Chapter XIII: Part III: Group Organization Democracy’s Method (3)

Of course one would always prefer this to be a movement from below up rather than from above down, but it is not impossible for the two movements to go on at the same time, as they are in fact doing now with the rapid development of spontaneous local organization. There were Community Councils in existence in fact if not in name before the recommendation of the Council of National Defense.[94]

Through these non-partisan councils not only national policy can be explained and spread throughout the country, but also what one locality thinks out that is good can be reported to Washington and thus handed on to other sections of the country. It is a plan for sending the news backwards and forwards from individual to nation, from nation to individual, and it is also a plan for correlating the problems of the local community with the problems of the nation and of coöperating nations.

But why should we be more efficiently organized for war than for peace? Is our proverbial carelessness to be pricked into effectiveness only by emergency calls? Is the only motive you can offer us for efficiency—to win? Or, if that is an instinctive desire, can we not change the goal and be as eager to win other things as war?

* * * * *

I speak of the new state as resting upon integrated neighborhood groups.[95] While the changes necessary to bring this about would have to be planned and authorized by constitutional conventions, its psychological basis would be: (1) the fact that we are ready for membership in a larger group only by experience first in the smaller group, and (2) the natural tendency for a real group to seek other groups. Let us look at this second point.

We have seen the process of the single group evolving. But contemporaneously a thousand other unities are a-making. Every group once become conscious of itself instinctively seeks other groups with which to unite to form a larger whole. Alone it cannot be effective. As individual progress depends upon the degree of interpenetration, so group progress depends upon the interpenetration of group and group. For convenience I speak of each group as a whole, but from a philosophical point of view there is no whole, only an infinite striving for wholeness, only the _principle_ of wholeness forever leading us on.

This is the social law: the law which connects neighborhood with neighborhood. The reason we want neighborhood organization is not to keep people within their neighborhoods but to get them out. The movement for neighborhood organization is a deliberate effort to get people to identify themselves actually, not sentimentally, with a larger and larger collective unit than the neighborhood. We may be able through our neighborhood group to learn the social process, to learn to evolve the social will, but the question before us is whether we have enough political genius to apply this method to city organization, national organization, and international organization. City must join with city, state with state, actually, not through party. Finally nation must join with nation.

The recommendation of the Council of National Defense which has been mentioned above would repay careful reading for the indications which one finds in it of the double purpose of neighborhood organization. It is definitely stated that the importance of the Community Council is in: (1) initiating work to meet its own war needs; and (2) in making all its local resources available for the nation. And again it is stated that: (1) in a democracy local emergencies can best be met by local action; and (2) that each local district should feel the duty of bearing its full share of the national burden.

Thus our national government clearly sees and specifically states that neighborhood organization is both for the neighborhood and for the nation: that it looks in, it looks out. Thus that which we are coming to understand as the true social process receives practical recognition in government policy.

I have said that neighborhood must join with neighborhood to form the state. This joining of neighborhood and neighborhood can be done neither directly nor imaginatively. It cannot be done directly: representation is necessary not only because the numbers would be too great for all neighborhoods to meet together, but because even if it were physically possible we should have created a crowd not a society. Theoretically when you have large numbers you get a big, composite consciousness made up of infinite kinds of fitting together of infinite kinds of individuals, but practically this varied and multiplied fitting together is not possible beyond a certain number. There must be representatives from the smallest units to the larger and larger, up to the federal state.

Secondly, neighborhoods cannot join with neighborhoods through the imagination alone. Various people have asserted that now we have large cities and solidarity cannot come by actual acquaintance, it must be got by appropriate appeals to the imagination, by having, for instance, courses of lectures to tell one part of a city about another part. But this alone will never be successful. Real solidarity will never be accomplished except by beginning somewhere the joining of one small group with another. We are told too that the uneducated man cannot think beyond his particular section of the universe. We can teach him to think beyond his particular section of the universe by actually making him participate in other sections through connecting his section with others. We are capable of being faithful to large groups as well as small, to complex groups as well as simple, to our city, to our nation, but this can be effected only by a certain process, and that process, while it may begin by a stimulation of the imagination, must, if it is going to bring forth results in real life, be a matter of actual experience. Only by actual union, not by appeals to the imagination, can the various and varied neighborhood groups be made the constituents of a sound, normal, unpartisan city life. Then being a member of a neighborhood group will mean at the same time being a member and a responsible member of the state.

I have spoken of the psychological tendency for group to seek group. Moreover, it is not possible to isolate yourself in your local group because few local needs can be met without joining with other localities, which have these same needs, in order to secure city or state action. We cannot get municipal regulation for the dance-hall in our neighborhood without joining with other neighborhoods which want the same thing and securing municipal regulation for all city dance-halls. If we want better housing laws, grants for industrial education, we join with other groups who want these things and become the state. And even if some need seems purely local, the method of satisfying it ought not to be for the South End to pull as hard as it can for a new ward building, say, while the North End is also pulling as hard as it can for a new ward building, and the winner of such tug-of-war to get the appropriation. If the South End wants a new ward building it should understand how much money is available for ward buildings, and if only enough for one this year, consider where it is most needed. Probably, whatever the evidence, it will be decided that it is most needed in the South End, but a step will be taken towards a different kind of decision in the future.

