m The Holistic Theory of Social Experiments

Holistic thinking is particularly detrimental in its influence upon the historicist theory of social experiments. Although the piecemeal technologist will agree with the historicist view that large-scale or holistic social experiments, if at all possible, are extremely unsuitable for scientific purposes, he will emphatically deny the assumption, common to both historicism and Utopianism, that social experiments, in order to be realistic, must be of the character of Utopian attempts at remodelling the whole of society.

It is convenient to begin our criticism with the discussion of a very obvious objection to the Utopian programme, namely that we do not possess the experimental knowledge needed for such an undertaking. The blueprints of the physical engineer are based on an experimental technology; all the principles that underlie his activities are tested by practical experiments. But the holistic blueprints of the social engineer are not based on any comparable practical experience. Thus the alleged analogy between physical engineering and holistic social engineering breaks down; holistic planning is rightly described as ‘Utopian’, since the scientific basis of its plans is simply nowhere.

Faced with this criticism, the Utopian engineer is likely to admit the need for practical experience, and for an experimental technology. But he will claim that we shall never know anything about these matters if we shrink from making social experiments, or, what in his view amounts to the same thing, from holistic engineering. We must make a beginning, he will argue, using whatever knowledge we possess, be it great or small. If we have some knowledge of aircraft designing today, it is only because some pioneer who did not possess this knowledge dared to design an aircraft and to try it out. Thus the Utopiamst may even contend that the holistic method which he advocates is nothing but the experimental method applied to society. For he holds, in common with the historicist, that small-scale experiments, such as an experiment in socialism carried out in a factory or in a village or even in a district, would be quite inconclusive; such isolated ‘Robinson Crusoe experiments’ cannot tell us anything about modem social life in the ‘Great Society’. They even deserve the

nickname ‘Utopian’ in the (Marxist) sense in which this term implies the neglect of historical tendencies. (The implication in this case would be that the tendency towards an increasing interdependence of social life is being neglected.)

We see that Utopianism and historicism agree in the view that

a social experiment (if there is such a thing) could be of value only if

carried out on a holistic scale. This widely held prejudice involves the belief that we are seldom in the position to carry out ‘planned experiments’ in the social field, and that, for an account of the results of ‘chance experiments’, so far carried out in this field, we have to turn to history.¹³

I have two objections against this view: (1) that it overlooks those piecemeal experiments which are fundamental for all social knowledge, pre-scientific as well as scientific; (2) that holistic experiments are unlikely to contribute much to our experimental knowledge; and that they can be called ‘experiments’ only in the sense in which this term is synonymous with an action whose outcome is uncertain, but not in the sense in which this term is used to denote a means

of acquiring knowledge, by comparing the results obtained with the results expected.

Concerning (1) it may be pointed out that the holistic view of social experiments leaves unexplained the fact that we possess a very great deal of experimental knowledge of social life. There is a difference between an experienced and an unexperienced business man, or organizer, or politician, or general. It is a difference in their social experience; and in experience gained not merely through observation, or by reflecting upon what they have observed, but by efforts to achieve some practical aim. It must be admitted that the knowledge attained in this way is usually of a pre-scientific kind, and therefore more like knowledge gained by casual observation than knowledge gained by carefully designed scientific experiments; but this is no reason for denying that the knowledge in question is based on experiment rather than on mere observation. A grocer who opens a new shop is conducting a social experiment; and even a man who joins a queue before a theatre gains experimental technological knowledge which he may utilize by having his seat reserved next time, which again is a social experiment. And we should not forget that only practical experiments have taught buyers and sellers on the markets the

lesson that prices are liable to be lowered by every increase of supply, and raised by every increase of demand.

Examples of piecemeal experiments on a somewhat larger scale would be the decision of a monopolist to change the price of his product; the introduction, whether by a private or a public insurance company, of a new type of health or employment insurance; or the introduction of a new sales tax, or of a policy to combat trade cycles. All these experiments are carried out with practical rather than scientific aims in view. Moreover, experiments have been carried out by some large firms with the deliberate aim of increasing their knowledge of the market (in order to increase profits at a later stage, of course) rather than with the aim of increasing their profits immediately.¹⁴ The situation is very similar to that of physical engineering and to the pre-scientific methods by which our technological knowledge in matters such as the building of ships or the art of navigation was first acquired. There seems to be no reason why these methods should not be improved on, and ultimately replaced by a more scientifically minded technology; that is to say, by a more systematic approach in the same direction, based on critical thought as well as on experiment.

