 
of  the  simplest  kind :  'What  are  the  facts  regarding  Smith?  Do  they 
quahfy  him  according  to  the  rules.?'  But  in  that  case  the  War 
Secretary  cannot  be  held,  and  cannot  hold  himself,  responsible  for 
the  outcome.  The  feeling  of  responsibility  for  the  outcome  per- 
meates and  characterizes  political  decision-making. 

This  seems  to  set  a  natural  hmit  to  the  binding  of  pubhc  decision- 
makers by  rules.  If  the  field  covered  is  one  within  which  many 
decisions  will  have  to  be  made  over  a  period  of  time,  each  of  which  by 
itself  can  cause  little  harm  to  the  body  politic,  then  it  is  convenient 
to  submit  of  the  whole  field  to  a  rule  designed  to  minimize  the  fre- 
quency of  harmful  decisions.  But  where  a  single  decision  can  produce 
a  major  harm,  then  it  seems  inevitable  that  it  should  be  taken  with 
discretion  on  the  basis  of  surmises  regarding  its  outcome. 

The  contrast  between  political  and  judicial  decision-making  can 
be  further  stressed  by  reference  to  international  affairs  during  the 
period  between  World  War  I  and  World  War  II.  A  new  hope  had 
then  arisen  that  international  disputes  could  be  settled  by  quasi- 
judicial  decisions,  and  international  crimes  put  down  by  a  quasi- 
judicial  process.  Of  course  neither  the  Assembly  nor  the  Council  of 
the  League  of  Nations  was  formed  of  decision-makers  wholly  dis- 
interested;^ it  is  easy  for  a  jurist  to  point  out,  besides  this  major 
difference,  many  other  important  differences  between  the  decisions 

^  This  point,  however  important,  is  left  aside  here :  it  will  be  dealt  with  in  another 
chapter. 


L 


153 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  V 

of  such  bodies  and  true  judicial  decisions.  None  the  less  the  basic 
idea  was  that  the  international  committee  could  go  beyond  the  role 
played  by  former  conferences,  that  is,  attempts  to  reach  workable 
compromises,  and,  if  necessary,  could  utter  verdicts  based  upon 
consideration  of  facts  and  application  of  principles.  For  our  present 
purpose  the  interesting  feature  is  that  once  such  a  quasi-judicial 
decision  was  made,  it  fell  to  the  individual  governments  to  make  a 
political  decision  towards  the  implementation  of  the  verdict.  And 
this  helps  to  bring  out  the  contrast. 

For  instance  in  1935  the  question  arose  whether  Italy  had  engaged 
in  military  aggression  against  Abyssinia,  whether  this  was  a  violation 
of  treaties,  of  the  Kellogg  Pact,  and  of  the  League  Covenant;  whether 
the  occasion  was  one  which  called  for  the  application  of  sanctions  by 
members  of  the  League.  Opining  in  a  judicial  capacity,  representa- 
tives of  the  several  Powers  could  not  honestly  give  any  other  answer 
than  affirmative  on  each  point.  But  actual  moves  in  the  case  called 
for  arrangements  to  be  made  individually  by  the  several  govern- 
ments. Before  making  such  arrangements,  each  government  con- 
sidered the  consequences.  The  French  government,  for  one,  felt  that 
Italy  should  not  be  antagonized;  much  trouble  had  recently  been 
taken  to  tie  her  up  in  a  military  agreement  against  Germany:^  if 
Mussolini  were  angered  he  might  be  driven  to  alliance  with  Hitler. 
This  consideration,  based  on  the  future,  stopped  the  French  govern- 
ment from  any  active  implementation  of  the  judicial  decision. 
History  has  passed  an  unfavourable  judgement  upon  this  political 
decision  (or  indecision).  But  failure  to  follow  up  a  judicial  decision 
is  not  always  a  poHtical  mistake.  On  13  December  1939  the  As- 
sembly of  the  League  of  Nations  found:  (i)  that  the  Soviet  Union 
had  made  a  military  attack  upon  Finland ;  (2)  that  this  was  a  violation 
of  a  Russo-Finnish  agreement,  of  the  Kellogg  Pact,  and  of  the  League 
Covenant;  (3)  that  the  Soviet  Union  was  a  delinquent  under  the 
Covenant.  Clearly  this  was  a  decision  of  a  judicial  nature.  But  now 
the  Western  Powers  had  to  make  a  political  decision :  the  Assembly 
had  explicitly  invited  members  to  aid  Finland :  therefore  Britain  and 
France  would  not  have  done  wrong,  had  they  sent  troops  to  bolster 
the  Finnish  defence.  This  was  quite  seriously  contemplated  in 
France.^  Indeed,  means  of  so  doing  were  prepared.  Such  a  decision 

^  Signed  in  January  of  the  same  year. 

^  Cf.  Paul  Reynaud,  Au  Cceur  de  la  melee  (Paris,  1951),  pp.  364-9.    The  same 
occasion  has  been  referred  to  by  Hans  J.  Morgenthau. 


CH.  2]  THE  COMMITTEE,  I 

would,  however,  have  been  foolish;  Britain  and  France,  already  at 
war  with  Germany,  would  have  disastrously  impaired  their  position 
by  adding  Soviet  Russia  to  their  enemies. 

The  contrast  between  the  two  kinds  of  decision  can  again  be 
stressed  by  referring  to  Munich.  Let  us  leave  out  the  shameful 
aspect  of  this  episode,  the  desertion  of  Czechoslovakia  by  two 
friendly  Powers,  Britain  and  France.  Let  us  assume  that  the  Munich 
decision  was  taken  by  neutrals.^  In  our  'revised  history'  of  Munich, 
Lord  Runciman's  mission  to  Czechoslovakia  has  for  its  sole  purpose 
the  ascertaining  of  the  true  facts  about  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Sudetenland :  and  the  '  true  facts '  in  our  version  are  a  very  strong 
demand  from  the  Sudeten  Germans  for  secession  from  Czecho- 
slovakia and  reunion  with  Germany.^  Now,  our  four  neutral 
decision-makers  apply  the  rule  of  self-determination.  And  they 
make  the  very  decision  which  history  recounts.  In  our  revised 
version,  the  process  is  far  more  honourable  than  was  the  case,  since 
the  four  neutrals  have  been  concerned  to  make  a  correct  judicial 
decision  on  the  basis  of  ascertained  facts  and  of  an  ascertained  rule. 
But  while  now  judicially  correct,  the  decision  is  still  poHtically  bad. 
Czechoslovakia  still  (as  was  the  case)  loses  her  fortified  area,  the 
Skoda  works,  the  means  and  spirit  of  defence.  Such  consequences 
have  to  be  contemplated  in  making  a  political  decision.  Resorting  to 
judicial  decision-making,  when  the  occasion  calls  for  political 
decision,  is  a  grave  political  mistake. 

'What  will  come  of  it.^ '  is  the  question  which  the  political  decision- 
maker must  have  in  mind.^  Note  that  this  question  can  never*  be 
answered  with  complete  certainty.  However  plausible  it  may  now 
seem  to  me  that  the  /„  decision  will  lead  to  an  0^  outcome,  this 
depends  upon  many  factors,  some  of  which  I  have  taken  into 
account  and  some  of  which  I  have  not.   If  I  am  careful,  I  shall  have 

^  It  is  of  course  a  feature  of  political  decisions  that  they  are  very  seldom,  if  ever,  taken 
by  neutrals.  And  this  is  another  very  important  contrast  with  judicial  decisions.  But  it 
is  not  a  feature  which  I  wish  to  deal  with  in  the  present  chapter. 

^  Such  a  demand  had  indeed  been  aroused. 

^  I  do  not  forget  that  in  some  cases  moral  duty  so  forcibly  requires  a  certain  decision 
that  it  would  be  wrong  to  weigh  the  consequences.  For  instance,  the  White  State 
harbours  refugees  from  the  far  stronger  Green  State.  Green  demands  'that  these 
refugees  be  handed  over. .  .or  else'.  The  obvious  reply  of  White  is:  'No. .  .and  damn 
the  consequences ! '  But  I  do  not  have  to  consider  such  cases  here  since  whenever  moral 
duty  immediately  dictates  the  decision,  there  is  no  problem. 

*  Before  using  so  strong  a  term  I  cast  about  for  possible  exceptions.  I  did  not  find 
them. 


I 


155 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS       [PT.  V,  CH.  2 

thought  of  the  behaviour  of  agents,  the  reception  by  subjects,  the 
reaction  of  opponents;  to  all  these  I  can  only  attach  probabilities: 
but  moreover  the  advent  of  outcome  0„  may  be  balked  by  the 
unforeseen  impact  of  another  chain  of  events.  Every  outcome  is 
uncertain.  We  decide  on  the  basis  of  expectations.^ 

^  Shackle  gives  an  excellent  definition  of  tiie  term:  'By  expectation  I  mean  the  act  of 
creating  imaginary  situations,  of  associating  them  with  future  named  dates,  and  of 
assigning  to  each  of  the  hypotheses  thus  formed  a  place  on  a  scale  measuring  our  belief 
that  a  specified  course  of  action  on  our  part  will  make  this  hypothesis  come  true. ' 
(G.  L.  S.  Shackle,  Expectation  in  Economics,  Cambridge,  1948.) 


156 


CHAPTER  3 

THE  COMMITTEE,  II  (FORESIGHT, 
VALUES  AND  PRESSURES) 

It  has  been  stressed  that  we  have  to  deal  with  forward-looking 
decisions.  Let  us  start  with  a  simple  instance:  'the  President's 
deficit  problem'.  The  imaginary  situation  is  as  follows.  In  January 
a  recession  is  in  progress;  the  President  must  now  decide  upon  a 
balanced  or  unbalanced  budget  for  a  period  beginning  six  months 
hence  and  ending  eighteen  months  hence.  We  assume  that  the 
budget  is  his  only  means  of  action  upon  the  economy  and  that  no 
subsequent  correction  will  be  possible. 

Two  circumstances  independent  of  the  President's  will  may 
present  themselves:  in  the  course  of  the  budgetary  period  an 
economic  recovery  may  spontaneously  occur,  or  it  may  not  occur. 
If  recovery  occurs  early  in  the  period  the  President's  'soft'  budget 
will  produce  inflation.  If  no  recovery  occurs  the  President's  'hard' 
budget  will  leave  the  recession  to  its  downward  course.^  Thus  the 
President  may  fall  into  two  evils :  inflation  if  he  budgets  for  a  deficit 
and  the  circumstance  'recovery'  appears,  and  depression  if  he 
budgets  for  balance  and  the  circumstance  which  appears  is  'con- 
tinuing recession'.  On  the  other  hand  he  wifl  do  well  if  he  budgets 
for  balance  and  recovery  appears  or  if,  recession  tending  to  continue, 
his  deficit  happens  to  be  timely  for  the  restoration  of  prosperity. 
CalHng  the  three  possible  outcomes  inflation,  depression  and  prosper- 
ity, we  can  group  the  eventualities  in  a  simple  '  pay-off"'  table. 


I 


Future  circumstance 


Recession         Recovery 
Present        1         Balance       depression       prosperity 
decision     j  Deficit       prosperity       inflation 


Now  the  President  calls  four  advisers:  A,  B,  C  and  D.  Let  us 
take  them  in  pairs.  A  and  B  both  regard  the  evils  of  inflation  and 
depression  as  equivalent.  They  disagree,  however,  on  the  likelihood  of 

^  We  are  not  here  dealing  in  economics,  we  do  not  have  to  consider  the  eventuaUty  of 
a  deficit  occurring  through  the  very  progress  of  the  recession. 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  V 

circumstances.  A  regards  spontaneous  recovery  early  enough  within 
the  budgetary  period  as  highly  unlikely  while  B  regards  it  as  very 
likely.  Thus  A  will  recommend  deficit  financing  as  adequate  to  the 
more  likely  circumstances,  while  for  the  same  reason  B  will  advocate 
a  balanced  budget. 

C  and  Z),  asked  to  assess  the  relative  chances  of  spontaneous 
recovery  and  continuing  recession,  refuse  to  commit  themselves: 
they  cannot  tell;  in  other  words  recovery  and  recession  seem  to  them 
equally  likely.  Still  they  differ  very  sharply  in  their  recommenda- 
tions to  the  President.  Why?  Because  C  deems  inflation  much  worse 
than  depression,  while  D  regards  depression  as  far  the  greater  evil. 

Thus  the  President's  advisory  committee  divides  equally;  both  A 
and  D  recommend  deficit  financing  though  for  different  reasons; 
both  B  and  C  recommend  balance,  again  for  different  reasons.  D  is 
willing  to  admit  that  the  deficit  he  advocates  has  even  chances  of 
producing  inflation,  but  this,  in  his  view,  is  the  lesser  evil.  A  is 
willing  to  admit  that  the  evil  produced  by  deficit  financing  is  as  bad 
as  the  other,  but  he  deems  it  less  probable.  Thus  the  positions  taken 
by  our  four  advisers  are  determined  by  their  ranking  of  the  evils  to  be 
feared  and  their  assessments  of  circumstances.^ 

Finding  a  deadlock  within  his  advisory  committee,  the  President 
decides  to  hear  out  what  the  advisers  have  to  say,  first  on  the  relative 
evils  of  inflation  and  depression  (a  discussion  of  values),  secondly  on 
the  relative  likelihoods  of  spontaneous  recovery  or  continuing  reces- 
sion. On  the  value  issue  A  and  B  are  silent,  C  stresses  the  evils  of 
inflation,  D  the  evils  of  depression.  The  President  is  swayed  to  the 
side  of  £) :  he  now  feels  that  depression  is  the  greater  evil,  not  per- 
haps by  a  large  margin.  There  remains  to  discuss  the  relative  likeH- 
hoods  of  spontaneous  recession  and  continuing  recovery.  This  time 
C  and  D  are  silent,  A  denies  and  B  affirms  that  spontaneous  recovery 
is  the  more  probable  alternative.  The  President  is  swayed  by  B, 
and  comes  to  believe  that  continuing  recession  is  the  less  likely 
circumstance. 

After  these  two  discussions  how  does  the  President  stand.? 

Depression  is  the  greater  evil :  therefore  let  me  make  sure  that  it  does  not 
occur,  and  for  that  purpose  I  shall  choose  the  deficit  budget.  But  before 

^  It  is  customary  to  speak  of ' subjective  utilities'  (in  this  case  disutilities)  and  'sub- 
jective probabilities '.  Subjective  probabilities  are  nothing  other  than  '  degrees  of  belief ', 
as  Shackle  puts  it. 

158 


CH.  3]  THE  COMMITTEE,  II 

I  settle  for  it  definitely,  let  me  consider  the  consequences.  I  hold  spon- 
taneous recovery  to  be  the  more  likely  circumstance  and  I  know  that  its 
coincidence  with  a  deficit  budget  is  inflation.  Therefi^re  the  most  likely 
outcome  of  my  deficit  decision  is  inflation. 

At  this  point  the  President  may  regard  it  as  'irrational'^  to  take  a 
decision  which  has  more  than  even  chances  of  producing  an  evil 
result,  he  may  shift  back  to  the  balanced  budget  which  has  more 
than  even  chances  of  producing  a  good  result  (since  spontaneous 
recovery  is  the  more  likely  circumstance):  but  he  must  admit  to 
himself  that  in  making  that  choice  he  runs  the  risk  of  the  greater 
evil,  and  he  turns  back  again 

Situations  of  this  type  are  quite  frequent  in  politics  (as  they  are 
indeed  in  private  lives).  An  important  literature  has  developed  on 
'rational'  choice  in  conditions  of  uncertainty,  and,  more  recently, 
experimental  research  has  been  undertaken  to  find  out  how  men  are 
in  fact  likely  to  choose  under  such  conditions. 

Such  speculations  and  investigations  are  very  attractive  to  me  and 
I  believe  that  they  will  come  to  play  an  important  part  in  political 
science:  this  will,  however,  require  a  great  deal  of  adjustment  to  the 
specific  requirements  of  the  disciphne. 

The  President's  problem,  as  outlined  above,  is  an  extremely  simple 
'gamble'  situation,  where  the  maxim  for  rational  choice  is  almost 
unquestioned:  he  should  'maximize  expected  utility'.^  In  our 
elementary  instance  the  maxim  leads  to  a  simple  comparison  of  the 
ratio  of  likelihoods  to  the  ratio  of  utihties.  But  the  President's 
evaluation  that  depression  is  worse  than  inflation  does  not  entail  his 
formulating  a  numerical  ratio  between  the  two ;  nor  does  his  evalua- 
tion that  recovery  is  more  likely  than  recession  entail  his  formulating 
a  numerical  ratio.  He  will  appreciate  differences  only  if  one  is  large 
and  the  other  small,  in  which  case  he  will  neglect  the  small  one. 

Now  let  me  note  the  hidden  assumptions  relative  to  our  com- 
mittee. These  are  indifference  to  outside  pressures,  a  common 

^  An  expression  very  loosely  used. 

^  Putting  it  roughly,  any  given  course  can  give  rise  to  a  number  of  outcomes  (in  our 
simple  example  only  two).  The  chooser  sets  a  value  on  each  outcome  (subjective  utihty) 
and  attributes  to  it  a  likelihood  (subjective  probability).  He  multiplies  for  each  outcome 
its  subjective  utiHty  by  its  subjective  probabiUty  and  adds  up  the  terms  thus  obtained 
for  all  the  outcomes  of  a  given  course.  That  course  which  produces  the  higher  sum  is  to 
be  preferred. 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  V 

concern  for  general  prosperity,  agreement  as  to  what  is  bad,^  and 
honesty  in  statement. 

Let  me  start  with  the  last  point.  Suppose  that  the  advisers  have 
been  called  upon  to  give  their  views  in  alphabetical  order;  each  of 
A,  B,  and  C  has  stated  what  is  to  him  the  likelihood  of  spontaneous 
recovery  and  how  he  feels  about  the  evils  of  inflation  and  depression: 
he  has  thus  justified  his  counsel. 

D  has  listened  throughout,  and  he  is  deeply  worried.  Remember 
that  he  dreads  the  depression  as  the  greater  evil  and  regards  con- 
tinuing recession  as  just  as  likely  as  recovery.  The  situation  after  A, 
B  and  C  have  spoken  seems  to  him  glum.  The  three  preceding 
speakers  have  left  a  majority  (of  one  to  zero)  for  the  value-judgement 
that  inflation  is  the  worse  evil.^  D  knows  that  he  can  balance  this. 
But  he  wants  to  do  better  than  that.  Now  the  three  preceding 
speakers  have  left  a  tie  as  to  the  relative  likelihoods  of  recovery  and 
recession.^  If  D  speaks  honestly  on  that  point,  he  will  leave  the 
committee  tied  as  to  likelihood.  If,  however,  he  takes  the  line  that 
continuing  recession  is  the  more  likely  circumstance,  then  he 
establishes  a  majority  on  likelihood. 

Then  if  the  President  makes  up  his  own  mind  on  the  basis  of 
statements  by  his  advisers,  the  President  will  recapitulate  as  follows. 
First,  as  to  the  evils  to  be  feared;  one  is  to  be  feared  just  as  much  as 
the  other.*  But  secondly,  as  to  HkeHhood  of  continuing  recession, 
there  is  a  majority  which  regards  this  as  the  more  likely  circum- 
stance.^ Therefore,  the  best  policy  is  deficit  financing. 

Thus,  by  making  a  dishonest  statement  on  likelihood,  D  will  have 
achieved  his  purpose  of  ensuring  against  the  evil  he  fears.  Such 
behaviour  not  uncommonly  arises  out  of  patriotic  concern.  D  may 
not  even  be  aware  that  he  makes  a  dishonest  statement.  While  he 
himself  had  no  views  on  the  likelihood  of  recovery  or  recession,  he 
was  impressed  by  A's  exposition  of  the  likelihood  of  continuing 
recession.  Because  that  is  what  he  fears,  the  prediction  oi  A  made  a 
greater  impression  upon  him  than  that  of  5,  and  now  he  has  worked 
A\  opinion  into  his  mind. 

^  All  members  agree  that  both  inflation  and  depression  are  evils,  even  if  for  C  inflation 
is  the  worse  evil  and  depression  is  the  worse  for  D. 

^  C  regards  inflation  as  the  greater  evil,  A  and  B  are  neutral  in  this  respect. 

^  A  regards  recovery  as  less  likely,  B  as  more  likely,  C  accepts  that  they  are  equally  likely. 

*  A  and  B:  they  are  equally  bad;  C:  inflation  is  worse;  D:  depression  is  worse. 
Result:  equal  division. 

^  A:  more  likely;  B:  less  likely;  C:  equally  Ukely;  and  now  D  calls  it  more  likely. 

1 60 


CH.  3]  THE  COMMITTEE,  II 

Whatever  the  differences  between  the  members  of  our  committee, 
we  have  assumed  that  they  have  the  same  object  in  mind,  national 
prosperity.  They  do  differ  in  their  ranking  of  evils,  but  they  agree 
that  both  inflation  and  depression  are  evils.  This  being  so,  we  can 
say  that  they  have  a  general  will  in  common,  or  that  they  have  a 
common  concern,  or  that  they  display  moral  homogeneity.  Never 
mind  what  form  of  words  we  use,  it  is  clear  that  the  situation  will  be 
altered  if,  for  instance,  C  not  only  has  a  strong  conviction  that 
inflation  is  bad  for  the  country,  but  positively  desires  a  depression, 
because,  in  his  view,  'it  will  break  the  unions';  it  may  be  that 
breaking  the  unions  is  for  him  a  means  to  an  ultimate  patriotic  end, 
it  may  be  that  he  has  come  to  desire  it  with  such  a  passion  that  it  is 
now  a  goal  in  itself.  Not  only  in  the  second  case  but  also  in  the  first, 
C  has  in  mind  some  other  object  than  national  prosperity  in  the 
fiscal  year  to  come,  and  this  disrupts  the  moral  homogeneity  of  the 
committee. 

This  disruption  is  completed  if  the  various  advisers  do  not  have 
the  same  interest  in  mind,  but  the  interests  of  various  parts  of  the 
body  politic.^  Then  of  course  the  members  of  the  committee  display 
what  would  be  a  fault  in  members  of  a  tribunal  and  what  is  also  a 
fault  in  members  of  a  political  committee :  partiahty. 

But  such  a  fault  is  more  natural  in  a  member  of  a  political  com- 
mittee. In  the  example  which  has  served  us  up  to  now,  the  President 
has  freely  recruited  his  four  advisers  and  therefore  he  could  choose 
men  owing  no  special  allegiance  to  any  one  section  of  the  community 
and  prejudiced  in  favour  of  none.  But  if  we  substitute  for  our  model 
a  committee  of  five  Ministers  equal  in  decision-making  power, 
these  men  may  feel  special  concern  for  that  section  of  the  public 
from  which  they  draw  their  support  or  with  which  they  are  in 
sympathy. 

In  the  foregoing  chapter,  judicial  and  political  decision-making 
were  sharply  contrasted.  Yet  I  left  out  the  main  difference  between 
them.  The  judge  is  deemed  to  be  impartial  and  independent.  I  have 
briefly  suggested  that  the  political  decision-maker  is  less  apt  to  be 
impartial.  What  I  now  wish  to  stress  is  that  he  is  never  independent. 
The  judge  is  deemed  exempt  from  any  outside  pressure,  and  should 
he  be  exposed  to  such  pressure  he  is  expected  to  withstand  it.  The 
condition  of  the  political  magistrate  is  utterly  different. 
^  Cf.  Rousseau's  Social  Contract^  Book  iv,  ch.  i. 

II  161  JPT 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS         [PT.  V 

His  being  subject  to  outside  pressure  is  not  abnormal  but  natural. 
The  judge  decides  an  issue  which  affects  only  one  or  few,^  by 
apphcation  of  principles  which  are  generally  received.  He  stands  in 
a  position  of  intangible  majesty  relative  to  the  parties  affected,  and 
saving  some  exceptions  their  reactions  are  insignificant.^  The  political 
magistrate,  on  the  other  hand,  decides  issues  which  affect  great 
numbers;  as  he  must  decide  them  with  a  view  to  their  outcome  they 
cannot  always  be  presented  as  a  mere  application  of  principles.  He 
does  stand  in  a  position  of  majesty,  but  a  precarious  one  because  his 
authority  rests  upon  opinion  and  is  apt  to  vanish  if  opinion  turns 
against  him.  He  cannot  be  indifferent  to  the  reactions  evoked  be- 
cause these  are  a  part  of  the  decision's  outcome,  and  may  indeed 
determine  the  outcome. 