And we join not only to secure city and state but also federal action. If we want a river or harbor appropriation, we go to Congress. And if such demands are supplied at present on the log-rolling basis, we can only hope that this will not always be so. When group organization has vitalized our whole political life, there may then be some chance that log-rolling will be repudiated.

And we do not stop even at Washington. Immigration is a national and international problem, but the immigrant may live next door to you, and thus the immigration question becomes one of nearest concern. This intricate interweaving of our life allows no man to live to himself or to his neighborhood.

Then when neighborhood joins with neighborhood all the lessons learned in the simple group must be practised in the complex one. As the group lesson includes not only my responsibility _to_ my group but my responsibility _for_ my group, so I learn not only my duty to my neighborhood but that I am responsible for my neighborhood. Also it is seen that as the individuals of a group are interdependent, so the various groups are interdependent, and the problem is to understand just in what way they are interdependent and how they can be adjusted to one another. The process of the joining of several groups into a larger whole is exactly the same as the joining of individuals to form a group—a reciprocal interaction and correlation.

The usual notion is that our neighborhood association is to evolve an idea, a plan, and then when we go to represent it at a meeting of neighborhood associations from different parts of the city that we are to try to push through the plan of action decided on by our own local group. If we do not do this, we are not supposed to be loyal. But we are certainly to do nothing of the kind. We are to try to evolve the collective idea which shall represent the new group, that is, the various neighborhood associations all acting together. We are told that we must not sacrifice the interests of the particular group we represent. No, but also we must not try to make its interests prevail against those of others. Its real interests are the interests of the whole.

And then when we have learned to be truly citizens of Boston, we must discover how Boston and other cities, how cities and the rural communities can join. And so on and so on. At last the “real” state appears. We are pragmatists because we do not want to unite with the state imaginatively, we want to be the state; we want to actualize and feel our way every moment, let every group open the way for a larger group, let every circumference become the centre of a new circumference. My neighborhood group opens the path to the State.

But neighborhoods coöperating actively with the city government is not to-day a dream. Marcus M. Marks, President of the Borough of Manhattan, New York City, in 1914 divided Manhattan into sixteen neighborhoods, and appointed for each a neighborhood commission composed of business men, professional men, mechanics, clerks etc.—a thoroughly representative body chosen irrespective of party lines. Mr. Marks’ avowed object was to obtain a knowledge of the needs of his constituents, to form connecting links between neighborhoods and the city government. And these bodies need not exist dormant until their advice is asked. Sections 1 and 2 of the Rules and Regulations read:

“1. The Commissions shall recommend, or suggest, to the Borough
President, for his consideration and advice, matters which, in
their opinion will be of benefit to their districts and to the
City.

“2. The Commissions shall receive from the Borough President
suggestions or recommendations for their consideration as to
matters affecting their districts, and report back their
conclusions with respect thereto.”

Moreover, beyond the recommendations of the Commission, the coöperation of the whole neighborhood is sought. “Whenever the commissions are in doubt as to the policy they desire to advocate and wish to further sound the sentiment of their localities, meetings similar to town-meetings are held, usually in the local schoolhouse.” The “neighborhoods” of Manhattan have coöperated with the city government in such matters as bus franchise, markets, location of tracks, floating baths, pavement construction, sewerage etc. One of the results of this plan, Mr. Marks tells us, is that many types of improvement which were formerly opposed, such as sewerage construction by the owners of abutting property, now receive the support of the citizens because there is opportunity for them to understand fully the needs of the situation and even to employ their own expert if they wish.

The chairmen of the twelve Neighborhood Commissions form a body called the Manhattan Commission. This meets to confer with the President on matters affecting the interests of the entire borough.[96]

This plan, while not yet ideal, particularly in so far as the commissions are appointed from above, is most interesting to all those who are looking towards neighborhood organization as the basis of the new state.

To summarize: neighborhood groups join with other neighborhood groups to form the city—then only shall we understand what it is to be the city; neighborhood groups join with other neighborhood groups to form the state—then only shall we understand what it is to be the state. We do not begin with a unified state which delegates authority; we begin with the neighborhood group and create the state ourselves. Thus is the state built up through the intimate intertwining of all.

But this is not a crude and external federalism. We have not transferred the unit of democracy from the individual to the group. It is the individual man who must feel himself the unit of city government, of state government: he has not delegated his responsibility to his neighborhood group; he has direct relation with larger wholes. I have no medieval idea of mediate articulation, of individuals forming groups and groups forming the nation. Mechanical federalism we have long outgrown. The members of the nation are to be individuals, not groups. The movement for neighborhood organization is from one point of view a movement to give the individual political effectiveness—it is an individualistic not a collectivistic movement, paradoxical as this may seem to superficial thinking. But, as the whole structure of government must rest on the individual, it must have its roots within that place where you can get nearest to him, and where his latent powers can best be freed and actualized—his local group.