According to this piecemeal view, there is no clearly marked division between the pre-scientific and the scientific experimental approaches, even though the more and more conscious application of scientific, that is to say, of critical methods, is of great importance. Both approaches may be described, fundamentally, as utilizing the method of trial and error. We try; that is, we do not merely register an observation, but make active attempts to solve some more or less practical and definite problems. And we make progress if, and only if, we are prepared to learn from our mistakes: to recognize our errors and to utilize them critically instead of persevering in them dogmatically. Though this analysis may sound trivial, it describes, I believe, the method of all empirical sciences. This method assumes a more and more scientific character the more freely and consciously we are prepared to risk a trial, and the more critically we watch for the mistakes we always make. And this formula covers not only the method of experiment, but also the relationship between theory and experiment. All theories are trials; they are tentative hypotheses, tried out to see whether they work;

and all experimental corroboration is simply the result of tests undertaken in a critical spirit, in an attempt to find out where our theories err.¹⁵

For the piecemeal technologist or engineer these views mean that, if he wishes to introduce scientific methods into the study of society and into politics, what is needed most is the adoption of a critical attitude, and the realization that not only trial but also error is necessary. And he must learn not only to expect mistakes, but consciously to search for them. We all have an unscientific weakness for being always in the right, and this weakness seems to be particularly common among professional and amateur politicians. But the only way to apply something like scientific method in politics is to proceed on the assumption that there can be no political move which has no drawbacks, no undesirable consequences. To look out for these mistakes, to find them, to bring them into the open, to analyse them, and to learn from them, this is what a scientific politician as well as a political scientist must do. Scientific method in politics means that the great art of convincing ourselves that we have not made any mistakes, of ignoring them, of hiding them, and of blaming others for them, is replaced by the greater art of accepting the responsibilty for them, of trying to learn from them, and of applying this knowledge so that we may avoid them in the future.

We now turn to point (2), the criticism of the view that we can learn from holistic experiments, or more precisely, from measures carried out on a scale that approaches the holistic dream (for holistic experiments in the radical sense that they remodel ‘the whole of society’ are logically impossible). Our main point is very simple: it is difficult enough to be critical of our own mistakes, but it must be nearly impossible for us to persist in a critical attitude towards those of our actions which involve the lives of many men. To put it differently, it is very hard to learn from very big mistakes.

The reasons for this are twofold; they are technical as well as moral. Since so much is done at a time, it is impossible to say which particular measure is responsible for any of the results; or rather, if we do attribute a certain result to a certain measure, then we can do so only on the basis of some theoretical knowledge gained previously, and not from the holistic experiment in question. This experiment does not help us to attribute particular results to particular measures; all we can do is to attribute the ‘whole result’ to it; and whatever this may mean, it is certainly difficult to assess. Even the greatest efforts to secure a well-informed, independent, and critical statement of these results are unlikely to prove successful. But the chances that such efforts will be made are negligible; on the contrary, there is every likelihood that free discussion about the holistic plan and its consequences will not be tolerated. The reason is that every attempt at planning on a very large scale is an undertaking which must cause considerable inconvenience to many people, to put it mildly, and over a considerable span of time. Accordingly there will always be a tendency to oppose the plan, and to complain about it. To many of these complaints the Utopian engineer will have to turn a deaf ear if he wishes to get anywhere at all; in fact, it will be part of his business to suppress unreasonable objections. But with them he must invariably suppress reasonable criticism too. And the mere fact that expressions of dissatisfaction will have to be curbed reduces even the most enthusiastic expression of satisfaction to insignificance. Thus it will be difficult to ascertain the facts, i.e. the repercussions of the plan on the individual citizen; and without these facts scientific criticism is impossible.

But the difficulty of combining holistic planning with scientific methods is still more fundamental than has so far been indicated. The holistic planner overlooks the fact that it is easy to centralize power but impossible to centralize all that knowledge which is distributed over many individual minds, and whose centralization would be necessary for the wise wielding of centralized power [see note 6 to this selection]. But this fact has far-reaching consequences. Unable to ascertain what it is in the minds of so many individuals, he must try to simplify his problems by eliminating individual differences: he must try to control and stereotype interests and beliefs by education and propaganda.¹⁶ But this attempt to exercise power over minds must destroy the last possibility of finding out what people really think, for it is clearly incompatible with the free expression of thought, especially of critical thought. Ultimately, it must destroy knowledge; and the greater the gain in power, the greater will be the loss of knowledge. (Political power and social knowledge may thus be discovered to be ‘complementary’ in Bohr’s sense of the term. And it may even turn out to be the only clear illustration of this elusive but fashionable term.)¹⁷

All these remarks are confined to the problem of scientific method. They tacitly grant the colossal assumption that we need not question the fundamental benevolence of the planning Utopian engineer, who is vested with an authority which at least approaches dictatorial powers. Tawney concludes a discussion of Luther and his time with the words: ‘Sceptical as to the existence of unicorns and salamanders, the age of Machiavelli and Henry VIII found food for its credulity in the worship of that rare monster, the God-fearing Prince.’¹⁸ Replace here the words ‘unicorns and salamanders’ by ‘the God-fearing Prince’; replace the two names by those of some of their more obvious modern counterparts, and the phrase ‘the God-fearing Prince’ by ‘the benevolent planning authority’: and you have a description of the credulity of our own time. This credulity will not be challenged here; yet it may be remarked that, assuming the unlimited and unvarying benevolence of the powerful planners, our analysis shows that it may be impossible for them ever to find out whether the results of their measures tally with their good intentions.