It  is  possible  to  write  a  play  centring  either  upon  a  judicial  or  a 
pohtical  decision.  But  in  the  first  case  the  curtain  falls  when  the  sen- 
tence has  been  passed :  the  drama  resides  in  the  conflicting  motives 
whose  interplay  results  in  the  decision;  this,  however,  constitutes  no 
more  than  the  prologue  in  the  second  case :  the  drama  here  consists 
in  the  reactions  to  the  decision,  and  the  consequences  arising  there- 
from. Obviously  the  story  of  prohibition  in  the  United  States  does 
not  come  to  its  end  with  the  passage  of  the  'dry'  law.  What  fol- 
lowed is  essential :  the  rise  of  a  whole  profession  dedicated  to  the 
violation  of  the  law,  the  habit  of  illegality  bred  in  subjects,  the 
cases  of  corruption  among  enforcement  agents:  these  constitute 
the  drama. 

A  political  decision  may  indeed  fail  to  achieve  the  object  sought 
by  decision-makers  even  if  dutifully  accepted  by  subjects  and  carried 
out  by  agents:  but  such  miscarriage  falls  outside  our  present  pur- 
view. We  have  to  consider  the  trouble  attending  a  decision  resent- 
fully received  by  some  subjects  or  agents.  The  outside  pressure  to 
which  the  deciding  committee  finds  itself  subject  at  the  decision- 
making stage  deserves  notice  as  the  premonitory  shadow  of  the 
resistance  to  which  the  decision,  once  made,  may  give  rise.  The 

^  Except  in  the  case  of  so-called  judiciary  decisions  which  have  the  value  of  precedent, 
but  in  that  case  this  becomes  a  political  decision.  It  would  be  hard  to  deny  the  political 
character  of  some  Supreme  Court  decisions  in  the  United  States. 

2  This  will  not  be  true  if  great  excitement  has  been  generated.  But  if  for  instance 
authors  of  a  lynching  are  being  judged,  even  popular  emotion  in  their  favour  should  be 
disregarded  by  the  judge.  If  it  is  necessary  to  bow  to  popular  fury,  this  will  be  a  matter 
for  the  political  authority. 

162 


CH.  3] 

committeemen  must  therefore  consider  whether  the  good  result  they 
expect  from  the  decision  may  not  be  balked  by  such  reactions.  But 
discordance  between  the  judgement  of  the  committee  and  existing 
dispositions  is  even  more  likely,  in  a  democratic  form  of  government, 
to  occur  the  other  way  round :  that  is,  there  may  be  a  strong  demand 
for  a  decision  which  the  committeemen  regard  as  ill-advised  or 
harmful. 

Only  a  dearth  both  of  imagination  and  experience  can  lead  to  a 
simple  view  of  the  relationship  between  a  governing  body  and 
opinion.  It  is  a  rank  absurdity  to  beheve  that  any  governing  body 
can  ever  afford  indifference  to  the  dispositions  of  subjects  and  agents, 
because  it  must  depend  upon  them  for  the  actualization  of  the 
commands  it  utters:  and  this  remains  true  whatever  the  form  of 
government. 

But  it  is  no  less  unrealistic  to  assume  that  the  governing  body, 
acknowledging  the  power  of  opinion,  can  live  in  harmony  with  it, 
letting  itself  be  guided  by  its  demands.  This  could  be  done  of  course 
if  the  people  were  consistently  of  one  mind,  or  even  if  there  were  a 
continuing  majority  for  a  coherent  set  of  decisions.  But  in  fact 
demands  for  a  certain  decision  are  usually  minority  demands,  and 
different  minorities  may  on  different  occasions  be  strong  enough  to 
'swing'  decisions  inconsistent  with  each  other:  nor  should  this  be 
taken  as  implying  that  one  and  the  same  majority  is  incapable  of 
demanding  successive  inconsistent  decisions.  But  we  need  not 
consider  this,  since  in  fact  outside  pressures  are,  at  the  decision- 
making stage,  almost  always  minority  pressures.  Let  us  consider 
them. 

Let  us  picture  the  polling  of  a  population  for  and  against  a  given 
decision.  Such  polHng  results  in  a  threefold  classification:  'for', 
'against'  and  'don't  know'.  It  is  conceivable  that  some  method  be 
devised  to  measure  the  intensity  of  feeling  of  those  who  take  a 
stand  :^  if  this  were  done,  all  the  members  of  one  camp  could  be 
ranked  according  to  the  intensity  of  their  feeling.  We  can  imagine  a 
simple  graph  where  the  intensity  of  feeling  is  measured  on  the  Y 
axis  and  the  number  of  those  having  an  intensity  of  feeling  equal  or 
superior  to  F^  is  measured  along  the  Xaxis.  Indeed  we  can  imagine 
both  camps  represented  on  the  same  graph,  with  those  for  the 

^  For  instance,  one  would  seek  to  find  out  the  degree  of  sacrifice  which  those  inter- 
rogated would  personally  make  to  ensure  the  passing  or  shelving  of  the  decision. 

163  "-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS        [PT.  V 

measure  counted  in  the  positive  right-hand  quadrant  and  those 
against  in  the  negative  right-hand  quadrant. 

What  such  a  graph  would  show,  in  all  but  exceptional  cases,  is 
that  those  with  a  great  intensity  of  feeling,  either  for  or  against,  are 
but  a  minute  fraction  of  their  camp,  while  intensity  of  feeling  falls 
off  very  rapidly  as  greater  numbers  are  taken  into  account.  Those 
people  who  feel  very  strongly  on  the  subject  are  therefore  likely 
to  exercise  the  outside  pressure  at  the  decision-making  stage.  They 
may  be  well-  or  ill-placed  to  obtain  a  hearing  from  the  committee- 
men, to  make  an  impression  upon  them.  But  prudent  decision- 
makers will  bear  in  mind  the  'multiplier  potential'  of  these  few. 
Suppose  that  the  committee  disregards  strenuous  opposition  to  a 
measure  because  it  comes  only  from  a  few.  And  suppose  that  the 
measure  once  passed,  these  opponents,  goaded  to  exasperation,  find 
it  possible  to  raise  the  tepid  disapproval  of  their  fellows  to  a  great 
pitch  of  intensity:  the  government  is  now  in  great  trouble. 

Let  us  stress  that  the '  majority'  notion  is  of  no  help  here.  Possibly 
there  were  somewhat  more  people  mildly  for  than  against  the  mea- 
sure before  it  was  taken;  possibly  even  after  the  opponents  have 
sitrred  up  many  followers,  there  still  are  more  people  favourable  to 
the  measure  than  hostile :  but  if  they  are  mildly  favourable,  while  a 
very  important  minority  is  energetically  hostile,  the  government  is 
hardly  helped  by  such  feeble  support.  While  if  it  excites  those  favour- 
able, bringing  them  also  to  fever  pitch,  then  the  community  is  split. 
Prudent  governors  will  therefore,  when  faced  by  a  very  vigorous 
opposition  to  a  measure — even  if  it  comes  from  a  small  number — 
seek  to  estimate  the  potential  multiplier  of  this  small  number. 
Similarly,  when  faced  by  pressing  demands  which  are  uttered  with 
great  energy  by  only  a  small  number,  it  must  consider  the  possibiHty 
that  this  wind  will  grow  into  a  hurricane. 

Let  us  find  a  name  for  our  small  number  of  people  who  feel  very 
strongly  on  a  given  issue:  call  them  'issuists'.  They  can  be  said  to 
enjoy  a  natural  multiplier  if  they  happen  to  be  the  most  intense 
members  of  a  large  natural  group.  For  instance,  they  are  farmers 
violently  contesting  a  measure  inimical  to  farmers,  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  they  will  arouse  the  whole  farming  group. 

But  we  may  also  have  a  small  number  of  people  who  have  intense 
feelings  of  a  more  general  nature;  for  instance  they  detest  the  present 
political  regime.   Such  people  have  no  natural  multiplier  but  they 

164 


CH.  3]  THE  COMMITTEE,  II 

may  build  an  artificial  multiplier  by  strong  internal  organization  and 
efficient  propaganda.  It  will  obviously  be  to  their  interest  to  join  on 
every  occasion  with  those  excited  issuists  who  are  endowed  with  an 
important  natural  multiplier.  And  the  trouble  which  each  issuist 
group  is  capable  of  causing  by  itself  will  then  become  not  a  succes- 
sion of  unrelated  troubles  but  a  consistent  building-up  of  ever- 
increasing  trouble  from  crisis  to  crisis. 


L 


165 


PART  VI 


ATTITUDES 


I 


CHAPTER  I 

ATTENTION  AND  INTENTION 

Our  thinking  is  actualized  in  our  speaking:  looking  at  our  words 
therefore  is  a  good  way  of  looking  at  ourselves.  The  Latin  tendo 
denotes  both  effort  and  orientation,  that  is,  the  basic  properties  of 
any  living  organism.  A  child  knows  that  while  a  stone  can  be  picked 
up  in  shallow  water,  a  fish  which  the  hand  seeks  to  grasp  will  escape : 
it  mobilizes  its  energy  for  flight.  While  energy  is  available  in  physical 
systems,  only  the  living  organism  can  be  said  to  possess  energy.  The 
difference  is  striking:  in  the  case  of  the  former,  stored  energy  can  be 
released  at  the  time  and  in  the  direction  chosen  by  an  outside 
operator;  in  the  latter  case  the  timing  and  orientation  of  the  release 
come  from  within  the  organism,  which  also  controls  its  degree, 
making  a  lesser  or  greater  effort.  Man  is  immensely  superior  to 
other  living  organisms  in  the  control  of  owned  energy :  under  the 
telling  name  of ' self-control',  we  praise  a  high  capacity  of  refusing 
the  release  of  energy  under  outside  provocation  and  of  administer- 
ing this  release  purposefully. 

Our  generalship  of  energy  release  involves  attention  and  intention. 
Lacking  both,  the  human  organism  would  be  passively  responsive 
to  any  pressure  exerted  upon  it.  Attention  is  a  'presence  of  mind' 
whereby  we  take  cognizance  of  a  situation,  conceive  it  as  a  problem 
and  try  to  solve  it.  Intention  might  be  called  a  'futurity  of  mind' 
whereby  we  picture  a  future  situation  and  seek  to  actualize  it.  These 
attitudes  pertain  also,  in  far  lower  degrees,  to  animals.  For  instance, 
if  we  observe  a  sleeping  dog  bothered  by  a  buzzing  insect  we  first 
notice  its  merely  mechanical  reactions  to  each  contact  of  the  fly:  but 
then  the  dog  awakes,  becomes  attentive  to  the  fly,  and  then  becomes 
intent  upon  catching  it. 

While  Man  is  eminently  capable  of  attention  and  intention,  these 
capacities  are  very  unequally  developed.  Anyone  who  has  raised 
children — or  indeed  looked  at  himself— knows  the  difficulty  of 
steadying  attention  or  intention :  attention  shifts  or  vanishes,  inten- 
tion flags.  Men  manifest  great  inequalities  in  these  capacities, 
essential  to  achievement. 


169 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS        [PT.  VI. 

Let  US  consider  attention  and  intention  from  an  ethical  angle.  We 
would  hardly  hesitate  to  say  that  greater  capacities  of  either  attention 
or  intention  are  better  than  lesser  capacities.  But  the  likeness  stops 
here. 

Attention  can  never  do  any  harm.  If  a  man  attentively  follows  a 
game  of  bridge  while  aware  that  at  the  same  time  he  could  listen  to 
the  admirable  rendering  of  an  opera,  I  will  opine  that  he  has  ill- 
chosen  the  object  of  his  attention;  he  has  missed  something  but  he 
has  not  done  anything  injurious.  If  a  man  devotes  his  attention  to 
games  of  dice,  this  seems  to  me  wasteful :  but  that  is  the  harshest 
adjective  which  I  can  apply;  indeed  attention  is  so  inherently  good 
that  a  great  good  has  on  occasion  come  from  this  most  'silly' 
application  of  attention.^ 

Of  intention,  we  cannot  speak  as  kindly.  It  is  telling  that  the 
adjective  'bad'  has  quite  a  different  force  when  qualifying  intention 
than  it  has  when  qualifying  attention.  'Bad  attention'  will  mean 
no  more  than  'weak  attention';  but  'bad  intention'  does  not  mean 
'weak  intention';  indeed  the  term  is  most  apt  to  be  used  when  the 
intention  is  strong.  Now  if  we  are  deahng  with  a  strong  attention  we 
shall  never  call  it  bad:  however  unworthy  its  object  may  seem  to  us, 
this  mis-direction  of  attention  may  in  our  eyes  bring  the  utility  of 
attention  to  a  negligible  value;  but  never  to  a  negative  value. 

It  is  otherwise  in  the  case  of  intention.  The  core  of  the  contrast  lies 
in  the  fact  that  the  several  attentions  of  several  men  cannot  conflict 
with  one  another,  while  their  several  intentions  can  do  so.  My 
attention  to  the  problem  in  hand  is  in  no  way  impaired  by  my 
neighbour's  attention  to  a  quite  different  object.  But  my  intention 
to  get  on  with  this  chapter  is  impaired  by  my  neighbour's  intention 
to  have  a  conversation  with  me.  This  familiar  example  makes  it 
clear  that  there  can  be  no  reason  to  attribute  a  negative  value  to  the 
other  man's  attention  while  there  is  often  reason  to  attribute  a 
negative  value  to  his  intention  (even  if  objectively  innocent  or  indeed 
praiseworthy). 

Scholars  discussing  PoHtics  labour  under  a  most  heavy  handicap. 
They  are  men  blessed  with  the  delights  of  attention  and  who  experi- 
ence practically  no  other  intention  than  that  of  persevering  un- 
disturbed in  their  attention.  The  best  of  possible  worlds  for  them 

''■  Probability  calculation  arose  out  of  Chevalier  de  Mere's  observations  upon  games  of 
dice.  Von  Neumann  and  Morgenstern's  famous  Theory  of  Games  is  said  to  have  been 
fostered  around  the  poker  tables  of  Princeton. 

170 


CH.  l]  ATTENTION  AND   INTENTION 

would  be  one  whose  every  inhabitant  would  be  wrapped  up  in 
attention  to  some  subject,  whatever  it  might  be.  No  conflict  can 
arise  from  these  different  exercises  of  attention.  In  the  midst  of  such 
a  society,  the  occasional  inattentive  and  therefore  bumbling  fellow 
can  be  a  slight  nuisance  but  no  more. 

The  picture,  however,  is  completely  changed  with  the  advent  of  the 
intentive  man :  his  intention  affects  and  involves  others,  clashes  with 
other  intentions:  intention  is  the  great  breeder  of  conflict.  In- 
compatibility of  intentions  fosters  a  Manichaean  view  of  society.  The 
man  who  intends  to  build  a  dam  cannot  but  be  regarded  as  an 
enemy  by  the  villagers  whose  homes  are  to  be  submerged,  and  their 
intention  to  preserve  the  village  cannot  but  be  regarded  as  an 
obstacle  by  the  engineer. 

I  have  spoken  of  attention  up  to  now  in  a  way  which  suggested  its 
concentration  upon  some  one  object,  problem  or  task.  But  obviously 
attention  differs  again  from  intention  in  its  transferability.  What  is 
intended  seems  essential  to  the  idea  of  intention,  not  so  to  the  idea 
of  attention.  We  can  think  of '  attentiveness '  as  a  general  disposition 
to  attend  to  unspecified  objects.  It  is  revealing  that  the  word 
'intentiveness'  does  not  exist:  it  would  denote  an  absurdity,  a 
disposition  to  intend,  empty  of  content. 

Attentiveness  is  a  readiness  to  devote  attention:  more  than  that, 
a  disposition  to  respond  with  attention  to  any  problematic  situation 
arising  within  a  field.  This  is  a  functional  obligation  of  anyone  who 
finds  himself  responsible  for  the  welfare  of  others.  As  it  is  my  poHcy 
to  pick  the  most  trivial  illustrations,  I  shall  point  to  the  tourist  agent 
in  charge  of  a  guided  tour:^  any  kind  of  difl[iculty  may  arise,  he  must 
cope  with  it.  But  his  position  implies  a  fundamental  contradiction : 
our  man  must  give  his  attention  to  any  one  of  his  wards  who  needs 
it,  and  yet  his  attention  must  remain  available  to  others.  Here  is  a 
fundamental  contrast  between  the  attention  of  the  intellectual, 
which,  committed  to  one  object,  becomes  unavailable  for  others,  and 
the  attention  of  the  warden^  which  must  always  be  available,  even 
though  it  is  always  engaged. 

It  is  most  illuminating  to  caU  upon  an  inexperienced  Minister. 

^  Had  I  chosen  the  more  obvious  example  of  a  parent,  I  should  have  had  to  dispel 
misunderstandings  which  go  back  to  Filmer. 

*  I  use  this  word  to  denote  a  man  whose  acknowledged  role  it  is  to  'take  care'  of  a 
given  group,  in  some  respect. 


k 


171 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

While  he  tries  to  focus  his  attention  upon  the  problem  one  expounds, 
his  telephone  calls  to  his  attention  other  matters,  assistants  also  rush 
in  with  portentous  mien  and  urgent  whisperings.  This  variety  of 
demands  which  utterly  balks  the  poor  fellow's  honest  attempts  to 
attend  represent  the  'natural'  condition  of  the  warden.  Of  course  a 
capable  statesman  gives  his  visitor  undivided  attention  for  the  time 
period  allotted,  the  telephone  does  not  ring,  no  doors  open,  but  this  im- 
plies a  system  of  damming  up  and  channelling  claims  on  his  attention. 

Wherever  there  is  power,  demands  for  the  use  of  it  pour  in,  and 
the  statesman  needs  many  ears;  but  these  demands  cannot  be  relied 
upon  to  guide  the  allocation  of  attention :  the  din  of  paltry  requests 
may  well  blanket  the  faint  cracking,  ominous  of  landsHdes.  The  states- 
man needs  many  eyes  to  follow  the  course  of  things  all  around  him. 

It  is  pleasing  to  picture  a  committee  of  wise  men  vigilantly  over- 
seeing the  whole  life  of  the  body  poHtic:  so  wide-awake  that  nothing 
escapes  their  notice;  so  discerning  that  they  do  not  allow  minor 
issues  to  draw  them  away  from  the  major;  so  prudent  that  they  are 
not  only  capable  of  meeting  critical  situations  but  also  able  to  deal 
in  time  with  situations  which  might  become  critical.  These  wise  men 
practise  attentive  statesmanship:  we  can  call  them  Attenders.  And 
they  have  indeed  no  intention,  besides  the  general  purpose  of  ward- 
ing off  difficulties  and  evils. 

The  task  of  these  wardens  will  be  heavy  in  proportion  to  the 
conflict  of  intentions  within  the  body  pohtic.^  This  is  so  obvious  that 
all  the  plans  for  an  ideal  commonwealth  have  ever  been  addressed  to 
precluding  the  conflict  of  intentions.  The  requirement  is  perfectly 
met  if  you  can  substitute  for  the  clashing  diversity  of  unpredictable 
individual  intentions,  an  ex  ante  coherent  pattern  of  intentions 
driving  individual  men  to  behaviours  harmonious  with  one  another. 
This  you  will  have,  said  the  ancient  philosophers,  if  citizens  are 
taught  from  an  early  age  to  intend  'a  Hfe  of  virtue',  if  this  is  so 
clearly  delineated  that  no  one  can  mistake  his  path  and  if  each 
person's  self-respect  is  so  stimulated  that  he  would  feel  ashamed  to 
stray.  While  the  habit  of  virtue  will  prevent  the  worst,  the  reinforcing 
desire  for  honour  will  lead  to  supreme  achievements :  all  this  within 
a  pattern  of  basically  coherent  intentions. 

This  of  course  constitutes  a  Utopian  model.  But  it  cannot  be 
accepted  even  as  a  Utopia  if  one  sets  a  high  value  upon  the  originaHty 
of  individual  intentions.  That  men's  intentions  bring  them  into  con- 
^  If  we  omit  consideration  of  external  relations. 

172 


CH.  l]  ATTENTION  AND   INTENTION 

flict  is  a  fact  accepted  by  all  minds.  But  it  can  be  accepted  in  differ- 
ent ways :  at  one  extreme  it  will  be  regarded  as  a  measure  of  the 
community's  moral  derangement,  at  the  other  extreme  as  the  natural 
outcome  of  a  desirable  accentuation  of  individuality.  Hobbes 
stressed  the  latter  view,  but  on  account  of  this  he  was  also  led  to 
picture  the  task  of  coping  with  conflicts  as  very  hard  and  calling  for 
very  great  authority. 

We  have  said  something  of  the  attentive  statesman.  His  attitude 
could  be  summed  up  as  follows:  'Who  knows  what  may  happen.? 
But  when  something  happens  I  must  quickly  find  out  what  to  do 
about  it.'  Let  us  now  turn  to  the  intending  politic.  His  attitude  is 
very  different  indeed  and  could  be  summed  up  as  follows :  '  I  know 
what  I  want  to  bring  about.  My  business  is  to  devise  and  procure 
its  actualization.' 

The  intending  politic  can  more  easily  capture  men's  imaginations 
than  the  attentive  statesman:  'he  knows  what  he  wants'.  True,  and 
therefore  his  task  is  a  very  much  simpler  one.  Not  for  him  the 
renewed  worry  of  seeking  the  best  answers  to  problems  arising  out 
of  circumstances.  He  has  but  one  problem  and  that  a  purely  opera- 
tional one :  procuring  the  victory  of  his  intention. 

He  wills  a  definite  achievement  and  pursues  it  with  single- 
mindedness.  Occurrences  irrelevant  to  his  purpose  leave  him  in- 
different, unless  they  can  be  exploited  for  his  end.  While  the  attentive 
statesman  wears  himself  out  repairing  everything  which  goes  wrong, 
the  intending  politic  addresses  the  whole  of  his  faculties  to  the 
furtherance  of  his  one  project. 

Let  us  picture,  with  some  allegorical  trappings,  the  encounter  of 
our  two  men.  The  attentive  one  sits  in  a  high  place ;  he  has  eyes  all 
around  his  head,  like  Argus,  and  he  mutters  to  himself,  thrashing 
out  the  problems  which  come  pouring  to  his  feet.  The  intending  one 
strides  boldly  at  the  head  of  his  followers,  wearing  blinkers  which 
allow  him  to  see  nothing  but  his  goal,  which  he  restates  in  a  loud, 
clear  voice.  In  this  encounter,  the  attentive  statesman  is  obviously 
at  a  disadvantage;  the  other  man  is  wholly  concentrated  on  this  one 
definite  issue,  and  easily  looks  like  a  hero. 

The  attentive  statesman  cannot  well  cope  with  the  vigorous 
Intender  who  has  proved  an  efficient  instigator.  A  great  variety  of 
intentions,  arising  more  or  less  evenly  throughout  the  body  politic, 


k 


173 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

are  apt  to  create  only  minor  problems  of  adjustment :  some  part  of 
this  various  intending  finding  its  way  to  completion,  some  wasting 
away  in  friction,  and  only  very  little  of  it  turning  to  congestive  points 
calling  for  treatment.  It  is  quite  otherwise  when  the  intending  politic 
successfully  musters  energies  for  his  political  enterprise.  This  then 
is  a  concentrated  drive  which  creates  disturbances,  and  towards 
which  the  attentive  statesman  must  take  a  definite  line,  opposing  it  or 
accepting  it.  But  the  latter  alternative  puts  him  in  an  unhappy 
position;  this  drive  causes  perturbations  to  which  he  attaches  far 
more  importance  than  the  driver  is  willing  to.  The  association  of  the 
intending  politician  with  the  attentive  statesman  is  bound  to  be  an 
unhappy  one,  because  the  statesman  must  want  the  driver  to  relax 
his  drive  so  that  adjustments  can  be  made,  while  the  intending 
politic  is  eager  to  press  on,  regardless  of  the  perturbations  which  are 
a  by-product  of  his  enterprise. 