What are we ultimately seeking through neighborhood organization? To find the individual. But let no one think that the movement for neighborhood organization is a new movement. Our neighborhood organization, we are often told, had its origin in the New England town-meeting. Yes, and far beyond that in the early institutions of our English ancestors. That our national life must be grounded in the daily, intimate life of all men is the teaching of the whole long stream of English history.

We have seen that the increasing activity of the state, its social policies and social legislation, demands the activity of every man. We have seen in considering direct government that the activity of every man is not enough if we mean merely his activity at the polling booths. With the inclusion of all men and women (practically accomplished) in the suffrage, with the rapidly increasing acceptance of direct government, the _extensive_ work of the democratic impulse has ended. Now the _intensive_ work of democracy must begin. The great historic task of the Anglo-Saxon people has been to find wise and reasoned forms for the expression of individual responsibility, has been so to bulwark the rights of the individual as to provide at the same time for the unity and stability of the state. They have done this externally by making the machinery of representative government. We want to-day to do it spiritually, to direct the spiritual currents in their flow and interflow so that we have not only the external interpenetration—choosing representatives etc.—but the deeper interpenetration which shows the minds and needs and wants of all men.

We can satisfy our wants only by a genuine union and communion of all, only in the friendly outpouring of heart to heart. We have come to the time when we see that the machinery of government can be useful to us only so far as it is a living thing: the souls of men are the stones of Heaven, the life of every man must contribute fundamentally to the growth of the state. So the world spirit seeks freedom and finds it in a more and more perfect union of true individuals. _The relation of neighbors one to another must be integrated into the substance of the state._ Politics must take democracy from its external expression of representation to the expression of that inner meaning hidden in the intermingling of all men. This is our part to-day—thus shall we take our place in the great task of our race. Our political life began in the small group, but it has taken us long to evolve our relation to a national life, and meanwhile much of the significance and richness of the local life has been lost. Back now to the local unit we must go with all that we have accumulated, to find in and through that our complete realization. Back we must go to this small primary unit if we would understand the meaning of democracy, if we would get the fruits of democracy. As Voltaire said, “The spirit of France is the candle of Europe,” so must the spirit of the neighborhood be the candle of the nation.

-----

Footnote 90:

This point will be taken up in ch. XXXIII.

Footnote 91:

Or perhaps the Senate might represent the occupational group (see ch.
XXXIII). Or perhaps the experts mentioned above might be
representatives from occupational groups.

Footnote 92:

In North Carolina the recently organized State Bureau of Community
Service—made up of the administrators of the Department of
Agriculture, the Board of Health, the Normal and Industrial College
and the Farmers’ Union, with the State Superintendent of Public
Instruction as its central executive—is making its immediate work the
development of local community organization which shall be directly
articulated with a unified state organization.

Footnote 93:

The Community Council, however, is not to duplicate other
organizations but first to coördinate all existing agencies before
planning new activities.

Footnote 94:

And spontaneously many towns and villages turned to the schoolhouse as
the natural centre of its war services.

Footnote 95:

For the moment I ignore the occupational group to be considered later.

Footnote 96:

I have taken this account from the official report. I have been told
by New York people that these commissions have shown few signs of
life. This does not, however, seem to me to detract from the value of
the plan as a suggestion, or as indication of what is seen to be
advisable if not yet wholly practicable. The New York charter provides
for Local Improvement Boards as connecting links with the central
government, but these I am told have shown no life whatever.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE OCCUPATIONAL GROUP

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XXVIII

POLITICAL PLURALISM

--------------

ALL that I have written has been based on the assumption of the unifying state. Moreover I have spoken of neighborhood organization as if it were possible to take it for granted that the neighborhood group is to be the basis of the new state. The truth of both these assumptions is denied by some of our most able thinkers.

The unified state is now discredited in many quarters. Syndicalists, guild socialists, some of the Liberals in England, some of the advocates of occupational representation in America, and a growing school of writers who might be called political pluralists are throwing the burden of much proof upon the state, and are proposing group organization as the next step in political method. To some the idea of the state is abhorrent. One writer says, “The last hundred years marked in all countries the beginning of the dissolution of the State and of the resurrection of corporate life [trade unions etc.].... In the face of this growth of syndicalism in every direction, ... it is no longer venturesome to assert that the State is dead.”

Others like to keep the word “state” but differ much as to the position it is to occupy in the new order: to some it seems to be merely a kind of mucilage to keep the various groups together; with others the state is to hold the ring while different groups fight out their differences. Still other thinkers, while seeing the open door to scepticism in regard to the state, are nevertheless not ready to pass through, but, preserving the instinct and the reverence for the unity of the state, propose as the most immediate object of our study how the unity can be brought about, what is to be the true and perfect bond of union between the multiple groups of our modern life. All these thinkers, differing widely as they do, yet may be roughly classed together as the upholders of a multiple group organization as the basis for a new state.

