GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

660 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
Russell's words, "by the appeal to force and the arbitrament
of the big battalions". Fascism, in fact, selects one
portion of mankind as being alone important, but gives
no indication of the standard by reference to which the
selection is to be made. Thus fitness to rule is established
by nothing but success in becoming a ruler, and whoever
considers himselfworthy ofpower will feeljustified in seeking
to demonstrate his worthiness by attempting its exercise.
So far as the relations between States are concerned,
the idealist conception of the State as an entity which is
with other
exempt from moral relations in its dealings
States, coupled with the affirmation that the State is also
an entity whose true nature realizes itself by expansion,
ensures that the foreign policy of fascist states will be one of
aggression tempered only by expediency. Finally, the
political needs of dictators who live and thrive in an
atmosphere of alarms and excursions, sharpened as they
are by economic stresses which dictate the distribution
of circuses in the absence of bread, make it reasonably
certain that fascist practice will not fall short of the precepts
of idealist theory.
(a) The Fascist and the Platonic Theories of the State
Costrasted. A close relationship between Fascism and
Plato's theory of the State is so frequently asserted that it
is worth while in conclusion to emphasize again some of
the points of difference. Both Fascism and Plato envisage
an authoritarian State in which the best make the laws
and the many achieve such happiness and virtue as lie
within their compass, by cheerfully obeying the laws
and giving their services, thus enabling the State to function
and the best to realize the purposes which are appropriate
to the best. The differences are two. First, in Plato's
State the criterion by
reference to which the best are
selected is that of knowledge or wisdom. There is an
absolute good and an absolute justice. Men may be so
educated that they can apprehend these absolutes. In
the light of the knowledge which their apprehension