Hence  these  two  types  cannot  work  together;  one  must  squeeze 
out  the  other.  At  a  glance,  it  appears  that  these  two  types  dominate 
alternately  in  political  history.  Indeed  one  is  tempted  to  distinguish 
quite  short-term  swings  from  attention  to  intention  and  back  to 
attention,  swings  of  much  longer  duration  between  the  same  poles, 
and  possibly  a  long-term  trend  from  attention  to  intention — but  that 
may  be  a  delusion  due  to  our  present  position.^ 

The  bold  sweep  of  imagination  of  the  intending  politic,  his  strong 
visualizing  of  a  shape  to  come,  his  passion  for  this  creature  of  his 
mind,  his  will  to  make  it  come  alive,  his  courage  in  pursuing  that 
purpose — all  this  catches  our  fancy.  Here  is  a  hero  for  us,  a  man 
who  casts  his  spell  upon  the  future,  a  creator.  This  is  the  supreme 
politic:  personally  I  do  not  hke  him  very  much,  it  is  better  to 
encounter  him  in  history  books  than  in  real  life. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  the  intending  politic  is  the  man  upon  whom  a 
study  of  pohtical  dynamics  must  focus:  because  he  is  the  provider  of 
movement  in  the  body  politic.  For  this  purpose,  he  need  not  be  a 
Great  Intender.  It  is  not  very  difficult  to  be  an  effective  Intender; 
it  is  far  easier  than  to  be  an  effective  Attender. 

Consider  that  attending  effectively  involves  attending  to  every- 
thing which  can  affect  the  body  politic  or  its  parts,  while  intending 
effectively  implies  only  intending  something.  While  the  Intender  is 
concerned  only  to  clear  the  road  to  his  goal,  the  Attender  is  con- 

1  'Driving'  and  'targets'  are  characteristic  expressions  of  an  intentive  attitude. 


CH.  l]  ATTENTION  AND   INTENTION 

cerned  to  keep  the  whole  communications  system  working  so  that 
many  different  people  can  attain  their  many  different  destinations : 
this  is  a  far  less  spectacular  feat  but  it  is  far  more  difficult. 

Therefore  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  perfection  of  attentive 
statesmanship  should  be  so  rare.  Where  it  is  approximated  to  as 
nearly  as  human  fallibility  allows,  it  is  not  recognized ;  the  benefits 
which  then  accrue  are  not  attributed  to  the  statesman,  since  he  has 
not  directly  procured  them  but  has  only  fostered  the  conditions  of 
their  occurrence.  Human  foresight  being  limited  and  uncertain,  our 
man  sooner  or  later  will  fail  to  see  the  cloud  '  no  bigger  than  a  man's 
hand'  out  of  which  the  tempest  will  come.  Trouble  may  arise  from 
any  point;  and  it  is  the  handicap  of  the  Attender  that  he  is  expected 
to  abate  any  trouble;  while  the  Intender  promises  nothing  of  the 
sort:  he  turns  people's  minds  to  his  goal  and  away  from  any  inter- 
vening troubles.  Indeed  he  represents  any  trouble  arising  as  one 
more  reason  to  drive  towards  the  goal,  however  illogical  the 
connection. 

As  the  pace  of  change  increases,  it  seems  that  the  world  of 
politicians  is  increasingly  caught  unprepared  by  events,  its  mores 
and  procedures  having  undergone  no  tightening  up,  perhaps  the 
reverse :  perception  is  not  more  acute,  reaction  to  impending  events 
goes  in  a  more  dilatory  manner  through  more  sprawling  channels. 
With  this  increasing  lack  of  efficiency  in  attentiveness,  intending 
comes  to  the  fore  as  the  most  visible  pohtical  attitude. 


f 


Hr 


175 


CHAPTER  2 

THE  TEAM  AGAINST  THE  COMMITTEE 

A  certain  small  group  of  men  (hereafter  called  'the  team')  share  an 
intention,  the  implementation  of  which  requires  at  least  a  once-for- 
all  decision  of  some  public  authority.^  The  most  obvious  procedure 
(hereafter  called  'first')  is  to  plead  in  favour  of  that  decision  with  the 
holders  (or  holder)  of  the  competent  authority.  The  next  most 
obvious  (hereafter  called  'second'),  is  to  win  over  people  who  have 
easy  and  habitual  access  to  the  decision-maker  or  makers.  These 
first  and  second  procedures  can  be  practised  under  any  regime. 

In  the  United  States  of  this  day  the  first  procedure  consists  of 
calling  upon  the  President,  or  Secretary,  or  upon  Senators  and 
Congressmen,  and  putting  the  case  for  the  decision.  The  second 
procedure  consists  of  mobilizing  people  who  'have  the  ear'  of  these 
important  people  and  may  bring  up  the  matter.  The  same  methods 
can  be  practised  in  a  despotic  regime.  The  despot  is  seldom  inacces- 
sible: the  case  can  be  put  to  him;  also  he  lives  surrounded  by 
courtiers,  and  these  may  mention  the  request  at  favourable  moments. 
Of  course  some  requests  have  no  chance  at  all  of  being  listened  to  by 
the  despot :  but  the  same  is  true  in  any  regime.^ 

The  case  which  interests  us  here  is  that  in  which  the  decision- 
makers ('the  committee')  cannot  be  persuaded  directly  or  swung 
over  by  the  mild  nagging  of  their  immediate  circle.  The  team  then 
turns  to  a  third  procedure,  the  organization  of  an  outside  pressure 
upon  the  committee.  This  is  a  current  procedure  in  a  regime  of 
liberty :  indeed  its  being  held  legitimate  defines  political  liberty. 

What  is  this  third  procedure?  Through  propaganda,  the  team 
recruits  partisans  of  its  intention  who  join  with  it  in  demanding  the 
decision.  How  does  this  affect  the  committee?  Here  we  must 
distinguish  two  possibilities,  (a)  When  the  team  first  uttered  its 
demand,  the  committee  failed  to  consider  it,  owing  to  the  abundance 
of  other  business  or  to  sheer  negligence.  Anyone  at  all  familiar  with 

^  It  may  require  as  much  as  the  complete  taking-over  of  pubHc  authority,  but  we 
start  out  with  the  narrower  requirement. 

2  E.g.  in  the  United  States:  that  all  unions  be  dissolved  and  declared  henceforth 
illegal,  or  that  all  corporations  with  a  capital  exceeding  a  miUion  dollars  be  nationalized, 
or  that  no  citizen  with  a  German  grandfather  be  eligible  to  public  office,  etc. 

176 


PT.  VI,  CH.  2]       THE  TEAM  V.   THE  COMMITTEE 

government  knows  how  often  demands  fail  to  pass  the  threshold  of 
attention.  If  such  was  the  case,  then  the  volume  of  support  now 
afforded  to  the  demand  forces  it  through  the  threshold,  and  it  may 
be  that  the  committee,  now  impelled  to  pay  attention,  will  find  that 
the  arguments  advanced  in  favour  of  the  decision  are  sound  and 
convincing.  But  there  is  a  second  possibility;  {b)  the  committee  had 
seriously  considered  the  request,  heard  the  reasons  given  in  its 
favour,  and  had  found  against  the  decision.  Let  us  concentrate  on 
this  latter  case.  If  the  decision  demanded  by  the  team  is  wrong  in 
the  eyes  of  the  committee,  it  is  still  wrong  now  that  there  is  notable 
support  for  it.  How  then  will  this  support  swing  the  decision.?  In 
this  case  the  support  obtained  by  the  team  works  as  a  threat. 

First,  committeemen  may  have  a  selfish  regard  for  their  own 
political  future :  for  example, '  I  might  not  be  re-elected  if  I  antagon- 
ized this  determined  group'.  But  secondly  they  must  have  a 
patriotic  regard  for  peace  and  order,  and  may  dread  the  trouble 
which  the  faction  now  arrayed  in  support  of  the  measure  is  capable 
of  causing. 

We  have  seen  that  instigating  support  for  the  team's  intention 
may  well  be  necessary  to  force  its  request  through  the  committee's 
threshold  of  attention.  If  the  proposal  then  and  therefore  receiving 
proper  attention  is  deemed  receivable,  well  and  good :  the  mobilizing 
of  support  has  been  effective  and  salutary.  If,  however,  the  committee, 
having  given  due  consideration  to  the  proposal  (whether  before  or 
after  the  mobilization  of  support),  has  condemned  and  rejected  the 
proposal,  then  support  can  'swing'  the  committee  only  through  its 
nuisance  value.  This  is  what  we  shall  now  go  into. 

Let  us  restate  the  assumptions  unmistakably : 
(i)  There  is  a  team  which  demands  of  a  committee  a  certain 
decision. 

(2)  The  committee  has  fully  heard  the  reasons  given  in  favour  of 
the  decision,  and  after  deliberation  has  found  them  wanting. 

(3)  The  team  has  mobilized  outside  support  for  the  decision. 
The  situation  can  then  develop  in  various  ways,  which  I  shall 

classify  from  the  angle  of  the  team,  on  which  my  interest  centres 
here. 

{a)  The  team  is  confident  that  it  can  muster  ever-increasing 
support,  expects  that  such  backing  will  in  time  become  overwhelm- 
ing, and  is  content  to  wait  for  the  reaching  of  this  situation. 

12  l^J  JPT 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

If  SO,  then  the  team  logically  turns  its  back  upon  the  negative 
attitude  of  the  committee  and  addresses  its  attention  solely  to 
generating  positive  attitudes  in  the  public.  It  makes  converts  who 
then  join  their  voices  to  those  of  the  team,  and  the  outcry  in  favour 
of  the  wanted  decision  grows  exponentially. 

What  is  the  committee  to  do.^*  It  may  stand  fast  because  it  forms 
an  estimate  of  the  team's  potential  support  very  different  from  the 
team's  own  sanguine  expectations.  If  the  latter  seem  likely  to  be 
verified,  the  committee  may  suddenly  cave  in,  seized  by  a  fit  of 
political  cowardice;  or  it  may  stand  fast  come  what  may,  and  then 
the  surge  of  pubHc  opinion  will  wash  it  away.  But  in  any  of  the 
eventuaHties  envisaged,  the  process  involves  no  breach  of  the  peace. 
Not  so  if  we  turn  to  another  system  of  behaviour  of  the  team, 
following  from  its  alternative  premisses. 

(b)  The  team  regards  it  as  unlikely  that  it  can  over  a  period  of 
time  mobilize  adequate  support  to  carry  the  wanted  decision  by 
sheer  weight  of  numbers,  or  it  is  unwilling  to  accept  the  implied 
delay,  either  because  the  critical  date  is  too  distant,  or  too  uncertain, 
for  its  patience,  or  because  the  decision  called  for  would  be  stultified 
by  the  passage  of  time. 

Then  the  team's  problem  is  to  overcome  with  its  present  means,  a 
mere  minority  support,  the  stubborn  refusal  of  the  committee.  This 
is  not  a  matter  of  winning  over  indifferent  or  near-indifferent  mem- 
bers of  the  public  but  of  breaking  the  deliberate  will  of  men  in 
authority,  who  enjoy  the  obedience  of  agents,  and  at  least  the  passive 
support  of  the  majority.  How  can  this  be  achieved.?  We  need  only 
look  around  us  to  answer  the  question. 

In  such  a  position,  the  team  avails  itself  of  its  dedicated  supporters 
to  generate  nuisances  for  the  committee.  Nuisance  policies  are  the 
natural  resort  of  a  team  which  relies  upon  intensive  rather  than 
extensive  support.  Its  efforts  are  addressed  to  subverting  the  com- 
mittee rather  than  to  converting  the  people.  The  word  'nuisance'  is 
here  used  relative  to  the  committee :  it  is  not  implied  that  the  actions 
so  denominated  are  in  themselves  'wrong',  but  that  they  are  meant 
to  badger  the  committee.  There  exists  a  vast  range  of  nuisance 
tactics.  Ethically  speaking,  going  on  a  hunger-strike  and  throwing 
a  bomb  are  poles  apart:  yet  both  are  demonstrations  of  intense 
feeling,  meant  to  break  the  will  of  the  committee. 

All  forms  of  action  here  dealt  with  tend  to  dissolve  the  assurance 

178 


;H.  2]  THE  TEAM  V.   THE  COMMITTEE 

f  the  committeemen,  to  make  them  feel  insecure  in  one  way  or 
nother.  The  milder  forms  of  action  (such  as  picketing,  demonstra- 
Lons,  marches),  peacefully  conducted,  bring  home  to  the  rulers  that 
lere  is  discontent :  and  it  must  generate  in  them  some  doubt  whether 
hey  have  done  all  they  should.  A  feehng  of  compassion  and  possibly 
hame  is  excited  by  the  self-inflicted  suffering  of  a  hunger-striker. 

There  are  many  means  of  pressure  which  raise  a  question-mark 
n  the  minds  of  the  committeemen,  without  offering  them  a  direct 
ihallenge.  But  it  is  tempting  for  the  intending  team  to  go  further, 
f  its  militant  members  turn  to  obstructive  practices,  then  the  com- 
nittee  is  forced  to  choose  between  enduring  the  disturbance  caused 
)y  the  team,  giving  in  to  the  demand  backed  by  the  agitators,  or 
ising  the  means  of  force  at  its  disposal  to  put  down  the  perturbation, 
rhe  first  course  is  acceptable  only  if  the  perturbation  is  limited  in 
ime.  The  government  for  instance  may  put  up  with  the  blocking  of 
•oads  by  the  farmers  if  it  lasts  only  a  day  or  two,  not  if  it  is  kept  up. 
Dn  the  other  hand,  breaking  up  the  barricades  by  force  is  also  a 
iisturbance,  the  moral  costs  of  which  the  government  must  weigh. 
3r  supposing  that  a  group  which  petitions  Parliament  mulishly  bars 
iccess  to  it,  the  authorities  must  clear  the  way;  but  if  this  clearing  is 
E)ertinaciously  opposed  it  can  involve  considerable  moral  costs  to  the 
:ommittee. 

In  such  cases  much  depends  on  just  how  far  demonstrators  are 
prepared  to  go.  A  march  peacefully  begun  may  turn  ugly.  Pressure 
designed  as  a  show  of  feeling  may  evolve  into  an  exercise  of  power. 
It  is  all  too  readily  assumed  that  an  assembled  crowd  embodies  the 
feelings  of 'the  people';  this  is  obviously  a  confusion.  A  group  quite 
incapable  of  mustering  an  electoral  majority  can  be  quite  capable  of 
mobilizing  a  marching  crowd  at  a  strategic  time  and  place  and  to 
endow  it  with  such  impetus  as  to  place  the  committee  between  the 
alternative  of  shooting  or  fleeing. 

Terrorist  strategy  unfortunately  calls  for  special  mention.  It  re- 
quires only  a  small  number  of  adepts  willing  to  commit  acts  of  vio- 
lence to  place  the  committee  in  a  position  of  extreme  embarrassment. 
Especially  if  the  terrorist  blows  are  dealt  at  random,  it  will  almost 
inevitably  happen  that  reactions  will  fly  wide  of  the  mark  and  affect 
the  innocent.  Goading  the  authorities  into  hurting  innocent  by- 
standers is  essential  to  terrorist  strategy.  Its  efficiency  lies  mainly  in 
evoking  bHnd  anger  and  blundering  retorts:  if  pea-shooting  at  a 
poHceman  can  induce  him  to  run  after  a  harmless  little  girl,  that  is 

179  12-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS        [PT.  VI 

farce :  on  the  same  pattern,  major  tragedy  can  be  enacted.  A  course 
of  terrorism  can  be  guaranteed  to  call  forth  from  the  authorities 
reactions  which  displease  public  opinion  and  worry  consciences  within 
the  government  itself.  Any  innocent  who  happens  to  be  hurt  by  re- 
pressive action  benefits  the  guilty,  to  whom  compassion  extends.  The 
trick^of  combining  the  manners  of  gangsters  with  the  moral  benefits 
of  martyrdom  has  been  developed  throughout  the  twentieth  century. 

This  is  the  century  of  the  terrorist  technique,  fittingly  opened  by 
Sorel's  Reflexions  sur  La  Violence.'^  If  a  team  feels  very  strongly  about 
an  issue  and  communicates  this  strength  of  feeling  to  others,  there  is 
always  a  risk  that  some  one  of  these  others  will  commit  an  act  of 
violence.  If  this  occurs,  those  who  have  inspired  the  feehng  should 
now  experience  a  sense  of  guilt:  that  is  an  ancient  and  natural 
pattern.  Very  different  is  the  modern  pattern.  The  acts  of  violence 
are  positively  desired  by  the  team  not  only  for  their  immediate 
impact  upon  the  adversary,  but  for  the  reactions  to  which  they  will 
goad  him  and  the  harm  they  will  do  to  his  reputation.  Devising  such 
a  strategy  requires  the  complete  abolition  of  moral  sense  which  can 
be  obtained  in  Man  only  if  and  when  he  becomes  possessed  by  an 
'idee  fixe',  an  intention,  deemed  moral,  which  he  pursues  at  all  costs. 
The  most  immoral  of  all  beliefs  is  the  belief  that  it  can  be  moral  to 
suspend  the  operation  of  all  moral  beliefs  for  the  sake  of  one  ruling 
(supposedly  moral)  passion.  But  this  precisely  is  the  doctrine  which 
has  run  throughout  the  twentieth  century. 

It  has  led  to  a  form  of  Politics  which  first  admits  that  what  is 
waged  is  a  form  of  war,  and  secondly  admits  that  there  are  no 
ethical  rules  in  this  sort  of  war.  This  dreadful  evolution  has  been 
prepared  by  the  thoughtless  admission  that  Politics  is  institutional- 
ized conflict.  If  it  is  essentially  conflict,  why  respect  the  institutions? 

There  are  'our  people'  and  'others'.  With  others,  we  may  be  at 
peace  or  at  war.  We  Oceanians  may  be  at  war  with  the  Ruritanians 
for  a  variety  of  reasons  roughly  falling  into  five  classes:  (i)  we  want 
to  do  them  some  harm  in  reprisal  for  the  harm  they  have  done  to 
some  of  us:  this  is  avenging  warfare^;  (2)  we  must  oppose  the  present 
exercise  of  their  power  against  us:  this  is  defensive  warfare^;  (3)  we 
dread*  the  future  exercise  of  their  power  against  us:  this  is  preventive 

^  Georges  Sorel,  Reflexions  sur  La  Violence  (Paris,  1908). 

2  A  very  ancient  category.  ^  This  has  ever  been  adjudged  zjust  war. 

*  Whether  rightly  or  wrongly. 

180 


CH.  2]  THE  TEAM  V.  THE  COMMITTEE 

warfare;  (4)  they  stand  in  the  way  of  something  we  want,i  their 
opposing  will  and  power  constitutes  an  obstacle  which  has  to  be 
overcome:  this  is  purposeful  wsLvhrQ;  (5)  their  behaviour  offends  our 
moral  feelings  and  we  must  force  them  to  desist  from  it:  this  is 
moralizing  warfare.  I  set  no  great  value  on  this  classification :  it  is 
merely  expedient  for  what  follows. 

No  century  has  been  more  concerned  than  ours  to  do  away  with 
war :  it  has  proved  signally  unsuccessful.  All  too  little  attention  has 
been  given  to  the  phenomenon  that  internal  politics  have  become 
increasingly  more  warlike.^ 

War  is  a  condition  which  may  obtain  with  foreigners,  but  peace  is 
the  condition  which  must  obtain  between  compatriots :  that  is  a  most 
ancient  maxim  of  Politics.  The  idea  of  peace  imphes  that  I  wish  my 
neighbour  well,  rejoice  or  grieve  with  him,  take  notice  of  his  needs 
and  wants,  help  him  into  success  or  out  of  failure,  bear  with  his 
faults,  am  slow  to  take  offence  and  ready  to  forgive,  do  not  grudge 
him  his  good  fortune,  do  not  suspect  his  intentions,  and  would 
rather  excuse  than  condemn  his  vagaries. 

While  this  peaceful  and  friendly  attitude  is  unanimously  accepted 
as  proper  in  a  private  man,  strangely  enough,  as  soon  as  I  address 
other  men,  all  is  changed.  It  is  easy  to  compose  a  pohtical  oration 
which  brings  in  the  five  war  motives  spelled  out  earlier : 

My  friends,  you  are  Blues.  It  would  be  wrong  of  you  to  forget  the  harm 
which  was  done  to  our  fellows  by  Greens  on  X  day.  [Motive  one.]  This 
was  indeed  nothing  but  an  instance  of  the  immoral  behaviour  of  the 
Greens,  which  cannot  be  tolerated  in  a  proper  city,  and  must  be  curbed. 
[Motive  five.]  Indeed,  how  can  you  let  them  at  this  very  moment  exercise 
their  powers  in  a  manner  injurious  to  you.''  [Motive  two.]  Will  you  then 
allow  them  to  build  up  this  power  still  further.''  Should  you  not  act  before 
it  has  become  irresistible.^  [Motive  three.]  Think  of  the  gain  if  you  con- 
strain these  Greens  to  concede  what,  on  any  reasonable  view  of  the  matter, 
should  be  yours!  [Motive  four.]  Therefore,  my  friends,  awake,  arise!  [etc.] 

Which  of  us  has  not  listened  many  a  time  to  speeches  built  on  this 
model.?  We  hardly  notice  that  the  pale  horses  of  war  are  evoked 
therein,  fully  confident  that  the  speaker  means  a  great  deal  less  than 
he  says,  and  that  the  hearers  take  it  at  an  enormous  discount.  It 
therefore  comes  to  us  as  a  shock  that  sometimes  an  orator  does  mean 

^  Whether  we  want  it  purely  and  simply,  or  deem  ourselves  entitled  to  it. 
2  Not  irrelevant  to  the  observation  above. 

181 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

just  what  he  says  and  does  convey  an  emotion  corresponding  to  the 
face-value  of  his  utterances.  The  speaker  is  not,  in  that  case,  using 
big  words  to  drum  up  mild  support  for  a  mild  measure  mildly 
opposed  by  the  Greens,  but  he  is  actually  mobilizing  the  Blues  for 
war. 

When  some  part  of  a  people  is  joined  together  in  a  bellicose  spirit 
against  some  other  part,  that  is  a  'faction'.^  All  great  political 
authors^  have  condemned  factions  and  that  for  an  obvious  and 
fundamental  reason.  What  constitutes  a  People  is  a  general  feeling  of 
amity  which  faction  turns  to  enmity.  Militant  members  of  a  faction 
regard  some  of  their  compatriots  with  hostility,  that  is,  as  strangers.^ 
Thus  forming  a  faction  is  estranging  some  members  of  the  com- 
monwealth from  others,  which  stands  in  direct  contradiction  to  the 
classical  understanding  of  the  statesman's  function,  deemed  to  be  the 
establishment,  preservation  and  increase  of  amity  between  citizens. 
Therefore  the  founder  of  a  faction  plays  exactly  the  opposite  role 
to  that  which  legend  attributes  to  mythical  founders  of  states. 
Hume  expresses  it  very  strikingly : 

As  much  as  legislators  and  founders  of  states  ought  to  be  honoured  and 
respected  among  men,  as  much  ought  the  founders  of  sects  and  factions 
to  be  detested  and  hated;  because  the  influence  of  faction  is  directly 

^  For  American  readers,  it  may  be  proper  to  point  out  that  the  present  definition  is 
different  from  Madison's,  simpler  and — I  believe — more  convenient.  Madison  says: 
'By  faction,  I  understand  a  number  of  citizens,  whether  amounting  to  a  majority  or  a 
minority  of  the  whole,  who  are  united  and  actuated  by  some  common  impulse  of  passion 
or  of  interest,  adverse  to  the  rights  of  other  citizens,  or  to  the  permanent  and  aggregate 
interests  of  the  community'  {Federalist,  x).  I  quite  agree  with  Robert  A.  Dahl  {A 
Preface  to  Democratic  Theory,  Chicago,  1956)  that  such  a  definition  is  equivocal.  Say 
that  I  am  a  member  of  a  group  '  united  and  actuated  by  some  common  impulse . . . ' : 
I  shall  not  grant  that  our  action  is  directed  against '  the  rights  of  other  citizens '  but  only 
against  rights  abused  or  usurped,  or  which,  while  they  may  at  this  moment  (under 
present  law)  be  positive  rights,  have  no  basis  in  equity  and  should  'rightly'  be  cut  down 
by  a  change  in  the  law.  In  like  manner,  I  shall  not  grant  that  our  action  is  directed 
against  'the  permanent  and  aggregate  interests  of  the  community'  but  only  against  a 
caricature  of  these  interests  invoked  by  our  opponents.  A  difference  of  opinion  regarding 
what  rights  should  be,  and  what  are  the  aggregate  interests,  must  then  produce  a 
difference  in  the  denomination  of  our  movement:  a  faction  to  those  who  disagree  with  us, 
but  not  to  ourselves. 