This movement is partly a reaction against an atomistic sovereignty, the so-called theory of “subjective” rights, a “senseless” geographical representation, a much berated parliamentary system, and partly the wish to give industrial workers a larger share in the control of industry and in government.

The opposition to “numerical representation” has been growing for some time. We were told thirty years ago by Le Prins that vocational representation is “the way out of the domination of the majority,” that the vocational group is the “natural” group “spontaneously generated in the womb of a nation.” Twenty-five years ago Benoist said that the state must recognize private associations: universities, chambers of commerce, professional associations, societies of agriculture, syndicates of workmen—“en un mot tout ce qui a corps et vie dans la nation.” If the state is to correspond to reality, it must recognize, Benoist insisted, all this group life, all these interests, within it. Moreover, he urged, with our present pulverized suffrage, with sovereignty divided among millions, we are in a state of anarchy; only group representation will save us from “la force stupide de nombre.” M. Léon Duguit has given us a so-called “objective” theory of law which means for many people a new conception of the state.

Many say that it is absurd for representation to be based on the mere chance of residence as is the case when the geographical district is the unit. The territorial principle is going, we are told, and that of similar occupational interests will take its place. Again some people are suggesting that both principles should be recognized in our government: that one house in Parliament represent geographical areas, the other occupations.[97] No one has yet, however, made any proposal of this kind definite enough to serve as a basis of discussion.

Syndicalism demands the abolition of the “state” while—through its organization of the syndicate of workers, the union of syndicates of the same town or region and the federation of these unions—it erects a system of its own controlled entirely by the workers. Syndicalism has gained many adherents lately because of the present reaction against socialism. People do not want the Servile State and, therefore, many think they do not want any state.

In England a new school is arising which is equally opposed to syndicalism and to the bureaucracy of state socialism. Or rather it takes half of each. Guild socialism believes in state ownership of the means of production, but that the control of each industry or “guild”—appointment of officers, hours and conditions of work etc.—should be vested in the membership of the industry. The syndicalists throw over the state entirely, the guild socialists believe in the “co-management” of the state. There are to be two sets of machinery side by side but quite distinct: that based on the occupational group will be concerned with economic considerations, the other with “political” considerations, the first culminating in a national Guild Congress, and the second in the State.[98]

“Guild Socialism,” edited by A. R. Orage, gives in some detail this systematic plan already familiar to readers of the _New Age_. A later book of the same school “Authority, Liberty and Function,” by Ramiro de Maeztu, concerns itself less with detail and more with the philosophical basis of the new order. The value of this book consists in its emphasis on the functional principle.[99]

Mr. Ernest Barker of Oxford, although he formulates no definite system, is a political pluralist.

John Neville Figgis makes an important contribution to pluralism,[100] and although he has a case to plead for the church, he is equally emphatic that all the local groups which really make our life should be fostered and given an increased authority.

In America vocational representation has many distinguished advocates, among them Professor Felix Adler and Professor H. A. Overstreet. Mr. Herbert Croly, who has given profound thought to the trend of democracy, advocates giving increased power and legal recognition to the powerful groups growing up within the state. Mr. Harold Laski is a pronounced political pluralist, especially in his emphasis on the advantage of multiple, varied and freely developing groups for the enrichment and enhancement of our whole life. Mr. Laski’s book, “Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty,” is one of the most thought-stimulating bits of modern political writing: it does away with the fetich of the abstract state—it is above all an attempt to look at things as they are rather than as we imagine them to be; it shows that states are not supreme by striking examples of organizations within the state claiming and winning the right to refuse obedience to the state; it sees the strength and the variety of our group life to-day as a significant fact for political method; it is a recognition, to an extent, of the group principle—it sees that sovereignty is not in people as a mass; it pleads for a revivification of local life, and finally it shows us, implicitly, not only that we need to-day a new state, but that the new state must be a great moral force.[101]

Perhaps the most interesting contribution of the pluralists is their clear showing that “a single unitary state with a single sovereignty” is not true to the facts of life to-day. Mr. Barker says, “Every state is something of a federal society and contains different national groups, different churches, different economic organizations, each exercising its measure of control over its members.” The following instances are cited to show the present tendency of different groups to claim autonomy:

1. Religious groups are claiming rights as groups. Many churchmen would like to establish the autonomy of the church. It is impossible to have undenominational instruction in the schools of England because of the claims of the church.

2. There is a political movement towards the recognition of national groups. The state in England is passing Home Rule Acts and Welsh Disestablishment Acts to meet the claims of national groups. “All Europe is convulsed with a struggle of which one object is a regrouping of men in ways which will fulfil national ideals.”

3. “The Trade-Unions claim to be free groups.” “Trade-unions have recovered from Parliament more than they have lost in the courts.”

