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

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ETHICS AND POLITICS; THB MODERNS
States which have been established since the war at ail
times, have led to a reaction against the State. "Left
wing*' thinkers in particular evince a profound distrust of
the State and are apt to be impatient of all State claims;
many press for such a reorganization of society as will
enable the functions and powers erf* the State, as we know
it to-day, to be assumed by bodies of a different character.
Are there, then, we must ask, functions which the State
and the State alone can perform? If so, what are they?
The answers to these questions will disclose what, I would
suggest, are the minimum necessary functions of the State,
which most democratic thinkers would, I think, be prepared
to admit as its functions. They will also contain an
implied criticism of the communist view, that all political
activity is an expression of economic forces and a by-
product
of economic circumstances.
Are there Necessary Functions for the State? In the
seventeenth chapter, I developed the communist view that
historical events are the resultants of the interplay of
economic forces. If this view is true, political activity is,
with certain reservations, always the effect, never the
cause of, economic events, and political organizations are
merely the forms in which economic forces express themselves.
This view receives reinforcement from the growth
of voluntary associations for economic purposes, to which
I drew attention in the last chapter. If voluntary associa-
tions for economic purposes continue to increase in power
and number, they may, it is said, ultimately come to usurp
most of the functions usually assigned to political bodies
such as the State. Advanced theories such as Syndicalism
and Anarchism hold that the usurpation of State functions
will be complete. Is this view true and is this development
likely? If so, political democracy in the form in which
we have known it during the last two hundred years will
disappear.
In opposition to these theories I propose to suggest
and I think that the view is one in which most democrats