On  the  contrary,  the  far  simpler  definition  offered  above  rests  upon  two  ascertainable 
facts:  that  some  are  banded  against  others,  and  that  their  spirit  is  bellicose;  and  of 
course  it  can  be  more  or  less  so.  This  banding  and  bellicosity  is  what  classical  writers 
have  ever  had  in  mind  when  speaking  of  factions. 

2  With  but  one  exception,  and  that  one  Machiavelli. 

^  'Hostility',  from  hostis  which  means  'enemy'  but  meant  originally  nothing  other 
than  'stranger',  'he  who  is  not  one  of  us'. 

182 


CH.  2]  THE  TEAM  V.   THE  COMMITTEE 

contrary  to  that  of  laws.  Factions  subvert  government,  render  laws  im- 
potent, and  beget  the  fiercest  animosities  among  men  of  the  same  nation, 
who  ought  to  give  mutual  assistance  and  protection  to  each  other.  And 
what  should  render  the  founders  of  parties  more  odious  is  the  difficulty  of 
extirpating  these  parties,  when  once  they  have  taken  rise  in  any  state. 
They  naturally  propagate  themselves  for  many  centuries,  and  seldom  end 
but  by  the  total  dissolution  of  that  government  in  which  they  are  planted. 
They  are,  besides,  seeds  which  grow  most  plentifully  in  the  richest  soils; 
and  though  despotic  governments  be  not  entirely  free  from  them,  it  must 
be  confessed  that  they  rise  more  easily,  and  propagate  themselves  faster, 
in  free  governments,  where  they  always  infect  the  legislature  itself,  which 
alone  could  be  able,  by  the  steady  application  of  rewards  and  punishments, 
to  eradicate  them.^ 

The  urbane  Hume  speaks  here  with  unv^^onted  and  significant 
intensity.  Historical  experience  entitles  him  indeed  to  feel  that 
warring  factions  first  ruin  the  climate  of  civility  and  ultimately  bring 
down  the  form  of  government  under  which  they  have  arisen :  thus 
did  the  Roman  Republic  perish,  thus  too  the  Italian  Republics  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  But  what  can  he  mean  when  he  calls  for  their 
eradication.?  He  is  too  much  of  a  realist  to  deny  that  men  are  prone 
to  band  together  for  a  common  purpose,  and  too  far  from  being  an 
authoritarian  to  recommend  that  such  banding  should  be  forbidden 
and  contraveners  persecuted.  What  then  does  he  have  in  mind?  The 
key  is  given,  I  believe,  in  the  definition  proposed  above. 

It  is  natural  that  men  should  band  together  in  pursuit  of  a  common 
intention;  it  is  deplorable  that  the  animus  which  unites  them  should 
turn  to  'animosity'  against  those  who  do  not  favour  their  purpose; 
it  is  detestable  that  they  should  develop  'belHcosity'  towards  these 
compatriots.  If  such  bellicosity  defines  the  faction^  then  what  is 
more  reasonable  than  to  desire  the  eradication  of  factions — which 
then  clearly  means  that  whatever  groupings  may  occur  within  the 
people,  none  should  wax  bellicose?  But  how  to  prevent  it? 

Hume  advances  the  view  that  it  can  be  prevented  by  the  legislature 
through  'the  steady  application  of  rewards  and  punishments'.  The 
thought  is  not  developed:  had  it  been,  it  would  have  aflforded 
precious  guidance  to  the  Weimar  Reichstag.  It  is  to  me  a  wholly 
pleasing  principle  that  political  activity  which  waxes  angry,  pug- 
nacious and  threatening,  thereby  forfeits  its  legitimacy:  but  how  to 
carry  out  the  principle — that  is  an  unsolved  problem.  Where  is  to  be 
found  the  neutral  authority,  capable  of  uttering  a  fair  judgement  on 

^  David  Hume,  Essays  and  Treatises  on  Several  Subjects  (London,  1742),  vol.  i, 
part  I,  essay  vn,  p.  52. 

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THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS        [PT.  VI 

whether  a  movement  so  behaves  as  to  be  called  an  enemy  to  the 
peace?  The  leaders  of  the  movement  will  be  arraigned  because  they 
induce  their  followers  to  violent  conduct?  So  far  so  good.  But  how 
easy  it  is  for  them  to  argue  that  the  true  responsibility  for  such 
violence  devolves  upon  the  Authorities  who  obdurately  resist  just 
demands  and  obstruct  a  noble  purpose :  that  it  is  the  very  resistance 
of  the  Authorities  which  generates  the  heat  of  anger :  and  in  short 
that  violence,  incidental  to  their  purpose,  is  a  pretext  invoked  to 
disable  them  from  achieving  it. 

Such  a  plea  never  fails  to  touch  many  hearts,  to  worry  many 
consciences.  Scrupulous  people  ask  themselves  whether  their  dis- 
position to  condemn  has  not  some  root  in  their  enmity  to  these 
men's  purpose.  Sentimental  people  stress  the  sincerity  of  these  men : 
and  it  is  true  enough  that  they  sincerely  want  to  attain  their  goal. 
The  discussion  shifts  from  what  these  men  have  done  or  caused  to  be 
done,  to  the  cause  which  inspires  them.  And  one  fails  to  condemn 
them  as  wrongdoers  for  fear  of  condemning  them  as  martyrs  to  their 
cause. 

The  attitude  described  has  unimpeachable  motives  but  disastrous 
consequences.  Violence  thrives  on  faint-hearted  attempts  to  suppress 
it.  And  soon  the  situation  evolves  in  a  manner  very  favourable  to 
the  violent  movement  (call  it  A).  At  the  other  extreme  of  the  politi- 
cal spectrum,  a  group  (call  it  Z)  clamours  for  exemplary  punishment. 
This  allows  the  A  people  who  are  committing  an  aggression  against 
the  body  politic  as  a  whole,  to  overshadow  that  fact  by  pointing  to 
the  hatred  of  the  Z  group  directed  against  them.  They  can  then  ask 
moderate  people:  'Do  you  then  join  with  the  Z  group?'  The  desire 
not  to  be  identified  with  the  Z  group  introduces  a  new  factor  of 
paralysis.  Another  stage  is  reached  if  the  Z  group  itself  resorts  to 
violence.  Now  confusion  reigns.  The  Authorities  will  have  to  hit 
right  and  left,  with  unseemly  vigour  and  uncertain  success.  Violence 
is  poison  to  the  body  politic,  which,  once  introduced,  spreads  and 
leads  to  convulsions.  It  must  never  begin.  How  to  avoid  its  appear- 
ance is  not  well  known  to  us.  What  we  do  know  is  that  it  can  dis- 
appear altogether  where  it  was  formerly  frequent,  and  that  it  can 
also  appear  where  it  was  quite  unexpected. 

I  like  to  ask  which  of  the  states  enduring  to  this  day  has  the  most 
lurid  record  of  political  violence,  the  most  numerous  instances  of 
authority  won  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  and  the  longest  list  of 
murdered  princes  and  ministers;  the  answer  is:  'England!'  The 

184 


CH.  2]  THE  TEAM  V.   THE  COMMITTEE 

frequency  and  brutality  of  English  convulsions  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages  and  right  into  the  seventeenth  century  is  unparalleled. 
It  is  the  triumph  of  the  British  genius  that  its  country's  tempestuous 
poUtics  have  changed  to  an  exemplary  mildness,  rightly  admired 
throughout  the  world.  This  marvellous  achievement  cannot  be 
adequately  appreciated  if  one  assumes  that  change  in  political  man- 
ners must  inevitably  go  in  the  direction  of  improvement.  Un- 
fortunately, this  is  not  so.  A  striking  contrast  is  offered  by  the 
history  of  Rome,  where  political  disputes,  however  vigorous,  were 
for  many  generations  conducted  with  formality — up  to  the  evil  day 
when  raving  Senators  assaulted  Tiberius  Gracchus  and  caused  the 
blood  of  the  newly  re-elected  tribune  to  be  spilt  on  the  very 
Capitol.  This  opened  a  horrible  century,  marked  by  the  fury  of 
Marius  and  the  ruthlessness  of  Sulla.  Rent  by  such  ferocity,  Rome 
was  to  seek  peace  at  the  hands  of  Octavius ;  but  political  criminality 
was  to  reappear  at  the  very  court  of  the  emperors.  This  is  classical 
proof — borne  out,  alas,  by  modern  instances — that  the  change  in 
political  manners  can  also  occur  in  the  wrong  direction. 

Words  receive  their  weight  from  experiences,  which  can  be  very 
different.  The  words  '  overthrow  of  the  government '  fall  softly  upon 
the  ear  when  they  call  to  mind  a  defeated  President  driving  to  the 
Capitol  with  his  victor,  and  then  retiring  to  enjoy  henceforth  high 
moral  status,  assured  that  respectful  notice  will  be  taken  of  his 
occasional  pronouncements.  Or  again  when  one  pictures  the  de- 
feated Prime  Minister '  expelled '  from  the  Treasury  bench  no  further 
than  to  the  bench  opposite,  or  perhaps,  as  happened  in  France, 
'tumbled'  from  his  leadership  of  the  Cabinet  to  the  Ministry  of 
Finance  or  of  Foreign  Affairs. 

The  man  whose  memory  harbours  nothing  but  pictures  of  this 
kind  cannot  imagine  that  defeat  may  mean  exile,  imprisonment, 
execution  or  murder.  Possibly,  during  the  campaign  he  has  now 
lost,  he  has  said  of  his  opponents :  'They  are  a  danger  to  the  country.' 
But  whatever  tone  of  conviction  he  may  have  brought  to  such  a 
statement,  certainly  it  did  not  imply  that  their  victory  places  him  in 
jeopardy.  The  new  management  may  take  some  decisions  he  dis- 
approves, do  things  somewhat  offensive  to  his  feelings,  or  somewhat 
injurious  to  interests  he  supports  or  shares.  But  he  will  not  be 
despoiled  of  his  property,  deprived  of  his  livehhood;  his  liberty,  life 
and  dignit}^  are  not  at  stake.  It  is  to  him  unthinkable  that  he  might 

ki85 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS     [PT.  VI,  CH.  2 

be  hunted  as  game,  herded  as  cattle.  But  to  a  man  who  has  witnessed 
saeva  jussa,  continuas  accusationes^  pernicium  innocentiuw}-  PoHtics 
bears  quite  another  appearance. 

Such  a  contrast  of  experiences  fosters  an  opposition  of  views.  The 
man  who  was  born  into  mild  Politics  cannot  imagine  it  ferocious : 
and  historical  instances  are  to  him  fantastic  tales.  But  he  who  has 
once  seen  men  unmanned  by  victory  and  unmanned  by  defeat,  who 
has  watched  how  blood  flushes  the  face  of  the  one  and  drains  from 
the  face  of  the  other,  who  has  heard  the  blustering  laugh  and  the 
pitiful  cry,  that  man  feels  that  the  mildness  of  Politics  is  not  so  well 
assured,  that  its  maintenance  needs  to  be  contrived :  that  this  indeed 
is  the  first  and  foremost  of  poHtical  arts. 

^  Tacitus,  Annales.  Book  iv,  xxxiii. 


i86 


CHAPTER  3 

THE  MANNERS  OF  POLITICS 

Let  us  indulge  in  a  piece  of  make-believe.  Ruritania  is  endowed 
with  a  computer  which  infallibly  gives  the  optimal  answer  to  every 
question,  including  those  which  refer  to  the  choice  of  its  attendants. 
All  Ruritanians  know  ex  ante  that  the  prescriptions  issued  by  the 
computer  will  be  the  most  conducive  to  the  good  of  the  whole;  and 
indeed  ex  post^  when  each  prescription  has  been  published,  it  be- 
comes apparent  to  anyone  who  takes  the  trouble  to  check  that  this 
is  the  wisest  decision.  Assuming  such  a  magic  machine,  what 
follows.?  However  convinced  that  a  decision  coming  from  the  com- 
puter is  the  best  for  the  whole,  an  individual  Ruritanian,  Ego,  may 
still  dislike  and  infringe  a  prescription,  because  it  does  not  suit  his 
egotistical  rationality^  or,  even  more  simply,  because  he  will  not  bow 
to  reason.2 

If  however  Ego,  under  the  conditions  stated,  revolts  against  the 
prescription  of  the  computer,  he  will  be  handicapped  in  recruiting 
associates  or  followers.  Those  he  will  seek  to  stir  up  will  be  aware, 
ex  hypothesis  that  their  action,  behaviour  or  demand  goes  against  the 
reasonably  assessed  good  of  the  Whole.  Such  recruitment  must 
therefore  be  limited  to  those  who  share  a  special  interest,  or  who  are 
fired  by  some  bhnding  passion. 

Now  let  us  add  a  second  assumption  (and  here  we  move  up  from 
the  mythology  of  science  into  philosophic  anthropology).  Suppose 
that  Ruritanians  have  a  nature  so  different  from  that  with  which  we 
are  familiar  that  the  view  of  what  is  good  for  the  whole  invincibly 
determines  their  will.  Now  the  problem  is  entirely  solved :  what  is 

^  Rousseau  powerfully  made  this  point :  '  Basing  virtue  on  reason  alone  is  giving  it  a 
shaky  foundation.  They  say  that  virtue  is  the  love  of  order.  But  should  and  can  this  love 
dominate  over  the  love  of  my  own  well-being?  Let  them  give  me  a  clear  and  sufficient 
reason  to  prefer  it.  At  bottom  their  supposed  principle  is  a  pure  play  of  words :  because 
I  can  in  turn  state  that  vice  is  the  love  of  order  taken  in  a  different  sense.  The  difference 
is  that  the  good  man  refers  himself  to  the  order  of  the  whole  and  the  bad  man  sees  the 
whole  in  relation  to  himself:  he  makes  himself  the  centre  of  all  things,  while  the  good 
man  sees  himself  at  the  circumference  and  looks  to  the  centre  of  the  whole. '  This  is 
from  'La  profession  de  foi  du  Vicaire  Savoyard'  in  Emile,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that 
Voltaire  jotted  against  this  paragraph  on  his  copy  of  the  book:  'These  horrors  should 
never  be  discovered  to  the  public. ' 

^  It  is  profoundly  unsafe  to  assume  that  men  act  rationally  in  Pohtics. 


k 


87 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS        [PT.  VI 

good  for  the  whole  will  always  be  published  to  all  and  will  always 
be  done  by  everyone.^ 

This  two-tiered  fantasy  serves  to  stress  that  in  fact:  (i)  men  are 
not  irresistibly  swayed  by  certain  knowledge  regarding  the-good-of- 
the-whole  (the  second  assumption  does  not  correspond  to  reality) ; 
and  (2)  there  is  no  such  certain  knowledge  available  to  them  (the 
first  assumption  does  not  correspond  to  reaHty).  What  follows? 
Primus  advances  what  may  be  called  'the  imperative  syllogism  of 
political  obhgation'  as  follows: 

Major:  It  is  certainly  good-for-the-whole  that  (all  or  certain)  citizens 

do  77; 
Minor:  All  citizens  should  do  what  is  good-for-the-whole; 
Conclusion:  Therefore  (all  or  certain)  citizens  must  do  H. 

Now  Secundus  feels  strongly  that  the  Major  in  this  case  is  false, 
and  therefore  he  sets  himself  against  Primus.  Tertius  has  no  per- 
sonal opinion  about  the  Major  and  might  perhaps  be  persuaded  that 
it  is  right;  but  he  strongly  dislikes  the  conclusion  as  it  applies  to 
him;  he  dares  not  deny  the  Minor,  therefore  he  is  reheved  to  find 
that  he  can  justify  his  refusal  of  the  conclusion  by  following  Secundus 
in  denial  of  the  Major. 

Thus  in  Politics  we  find  a  mixture  of  disagreements  about  the 
common  good  and  of  personal  wants.  According  to  the  temperament 
and  experiences  of  the  onlooker,  he  is  likely  to  emphasize  the  former 
or  the  latter.  There  are  cynics  who  affirm  that  any  Major  referring 
to  the  common  good  is  only  meant  to  lead  to  a  conclusion  wanted  for 
self-regarding  reasons,  but  this  is  untenable :  such  camouflage  would 
be  ineffective  if  there  were  no  effective  concern  for  the  common 
good,  lending  prestige  to  propositions  referring  to  it,  and  therefore 
making  it  worthwhile  to  resort  to  such  camouflage. 

The  common  good  is  indeed  a  powerful  notion,  but  of  indefinite 
content:^  its  uncertainty,  together  with  the  variety  of  personal  wants 
and  wills,  gives  rise  to  a  number  of  disagreements.  Who  should  fill 
this  position?  What  should  be  the  decision  on  that  occasion?  Such 
is  the  daily  stuff  of  Politics,  inflamed  from  time  to  time  by  dis- 
agreements regarding  the  very  structure  of  institutions. 

^  Obviously  when  we  move  to  the  second  assumption,  it  is  tempting  to  do  away  with 
the  computer  and  replace  it  by  the  supposition  that  'right  reason'  brings  each  Ruri- 
tanian  to  reach  the  conclusions  regarding  the  public  good  which  are  achieved  in  the 
first  model  by  the  computer.  But  this  correction  is  not  relevant  to  my  purpose. 

2  Cf.  my  Sovereignty  (Cambridge,  1957). 


188 


J 


CH.  3]  THE  MANNERS   OF  POLITICS 

Politics  is  conflict.  To  be  sure,  far  the  largest  part  of  governmental 
activity  is  removed  from  the  field  of  conflict :  that  part  is  performed 
by  professional  agents.  The  necessary  and  sufficient  condition  for 
'  de-politization '  of  a  government  activity  is  that  the  agents  entrusted 
with  it  should  know  for  certain  what  is  to  be  done.  This  knowledge 
is  afforded  by  standing  rules,  and  therefore  what  has  been  done  can  be 
assessed  judicially :  it  is  a  matter  for  a '  judge '  to  find  whether  the  rele- 
vant rule  has  been  applied,  and  for  a  'jury'  to  appreciate  whether  the 
agent's  performance  has  been  as  good  as  can  be  reasonably  expected. 

Need  I  say  that  the  distinction  here  made  is  conceptual  rather  than 
realistic?  If  my  business  here  were  (as  it  is  not)  to  describe  the 
political  system  of  modern  states,  I  should  start  with  the  body  of 
public  servants,  regarding  it  as  the  very  core  of  the  system.  The 
growth  of  professional  Government  far  beyond  the  performance  of 
specific  sets  of  instructions,  indeed  with  a  capacity  to  generate  new 
sets,  is  both  remarkable  and  inevitable.  But  this  is  not  my  subject. 

My  purpose  is  to  stress  that  PoHtics  refers  to  'unsolvable  prob- 
lems ' :  that  is,  situations  where  no  effective  computational  procedure 
(or  algorithmy  is  available  by  means  of  which  a  solution  can  be 
found,  which  dissolves  the  problem,  carrying  irresistible  conviction. 

A  '  solution '  is  an  answer  which  fully  satisfies  all  the  requirements 
laid  down :  when  such  a  solution  is  found  by  anyone,  everyone  else 
acknowledges  it.  When,  however,  all  the  requirements  cannot  be 
met,  then  only  a  'settlement'  is  possible,  which  does  not  meet  the 
requirements  of  some  parties  and  therefore  leaves  them  unconvinced 
and,  while  legally  bound,  psychologically  dissatisfied.  That  is  the  sort 
of  thing  we  find  in  PoHtics,  and  which  imparts  to  it  the  character  of 
a  ceaseless  conflict.^ 

But  what  sort  of  conflict.?  That  is  the  important  question. 

PoHtics  is  often  called  a  game.  This  impHes  that  conflict  is  con- 
ducted according  to  unbreakable  rules.  Let  us  follow  the  metaphor. 
The  best  games  are  those  of  amateur  athletics  where  winner  and  loser 
congratulate  each  other  at  the  close  and  chatter  gaily  on  their  way 
to  the  changing-room.  Some  of  us  (as  is  my  case)  strongly  dis- 
approve of  money  games;  while  this  is  not  the  attitude  of  the  major- 
ity, there  are  few  people  who  would  not  regard  it  as  deplorable  that 
a  man  should  hazard  his  family's  keep  at  a  card  table. 

^  Cf.  Martin  Davis,  Computability  and  Unsolvability  (New  York,  1958). 

^  This  is  developed  below  in  the  Addendum,  'The  Myth  of  the  Solution'. 

189 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

Now  imagine  a  player  so  foolish  and  sinful  as  to  wager  the  liberty 
of  his  children,  to  be  slaves  if  he  loses.  Should  we  be  astonished  to 
find  this  madman  cheating  to  win,  and  upturning  the  table  if  he 
seems  to  be  losing?  Such  disregard  of  rules  must  naturally  follow 
from  inordinate  stakes.  We  therefore  conclude  that  to  keep  the  game 
of  Politics  within  the  rules,  the  stakes  must  be  kept  moderate. 

But  here  is  the  difficulty :  in  the  case  of  a  game,  a  man  is  free  to 
play  or  not;  and,  if  he  does,  he  can  limit  his  stake.  Not  so  in  Politics. 
In  a  card-room,  a  few  people  are  enjoying  a  game  incapable  of  ruining 
them  or  of  bringing  misery  to  third  parties.  There  enters  a  newcomer 
who  raises  the  stakes :  the  old  players  cannot  refuse  the  higher  stakes 
and,  if  they  leave  the  table,  the  intruder  wins  by  default.  This  is 
Politics.  The  'old'  parties  of  the  Weimar  Republic  certainly  never 
agreed  to  stake  civil  liberties  and  the  lives  of  German  Jews  on  a  game 
of  dice  with  Hitler:  but  that  in  fact  was  what  they  lost.  As  this 
instance  illustrates,  it  is  not  even  necessary  for  the  intruder  to  name 
the  stakes:  'You  must  play  with  me,'  he  says,  'and  if  you  lose,  you 
will  find  out  in  my  own  good  time  what  you  have  lost.' 

The  game  of  Politics  in  its  parliamentary  guise  obtained  a  good 
reputation  thanks  to  its  manners  in  nineteenth-century  England. 
Neither  the  players  nor  third  parties  stood  to  lose  from  the  game. 
Whatever  its  fortunes,  the  governance  of  England  altered  very  little 
and  always  in  the  direction  of  improvement.  Citizens  had  no  cause 
for  alarm :  they  feared  nothing  from  Government,  whatever  category 
they  belonged  to ;  neither  did  they  look  to  Government  for  any  sudden 
change  in  their  condition.  The  public  was  not  much  concerned  with 
PoHtics.  Leonard  Woolf  describes  this  state  of  feeling  prior  to  the 
nineties  of  the  nineteenth  century : 

In  my  father's  generation,  very  few  people  were  occupied  professionally 
or  permanently  with  politics. . . .  When  I  was  a  child,  except  at  the  time  of 
Mr  Gladstone's  Home  Rule  Bill,  politics  were  rarely  or  never  mentioned. 
In  those  days  politics  was  something  which  took  place  in  parliament;  it 
was  something  carried  out  by  a  special  class  of  persons;  it  entered  the  life 
of  the  ordinary  person  on  very  rare  occasions,  principally  when  he  paid 
his  income-tax  (at  dd.  in  the  £)  or  at  the  time  of  a  general  election. 

Anyone  who  can  look  back,  as  I  do,  to  a  childhood  lived  in  the  eighties, 
and  adolescence  in  the  nineties  of  last  century,  will  remember  the  remote- 
ness of  politics  to  their  fathers'  generation  compared  with  the  nearness, 
urgency,  and  devastating  impact  in  the  lives  of  all  later  generations.^ 

^  Leonard  Woolf,  Principia  Politica  (London,  1953),  pp.  9-10. 