Let us consider the arguments of the pluralist school, as they form the most interesting, the most suggestive and the most important theory of politics now before us. It seems to me that there are four weaknesses in the pluralist school[102] which must be corrected before we can take from them the torch to light us on our political way: (1) some of the pluralists ostensibly found their books on pragmatic philosophy and yet in their inability to reconcile the distributive and collective they do not accept the latest teachings of pragmatism, for pragmatism does not end with a distributive pluralism, (2) the movement is in part a reaction to a misunderstood Hegelianism, (3) many of the pluralists are professed followers of medieval doctrine, (4) their thinking is not based on a scientific study of the group, which weakens the force of their theories of “objective” rights and sovereignty, much as these latter are an advance on our old theories of “subjective” rights and a sovereignty based on an atomistic conception of society.

First, the underlying problem of pluralism and pragmatism is, as James proclaims, the relation of “collective” and “distributive.” The problem of to-day, we all agree, is the discovery of the kind of federalism which will make the parts live fully in the whole, the whole live fully in the parts. But this is the central problem of philosophy which has stirred the ages. The heart of James’ difficulty was just this: how can many consciousnesses be at the same time one consciousness? How can the same identical fact experience itself so diversely? How can you be the absolute and the individual? It is the old, old struggle which has enmeshed so many, which some of our philosophers have transcended by the deeper intuitions, sure that life is a continuous flow and not spasmodic appearance, disappearance and reappearance. James struggled long with this problem, but the outcome was sure. His spirit could not be bound by intellectualistic logic, the logic of identity. He was finally forced to adopt a higher form of rationality. He gave up conceptualistic logic “fairly, squarely and irrevocably,” and knew by deepest inner testimony that “states of consciousness can separate and combine themselves freely and keep their own identity unchanged while forming parts of simultaneous fields of experience of wider scope.” James always saw the strung-along universe, but he also saw the unifying principle which is working towards its goal. “That secret,” he tells us, “of a continuous life which the universe knows by heart and acts on every instant cannot be a contradiction incarnate.... Our intelligence must keep on speaking terms with the universe.”

When James found that the “all-form” and the “each-forms” are not incompatible, he found the secret of federalism. It is our task to work out in practical politics this speculative truth which the great philosophers have presented to us. The words absolute and individual veil it to us, but substitute state and individual and the problem comes down to the plane of our actual working everyday life. It may be interesting to read philosophy, but the thrilling thing for every man of us to do is to make it come true. We may be heartened by our sojourns on Sinai, but no man may live his life in the clouds. And what does pragmatism mean if not just this? We can only, as James told us again and again, understand the collective and distributive by living. Life is the true revealer: I can never understand the whole by reason, only when the heart-beat of the whole throbs through me as the pulse of my own being.

If we in our neighborhood group live James’ philosophy of the compounding of consciousness, if we obey the true doctrine, that each individual is not only himself but the state—for the fulness of life overflows—then will the perfect form of federalism appear and express itself, for then we have the spirit of federalism creating its own form. Political philosophers talk of the state, but there is no state until we make it. It is pure theory. We, every man and woman to-day, must create his small group first, and then, through its compounding with other groups, it ascends from stage to stage until the federal state appears. Thus do we understand by actual living how collective experiences can claim identity with their constituent parts, how “your experience and mine can be members of a world-experience.” In our neighborhood groups we claim identity with the whole collective will, at that point we are the collective will.

Unless multiple sovereignty can mean ascending rather than parallel groups it will leave out the deepest truth which philosophy has brought us. But surely the political pluralists who are open admirers of James will refuse with him to stay enmeshed in sterile intellectualism, in the narrow and emasculated logic of identity. Confessedly disciples of James, will they not carry their discipleship a step further? Have they not with James a wish for a world that does not fall into “discontinuous pieces,” for “a higher denomination than that distributed, strung-along and flowing sort of reality which we finite beings [now] swim in”? Their groups must be the state each at its separate point. When they see this truth clearly, then the leadership to which their insight entitles them will be theirs.

I have said that the political pluralists are fighting a misunderstood Hegelianism. Do they adopt the crudely popular conception of the Hegelian state as something “above and beyond” men, as a separate entity virtually independent of men? Such a conception is fundamentally wrong and wholly against the spirit of Hegel. As James found collective experience not independent of distributive experience, as he reconciled the two through the “compounding of consciousness,” so Hegel’s related parts received their meaning only in the conception of total relativity. The soul of Hegelianism is total relativity, but this is the essence of the compounding of consciousness. As for James the related parts and their relations appear simultaneously and with equal reality, so in Hegel’s total relativity: the members of the state in their right relation to one another appear in all the different degrees of reality together as one whole total relativity—never sundered, never warring against the true Self, the Whole.

But there is the real Hegel and the Hegel who misapplied his own doctrine, who preached the absolutism of a Prussian State. Green and Bosanquet in measure more or less full taught the true Hegelian doctrine. But for a number of years the false leadings of Hegel have been uppermost in people’s minds, and there has been a reaction to their teaching due to the panic we all feel at the mere thought of an absolute monarch and an irresponsible state. The present behavior of Prussia of course tends to increase the panic, and the fashion of jeering at Hegel and his “misguided” followers is wide-spread. But while many English writers are raging against Hegelianism, at the same time the English are pouring out in unstinted measure themselves and their substance to establish on earth Hegel’s absolute in the actual form of an International League!

The political pluralists whom we are now considering, believing that a collective and distributive sovereignty cannot exist together, throw overboard collective sovereignty. When they accept the compounding of consciousness taught by their own master, James, then they will see that true Hegelianism finds its actualized form in federalism.

Perhaps they would be able to do this sooner if they could rid themselves of the Middle Ages! Many of the political pluralists deliberately announce that they are accepting medieval doctrine.

In the Middle Ages the group was the political unit. The medieval man was always the member of a group—of the guild in the town, of the manor in the country. But this was followed by the theory of the individual not as a member of a group but as a member of a nation, and we have always considered this on the whole an advance step. When, therefore, the separate groups are again proposed as the political units, we are going back to a political theory which we have long outgrown and which obviously cramps the individual. It is true that the individual as the basis of government has remained an empty theory. The man with political power has been the rich and strong man. There has been little chance for the individual as an individual to become a force in the state. In reaction against such selfish autocracy people propose a return to the Middle Ages. This is not the solution. Now is the critical moment. If we imitate the Middle Ages and adopt political pluralism we lose our chance to invent our own forms for our larger ideas.

Again, balancing groups were loosely held together by what has been called a federal bond. Therefore we are to look to the medieval empire for inspiration in forming the modern state. But the union of church and guild, boroughs and shires of the Middle Ages seems to me neither to bear much resemblance to a modern federal state nor to approach the ideal federal state. And if we learn anything from medieval decentralization—guild and church and commune—it is that political and economic power cannot be separated.

Much as we owe the Middle Ages, have we not progressed since then? Are our insights, our ideals, our purposes at all the same? Medieval theory, it is true, had the conception of the living group, and this had a large influence on legal theory.[103] Also medieval theory struggled from first to last to reconcile its notion of individual freedom,[104] the patent fact of manifold groups, and the growing notion of a sovereign state. Our problem it is true is the same to-day, but the Middle Ages hold more warnings than lessons for us. While there was much that was good about the medieval guilds, we certainly do not want to go back to all the weaknesses of medieval cities: the jealousies of the guilds, their selfishness, the unsatisfactory compromises between them, the impossibility of sufficient agreement either to maintain internal order or to pursue successful outside relations.

The Middle Ages had not worked out any form by which the parts could be related to the whole without the result either of despotism of the more powerful parts or anarchy of all the parts. Moreover, in the Middle Ages it was true on the whole that your relation to your class separated you from other classes: you could not belong to many groups at once. Status was the basis of the Middle Ages. This is exactly the tendency we must avoid in any plan for the direct representation of industrial workers in the state.

Is our modern life entirely barren of ideas with which to meet its own problems? Must twentieth century thought with all the richness which our intricately complex life has woven into it try to force itself into the embryonic moulds of the Middle Ages?

The most serious error, however, of the political pluralists is one we are all making: we have not begun a scientific study of group psychology. No one yet knows enough of the laws of associated life to have the proper foundations for political thinking. The pluralists apotheosize the group but do not study the group. They talk of sovereignty without seeking the source of sovereignty.

In the next three chapters I shall consider what the recent recognition of the group, meagre as it is at present, teaches us in regard to pluralism. Pluralism is the dominant thought to-day in philosophy, in politics, in economics, in jurisprudence, in sociology, in many schemes of social reorganization proposed by social workers, therefore we must consider it carefully—what it holds for us, what it must guard against.

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Footnote 97:

Léon Duguit, Graham Wallis, Arthur Christensen, Norman Angell, etc.

Footnote 98:

The fatal flaw of guild socialism is this separation of economics and
politics. First, the interests of citizenship and guild-membership are
not distinct; secondly, in any proper system of occupational
representation every one should be included—vocational representation
should not be trade representation; third, as long as you call the
affairs of the guilds “material,” and say that the politics of the
state should be purified of financial interests, you burn every bridge
which might make a unity of financial interests and sound state
policy. Guild socialism, however, because it is a carefully worked out
plan for the control of industry by those who take part in it, is one
of the most well worth considering of the proposals at present before
us.

Footnote 99:

See G. D. H. Cole, “The World of Labor,” for the relation of trade
unionism to guild socialism.

Footnote 100:

See especially “Churches in the Modern State” and “Studies in
Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius.”

Footnote 101:

See also Mr. Laski’s articles: “The Personality of Associations,”
Harv. Law Rev. 29, 404–426, and “Early History of the Corporation in
England,” Harv. Law Rev.: 30, 561–588. This is the kind of work which
is breaking the way for a new conception of politics.