190 


CH.  3]  THE  MANNERS  OF  POLITICS 

As  for  the  players  themselves,  mere  admission  to  the  gambling 
rooms  of  Westminster  was  honourable  and  enjoyable,  it  committed 
the  entrant  to  decorous  conduct.  This  was  an  opportunity  to  achieve 
office  and  distinction,  to  be  useful  and  to  feel  important.  Defeat  was 
no  tragedy:  the  loss  of  office  was  not  irrevocable  and  even  if  the 
player  left  the  scene,  he  was  certainly  not  worse  off  than  on  entering 
it,  and  that  was  usually  good  enough.  Trollope  describes  a  very 
relaxed  participant: 

Throughout  his  long  life  he  had  either  been  in  office,  or  in  such  a  position 
that  men  were  sure  that  he  would  soon  return  to  it.  He  had  taken  it,  when 
it  had  come,  willingly,  and  had  always  left  it  without  a  regret.  As  a  man 
cuts  in  and  out  at  a  whist  table  and  enjoys  both  the  game  and  the  rest  from 
the  game,  so  had  the  Duke  of  St  Bungay  been  well  pleased  in  either  posi- 
tion. He  was  patriotic,  but  patriotism  did  not  disturb  his  digestion.  He 
had  been  ambitious — but  moderately  ambitious,  and  his  ambition  had 
been  gratified.  It  never  occurred  to  him  to  be  unhappy  because  he  or  his 
party  were  beaten  on  a  measure.  When  President  of  the  Council,  he  could 
do  his  duty  and  enjoy  London  life.  When  in  opposition,  he  could  linger  in 
Italy  till  May  and  devote  his  leisure  to  his  trees  and  his  bullocks.  He  was 
always  esteemed,  always  satisfied,  and  always  Duke  of  St  Bungay.^ 

Trollope  used  this  picture  to  contrast  the  attitude  of  his  hero,  the 
Duke  of  Omnium.  Of  this  latter,  we  are  told : 

But  with  our  Duke  it  was  very  different.  Patriotism  with  him  was  a  fever, 
and  the  public  service  an  exacting  mistress.  As  long  as  this  had  been  all, 
he  had  still  been  happy.  Not  trusting  much  in  himself,  he  had  never 
aspired  to  great  power.  But  now,  now  at  last,  ambition  had  laid  hold  of 
him,  and  the  feeling,  not  perhaps  uncommon  with  such  men,  that  personal 
dishonour  would  be  attached  to  political  failure.  What  would  his  future 
fife  be  if  he  had  so  carried  himself  in  his  great  office  as  to  have  shown 
himself  to  be  unfit  to  resume  it?^ 

As  our  author  has  wanted  to  draw  a  contrast,  it  is  all  the  more 
remarkable  that  the  chapter  which  describes  the  fall  of  the  Omnium 
Cabinet  is  entitled :  '  Only  the  Duke  of  Omnium '  (the  same  note  as 
'always  the  Duke  of  St  Bungay'),  and  contains  this  dialogue  between 
Lady  Glencora  and  the  defeated  Prime  Minister: 
Glen.  Don't  you  feel  like  Wolsey,  Plantagenet? 
Duke.  Not  in  the  least,  my  dear.  No  one  will  take  anything  from  me  which 

is  my  own.^ 

How  true!  And  how  right  is  Trollope  to  point  the  lesson  by 
reference  to  the  persecution  of  the  fallen  Wolsey!  The  Duke  of 
Omnium  has  won  and  lost  the  Premiership;  but  as  he  goes  out,  he  is 

^  Anthony  Trollope,  The  Prime  Minister,  ch.  Lxxn  (Oxford  University  Press  edition, 
vol.  II,  pp.  367-8).  2  Op.  cit.  p.  368.  3  Qp^  cit.  vol.  II,  p.  388. 

191 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

assured  of  retaining  his  liberty,  property  and  status.  And  this  safety 
of  res  privatae^  from  the  vagaries  of  PoHtics  is  enjoyed  by  every 
inhabitant  of  the  realm :  no  one  is  going  to  suffer  from  the  fall  of  the 
government  just  as  no  one  suffered  from  its  advent. 

To  a  man  of  our  day,  impregnated  with  class-war  concepts,  it 
comes  easily  to  say  that  Politics  could  well  be  mild  when  retained 
in  the  hands  of  a  very  narrow  class,  with  huge  vested  interests.  These 
happy  few  had  not  much  to  quarrel  about.  The  tone  could  not  help 
changing  with  the  awakening  of  the  exploited,  when  their  urgent 
demands  would  strike  fear  in  the  hearts  of  the  privileged :  Politics, 
then  and  therefore  involving  high  stakes,  would  become  a  violent 
business. 

Surely  there  is  truth  in  this  now  commonplace  view,  but  far  less 
than  one  is  wont  to  think.  Many  instances  can  be  adduced  of 
Politics  growing  violent  in  the  wake  of  class  demands.  But  how 
many  more  instances  can  be  quoted  of  political  violence  occurring 
without  any  such  class-conflict  associations ! 

Social  clash  can  be  pointed  to  as  responsible  for  the  climate  of 
violence  which  coloured  the  last  century  of  the  Roman  Republic,  but 
thereupon  followed  well-nigh  fifteen  centuries  of  Roman  Empire,^ 
replete  with  political  crimes  which  cannot,  by  any  stretch  of  fancy, 
be  interpreted  as  manifestations  of  class  war.  A  brave  and  interesting 
effort  has  been  made  to  stress  the  social-revolt  element  in  the  German 
Reformation  :^  the  net  result  of  this  effort  is  to  show  how  limited  in 
time  and  space  was  the  intervention  of  this  factor.  Of  course  each 
outbreak  of  political  violence  affords  to  some  the  opportunity  of 
appropriating  the  belongings  of  others :  but  robbery  by  the  few  can 
hardly  be  represented  as  falling  into  the  pattern  of  demands  by  the 
many.  We  have  witnessed  the  advent  of  violent  Politics  in  a  country 
where  they  had  been  unknown  since  the  Wars  of  Religion:  they  were 
certainly  not  evoked  in  the  service  of  the  Workers  against  the 
Capitalists,  nor  the  other  way  round. ^ 

'^  Cf.  Cicero,  Pro  Domo  xvii:  'Vetant  leges  sacrae,  Vetant  XII  tabulae  leges  privi 
hominibus  irrogari :  id  est  enim  privilegium.  Nemo  unquam  tulit. ' 

^  This  formulation  of  course  implies  that  the  Byzantine  Empire  is  the  continuation 
of  the  Roman  Empire. 

^  L.  G.  Walter,  Thomas  Munzer  (i48g~iS2^)  et  les  Luttes  sociales  a  Vepoque  de  la 
Reforme  (Paris,  1927). 

*  Book-length  efforts  have  been  made  to  represent  the  Nazi  party  as  'a  reaction  of 
defence'  of  the  steel  industry.  It  takes  great  naivete  to  imagine  that  such  passion  can 
be  fanned  into  flame  by  company  directors. 

192 


I 


CH.  3]  THE  MANNERS  OF  POLITICS 

A  contrario,  the  land  where  industrial  Capitalism  and  the  Prole- 
tariat first  expanded,  and  which  Marx  regarded  as  their  field  of 
Philippi,  has  to  this  day  remained  free  from  political  violence.  Lloyd 
George  was  not  bludgeoned  to  death  at  Westminster  for  having 
introduced  progressive  taxation:  no  crowd  of  angry  Peers  surged  out 
from  the  Upper  House,  with  a  mob  of  servants  unleashed  upon  this 
new  Gracchus.  Nor  have  the  corpses  of  beheaded  dukes  been 
dragged  infamously  through  the  East  End.  Without  any  expense  of 
ferocity  or  anger,  what  a  change  has  been  achieved  1^  Surely  it  is  less 
a  consequence  than  a  cause  of  such  smooth  progress  that  Politics  has 
retained  its  ancient  systems  of  manners :  the  perfume  of  eighteenth- 
century  civility  clings  to  Westminster. 

It  is  easy  to  think  lightly  of  manners.  Whoever  is  so  disposed 
should  read  what  Necker  had  to  say  on  the  subject  in  1792.2  Here 
is  no  feather-brained  dandy  bemoaning  lost  struts  and  sweeps  of  the 
leg.  'Le  bonhomme'  was  all  stodgy  and  virtuous  earnestness,  quite 
bereft  of  sympathy  for  exquisite  futilities.  But  this  essentially  good 
man  was  deeply  shocked  by  the  brutality  which  developed  at  an 
early  stage  in  the  course  of  the  French  Revolution,  however  irrelevant 
to  the  achievement  of  its  positive  reforms.  An  unimpeachable 
witness,^  Necker  describes  the  proscription  of  civility,*  he  stresses 
that  polite  forms  forever  call  to  the  mind  the  feelings  whereof  they 
bear  the  outward  appearance.^   He  points  out  that,  conversely,  a 

^  It  is  often  pointed  out  that  two  great  wars  have  hastened  the  process.  This  is  quite 
true  since  on  such  occasions  the  most  fortunate  were  willing  to  accept  sacrifices  made  at 
that  time  for  the  country  rather  than  for  a  section  of  the  people  (however  large).  But, 
moreover,  it  should  be  remarked  that  whatever  tendency  the  'social  conflict'  might  have 
had  to  disrupt,  the  standing  together  to  meet  an  aUen  challenge  fuUy  remedied. 

^  Du  Pouvoir  Executif  dans  les  Grands  Etats  (2  vols.,  1792). 

^  Surely  unimpeachable,  since  all  the  positive  achievements  of  the  Revolution,  he  had 
sought  to  obtain  by  reforms :  since  he  was  the  author  of  the  calling  of  the  States  General, 
the  author  of  the  doubling  of  Third  Estate  representation,  and  the  chief  minister  during 
the  initial  period  of  the  Revolution. 

*  Necker  speaks  of 'les  egards',  a  wonderful  expression  which  denotes  an  attitude  of 
respect  by  no  means  exclusively  addressed  to  the  superior:  e.g.  'les  egards  dus  aux 
faibles'.  A  man  polished  in  'les  egards'  will  be  a  respecter  of  everyone. 

^  Since  Necker's  works  are  not  easily  available,  a  substantial  quotation  may  be  in 
order:  'II  restait  encore  pour  egide  a  la  douceur  des  moeurs  de  la  Nation  Fran9aise, 
cette  Legislation  des  egards  et  des  manieres,  qui  n'etait  point  ecrite  sur  des  tables  de 
bronze  ou  d'airain,  mais  qui,  par  la  seule  force  de  I'opinion,  rappelait  les  hommes  aux 
sentiments  dont  ils  etaient  contraints  d'emprunter  les  formes.  La  politesse  et  les 
manieres,  en  acquerant  comme  toutes  nos  idees  une  sorte  de  raffinement,  par  I'effet  du 
temps,  sont  devenus,  dans  leur  perfection,  I'apanage  particulier  des  hommes  bien  nes. 
II  ne'n  a  pas  fallu  davantage  pour  rendre  ces  sentiments  suspects ;  on  a  cru  qu  'ils  tenaient, 

13  193  J  FT 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

flaunting  of  brutal  language,  loutish  familiarity,  and  gross  irrever- 
ence, fosters  actions  of  the  same  type :  the  man  who  prides  himself 
on  not  sparing  the  feelings  of  his  fellows  in  his  language  will  pretty 
soon  not  mind  inflicting  more  concrete  injuries. 

The  subversion  of  civility  in  the  French  Revolution  is  surely  the 
true  explanation  of  so  violent  a  reaction  as  Burke's.^  This  subversion 
came  as  a  staggering  surprise  to  Europe.  All  expected  political 
change;  none  the  new  expressions  on  faces,  the  new  tone  of  voices. 
Indeed,  members  of  what  was  to  be  the  Constituent  Assembly  came 
in  no  such  mood :  they  were  all  men  of  learning,  grounded  in  the 
classics,  whose  modes  of  speech  had  been  shaped  by  Ciceronian 
periods.  They  saw  themselves  as  displaying  the  gravitas  of  Roman 
senators,  to  whose  example  their  minds  had  been  directed  by  the 
reading  of  the  ancients,  by  the  representation  of  tragedies,  and  by 
their  early  admiration  of  the  robed  magistrates  who  had  stood  up  to 
the  king.2  Moreover  the  lighter  literature  which  they  had  absorbed, 
from  I'Abbe  Prevost,  Rousseau,  Marmontel,  and  so  many  others,  was 
all  a  display  of  sensitivity,  an  invitation  to  the  ready  shedding  of 
tears  on  every  occasion. 

With  such  initial  incHnations  to  dignity  on  the  one  hand  and  to 
the  softer  emotions  on  the  other,  it  is  indeed  a  wonder  that  events 
should  have  taken  so  brutal  a  course,  especially  since  the  reforms 
they  demanded  met  with  insubstantial  opposition  only.  Episodes 
are  telling:  when  the  mob  marched  to  Versailles  and  carried  the 
Royal  Family  with  it  by  mere  pressure  of  force,  when  the  heads  of 
guards,  carried  on  spears,  were  kept  bobbing  up  and  down  at  the 
windows  of  the  Queen's  carriage,  this  outrage,  both  to  formality  and 
to  sensitivity,  was  one  which  the  deputies  dared  not  condemn,  and  it 

par  quelque  point,  a  la  gradation  des  rangs,  et  Ton  s'est  hate  de  les  comprendre  dans  la 
proscription  generale,  execree  contre  toute  espece  d' Aristocratic.  On  n'a  pas  vu  qu'ils 
remontaient  a  des  principes  absolument  differents ;  on  n'a  point  vu  qu'ils  tenaient,  par 
leur  origine,  a  des  idees  d'egalite;  on  n'a  pas  vu,  qu'imagines  pour  defendre  la  faiblesse 
contre  la  force,  c'etait  aux  idees  les  plus  genereuses  qu'ils  se  trouvaient  associes.  On 
s'en  servit  d'abord  pour  environner  les  vieillards  d'une  enceinte  propre  a  les  garantir  des 
insultes  d'une  jeunesse,  imprudente  au  moment  ou  son  regne  commence;  on  donna  ces 
memes  sentiments  pour  sauve-garde  au  sexe  faible  et  timide  que  les  loix  de  la  nature 
avaient  soumis  a  notre  orgeuilleux  empire;  enfin  les  memes  sentiments  furent  encore 
destines  a  soutenir  la  puissance  de  I'imagination,  et  a  maintenir  ainsi  I'autorite  des  Chefs 
des  Nations,  contre  la  force  du  nombre  et  contre  les  exces  deregles  de  la  multitude' 
{pp.  cit.). 

^  I.e.  his  attack  on  principles  was  moved  by  his  emotion  concerning  behaviour. 

^  The  most  popular  form  of  opposition  under  the  Ancien  Regime  had  been  that  of 
Les  Parlementaires,  i.e.  the  members  of  the  Courts  of  Justice. 

194 


CH.  3]  THE  MANNERS   OF  POLITICS 

is  apparent  in  Burke's  writing  that  such  a  scene  and  its  condoning  by 
the  Assembly  swayed  him  altogether. 

It  has  weighed  heavily  upon  the  subsequent  history  of  parHament- 
ary  government  in  France  that  the  first  National  Assembly  was 
incompetent  to  discipline  itself/  improvident  against  lawless  be- 
haviour at  the  very  time  when  it  sought  to  be  omniprovident  in  its 
renovation  of  all  laws  ;^  dared  not  condemn  disorderly  behaviour,^ 
allowed  itself  to  be  dictated  to  by  bold  self-appointed  deputations 
which  were  forever  coming  to  harangue  it,  and  thus  opened  the  door 
to  a  successive  coarsening  of  official  manners  in  the  course  of  the 
Revolution.* 

The  French  Revolution  has  played  no  mean  part  in  world  history. 
Whatever  boons  have  been  conferred  by  many  of  its  principles  and 
laws,  it  has  also  left  another  inheritance:  it  has  hallowed  violence. 
The  generation  of  Benjamin  Constant  and  Lafayette,  its  memory 
replete  with  echoes  of  howling  hordes,  and  mourning  murdered 
friends,  was  concerned  to  separate  the  positive  achievements  of  the 
Revolution  from  its  violence;^  but  this  attitude  was  soon  regarded  as 
squeamish,  the  'sound  and  fury'  came  to  be  regarded  not  only  as 
inseparable  from  the  tale  but  as  essential  to  it,  and  indeed  as  neces- 
sary to  make  it  sublime.  The  actions  of  the  revolutionary  figures 
came  to  be  admired  not  by  virtue  of  their  beneficence,  or  even  their 
good  intentions,  but  because  they  were  extreme. 

The  history  of  political  messianism  has  been  well  written,^  but 
we  lack  a  parallel  history  of  the  sanctification  of  political  violence. 

^  For  instance  as  early  as  i  August  1789,  when  the  Assembly  had  been  sitting  for 
less  than  three  months,  Thouret,  elected  to  the  Chair  by  an  absolute,  although  narrow, 
majority,  was  forced  to  resign  immediately  by  the  tumult  which  arose  on  proclamation 
of  the  results.  Only  six  weeks  later,  by  a  mere  show  of  hands,  without  any  prior  deliberation, 
the  Assembly  passed  a  resolution  enabling  it  to  censure  and  thereby  remove  any  member 
whom  it  should  deem  unworthy,  a  resolution  which  took  no  immediate  effect  but  laid  down 
a  principle  which  afforded  a  prior  blessing  to  the  purges  of  the  subsequent  assemblies. 

^  This  may  be  thought  the  more  surprising  in  view  of  the  enormous  preponderance 
of  the  legal  profession  in  the  Assembly.  It  is  worth  noting  that  in  a  discussion  on  the 
form  of  promulgation  of  laws,  Robespierre  was  almost  alone  in  stressing  the  necessity 
for  impressing  upon  the  people  the  sense  of  the  majesty  of  law. 

^  Circumstances  of  course  explain  a  great  deal :  the  Assembly  was  so  rife  with  rumours 
of  a  danger  to  it  from  the  miUtary  that  it  was  disposed  to  accept  that  the  rioters  were 
acting  in  its  interest. 

*  The  only  statesman  of  the  Revolution,  that  is  Robespierre,  never  bowed  to  this 
fashion  of  coarseness. 

^  Which  was  all  the  easier  in  view  of  the  fact  that  all  the  saner  principles  were  laid 
down  in  the  very  first  weeks. 

^  Cf.  J.  L.  Talmon,  Political  Messianism  (also  The  Origins  of  Totalitarian  Democracy). 

195  13-2 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

After  mature  consideration,  I  would  deny  that  excessive  hopes  by 
themselves  move  men  to  ferocious  conduct:  there  is  some  radiance 
in  hope  which  does  not  tend  to  inspire  the  inflicting  of  harm.  What 
most  easily  moves  men  to  destructive  conduct  is  the  unpleasant 
emotion  of  fear.^  While  this  is  valid  for  the  rabble  of  followers,  the 
leaders  of  violence  must  have  overcome  the  natural  sense  that  it  is 
wrong.2  I  purposely  use  the  verb  'overcome'  because  it  adequately 
describes  the  subjective  attitude  of  the  man  who  'elects'  violence. 
He  feels  that  he  'rises  above'  the  prejudices  of  his  fellows,  defies  their 
vulgar  opinion,  and,  the  most  difficult  and  truly  sinful  feat,  does  not 
allow  his  conscience  to  'make  a  coward'  of  him.  This  evil  attitude  is 
far  more  harmful  than  any  false  ideas,  and  it  is  not  fostered  by 
intellectual  error  but  by  aesthetic  suggestions:  slipping  on  the 
ludicrous  panoply  of  'Spartan  Brutus',  revolutionary  leaders  saw 
their  cruelty  as  heroic  virtue.  And  in  turn  their  atrocious  deeds 
provided  a  new  set  of  pseudo-heroic  masks,  to  be  worn  by  others. 
The  new  'subhme  of  extreme  actions'  has  been  immortally  illus- 
trated by  Stendhal  in  the  micro-portrait,  the  medallion,  of  Julien 
Sorel.  What  characterizes  the  hero  is  that  in  a  succession  of  small 
incidents,  Julien  overcomes  both  his  timidity  and  his  decency,  which 
he  satanically  confuses,  to  do  the  bold  thing.  Faguet  acutely  remarks 
that,  towards  the  end  of  this  great  novel,  the  hero  has  it  in  his  power 
to  sate  all  his  wants  of  wealth,  title,  and  position,  by  marrying  the 
girl  he  has  wanted,  humiliated  and  won :  quite  reasonably,  Faguet 
underlines  that  Madame  de  Renal's  denunciation  of  JuHen,  while 
embarrassing,  does  not  really  alter  his  prospects ;  it  is  therefore  quite 
incredible,  says  the  critic,  that  JuHen  should  run  off  and  quite 
literally  lose  his  head  in  killing  his  previous  mistress.^  But  if  there 
were  no  such  extreme  action  at  the  end,  then  all  the  smaller  acts  of 
daring  with  which  the  novel  is  strewn  would  sink  to  the  condition  of 
means  for  a  profitable  consummation:  the  story  would  then  carry 
only  an  unethical  lesson;  it  would  not  be  what  in  fact  it  is,  an  apology 
of  criminality  for  its  own  sake.*  Crime  its  own  reward,  that  is  the 

^  I  do  not  base  my  opinions  on  reading.  Unfortunately,  I  have  not  lacked  opportuni- 
ties to  observe  the  course  of  violence. 

^  Whoever  doubts  that  there  is  such  a  natural  sense  is  referred  to  the  anthropologists 
who  have  described  men  '  working  themselves  up '  for  a  killing. 

^  Emile  Faguet,  Politiques  et  Moralistes  du  Dix-Neuvieme  Steele  (3  vols.,  Paris,  1900), 
vol.  Ill:  'Stendhal'. 

*  The  same  would  be  true  of  Dreiser's  American  Tragedy,  if  the  hero  drowned  the 
girl  and  then  achieved  his  social  ambitions.  In  Dreiser's  book  crime  does  not  pay,  nor 

196 


CH.  3]  THE  MANNERS  OF  POLITICS 

lesson  ofLe  Rouge  et  Le  Noir :  it  is  in  crime  that  man  truly  rises  above 
himself,  an  idea  echoed  more  or  less  ably  by  so  many  others  after 
Stendhal.i 

Obviously  this  is  no  place  to  sketch  out,  however  roughly,  a 
history  of  attitudes  towards  violence :  but  it  would  be  the  height  of 
absurdity  not  to  mention  at  least  Georges  Sorel,  who  stands  at  the 
beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  as  its  herald. ^  Here  the  praise  of 
violence  is  starkly  Puritan.  Violence  is  not  a  means  to  a  desirable  end, 
it  is  not  a  grand  operatic  fulfilment,  it  is  an  ascetic  exercise  per- 
formed by  the  Chosen^  to  maintain  and  develop  a  separateness  from 
the  Corrupt.  There  is  perhaps  no  more  revealing  sentence  in  the 
whole  book  than  this : '  Let  the  proletariat  shun  the  evil  which  befell 
the  Germanic  invaders  of  the  Roman  Empire!  Ashamed  to  see 
themselves  barbarians,  they  sought  lessons  from  teachers  of  decadent 
latinity:  how  much  better  their  fate,  had  they  not  wanted  to  be 
civilized!'*  Such  language  offers  a  faint  echo  of  Ezra:  'The  land, 
unto  which  ye  go  to  possess  it,  is  an  unclean  land,  with  the  filthiness 
of  the  people  of  the  lands,  with  their  abominations,  which  have  filled 
it  from  one  end  to  another  with  their  uncleanness.'^  Sorel  also  bids 
'seek  not  their  peace',  and  he  pours  his  contempt  upon  the  peace- 
mongers,  those  who,  as  he  accuses,  mediate  between  the  working- 
class  and  the  bourgeoisie,  obtaining,  now  from  fear,  now  from 
goodwill,  this  or  that  advantage.  Strangely  enough  in  the  eyes  of  a 
rationalist,  Sorel  is  not  really  interested  in  the  spoils  of  victory : 
what  obsesses  him  is  the  image  of  the  sacred  battaHon  which  develops 
its  virtues  in  the  fight — courage,  temperance,  solidarity.  He  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  hope  that  the  fight  will  revive  some  virtue  in  the 
opponents.  All  this  would  have  seemed  fantastic  to  men  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  but  in  the  twentieth  there  have  been  bands  of 
'militants'  which  saw  themselves  more  or  less  in  this  hght,  however 
differently  they  appeared  to  others. 

is  it  endowed  with  any  aesthetic  quaUty.  The  novel  is  *a  moral  tale',  unfortunately  of  no 
great  artistic  merit. 

^  See,  for  instance,  Gide's  pernickety  treatment  of '  I'acte  gratuit '  inZ,^  5  Caves  du  Vatican. 

^  Mainly  in  Reflexions  sur  la  Violence  (Paris,  1908).  An  American  edition  (Glencoe, 
1950)  is  available,  translated  by  T.  E.  Hulme  and  J.  Roth,  with  a  notable  introduction 
by  Edward  Shils. 

^  The  'Chosen'  were  to  Sorel  the  proletariat,  but  he  showed  by  applauding  succes- 
sively Lenin  and  Mussolini  that  what  truly  interested  him  was  the  'team  of  warriors', 
the  form  rather  than  the  specific  content. 

*  My  translation  from  the  French,  p.  Ix;  American  edition,  p.  62. 

^  Ezra  ix.  11. 


L 


197 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

No  deep  understanding  of  the  twentieth  century  is  possible,  I 
believe,  unless  we  grasp  that  violence  has  received  psychological 
promotion.^  Basic  to  the  Saint-Simonian  idea^  that  the  ethos  of 
industrial  society  inevitably  outmodes  the  ethos  of  military  societies 
are  two  propositions,  one  of  which  is  a  postulate,  the  other  a  his- 
torical surmise.  The  postulate  is  that  violence  cannot  be  anything 
but  a  means  to  the  acquisition  of  material  goods;  the  historical 
surmise  is  that  such  means  become  increasingly  irrational  relative  to 
their  end.  The  historical  surmise  seems  well-founded.  Within  a  given 
society  of  advancing  wealth,the  improvement  of  organization  will  yield 
more,  over  a  period  of  time,  to  any  large  group  than  will  pillage.^ 
This  finding  logically  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  optimal  organization 
of  the  whole  is,  in  the  long  run  (and  not  so  very  long),  the  best  way  to 
advance  the  material  interests  of  any  large  section  of  the  public.  If 
so,  any  rational  politician,  even  if  he  is  wedded  only  to  the  interests  of 
a  section  of  the  public  (provided  it  be  large  enough),  can  logically  seek 
nothing  other  than  optimal  organization  and  policies  for  the  whole.* 
It  will  then  follow  that  the  area  of  conflict  about  public  affairs  will  be 
confined  to  disagreements  about  optimal  organization  and  pohcies. 

Under  such  conditions  Politics  must  logically  be  peaceful:  my 
opponent  wants  the  same  thing  that  I  want.  Optimal  management 
is  not  so  determinate  as  to  remove  any  occasion  for  dispute,  but  it  is 
not  so  indeterminate  as  to  impede  discussion.  Where  there  is  full 
agreement  about  the  purpose,^  there  must  be  some  underlying 

1  Among  the  works  which  lead  to  such  understanding  figure,  of  course,  Dostoevsky's 
The  Possessed,  and  Mahaux's  La  Condition  humaine. 

2  Which  readers  of  the  Enghsh  language  are  wont  to  attribute  to  Herbert  Spencer, 
who  popularized  it. 

^  Nobody  was  better  aware  of  this  than  Marx.  He  regarded  capitalist  domination  as 
necessary  for  the  accumulation  of  capital,  the  condition  of  increasing  production.  If  he 
foresaw  a  revolution,  it  was  because  he  assumed  that  the  capitalists  would  bring  the 
wealth-producing  system  to  a  standstill  by  their  refusal  to  distribute  to  the  workers 
increasing  claims  on  increasing  potential  output:  irrational  conduct,  calling  for  violence 
to  establish  a  rational  distribution  consonant  with  the  progress  of  productive  capacities. 
It  is  immaterial  for  my  present  purpose  that  the  supposition  of  this  irrational  conduct 
was  tied  to  the  supposed  will  to  maintain  a  constant  rate  of  profit,  challenged,  as  Marx 
believed,  by  the  supposedly  declining  efficiency  of  capital  (an  erroneous  assumption  he 
had  borrowed  from  Ricardo).  The  point  which  is  relevant  to  my  purpose  here  is  that 
Marx  conceived  violence  as  necessary  to  overcome  irrational  behaviour.  So  far,  he  had 
what  may  be  called  a  bourgeois  mind. 

*  Or,  in  other  terms,  if  citizens  are  rational,  no  large  following  can  be  assembled  on 
any  other  basis. 

^  In  our  day.  Economic  Growth  is  such  a  purpose.  It  generates  a  true  partnership 
between  the  men  who  are  durably  engaged  in  framing,  proposing  or  discussing  policies 
addressed  to  this  purpose. 

198 


CH.  3]  THE  MANNERS  OF  POLITICS 

sympathy  between  those  who  pursue  it,  a  conviviality  which  tempers 
their  disagreements;  and  their  mutual  attempts  to  convert  each  other 
to  what  each  deems  the  best  way  must  take  the  form  of  a  conversa- 
tion, which  can  hardly  fail  to  be  fruitful.  The  procedure  of  settle- 
ment of  an  issue  is  greatly  mellowed  by  the  hope,  if  not  conviction, 
that  some  algorithm  might  be  found  in  common,  which  provides  a 
certain  answer  to  the  same  question  which  haunts  different  minds.^ 

A  man  of  our  day  is  entirely  justified  in  stressing  optimistically 
that  a  large  part  of  public  affairs  now  comes  under  that  description;^ 
and  strangely  enough,  the  divisions  which  Madison,  after  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  deemed  the  most  dangerous  for  the  commonwealth,  seem 
amenable  to  such  treatment. 

We  could  indeed  be  wholehearted  optimists,  if  we  had  no  doubts 
about  the  postulate  stated  at  the  beginning  of  this  section.  The 
postulate  was  that  violence  is  nothing  but  a  means  to  acquire  worldly 
goods.  This  is  essentially  a  bourgeois  postulate,  unfortunately  quite 
unfounded.  Innumerable  instances  can  be  adduced  of  men  fighting 
for  some  material  possession,  but  they  do  not  prove  the  contrary: 
that  men  never  fight  for  any  other  reason;  in  fact  innumerable 
instances  can  be  adduced  of  violence  resorted  to  where  a  material 
possession  was  not  the  motive  (even  if  it  was  often  a  by- 
product). 

It  is  then  idle  to  believe  that  fighting  can  be  removed  as  it  becomes 
apparent  that  there  are  more  efficient  ways  of  achieving  material 
advantages.^  An  ethos  of  peacefulness  has  precluded  resort  to 
violence  where  violence  would  have  paid  off.^  A  contrary  ethos  may 
bring  violence  where  it  is  not  Hkely  to  pay  off.  It  seems  to  be  borne 
out  by  observation  that  only  small  minorities  are  likely  to  have  a 
'mihtant'  ethos  (which  really  means  an  ethos  of  war).   But  that  is 

^  In  the  case  of  Economic  Growth,  an  agreed  language  and  an  agreed  mode  of 
measurement  of  results  are  of  course  most  helpful. 

^  What  is  sketched  in  the  preceding  paragraph  corresponds  to  my  personal  experience 
in  the  Conseil  Economique  et  Social  of  France,  also  in  its  Commission  des  Comptes  de 
La  Nation. 

^  This  has  become  reasonably  apparent  in  the  wealthy  countries  of  the  world.  The 
many  have  little  to  gain  in  taking  over  the  property  of  the  few  (we  are  concerned  here 
with  net  gain  from  appropriation,  not  with  the  quite  different  question  of  the  gains 
which  may  be  reaUzed  by  a  change  in  management).  But  what  is  true  within  one  country 
is  not  so  obviously  true  as  between  a  poor  country  (say  China)  and  a  rich  one.  The 
Chinese  people  would  have  much  to  gain  from  taking  over  the  United  States. 

*  An  outstanding  example  is  afforded  by  India,  where  the  peasants  quite  obviously 
would  have  gained  by  throwing  oflf  their  landlords. 


L 


199 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

quite  enough,  because  then  the  motivation  of  fear  (which  is  very 
common)  can  intervene  for  great  numbers.  Clodius  and  Milo  who 
brandish  swords  at  one  another  do  not  remain  alone,  because 
Clodius  can  convince  many  that  Milo's  sword  is  pointed  at  them 
and  by  the  same  argument  Clodius  also  can  rally  many  around  him. 
This  simple  image,  which  explains  the  spread  of  violence,  suggests 
two  simple  remedies.  Let  Clodius  and  Milo  fight  it  out  by  themselves 
amid  general  indifference;  or  disarm  them.  Neither  remedy  is  easy 
to  apply.  You  will  get  general  indifference  if  you  can  persuade  people 
that  whoever  wins,  it  will  not  affect  them.  This  result  was  pretty 
nearly  achieved  in  the  international  affairs  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  which  king  won  a  province  mattered  not  at  all  to  the  local 
institutions  and  the  condition  of  the  people.  This  gave  rise  to  the 
expectation  that  wars  could  be  done  away  with  altogether.  The 
reasoning  ran  as  follows :  (a)  the  people  have  nothing  at  stake  in  our 
present  wars;  (b)  these  are  only  the  wars  of  kings;  (c)  therefore  do 
away  with  the  kings  and  you  will  do  away  with  the  wars.^  It  was 
stressed  in  favour  of  this  view  that  already  wars  were  very  tame, 
which  was  taken  as  a  clear  indication  that  little  remained  to  be  done 
for  their  total  elimination. 

We  see  already  that  wars  are  milder  than  among  savage  and  ignorant 
populations.  Legions  shoot  each  other  with  politeness;  heroes  salute  each 
other  before  fighting;  soldiers  of  the  opposite  camps  visit  each  other  before 
battle,  as  people  sup  together  before  a  game  of  cards.  It  is  no  more 
nations  which  are  locked  in  battle,  nor  even  kings,  but  only  armies,  and 
mercenaries  at  that;  these  are  games  with  limited  stakes;  at  last  wars, 
which  were  frenzies,  have  shrunk  to  nonsense  (lviii). 

We,  who  are  only  people . . .  we  shall  not  tire  of  telling  the  kings  that  the 
wars  are  meaningful  only  to  them  [lix].  . .  .The  stupid  hatreds  of  nations 
will  wear  out  when  kings  no  more  excite  them  one  against  the  other 
[lx].  . .  .We  can  rigorously  forecast  the  progress  of  reason  [lxi].  If  the 
robust  body  of  France  digests  its  revolution,  we  shall  never  more  see  these 
so  great  armies,  with  which  so  little  is  accomplished.  The  example  of  the 
French  will  be  imitated ;  and  from  this  angle  as  from  so  many  others,  the 
revolution  of  France  will  have  achieved  a  saving  in  human  blood  [lxii].^ 

All  this  was  quite  persuasively  stated.  Unfortunately  the  booklet 
appeared  hardly  a  few  months  before  the  French  Revolution  de- 

^  Among  the  many  presentations  of  this  view,  that  which  I  pick  upon  is  entitled 
Reflexions  Politiques  sur  les  Circonstances  Present es,  by  J.  P.  Rabaut;  and  while  it  bears  no 
date  it  was  obviously  published  at  the  beginning  of  1792. 

2  The  author's  final  remark  (lxiii)  was:  'The  history  of  the  revolution  of  France  is  a 
book  of  prophecies. ' 

200 


CH.  3]  THE   MANNERS  OF  POLITICS 

veloped  into  a  war  which  was,  with  a  number  of  intermissions,  to 
rage  for  twenty-three  years.^ 

There  is  much  to  be  learned  from  the  argument  which  I  quote. 
Its  facts  were  undeniably  correct;  truly  the  wars  had  become  tame^ 
and  truly  they  were  only  the  wars  of  kings.  But  the  prognosis 
derived  from  these  facts  was,  as  events  proved,  quite  unwarranted. 
Which  proves  that  the  facts,  however  correctly  stated,  were  not 
understood;  a  suitable  explanation  leads  to  a  correct  prediction,  a 
blatantly  incorrect  prediction  reveals  an  inadequate  explanation.^ 
The  people  had  no  stake  in  wars  because  the  royal  governments  of 
the  eighteenth  century  were  so  alike  that  it  could  make  no  difference 
to  live  under  one  or  the  other,*  each  of  them  moreover  being  a  great 
respecter  of  existing  establishments.  Yet  the  latter  statement  is  true 
even  of  that  archetype  of  absolute  kings,  Louis  XIV. 

A  warlike,  conquering,  overbearing,  illiberal  monarch:  that  is 
beyond  doubt.  It  is  therefore  the  more  striking  that  annexation  of  a 
province  to  the  kingdom  of  France  meant  no  change  for  the  in- 
habitants, who  were  henceforth  ruled  in  the  name  of  a  different 

^  France  declared  war  on  Austria  and  Prussia  on  20  April  1792.  The  author  from 
whom  I  quote,  a  Protestant  pastor  and  throughout  his  Ufe  a  most  worthy  man  (who, 
among  other  acts  of  courage,  tried  to  save  the  king's  life),  was  beheaded  on  5  December 

1793- 

^  The  reasons  which  ensured  so  many  military  successes  of  the  French  armies  against 
those  of  European  monarchies  during  the  French  Revolution  and  Empire  are  almost  all 
derived  from  the  customs  of  'tame  warfare'  belonging  to  the  Ancien  Regime,  which 
France  abandoned  while  the  monarchies  still  adhered  to  them,  (i)  The  French  forces 
were  superior  in  numbers  because  the  Republic  had  instituted  conscription,  unknown  in 
monarchies.  Prussia  was  the  first  to  imitate  it.  (2)  The  French  forces  moved  more 
easily  and  rapidly  because  they  were  allowed  and  expected  to  live  from  the  plundering 
of  the  lands  traversed,  while  Ancien  Regime  soldiery  were  strictly  forbidden  to  do  this 
and  therefore  tied  down  by  heavy  convoys,  and  even  so  often  underfed  (cf.  Clausewitz, 
On  War,  Book  v,  ch.  xiv).  (3)  The  French  forces  formed  in  heavy  columns  which  broke 
through  the  thin  hnes  into  which  the  Allied  armies  were  formed,  according  to  Ancien 
Regime  habits.  The  column  had  been  recommended  as  early  as  1724  by  the  Chevaher 
de  Folard  (cf.  especially  his  mihtary  commentary  on  Polybius,  6  vols.,  Paris,  1727-30). 
But  it  had  been  rejected  as  too  costly  in  human  hves,  and  it  took  the  'cannon-fodder' 
procured  by  conscription  to  bring  it  into  practice. 

3  Alfred  Marshall  stated  that  explanation  'is  simply  prediction  written  backwards; 
and,  when  fully  achieved,  it  helps  towards  prediction.  A  chief  purpose  of  every  study  of 
human  action  should  be  to  suggest  the  probable  outcomes  of  present  tendencies;  and 
thus  to  indicate,  tacitly  if  not  expressly,  such  modifications  of  these  tendencies,  as  might 
further  the  well-being  of  mankind.'  (From  Industry  and  Trade,  1919,  p.  7;  quoted  by 
R.  C.  Tress  in  'The  Contribution  of  Economic  Theory  Prognostication',  Economica, 
August  1959.) 

*  As  Burke  stressed  in  his  eulogy  of  the  uniformity  of  manners  throughout  Europe 
before  the  French  Revolution:  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace,  Works  (London,  1808),  vol. 
VIII,  pp.  181  flf. 

201 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS  [PT.  VI 

sovereign  but  in  the  same  manner,  as  stressed  in  a  letter  from  the 
intendant  newly  installed  at  Douai  to  Colbert:  'As  I  understand  it  to 
be  your  intention  to  bring  no  change  at  all  to  existing  usage,  be  it 

dangerous '^  Now,  in  sharp  contrast,  it  did  make  a  great  deal  of 

difference  for  the  Czechs  to  come  under  German  'protectorate'  in 
1939.  The  transfer  of  sovereignty  over  Algeria  from  France  to  the 
Front  de  Liberation  Nationale  was  not  regarded  by  the  European 
settlers  as  a  matter  which  would  bring  no  change  in  their  lives.  The 
inhabitants  of  West  Berlin  have  displayed  great  emotion  whenever  it 
has  seemed  to  them  likely  that  West  Berlin  would  be  absorbed  in  the 
Republic  of  East  Germany. 

A  change  of  sovereign  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  an  affair  which 
interested  alternative  sovereigns  far  more  than  the  subjects,  because 
any  sovereign  would  exercise  sovereign  rights  (in  fact  conceived  as 
very  Hmited)  in  much  the  same  manner.  All  this  is  changed  when 
the  emphasis  is  upon  national  sowtrti'grvty^  that  is,  when  each  national 
government  determines  at  will  the  rights  of  those  incorporated  in  its 
realm,  so  that  passing  from  one  realm  to  another  means  being  sub- 
jected to  quite  different  rules  and  bound  to  quite  different  manners.^ 

It  is  ironic  that  in  times  when  so  much  is  said  about  an  'inter- 
national community'  it  should  have  become  a  greater  hazard  than 
ever  to  find  oneself  incorporated  in  a  different  parish. 

Just  as  the  fear  of  our  fate  should  the  'other'  army  win  is  enough, 
whatever  other  motives  may  intervene,  to  make  us  put  our  hearts 
into  a  war  as  we  had  no  reason  for  doing  in  the  eighteenth  century; 
in  the  same  manner  if  a  militant  band  threatens  to  seize  power  in  our 
own  country,  the  fear  of  what  we  would  suffer  under  its  rule  is 
enough  to  make  us  respond  to  the  other  band  which  forms  against  it. 
We  cannot  leave  them  to  fight  it  out  'alone'  because  we  are  aware 
that  the  winner  will  not  leave  us  alone.  Therefore  the  shutting  up  of 
Clodius  and  Milo  with  their  respective  followers  in  well-hedged  lists 
will  not  do. 

When  I  first  mentioned  these  obstreperous  champions,  it  was 
suggested  either  to  let  them  fight  it  out  by  themselves  (and  that,  we 
find,  will  not  do),  or  to  disarm  them.  Let  us  disarm  them.  Let  us 

^  Cf.  Marquis  de  Roux,  Louis  XIV  et  les  Provinces  Conquises  (Paris,  1938);  also  a 
major  work  of  scholarship  by  Irenee  Lameire,  Theorie  et  Pratique  de  la  Conquete  dans 
VAncien  Droit  (3  vols.,  Paris,  1903,  1905,  191 1). 

2  B.  de  Jouvenel,  Quelle  Europe?  (Paris,  1947),  'Questions  de  Frontieres,  Questions 
de  Vie  et  de  Mort'. 

202 


CH.  3]  THE  MANNERS  OF  POLITICS 

turn  to  this  possibility.  The  question  arises : '  Who  is  to  disarm  them? ' 
Another  man  with  a  stronger  weapon?  That  is  the  Hobbesian 
remedy.  Let  there  be  One  Ruler,  strong,  and  quite  intolerant  of  any 
faction.  This  is  not  a  pleasant  solution;  the  other  which  offers  itself 
is  that  the  whole  circle  of  onlookers,  a  vast  majority  in  comparison 
with  the  gangs  of  Clodius  or  Milo,  should  intervene  to  overpower 
them.  However,  the  chances  are  that  some  will  be  more  concerned 
to  disarm  Clodius  and  others  Milo,  and  we  are  back  with  a  general 
fray. 

It  would  seem  therefore  that  one  should  hasten  to  extinguish  the 
fire  of  angry  bellicose  Politics  whenever  and  wherever  it  is  lighted. 
But  this  is  likely  to  be  practised  only  by  those  who  themselves  have 
risen  through  violence,  not  by  those  who,  rightly  abhorring  violence, 
underestimate  it;  and  they  expose  themselves  to  the  fate  of  Priam: 
' ...  hie  exitus  ilium  Sorte  tulit ' 


203 


ADDENDUM 

THE  MYTH  OF  THE  SOLUTION 

We  commonly  say  'this  is  a  political  problem'  and  go  on  to  ask  for 
its  'solution'  and  complain  that  it  is  not  found.  This  is  a  way  of 
speaking  so  well-established  that  it  cannot  be  changed,  or  indeed 
avoided,  but  it  should  be  realized  that  it  is  highly  misleading. 

The  word  'problem'  is  loaded  with  memories  of  our  studious 
childhood,  when  problems  were  set  to  us  by  the  master.  We  con- 
centrated our  attention  to  understand  the  terms  of  the  problem,  and 
then  bent  our  backs  over  our  desks,  striving  to  discover  the  answer. 
Many  a  time  we  floundered  helplessly,  but  while  failing  we  were 
aware  that  some  of  our  fellows  were  finding  the  solution.  On  some 
occasions  we  rejoiced  that  we  had  solved  the  problem,  and  found 
out  afterwards  that  we  had  given  a  faulty  answer.  Whether  we  had 
failed  to  find  any  solution  or  had  handed  in  a  spurious  solution, 
when  the  master  afterwards  expounded  the  treatment  of  the  prob- 
lem on  the  blackboard  and  set  down  the  solution,  there  was  no 
shadow  of  doubt  in  our  minds  that  that  was  what  we  should  have 
found:  if  we  had  produced  a  different  answer,  we  would  not 
dream  of  taking  up  the  cudgels  in  its  favour.  Such  ready  sub- 
servience to  the  answer  written  out  by  the  master  was  in  no  degree 
a  submission  to  his  personal  authority.  It  followed  from  our  now 
perceiving  that  that  answer,  and  that  answer  alone,  satisfied  the  terms 
of  the  problem.  And  while  we  might  feel  some  chagrin  that  we  had 
missed  or  mistaken  it,  some  annoyance  at  our  own  stupidity,  on  the 
other  hand  we  would  experience  a  joy  of  seeing  things  clearly. 

This  then  was  the  answer  which  was  waiting  for  us  all  the  time. 
It  is  a  pity  that  we  did  not  find  our  way  to  it,  or  that  we  took  another 
way  which  led  us  astray.  It  would  have  been  pleasing  to  have  won 
this  answer  by  our  own  efforts :  but  in  surrendering  to  it,  now  that  it 
stands  to  reason,  there  is  also  a  pleasure;  and  the  answer,  henceforth, 
is  no  less  our  own  than  if  we  had  reached  it  alone.  We  are  just  as 
ready  to  champion  the  answer  against  any  doubter,  we  have  no 
doubt  that  he  will  be  brought  to  see  its  rightness,  and  be  grateful 
to  us  for  his  own  acquired  conviction.  Such  is  the  psychological 
attitude  of  Man  to  'the  solution'. 

204 


THE  MYTH  OF  THE  SOLUTION 

Now  can  we  observe  anything  like  this  attitude  when  a  'solution' 
has  been  given  to  a  political  'problem'?  Do  we  observe  that  those 
who  have  opposed  this  solution  rally  to  those  who  advocated  it, 
feehng  a  bit  ashamed  that  they  had  not  previously  perceived  the 
rightness  of  this  solution,  but  dehghted  to  be  now  aware  of  it?  Do 
we  observe  that  the  opponents  of  the  solution  at  once  become  its 
champions?   Surely  nothing  like  this  happens  in  politics. 

Should  it  happen?  Is  this  difference  in  attitudes  due  to  the  fact 
that  in  the  classroom  we  are  reasonable  beings,  willing  to  see  the 
truth  when  it  is  offered  to  us,  while  in  the  Forum  we  are  affective 
beings,  with  minds  clouded  by  prejudice  and  passion?  This  view 
was  widely  held  by  the  philosophes  of  the  eighteenth  century.  They 
were  prone  to  compare  political  problems  to  problems  in  geometry '} 
great  disputes  do  arise  between  geometricians  in  the  case  of  difficult 
problems  whereof  no  one  quite  finds  the  solution ;  but  when  it  has 
been  found  by  one,  and  he  has  shown  that  his  solution  stands  to 
reason,  then  all  others  cease  their  opposition  and  all  enjoy  in 
common  what  has  become  a  common  good. 

Why  then,  they  went  on  to  argue,  should  it  not  be  the  same  in  the 
case  of  political  problems?  No  doubt,  here  also  we  have  difficult 
problems,  on  which  opposing  views  are  tenable,  and  indeed  their 
clash  may  lead  on  to  finding  the  solution.  But  as  soon  as  the  solution 
has  been  found,  then  only  the  prejudiced,  the  stupid,  the  selfish,  the 
wilful,  can  deny  it.  They  should  see  that  it  stands  to  reason;  if  they 
do  not,  either  they  are  incapable  of  seeing  the  light  of  reason  (an 
illness  of  which  education  can  cure  them)  or  they  refuse  to  see  it, 
because  they  are  fractious,  mischievous,  self-centred  and  evil-minded. 