Footnote 102:

It must be understood that all I say does not apply to all the
pluralists. For the sake of brevity I consider them as a school
although they differ widely. Moreover, for convenience I am using the
word pluralist roughly and in a sense inaccurately to include all
those who are advocating a multiple group organization as the basis of
a new state. Most of these agree in making the group rather than the
individual the unit of politics, in their support of group “rights,”
the “consent” of the group, the “balance” of groups, and in their
belief that “rights” should be based on function. But syndicalists and
guild socialists are not strictly pluralists since they build up a
system based on the occupational group; yet the name is not wholly
inapplicable, for, since the guild socialists base their state on
balancing groups, that state cannot be called a unified state. It is
too early yet to speak of this school with entire accuracy, and in
fact there is no “school.”

Footnote 103:

From this was taken, Gierke tells us, modern German “fellowship.”

Footnote 104:

And the individual was certainly as prominent in medieval theory as
the community of individuals, a fact which the vigorous corporate life
of the Middle Ages may lead us to forget.

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XXIX

POLITICAL PLURALISM AND SOVEREIGNTY

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WHAT does group psychology teach us, as far as we at present understand it, in regard to sovereignty? How does the group get its power? By each one giving up his sovereignty? Never. By some one from outside presenting it with authority? No, although that is the basis of much of our older legal theory. Real authority inheres in a genuine whole. The individual is sovereign over himself as far as he unifies the heterogeneous elements of his nature. Two people are sovereign over themselves as far as they are capable of creating one out of two. A group is sovereign over itself as far as it is capable of creating one out of several or many. A state is sovereign only as it has the power of creating one in which all are. Sovereignty is the power engendered by a complete interdependence becoming conscious of itself. Sovereignty is the imperative of a true collective will. It is not something academic, it is produced by actual living with others—we learn it only through group life. By the subtle process of interpenetration a collective sovereignty is evolved from a distributed sovereignty. Just so can and must, by the law of their being, groups unite to form larger groups, these larger groups to form a world-group.

I have said that many of the pluralists are opposed to the monistic state because they do not see that a collective and distributive sovereignty can exist together. They talk of the Many and the One without analyzing the process by which the Many and the One are creating each other. We now see that the problem of the compounding of consciousness, of the One and the Many, need not be left either to an intellectualistic or to an intuitive metaphysics. It is to be solved through a laboratory study of group psychology. When we have that, we shall not have to argue any more about the One and the Many: we shall actually see the Many and the One emerging at the same time; we can then work out the laws of the relation of the One (the state) to the Many (the individual), and of the Many (the individual) to the One (the state), not as a metaphysical question but on a scientific basis. And the process of the Many becoming One is the process by which sovereignty is created. Our conceptions of sovereignty can no longer rest on mere abstractions, theory, speculative thought. How absurdly inadequate such processes are to explain the living, interweaving web of humanity. The question of sovereignty concerns the organization of men (which obviously must be fitted to their nature), hence it finds its answer through the psychological analysis of man.

The seeking of the organs of society which are the immediate source of legal sanctions, the seeking of the ultimate source of political control—these are the quests of jurists and political philosophers. To their search must be added a study of the process by which a genuine sovereignty is created. The political pluralists are reacting against the sovereignty which our legal theory postulates, for they see that there is no such thing actually, but if sovereignty is at present a legal fiction, the matter need not rest there—we must seek to find how a genuine social and political control can be produced. The understanding of self-government, of democracy, is bound up with the conception of sovereignty as a psychological process.

The idea of sovereignty held by guild socialists[105] is based largely on the so-called “objective” theory of _le droit_ expounded by M. Léon Duguit of Bordeaux. This theory is accepted as the “juridical basis” of a new state, what some call the functionarist state.[106] Man, Duguit tells us, has no rights as man, but only as a member of the social order. His rights are based on the fact of social interdependence—on his relations and consequent obligations. In fact he has no rights, but duties and powers. All power and all obligation is found in “social solidarity,” in a constantly evolving social solidarity.[107]

The elaboration of this theory is Duguit’s large contribution to political thought. His _droit_ is a dynamic law—it can never be captured and fixed. The essential weakness of his doctrine is that he denies the possibility of a collective will, which means that he ignores the psychology of the social process. He and his followers reject the notion of a collective will as “_concept de l’esprit dénué de toute réalité positive_.” If this is their idea of a collective will, they are right to reject it. I ask for its acceptance only so far as it can be proved to have positive reality. There is only one way in the world by which you can ever know whether there is a collective will, and that is by actually trying to make one; you need not discuss a collective will as a theory. If experiment proves to us that we cannot have a collective will, we must accept the verdict. Duguit thinks that when we talk of the sovereignty of the people we mean an abstract sovereignty; the new psychology means by the sovereignty of the people that which they actually create. It is true that we have none at present. Duguit is perfectly right in opposing the old theory of the “sovereign state.”