The  assumption  that  political  problems  are  of  the  same  kind  as 
those  set  to  us  in  the  classroom,  or  as  those  which  exercise  the  minds 
of  geometricians,  is  optimistic  in  so  far  as  it  carries  the  imphcation 
that  there  is  a  right  answer  to  every  problem.  But  it  is  obvious  that 
it  justifies  disciplinary  measures  against  those  who  do  not  acknow- 
ledge the  solution  when  presented  to  them,  and  indeed  measures  of 
persecution  against  those  who  continue  to  argue  against  them,  and 
who  are  the  more  guilty  the  more  educated  they  are,  since  they 
should  then  'know  better'  than  to  plead  against  what  should  have 
become  to  them  self-evident. 

^  Cf.  Mercier  de  la  Riviere,  De  VOrdre  Nature!  et  Essentiel  des  Societes  Politiques 
(London,  1767),  especially  Book  i,  ch.  ix. 


205 


k 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS 

It  is  not  my  purpose  here  to  stress  the  dangerous  consequences  of 
regarding  pohtical  problems  as  implying  solutions,  which  should 
compel  our  assent  with  '  the  irresistible  force  of  self-evidence '  as 
Mercier  de  la  Riviere  puts  it.  Our  concern  is  merely  to  find  out 
whether  political  problems  are  of  such  a  nature  that  they  may 
reasonably  be  regarded  in  that  light. 

Let  us  go  back,  not  ambitiously  to  the  problems  of  geometricians, 
but  modestly  to  those  of  the  classroom.  What  was  our  task  as  school- 
boys.? Terms  were  stated  and  we  had  to  find  an  answer  which  met 
them;  or,  in  other  words,  a  number  of  conditions  had  to  be  fulfilled 
and  we  had  to  find  the  locus  geometricus  which  satisfied  them 
all.  One  thing  we  knew  for  certain — that  the  problem  had  a 
solution.  We  might  not  find  the  best  procedure  for  reaching  the 
solution,  or  we  might  not  find  any,  but  what  was  beyond  doubt  was 
the  existence  of  a  solution.  Now  it  is  of  course  extremely  easy  to  set 
problems  incapable  of  solution  (for  instance,  'Find  a  prime  larger 
than  13  but  smaller  than  17').  Our  teachers  never  played  upon  us 
such  pranks :  hfe,  however,  does.  When  the  British  held  the  mandate 
over  Palestine,  they  had  to  find  a  solution  to '  the  Palestinian  problem ' 
which  could  be  stated  in  the  following  terms : '  Find  an  arrangement 
whereby  all  of  Palestine  shall  form  an  Arab  national  State  as  required 
by  the  Arabs,  and  whereby  at  least  a  large  part  of  Palestine  shall 
form  an  Israeli  national  State  as  required  by  the  Jews.'  It  is 
immediately  apparent  that  the  terms  of  the  problem  admit  of  no 
'solution'.  In  the  same  manner,  the  French  governments  have  been 
exercised  for  a  number  of  years  by '  the  Algerian  problem '  which  could 
be  stated  in  the  following  terms:  'Find  an  arrangement  whereby 
Algeria  shall  remain  part  of  France  as  the  European  settlers  require 
and  shall  become  an  independent  sovereign  state  as  the  Front  de 
Liberation  Nationale  movement  demands. ' 

Obviously  such  'problems'  are  unsolvable.  It  is  not  here  a  matter 
of  failing  to  find  the  solution :  it  just  does  not  exist.  The  terms  of  a 
classroom  problem  can  be  thought  of  as  claims  which  can  all  be  fully 
satisfied  by  the  right  answer.  Now  in  the  case  of  the  political  problems 
which  have  just  been  quoted,  the  terms  of  the  problem  conflict: 
there  is  no  answer  that  can  satisfy  them  in  full;  there  is  no  solution 
in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word.  Admittedly  the  clash  of  terms  is 
extreme  in  the  instances  adduced.  But  in  the  case  of  any  political 
problem  there  is  a  clash  of  terms  precluding  a  solution  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word.    Else  one  might  have  'a  problem'  but  not  'a 

206 


THE  MYTH  OF  THE  SOLUTION 

political  problem'.  What  makes  a  problem  'political'  is  precisely 
that  its  terms  admit  no  solution  properly  so-called.  There  are  no 
doubt  some  matters  coming  up  for  decision  by  pubhc  authorities 
where  the  conditions  to  be  met  are  somewhat  complex,  and  where 
the  finding  of  a  solution  is  an  intellectual  task.  But  such  problems, 
capable  of  solution,  are  quietly  solved  off-stage  by  experts.  What 
constitutes  'a  pohtical  problem'  is  the  clashing  of  terms,  that  is, 
its  unsolvabiHty. 

Nor  is  it  worthwhile  to  say  that  but  for  the  passions  of  the  parties 
concerned,  the  problem  would  easily  be  solvable,  because  these 
passions  are  the  very  data  of  politics.  It  is  all  too  easy  for  an  outside 
observer  to  say  that  there  exists  a  solution  which  people  would 
accept  if  they  but  knew  their  true  interests:  what  the  outside 
observer  then  means  is  that  the  people  concerned  would  all  accept 
what  seems  to  him  desirable  if  they  all  agreed  with  him  as  to  what  is 
desirable :  which  is  true  enough,  but  trivial  and  irrelevant.  Of  course 
the  outside  observer,  who  deserves  no  attention  if  he  passes  an 
armchair  judgement  by  merely  overlooking  what  constitutes  the 
problem,  merits  more  consideration  if  he  turns  himself  into  an  inside 
operator  seeking  to  win  the  people  concerned  to  his  view :  but  then 
he  himself  and  his  followers  become  an  element  of  the  problem. 

What  characterizes  a  political  problem  is  that  no  answer  will  fit 
the  terms  of  the  problem  as  stated.  A  political  problem  therefore  is 
not  solved,  it  may  be  settled,  which  is  a  dift'erent  thing  altogether. 
By  settlement,  we  here  mean  any  decision  arrived  at,  by  whatever 
means,  on  the  question  which  gave  rise  to  the  political  problem. 
While  it  is  the  very  definition  of  a  solution  that  it  satisfies  in  full  all 
the  terms  of  the  problem,  the  settlement  does  not  do  so.  It  cannot 
do  so,  since,  as  in  a  bankruptcy,  there  is  no  possibihty  of  meeting  all 
the  claims  in  full.  Some  must  be  denied  altogether  or  all  must  be 
reduced.  What  method  or  procedure  will  be  used  for  this  adjustment.? 

Three  procedures  can  be  adopted.  First,  the  parties  who  formu- 
late the  demands  creating  the  problem  may  pare  down  their  de- 
mands, thanks  to  attrition  or  mediation  or  both,  and  the  heretofore 
incompatible  demands  will  then  become  compatible.  The  political 
problem  will  have  changed  into  a  problem  admitting  a  solution.  It 
will  seldom  be  transmuted  altogether  in  this  way.  It  may  be,  for 
instance,  that  the  spokesmen  who  had  made  incompatible  claims 
will  finally  come  together  on  some  compromise.  But  in  this  process 


L 


207 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS 

they  may  find  themselves  disowned  by  some  few  or  many  of  their 
followers;  even  if  not,  the  latter  will  be  apt  to  express  chagrin  at  the 
outcome.  Certainly  the  compromise  will  not  be  received  in  the  same 
spirit  as  a  solution.  There  will  be  many  on  both  sides  who  will  go  on 
thinking  that  their  terms  could  have  been  satisfied  more  completely  if 
only  they  had  held  out  more.  The  best  settlement  by  compromise 
therefore  will  not  cause  that  feeling  of  enjoyment  which  comes  with 
the  offering  of  the  solution  to  a  problem.  The  solution  as  it  were 
dissolves  the  problem:  it  will  never  be  a  problem  any  more.  The 
compromise  settlement  leaves  the  issue  in  being.  It  may  be  re- 
opened at  any  time. 

The  compromise  settlement  is  not  as  good  as  a  solution  but  it  is 
far  and  away  the  best  form  of  settlement.  If  not  a  solution,  it  has 
some  kinship  to  it.  To  be  sure  the  initial  demands  stated,  constituting 
the  terms  of  the  problem,  have  not  been  met.  But  a  sort  of  feedback 
process  has  been  somehow  set  in  train,  whereby  the  unsolvability  of 
the  problem  has  reacted  upon  its  terms  and  the  conditions  to  be  met 
have  been  so  relaxed  that  they  have  become  compatible.  No  doubt 
such  relaxation  is  a  temporary  phenomenon — it  is  quite  possible  that 
after  the  negotiation,  there  will  be  renewed  demands  of  a  more 
exacting  nature  on  one  or  more  than  one  side — it  is  also  possible, 
however,  that  the  mood  which  has  made  the  compromise  settlement 
possible  will  not  fade  away,  but,  on  the  contrary,  will  be  sustained  by 
the  favourable  consequences  of  the  compromise. 

What  are  the  other  procedures  for  settling  a  political  problem? 
In  essence,  they  are  the  application  of  a  principle,  or  the  dictate  of 
an  authority.  In  practice  the  two  may  be  joined  together:  that  is, 
when  the  dictate  of  an  authority  is  based  upon  a  principle.  Indeed 
while  it  is  conceivable  that  the  principle  by  itself  may  adjudicate 
between  the  demands,  it  is  seldom  possible  to  apply  the  principle 
without  some  authority  which  decides  how  it  is  to  be  understood 
in  the  particular  case,  and  which  fills  the  voids  which  the  mere 
working  out  of  the  principle  would  leave. 

I  shall  here  refer  to  a  historic  instance  which  made  a  great 
impression  upon  my  youth,  and  which  perhaps  served  to  make  me 
feel  how  far  the  most  elaborate  settlement  must  necessarily  differ 
from  a  solution. 

After  World  War  I,  the  victorious  AUies  having  resurrected 
Poland,  the  question  arose  whether  Upper  Silesia  should  be  attached 

208 


THE  MYTH  OF  THE  SOLUTION 

to  Poland  or  left  to  Germany.  The  former  was  the  French  view,  the 
latter  the  British.  President  Wilson  prevailed  upon  the  Allies  to 
have  the  matter  decided  by  consultation  of  the  populations.  This 
was  the  application  of  a  principle:  self-determination.  The  plebiscite 
occurred  on  21  March  1921  and  gave  707,000  votes  to  Germany 
against  479,000  to  Poland.  Did  this  settle  the  matter?  No.  Incensed 
at  the  thought  that  the  whole  province  would  be  attached  to  Ger- 
many, Polish  insurgents  rose  in  arms  and  took  control  of  a  great  part 
of  the  country.  Given  that  the  voting  had  shown  two  strong  blocks 
to  exist  within  the  territory,  and  that  feelings  ran  very  high,  there 
was  a  clear  case  for  dividing  the  province.  This  task  was  assigned  to 
the  InteralHed  Commission  for  Upper  Silesia. 

Theoretically,  it  was  simple  enough.  Plot  on  the  map  the  localities 
which  have  given  a  German  majority,  denote  them  by  a  black  spot; 
plot  those  which  have  given  a  Polish  majority,  denote  them  by  a 
white  spot.  When  that  is  done,  draw  a  line  which  leaves  to  the  east 
(in  Poland)  all  the  white  spots,  and  to  the  west  (in  Germany)  all  the 
black  spots.  This  line  constitutes  'the  right  frontier'  according  to 
the  principle  adopted  (at  the  cost  of  disregarding  local  minorities). 
This  was  all  very  well  in  theory.  But  in  practice  the  intermingling  of 
dots  precluded  the  drawing  of  such  a  line.  Therefore  the  deciding 
authority  was  not  sufficiently  guided  by  its  initial  principle,  and  had 
to  adopt  some  supplementary  principle  such  as : 
jj  A.  Draw  the  line  so  that  no  white  spot  remains  in  Germany  (but 
then  a  quantity  of  black  spots  will  be  included  in  Poland). 

B.  Draw  the  hne  so  that  no  black  spot  goes  to  Poland  (but  then  a 
quantity  of  white  spots  will  remain  in  Germany). 

C.  Draw  some  line  which  leaves  some  white  spots  in  Germany 
and  some  black  spots  in  Poland. 

Obviously  sub-principles  A  and  B  both  gave  definite  instructions, 
which,  however,  just  as  obviously  favoured  respectively  Polish  and 
German  wishes.  Sub-principle  C  gave  no  determinate  answer,  the 
Hne  might  be  attracted  more  or  less  to  the  A  ox  B  lines.  In  the 
event,  the  line  drawn,  on  the  basis  of  the  self-determination  prin- 
ciple, complemented  by  the  C  sub-principle  or  instruction,  was 
arbitrary.  It  was  arbitrary  by  definition,  that  is,  some  freedom  of 
decision  had  to  be  exercised  by  the  authority;  maybe  it  was  also 
arbitrary  in  the  narrower  and  unfavourable  sense  of  the  word,  in 
the  sense  that  it  was  partial.  If  we  would  speak  a  precise  language 
in   Politics,  we   should   presumably   reserve  the  qualification  of 


k 


209  J  P  T 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS 

'arbitrary',  without  any  value-connotation,  to  a  decision  which  is  not 
dictated  by  principles,  and  political  decisions  all  partake  of  this 
character  to  some  (usually  very  limited)  degree,  and  we  should  say, 
for  instance,  in  this  case  that  within  the  bounds  of  its  arbitrariness 
the  decision  is  more  or  less  partial.  But  whatever  the  language, 
which  is  far  from  unimportant,  here  are  the  facts  to  be  considered. 
In  the  event,  there  was  some  partiality  to  Poland.  But  no  matter 
what  the  partition  of  Upper  Silesia  might  have  been,  in  any  case,  it 
would  not  have  been  accepted  either  by  Germans  or  Poles  as  a 
solution  of  a  problem  is  accepted.  It  will  be  remembered  that  when 
Hitler  had  come  to  power  there  occurred  an  agitation  among  the 
German  minority  of  Polish  Upper  Silesia,  and  that  Hitler  in  1939 
set  the  boundary  very  far  to  the  east,  while  in  1944  Stalin  pushed 
it  very  far  back  to  the  west. 

This  highly  schematized  historical  instance  displays  the  character 
of  a  poHtical  settlement.  Whatever  the  principle  invoked,  there 
cannot  fail  to  be  some  arbitrariness  in  its  application.  It  is  not 
inevitable  that  all  concerned  should  accept  the  principle  invoked, 
and  the  inevitability  of  some  arbitrariness  in  its  application  will 
always  serve  those  offended  by  the  settlement  to  represent  that  the 
invocation  of  the  principle  is  a  lie. 

Mankind  has  been  wonderfully  served  by  the  instinct  implanted  in 
us  to  do  things  with  the  least  possible  effort.  In  the  intellectual 
realm  this  leads  us  to  seek  general  principles  by  means  of  which  we 
can  decide  particular  cases.  However,  we  are  prone  to  delude  our- 
selves about  the  clarity  with  which  principles  speak  in  particular 
cases.  Take  the  principle  of  self-determination.  In  its  light  it  is 
immediately  obvious  that  the  Thirteen  Colonies  were  entitled  to 
their  independence  from  England;  but  in  its  light,  it  is  far  from 
clear  that  the  Eleven  Southern  States  were  not  entitled  to  secession. 
According  to  circumstances  we  shift  from  invoking  one  principle  to 
invoking  another,  nor  is  this  shifting  the  manifestation  of  hypocrisy: 
Eduard  Benes  was  a  man  of  the  highest  moral  character,  he  invoked 
self-determination  to  obtain  the  setting  up  of  Czechoslovakia;  he  did 
not  like  it  when  Sudeten  and  Slovakian  leaders  invoked  it  to  obtain 
their  independence  from  Prague.^ 

^  Neither  did  I  like  it,  and  I  remain  convinced  that  The  Times  article  which  pleaded 
that  after  all  the  Sudeten  were  entitled  to  self-determination,  was,  before  Munich  which 
it  prepared,  an  important  factor  in  setting  off  the  disastrous  course  of  events. 

210 


THE  MYTH  OF  THE  SOLUTION 

Finding  that  such  men  as  Lincoln  and  Benes  were  unwilling  to 
apply  the  principle  of  self-determination  should  give  us  pause 
before  we  proclaim  the  absolute  value  of  any  principle  taken  by 
itself  independently  of  circumstances.  Or  it  should,  at  least,  cause 
us  to  wonder  whether  there  are  many,  or  perhaps  any,  political 
principles  which  honest  men  are  at  all  times,  in  all  circumstances, 
ready  to  abide  by.  And  if  it  is  so,  then  obviously  when  it  comes  to 
settling  a  political  problem  by  resort  to  principles,  there  may  be  a 
question  as  to  what  principle  or  principles  should  be  apphed  in  the 
event.  If  so,  this  removes  the  political  problem  one  step  further. 
Suppose  that  a  poHtical  problem  arises  because  of  disagreement  as  to 
what  the  factual  decision  should  be ;  suppose,  however,  that  there  is  a 
vague  agreement  that  the  decision  should  be  taken  on  the  basis  of 
principle.  Then  a  secondary  problem  arises:  there  is  disagreement 
about  the  principle  to  be  applied.  Suppose  further  that  there  is  a 
vague  agreement  that  a  procedure  should  be  adopted  to  select  the 
relevant  principle.  Then  a  tertiary  problem  arises :  there  is  disagree- 
ment about  this  procedure  of  selection.  We  could  go  on  like  this,  but 
it  would  be  an  idle  exercise,  because  in  fact  what  is  apt  to  guide  men 
in  their  choice  of  a  procedure  to  select  the  relevant  principle,  and  in 
their  preference  for  the  appHcation  of  a  given  principle  here  and 
now,  is  simply  the  bearing  it  will  have  on  the  factual  decision  which 
is  of  immediate  interest  to  them.  From  World  War  I  to  the  fall  of 
the  Fourth  Republic,  France  has  many  times  changed  the  voting 
system  for  the  election  of  deputies.  It  is  pretty  hard  to  follow  the 
logic  of  the  arguments  offered  for  different  systems:  it  becomes 
easier  to  understand  them  if  one  keeps  in  mind  that  the  arguments 
were  subordinated  to  specific  ends,  that  is,  to  obtain  or  avoid  a 
certain  composition  of  the  Chambre  des  Deputes  or  Assemblee 
Nationale. 

Obviously  I  have  not  here  moved  forward  from  the  last  chapter, 
which  is  properly  the  final  one.  I  have  instead  gone  back  to  empha- 
size and  elucidate  the  statement  made  in  the  body  of  my  exposition, 
that  political  problems  give  rise  to  settlements,  not  solutions.^ 
Other  statements  no  doubt  call  for  similar  elaboration;  why  then 
single  out  this  one? 

It  is  because  the  myth  of  the  solution  dulls  our  understanding  of 
Politics,  which  is  quickened  by  the  recognition  that  we  come  only  to 
1  Cf.  p.  189. 

211  142 


THE  PURE  THEORY  OF  POLITICS 

settlements,  which  are  inherently  precarious.  A  solution  makes  no 
enemies  and  requires  no  defenders :  it  is  otherwise  in  the  case  of  a 
settlement.  Its  permanence  cannot  be  taken  for  granted;  its  chances 
of  enduring  depend  upon  its  fostering  forces  which  will  work  to 
uphold  it.i 

A  specific  settlement  may  contribute  to  the  strengthening  or 
weakening  of  the  public  order  wherein  it  occurs;  this  order  or 
'  settled  state '  is  itself  not  incapable  of  unsettlement,  a  thought  which 
should  haunt  us,  to  make  us  more  effective  guardians  of  civility. 

That  this  is  no  easy  task,  an  image  attests :  the  head  and  hands  of 
the  great  guardian  Cicero,  nailed  to  the  rostrum. 

^  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  which  require  that  political  decisions  be  taken  in  a 
forward-looking  spirit,  as  stressed  in  part  v,  chs.  i  and  2. 


212 


CONCLUSION 

This  book  preaches  no  doctrine,  advances  no  recommendations.  Its 
purpose  was  to  pick  out  certain  elementary  and  pervading  traits  of 
Politics.  Nothing  was  further  from  my  mind  than  to  paint  on  a 
large  canvas  a  complete  picture  of  Politics :  I  doubt  whether  this  is 
feasible;  I  am  sure  that,  were  it  successfully  accomphshed,  the 
picture  would  represent  PoHtics  at  a  given  place  and  moment.  One 
would  have  to  take  a  microscope  to  discern  on  this  large  canvas 
certain  traits  and  articulations  also  to  be  found  in  pictures  represent- 
ing Politics  at  different  times  or  places.  This  is  what  I  have  wanted 
to  do.  Thus  whatever  criticisms  the  present  attempt  deserves,  it 
would,  I  feel,  be  unwarranted  to  hold  against  it  that  much  has  been 
left  out :  this  would  be  a  misunderstanding  of  the  intention,  which 
impHed  concentration  on  certain  simple  and  ubiquitous  aspects.  As 
it  seemed  possible  to  reduce  Movement  to  elementary  forms,  these 
were  taken  as  a  starting-point,  in  preference  to  Order,  which  is 
always  complex,  never  quite  the  same,  and  therefore  does  not  lend 
itself  to  analysis  into  unambiguous  components.  It  is  my  hope  that, 
after  discussion,  the  simple  concepts  which  have  been  hammered  out 
here  will  prove  useful  in  the  statement  of  the  far  more  complex 
situations  obtaining  in  the  real  world. 


213 


INDEX 


Abrams,  M.,  122  n.  3 

Abyssinia,  154 

actions 

ut  and  quia,  7-8;  military,  148-9,  152; 
extreme,  195-7 ;  see  also  '  actor ' ;  insti- 
gation; intention;  political  activity 

'actor',  political,  27 
as  instigator,  10,  71;  as  operator,  10; 
as '  entrepreneur ',  10 ;  defined,  34  n.  2 ; 
political,  121 

advisers,  in  decision-making,  90-1, 157-61 

affections,  exploitation  of,  53 

agitation,  political,  70 
see  also  instigation;  intention;  nuisance 
policies;  'team' 

Aitchison,  J.,  121  n.  i 

Alcibiades,  15-17,  112,  115  n. 

Alcibiades,  see  Plato,  Pseudo-Alcibiades 

Algeria,  202 

'Algerian  problem',  206 

algorithm,  189,  199 

Allais,  M.,  33  n.  2 

America,  see  United  States 

y4-motivation,  74-7,  80,  99-100,  109 
defined,     75;     see     also     'authorship 
factor' 

anarchy,  109 

appraiser,  role  of  instigations,  89-90 

appreciation,  subjective  and  objective,  117 

argument,  114 

Aristotie,  3,  199 

Assembly,  Athenian,  18,  19,  21-2,  25,  120 

Assembly,  French,  194-5,  211 

Athens 
and  expedition  to  Syracuse,  4-5, 15,  17, 
19-21,  26-8,  112,  115  n.;  and  Sparta, 
15-16,  18;  law  of  citizenship,  40  n.  2 

attention,  169-75 
defined,  169;  transferability  of,  171 

Authority  (formal),  124,  131 
seats  of,  3-4;  as  protector,  50;  public, 
79,  176;  defined,  100-2,  125;  and 
instigation,  loi;  and  character,  102, 
106;  and  change,  102,  127,  143-4; 
quasi-,  103;  and  trade  unions,  103-4; 
and  entrepreneurship,  105-6;  duties 
of,  106;  and  elections,  107-8;  need 
for,   109-14,    136,   137,    143,    173; 


succession  to,  1 18-19;  and  political 
aspiration,  121;  challenge  to,  123-4, 
127,  178-86  {see  also  revolution; 
sedition;  'team');  ultra  vires,  124; 
timidity  of,  127,  148;  agents  of, 
131-2,  144-5,  189;  decisions  of, 
146-80;  in  settiement  of  problems, 
208;  and  justice,  211-12;  see  also 
government;  potestas 

authority  (informal),  109 

necessity  for  accepting,  93;  and  avoid- 
ance of  decision-making,  92,  94-5; 
defined,  100-2,  125;  subsisting,  103; 
emergent,  103-4,  i07i  ^^^  elections, 
107-8 ;  preferred  to  Authority,  123-4; 
'natural',  124;  see  also  potentia 

'authorship  factor' 
in  decision-making,  91-3;  see  also  A- 
motivation 

Bacon,  Francis,  31-2 

Balzac,  H.  de,  57  n.  2,  62 

Barker,  Sir  Ernest,  58  n.  2 

Bayle,  P.,  94  n.  i 

Benes,  E.,  210-11 

Bergdama,  134,  137 

Berlin,  202 

Bernard,  C,  39  n.  4 

Boas,  G.,  52  n.  2 

Bolingbroke,  Henry  St  J.,  Viscount,  on 

political  action,  9 
bonzes  ('group  notables'),  122 
Brecht,  A.,  30  n.  i 
Brillouin,  L.,  63  n.  3 
Brown,  J.  A.  C,  121  n.  i 
Buber,  M.,  65  n.  2 
Burke,  E.,  194-5,  201  n.  4 

on  'pure  ^-motivation',  89 
Burma,  136 
Bushmen,  134,  137 
Butler,  D.,  119  n. 