But Duguit says that if there were a collective will there is no reason why it should impose itself on the individual wills. “_L’affirmation que la collectivité a le pouvoir légitime de commander force qu’elle est la collectivité, est une affirmation d’ordre métaphysique oú religieux...._” This in itself shows a misunderstanding of the evolution of a collective will. This school does not seem to understand that every one must contribute to the collective will; ideally it would have no power unless this happened, actually we can only be constantly approaching this ideal.[108] Duguit makes a thing-in-itself of _la volonté nationale_—it is a most insidious fallacy which we all fall into again and again. But we can never accept that kind of a collective will. We believe in a collective will only so far as it is _really_ forming from out our actual daily life of intermingling men and women. There is nothing “metaphysical” or “religious” about this. Duguit says metaphysics “_doit rester étranger à toute jurisprudence_....” We agree to that and insist that jurisprudence must be founded on social psychology.

Five people produce a collective idea, a collective will. That will becomes at once an imperative upon those five people. It is not an imperative upon any one else. On the other hand no one else can make imperatives for those five people. It has been generated by the social process which is a self-sufficing, all-inclusive process. The same process which creates the collective will creates at the same time the imperative of the collective will. It is absolutely impossible to give self-government: no one has the right to give it; no one has the power to give it. Group A _allows_ group B to govern itself? This is an empty permission unless B has _learned how_ to govern itself. Self-government must always be grown. Sovereignty is always a psychological process.

Many of Duguit’s errors come from a misconception of the social process. Violently opposed to a collective will, he sees in the individual thought and will the only genuine “_chose en soi_” (it is interesting to notice that _la chose en soi_ finds a place in the thought of many pluralists). Not admitting the process of “community” he asserts that _la règle de droit_ is anterior and superior to the state; he does not see the true relation of _le droit_ to _l’état_, that they evolve together, that the same process which creates _le droit_ creates _l’état_.[109] The will of the people, he insists, can not create _le droit_. Here he does not see the unity of the social process. He separates will and purpose and the activity of the reciprocal interchange instead of seeing them as one. Certainly the will of the people does not create _le droit_, but the social process in its entire unity does. “Positive law must constantly follow _le droit objectif_.” Of course. “_Le droit objectif_ is constantly evolving.” Certainly. But how evolving? Here is where we disagree. The social process creates _le droit objectif_, and will is an essential part of the social process. Purpose is an essential part of the social process. Separate the parts of the social process and you have a different idea of jurisprudence, of democracy, of political institutions. Aim is all-important for Duguit. The rule of _le droit_ is the rule of conscious ends: only the aim gives a will its worth; if the aim is juridical (conformed to _la règle de droit_), then the will is juridical. Thus Duguit’s pragmatism is one which has not yet rid itself of absolute standards. It might be urged that it has, because he finds his absolute standards in “social solidarity.” But any one who believes that the individual will is a _chose en soi_, and who separates the elements of the social process, does not wholly admit the self-sufficing character of that process.

The modern tendency in many quarters, however, in regard to conceptions of social practice, is to substitute ends for will.[110] This is a perfectly comprehensible reaction, but future jurisprudence must certainly unite these two ideas. Professor Jethro Brown says, “The justification for governmental action is found not in consent but in the purpose it serves.” Not in that alone. De Maeztu says, “The profound secret of associations is not that men have need of one another, but that they need the same thing.” These two ideas can merge. Professor Brown makes the common good the basis of the new doctrine of natural right.[111] But we must all remember, what I do not doubt this writer does remember, that purpose can never be a _chose en soi_, and that, of the utmost importance, the “new natural law” can be brought into manifestation only by certain modes of association.

It is true, as Duguit says, that the state has the “right” to will because of the thing willed, that it has no “subjective” right to will, that its justification is in its purpose. (This is of course the truth in regard to all our “rights”; they are justified only by the use we make of them.) And yet there is a truth in the old idea of the “right” of a collectivity to will. These two ideas must be synthesized. They _are_ synthesized by the new psychology which sees the purpose forming the will at the same time as the will forms the purpose, which finds no separation anywhere in the social process. We can never think of purpose as something in front which leads us on, as the carrot the donkey. Purpose is never in front of us, it appears at every moment with the appearance of will. Thus the new school of jurisprudence founded on social psychology cannot be a teleological school alone, but must be founded on all the elements which constitute the social process. Ideals do not operate in a vacuum. This theorists seem sometimes to forget, but those of us who have had tragic experience of this truth are likely to give more emphasis to the interaction of purpose, will and activity, past and present activity. The recognition that _le droit_ is the product of a group process swallows up the question as to whether it is “objective” or “subjective”; it is neither, it is both; we look at the matter quite differently.[112]

To sum up this point. We must all, I think, agree with the “objective” conception of law in its essence, but not in its dividing the social process, a true unity, into separate parts. Rights arise from relation, and purpose is bound up in the relation. The relation of men to one another and to the object sought are part of the same process. Duguit has rendered us invaluable service in his insistence that _le droit_ must be based on “_la vie actuelle_,” but he does not take the one step further and see that _le droit_ is born within the _group_, that there is an essential law of the group as different from other modes of association, and that this has many implications.