Caesar,  Julius,  125,  128 
Calvin,  J.,  86 
canonization,  148 
Catiline,  127 
charitable  appeals,  loi 
Charles  I,  142 


215 


k 


INDEX 


Charles  Edward,  Prince,  83 

Charmides,  17 

Chaseling,  W.,  135  n.  i 

checking,    on   statements    of   authority, 

92-3 
chieftainship,  in  primitive  society,  136-7 
China,  199  n.  3 
choice,  see  decision-making 
choosers,  in  democracy,  13 1-6,  146 

see  also  decision-making 
Christianity,  93-4 

Roman  CathoHc  Church,  148 
Churchill,  Sir  Winston  S.,  123 
Cicero,  127,  192  n.  i 

use  ofpotestas  and  potentia,  125;  life  of, 
127-8 
clan,  102 

class,  in  politics,  192-3 
Clodius  Pulcher,  127-8 
coherence,  see  unity 
'college',  deciding,  loi 

see  also  committee;  'team' 
command,  1 12-17,  123,  131 

and  free  instigation,  116;  choice  of,  132; 
see  also  Authority 
committee  (small  'set'),  135,  146-65,  172, 
176-86 

of  All  (Rousseau),  133;  partiality  in, 
161 ;  see  also  decision-making;  'team' 
compliance 

natural,  with  authority,  49;  imposed, 
56-7,  71;  civil  obedience,  70;  and 
Authority,  100,  104;  see  also  com- 
mand; man 
compromise,  see  settlement 
concepts,  as  keys,  ix 
Condorcet,  Marquis  de,  147-8  n. 
configuration,  3-6,  11 

defined,  3;  changing  nature  of,  10;  see 
also  political  situations 
conscience,  individual,  115,  196 
conservative  exclusion,  law  of,  109-17 

defiined,  111-12 
Constant,  B.,  195 
constituency,  parliamentary,  119 
contract,  58-9 

see  also  society 
Corinth,  118 
Cortes,  A.,  127 
Coward,  N.,  139-42 
Cree,  137 
Critias,  17 
Czechoslovakia,  155,  202,  210 


Dahl,  R.  A.,  34  n.  2,  182  n.  i 

Davis,  M.,  189  n. 

Davy,  G.,  45  n.  2 

debate,  20,  114,  151 

decision 

concurrence  in,  126-7,  138,  140-1; 
unanimous,  132-5,  147;  majority, 
132-3;  kinds  of  (judicial,  tutiorist, 
military,  executive),  146-50;  judicial, 
150-2,  161-2;  resistance  to,  162; 
arbitrary,  209-10;  see  also  decision- 
making 

decision-making,  86-95,  loi,  139-45 
and  multiple  choice,  87;  avoidance  of, 
88,  94-5;  and  character,  88;  types  of, 
89-93,  150;  by  committee,  114,  146- 
64, 1 76  {see  also  committee ; '  college ') ; 
by  political  body,  120,  152-3,  157- 
64;  by  One,  145,  146;  and  time,  150, 
151;  political  and  judicial,  1 50-6, 161; 
military,  152-3;  partiality  in,  161, 
209-10;  voting,  163-4;  pressure  used 
to  afiect,  176-80;  see  also  decision; 
problems 

defeat,  parliamentary,  19 1-2 

'deficit  problem',  157-9 

democracy,  107,  119,  163 
in  Athens,  120;  Perfect,  131;  among 
Navahos,  133-4;  ^^^  ^^^0  elections 

design,  in  political  operations,  8,  13 

despotism,  176 

disarmament,  200,  202-3 

'doctor',  political,  27 
defined,  34  n.  2 

Domat,  J.,  58  n.  I 

Dostoevsky,  F.  M.,  62,  198  n.  i 

Dreiser,  J.,  American  Tragedy,  196 

Dubos,  R.,  38  n.  2,  39  n.  2 

dynamics,  poKtical,  6,  8,  173-4 
see  also  entrepreneurship ;  instigation; 
intention;  political  activity 

Easton,  D.,  50  n.  i 
economics,  33,  39,  73 

and  'ethical  neutrality',  34 
education,  43-6,  59-61 
efficiency,  ex  ante,  99 ;  ex  post,  99 
egards,  les,  193  n.  4 

see  also  manners ;  political 
Ego,  see  man 
elections,  118-23,  141 

by-election,  119;  pre-selection  in,  119- 
20;  in  France,  211 


216 


INDEX 


energy,  169,  174 

EngeLs,  F.,  138  n.  2 

enterprise,  political,  105,  107,  173-4 

see  also  authority  (emergent);  instiga- 
tion; intention;  political  activity 
entrepreneurship,  political,  105 

see  also  instigation;  promoter 
environment,  human,  see  society 
esoteric  control,  122 
eventum,  10,  11 

see  also  eventus 
eventus,  distinguished  from  eventum,  6 
evidence,  147,  15 1-2 
expectation,  155-6,  177-8 

see  also  foreknowledge;  prediction 
experiment,   as  alternative  to  authority, 

92 
expert,  role  of,  in  decision-making,  89- 
92 

faction,  182-3 

Faguet,  E.,  196 

fear,  as  incentive  to  violence,  196,  202 

Fenelon,  F.  de  S.  de  la  M.,  9 

Finland,  154 

foreknowledge 

and  probability,  5,  13;  need  for,  63; 
see  also  prediction ;  surmising 
founders,  118,  182 
see  also  promoter 
France,   10  n.  i,  151,  154-5,   185,   193, 
200-2,  211 
Communism  in,  122;  Revolution,  193- 
5;    parliamentary    government    in, 

195 
freedom,  117,  176 

and  authority,  123-4 
Friedrich,  C.  J.,  92  n.  2 

Galen,  38  n.  3 

Galileo,  law  of,  52 

gambling,  political,  157-9 

gens,  see  clan 

Germany,  10  n.  i,  151,  154, 155,  192,  202, 

209-10 
Gide,  A.,  94 

Les  Caves  du  Vatican,  197 
Glotz,  G.,  120  n. 
God,  and  human  freedom,  93-4 
'good',  the,  25-6,  29,  187-8 
Gorgias,  22 
government,  71,  124 

realm  of  politics,  106;  dependent  on 


agents,  144, 145 ;  oppressive,  145 ;  and 
opinion,  163;  overthrow  of,  185,  191; 
professional,  189;  manners  in,  190, 
i93~55  ^^^  ^^^0  Authority;  democracy 

Gracchus,  Tiberius,  185 

Great  Britain,  1 18-19,  123,  154-5,  i93 
violent  history  of,  184-5;  parliamentary 
government  in,  190-1,  193 

guilds,  political,  122-3 

Haller,  A.  von,  39 
Harvey,  W.,  39 
Heisenberg,  W.,  92 
Hess,  R.  D.,  50  n.  i 
Hidatsa,  137 
Hill  of  Command,  121-2 
'hill-dwellers',  see  'insiders' 
Hitler,  83,  128,  154,  190,  210 
'//-motivation',  76,  89 

defined,  88 ;  and  advice  of  third  party, 
90-2 ;  and  authority,  92-3 
Hobbes, T., 29, 32n.  3,  35, 80, 138, 173, 212 

and     foundation     of    commonwealth, 
103-4 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  40 
House  of  Commons,  119,  120,  123 
Hume,  T.,  144 

on  factions,  182-3 

ideologies,  ix 

idiotism,  127 

immiseration,  absolute,  122  n.  2 

India,  199  n.  4 

influence,  see  instigation 

inheritance,  118 

'insiders',  in  politics,  119-20,  128,  136-7 
as  arbiters,  122;  and  esoteric  control, 
122;  see  also  bonzes 

instigation,  10,  13,  22-3,  27-8,  47,  69-82, 
85-95,  109,  135 
efficient,  69, 72 ;  inefficient,  69;  good,  71, 
78,  86;  bad,  71,  86;  factors  in,  74-81 ; 
and  prediction,  78;  conflicting,  85,  87, 
iii;  value  of,  107-8;  and  Authority, 
no;  competing,  111-13,  114,  115; 
and  command,  11 3-1 6;  warlike, 
182-6;  see  also  'actor';  conservative 
exclusion;  entrepreneurship;  inten- 
tion; nuisance  poHcies;  'team' 

intention,  169-75 
defined,  169;  bad,  170;  incompatibility 
in,  171-3;  of  team,  176-80 

'interloping',  115 


217 


NDEX 


international  community,  202 
issuists,  163-5 

defined,  164 
Italy 

and  Abyssinia,  154;  Italian  Republics, 
183 

Jhering,  6 

'Johnists',  111-12 

Jouvenel,  B.  de,  120  n.  2, 146  n.,  188  n.  2, 

202  n.  2 
judge,  in  civil  tribunal,  211-12 
judgement,  see  judge;  jury 
jurists,  and  Authority,  100 
jury,  146-8,  150,  152 
justice,  151,  211-12 
expeditive,  148 

Kafka,  F.,  62 

Kellogg  Pact,  154 

Kellogg,  W.  N.  and  L.  A.,  46  n.  i 

Kluckhon,  C,  134  n.  i 

knowledge 
understanding,  31;  discovery,  31;  and 
metaphysical   convictions,    32;   and 
power,  32;  see  also  foreknowledge 

Korea,  151 

Kristol,  I.,  34  n.  4 

Krzywicki,  L.,  44  n.  5,    134  n.  2,    143 
n.  I 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  195 

Lameire,  I.,  202  n.  i 

law,  37,  79,  211-12 

origins  of,  51;  descriptive  and  pre- 
scriptive, 51;  and  authority,  108; 
criminal,  147-8,  151;  see  also  con- 
servative exclusion 

Leach,  E.  R.,  136  n.  2,  137  n.  i 

League  of  Nations,  153 

Leibniz,  G.  W.,  33,  47 

Leighton,  D.,  134  n.  i 

Lenin,  V.  I.,  197  n.  3 

Le  Roy,  6.,  47  n.  i 

Lewis,  C.  S.,  56 

liberty,  see  freedom 

Lincoln,  A.,  President,  211 

Lloyd  George,  David,  193 

loans,  and  decision-making,  89-90 

Locke,  J.,    on    potestas    and    potentia, 
125 

Louis  XIV,  201-2 

Louis  XVI,  142 


Lovejoy,  A.  O.,  52  n.  2 
Lowie,  R.  H.,  137  n.  2 
loyalty,  80,  132 
Luther,  M.,  86,  90-1 

MachiaveUi,  N.,  138,  182  n.  2 

McKenzie,  R.  T.,  119  n.,  121  n.  2 

Madison,  J.,  President,  199 
on  factions,  182  n.  i 

majority,  140,  163-4 
not  known  in  primitive  society,  135-6; 
in  law,  147-8  n. 

majesty,  113,  162 

Makarios  III,  Archbishop,  103  n. 

Malebranche-Maupertuis  principle,  32 

Mahaux,  A.,  198  n.  i 

man 

need  for  fostering  group,  43-5,  48-9, 
51;  receptivity  to  teaching,  45-6; 
freedom,  47;  susceptibility  to  insti- 
gation, 47,  53,  56,  85,  86;  as  planner, 
47;  conforming  to  'otherdom',  55- 
66,  73 ;  need  for  stable  environment, 
63;  and  friendship,  65-6;  need  to 
persuade  others,  85;  freedom  and 
consistency,  88;  personal  choice, 
93-4;  energy,  169;  attention  and 
intention,  169-75;  ^dee  fixe,  180; 
welcoming  solutions,  204;  see  also 
authority;  compliance;  conscience; 
decision-making;  society 

manners,  political,  185,  190,  193 

Marius,  185 

Marmontel,  J.  F.,  194 

Marshall,  A.,  201  n.  3 

Marx,  K.,  138,  193,  198  n.  3 

Marxism,  122  n.  2 

medicine,  compared  to  poUtics,  38-40 

messianism,  political,  195-6 

Mill,  J.  S.,  33  n.  2 

MUo,  128 

minority,  163-4 
see  also  'team' 

model,  172 

representative  or  normative,  xi,  131 ;  of 
justice,  1  si;  see  also  State 

monarchy,  194,  202 
see  also  Authority;  majesty 

Montesquieu,  Baron  de,  on  authority  of 
the  People,  141-2 

moving,  of  others,  see  instigation 

Munich,  155,  210  n. 

Mussolini,  83,  154,  197  n.  3 


218 


INDEX 


Napoleon,  57,  77-8,  81 

National  Economic  Development  Council, 

145  n.  2 
Navaho,  133-4 
Necker,  J.,  36  n.  2,  i93 
Needham,  J.,  on  Chinese  civilization,  32  n.  2 
Nemours,  D.  de,  34  n.  5 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  32 
Ney,  M.,  Marshal,  81 
Nicias,  15,  18-19,  112,  115  n. 

Peace  of,  15,  18 
nuisance  pohcies,  178-80 

see  also  terrorism 

obedience,  see  compliance 
obhgations,  acceptance  of,  88,  104 
Octavius,  Caesar,  128,  185 
'Old  Guard',  122 

see  also  bonzes;  'insiders' 
Omnium,  Duke  of,  19 1-2 
opinion,  as  pressure,  163-5 
order 

theory  of,  32;  man's  expectation  of,  50 
'otherdom',  see  society 

'Palestinian  problem',  206 
Paracelsus,  30 
Pareto,  V.,  34  n.  i 
partiaUty,  161 
parties,  political,  119 

Communist,  in  France,  122;  Labour,  in 
Great  Britain,  122 ;  Nazi,  in  Germany, 
128 
Pascal,  B.,  81,  n.  I 
patriotism,  142-3,  177 
'Paidists',  111-12,  115,  1 16-17,  126-7 
Pawnee,  137 
peace,  180,  198-203 
People,  the,  137,  144,  145,  179,  182 

as   subjects   of  Authority,    131,    144; 
defined,  138 
Pericles,  15,  40  n.  2 
persuasion,  see  instigation;  response 
Plato,  199 

Alcibiades,  14-15,  16-17 
plebiscite,  209 
Poland,  208-10 
Polanyi,  M.,   31   n.  i,  92  nn.  i   and  3, 

93  n.  4 
political  activity,  xii,  no 

danger  of,  16,  23,  27,  29;  and  wisdom, 
16-17,  187-8;  and  political  philo- 
sophy,  17;  formalization  in,   34-5; 


I 


time  factor  in,  72-3;  'radical'  of, 
109-10;  see  also  entrepreneiu-ship ; 
instigation;  intention;  nuisance  po- 
hcies; 'team' 

poUtical  behaviour,  40 
strong  and  weak,  37 

poHtical  philosophy 

as  civilizer  of  power,  35;  and  moral 
prohibition,  35 

pohtical  science 

lack  of  basic  concepts,  x;  distinguished 
from  pohtical  theory,  xi,  30-1,  36; 
varieties  of,  xi;  lack  of  representa- 
tive theory  in,  31;  and  'ethical 
neutrality',  34;  dangers  inherent  in, 
37-8 

pohtical  situations,  ix,  13,  141-5 
instigation  and  response,  70-95,   109, 
176-86;  'siege',  106-7;  'interloping', 
115 

political  structure 

origin  of,  exemplified,  103;  develop- 
ment of,  143;  and  change,  175;  see 
also  committee;  democracy;  elec- 
tions; State;  'team' 

pohtics 

'pure',  defined,  x,  213;  ideals  and 
models  in,  xi;  enjoyment  of,  9,  26; 
complexity  of,  11;  men  as  material 
of,  30;  reconciliation  of  stability  and 
change,  51;  derived  from  idea  of 
family,  51-3;  and  affections,  53; 
preserving  traits  of  childhood,  54; 
obligations  in,  58;  realm  of,  106, 191- 
2 ;  and  law  of  conservative  exclusion, 
111-12;  'getting  into',  121  {see  also 
elections);  gambling  in,  157-9;  as 
conflict,  180, 189;  as  a  game,  189-92; 
problems  and  solutions  in,  203-12; 
see  also  Authority;  authority;  class; 
decision-making;  government;  mes- 
sianism;  prediction;  violence 

potentia  (effective  power),  136 

defined,  125-6;  and  freedom,  126; 
dangers  in,  127;  see  also  potestas; 
power 

potestas  (official  powers),  136 

defined,  125-6;  see  also  Authority; 
potentia;  power 

power,  172,  179 

as  abihty  to  generate  action,  20,  83, 125; 
civilization  of,  35;  abihty  to  act,  49; 
see  also  Authority;  potentia;  potestas 


219 


NDEX 


prediction,    in    politics,    12-13,    i50~6, 

157-9,  201 
necessity  for,  63;  uncertainty  of,  155, 

159,    175;   see   also   foreknowledge; 

surmising 
prejudice,  93-5 
President,  185 

'deficit  problem',  157-9 
pressure,  in  politics,  161-5,  176-80 
multiplication  of,  164-5;  see  also  insti- 
gation; intention;  nuisance  policies; 

'team' 
Prevot  (d'Exiles),  Abbe,  194 
'price  system',  see  society 
Prime  Minister,  123,  185,  191 
'  prime  movers ',  86 
principle,  as  settlement  of  problem,  208- 

12 
problems,  political,  189,  204-12 
proclamation,  see  command 
promoter  in  new  organization,  103-4 
propaganda,  176 
protection 

expected  and  exercised  by  man,  49-50; 

needed  in  unfavourable  environment, 

60;  see  also  society 
Prudence,  in  politics,  4 
Pseudo-Alcibiades,  i-j,  18-28 
Ptolemaeus,  30 
Pufendorf,  L.,  44 

Rabaut,  J.  P.,  200,  n.  i 

Racine,  J.,  Esther,  77 

Regulus,  80 

religion,  and  authority,  102-3 

rentier,  political,  105 

response,  117 

as  source  of  power,  83,  85;  varying 
probability  of,  87,  109;  factors 
affecting,  88-95,  I09>  economy  in, 
95;  see  also  compliance;  instigation; 
intention;  loyalty 

responsiveness,  patterns  of,  87 

revolution,  105-7 

'Glorious',  83;  French,  193-4,  200-1 

Re)Tiaud,  P.,  154  n.  2 

Rhineland,  151 

'rights',  and  environment,  60 

Riviere,  M.  de  la,  205  n.  i,  206 

Robespierre,  M.  de,  195  nn.  2  and  4 

Rome 

Republic,  142,  183;  violent  history  of, 
185,  192 


Rousseau,  J.  J.,  29  n.  i,  35,  52,  142,  143- 

4,  161  n.,  187,  194 
on  model  democracy,  xi,   133-5;  ^^ 

foundation  of  commonwealth,  103-4; 

on  primitive  society,  138 
Roux,  Marquis  de,  202  n.  i 
Russia,  154,  155 

Saint-Simon,  Comte  de,  198 

Schapera,  I.,  134  n.  3,  137  n.  3 

science,  31-2 

and  technology,  32;  study  of  and  study 
of  politics,  33,  37-8;  and  authority, 
92 

screening,  see  'insiders' 

sedition,  70,  76 

self-determination,  155,  209-11 

self-interest,  142,  177,  187 

'set'  (social  group),  111-13,  115,  138 
see  also  committee;  'team' 

settlement,   of  political   problems,    189, 
207-12 
precarious  nature  of,  212 

Shackle,  G.  L.  S.,  156  n. 

Shakespeare,  W.,  xii,  139-41,  142 

Coriolanus,  64-5;  Julius  Caesar,  75-6, 
79,  81,  99;  King  John,  83  n.  i; 
King  Lear,  104-5;  King  Richard  II, 
83-4;  King  Richard  III,  81,  125 
n.  2 

Shils,  Edward,  x  n.  i 

'siege',  106-7 

signals,  see  instigation 

Smith,  Adam,  34  n.  i 

society,  47,  48 

as  fostering  group,  45,  49,  52;  primi- 
tive, 52, 59-61, 133-6, 143; advanced, 
53,  59-60;  as  seen  by  newcomer 
('otherdom'),  55-66,  88,  121;  not  a 
contractual  association,  45,  48,  58-9; 
acclimatization  to,  55-6,  62-6;  'price- 
system'  in,  64-5;  revolt  against,  65; 
and  authorities,  102;  see  also  Autho- 
rity; committee;  law;  'set';  'team' 

Socrates,  14-17 

solution,  189,  204 
acceptance  of,  204-5 

Sorel,  G.,  180 
Reflexions  sur  la  Violence,  197 

'sound  and  fury',  195 
see  also  violence 

Sparta,  40 

speculation,  see  surmising 


220 


NDEX 


Stael  (-Holstein),  A.  L.  G.  N.,  Baronne 

de,  36-7 
Stalin,  P.,  122,  210 
State,  144,  145 

ideal,  xi,  133-5,  172 
statements,  factual  and  ethical,  92-3 
statesman,  172,  173,  182,  212 
statues,  symbolizing  Authority,  118 
Stendhal  (M.  H.  Beyle),  Le  Rouge  et  le 

Noir,  196-7 
Stone- Age  society,  135 
Strauss,  L.,  34  n.  4 
subjects  (of  Authority),  131-4,  135 
succession,  to  Authorit}',  1 17-18 
Sudetenland,  155 
SuUa,  65,  185 
surmising,  8,  15 1-2 

necessity  for,  5 ;  basis  of,  6 
Syracuse,  see  Athens 

Tacitus,  186  n. 

Talmon,  J.  L.,  195  n.  6 

Tasmania,  142-3 

taxation,  132,  144,  193 

'team'  (pressure-group),  176-85 

see  also  'set' 
technology,  32 
terrorism,  179-80 

see  also  nuisance  policies 
theology,  94 
Thirty  Tyrants,  the,  17 
Thompson,  D'A.  W.,  52  n. 
Thomson,  Sir  George,  46  n.  i 
Thucydides,  xii,  17,  115  n. 
tolerance,  117 
trade  unions,  103-4,  ^45 

teamsters'  union,  124 
Trollope,  A.,  191-2 
Truman,  H.  S.,  President,  151 


tutiorism,  147-8 
'Twelve  Tables' 


51 


United  States  of  America,  152  n.  2,  162, 

176,  199  n.  3,  210 
labour  movement  in,  117;  Presidency, 

119-20 
U.S.S.R.,  see  Russia 
unity,  within  'set',  116,  117,  126,  143 
Upper  Silesia,  208-10 

Valois,  G.,  83 

violence,  179-86,  192,  195-203 

admiration  of,  195-7;  versus  improved 
organization,  198;  see  also  revolu- 
tion; terrorism 

Voltaire,  F.  M.  A.  de,  33 

Walter,  L.  G.,  192  n.  2 
war,  180,  198 

types  of,  180-1;  ethos  of,  199;  see  also 
violence 
'warden',  17 1-5 

defined,  171  n.  2 
Weber,  M.,  on  political  guilds,  123 
Weil,  E.,  30  n.  i 
Weimar  Republic,  128,  183,  190 
William  I,  127 
WiUiam  III,  83 
Wilson,  T.  W.,  President,  209 
Winnebago,  137 
Wolsey,  T.,  Cardinal,  191 
Woolf,  L.,  190 
words,  169 

in  persuasion,  99;  and  authority,  loi 

Xenophon,  49 
Memorabilia,  15 


3^0 


The  pure  theory  of  politics,  main 
320J86pC.2 


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