I do not believe that any corresponding criticism of the piecemeal method can be offered. This method can be used, more particularly, in order to search for, and fight against, the greatest and most urgent evils of society, rather than to seek, and to fight for, some ultimate good (as holists are inclined to do). But a systematic fight against definite wrongs, against concrete forms of injustice or exploitation, and avoidable suffering such as poverty or unemployment, is a very different thing from the attempt to realize a distant ideal blueprint of society. Success or failure is more easily appraised, and there is no inherent reason why this method should lead to an accumulation of power and to the suppression of criticism. Also, such a fight against concrete wrongs and concrete dangers is more likely to find the support of a great majority than a fight for the establishment of a Utopia, ideal as it may appear to the planners. This may perhaps throw some light on the fact that in democratic countries defending themselves against aggression, sufficient support may be forthcoming for the necessary far-reaching measures (which may even take on the character of holistic planning) without suppression of public criticism, while in countries preparing for an attack or waging an aggressive war, public criticism as a rule must be suppressed, in order that public support may be mobilized by presenting aggression as defence.

We may now turn back to the Utopianist’s claim that his method is the true experimental method applied to the field of sociology. This claim, I think, is dispelled by our criticism. This can be further illustrated by the analogy between physical and holistic engineering. It may be admitted that physical machines can be successfully planned by way of blueprints, and with them, even a whole plant for their production, etc. But all this is possible only because many piecemeal experiments have been carried out beforehand. Every machine is the result of a great many small improvements. Every model must be ‘developed⁵ by the method of trial and error, by countless small adjustments. The same holds for the planning of the production plant. The apparently holistic plan can succeed only because we have made all kinds of small mistakes already; otherwise there is every reason to expect that it would lead to big mistakes.

Thus the analogy between physical and social engineering, if looked into more closely, turns against the holist and in favour of the piecemeal social engineer. The expression ‘social engineering’, which alludes to this analogy, has been usurped by the Utopianist without a shadow of right.

The wise shall lead and rule, and the ignorant shall follow.

PLATO

Plato’s idea of justice demands, fundamentally, that the natural rulers should rule and the natural slaves should slave.¹ It is part of the historicist demand that the state, in order to arrest all change, should be a copy of its Idea, or of its true ‘nature’. This theory of justice indicates very clearly that Plato saw the fundamental problem of politics in the question: Who shall rule the state?

far from solving any fundamental problems, we have merely skipped over them, by assuming that the question ‘Who should rule?’ is fundamental. For even those who share this assumption of Plato’s admit that political rulers are not always sufficiently ‘good’ or ‘wise’ (we need not worry about the precise meaning of these terms), and that it is not at all easy to get a government on whose goodness and wisdom one can implicitly rely. If that is granted, then we must ask whether political thought should not face from the beginning the possibility of bad government; whether we should not prepare for the worst leaders, and hope for the best. But this leads to a new approach to the problem of politics, for it forces us to replace the question: Who should rule? by the new² question: How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?

Those who believe that the older question is fundamental, tacitly assume that political power is ‘essentially’ unchecked. They assume that someone has the power - either an individual or a collective body, such as a class. And they assume that he who has the power can, very nearly, do what he wills, and especially that he can strengthen his power, and thereby approximate it further to an unlimited or unchecked power. They assume that political power is, essentially, sovereign. If this assumption is made, then, indeed, the question ‘Who is to be the sovereign?’ is the only important question left.

I shall call this assumption the theory of (unchecked) sovereignty, using this expression not for any particular one of the various theories of sovereignty, proffered more especially by such writers as Bodin, Rousseau, or Hegel, but for the more general assumption that political power is practically unchecked, or for the demand that it ought to be so; together with the implication that the main question left is to get this power into the best hands. This theory of sovereignty is tacitly assumed in Plato’s approach, and has played its role ever since. It is also implicitly assumed, for instance, by those modern writers who believe that the main problem is: Who should dictate? The capitalists or the workers?

Without entering into a detailed criticism, I wish to point out that there are serious objections against a rash and implicit acceptance of this theory. Whatever its speculative merits may

appear to be, it is certainly a very unrealistic assumption. No political power has ever been unchecked, and as long as men remain human (as long as the ‘Brave New World’ has not materialized), there can be no absolute and unrestrained political power. So long as one man cannot accumulate enough physical power in his hands to dominate all others, just so long must he depend upon his helpers. Even the most powerful tyrant depends upon his secret police, his henchmen and his hangmen. This dependence means that his power, great as it may be, is not unchecked, and that he has to make concessions, playing one group off against another. It means that there are other political forces, other powers besides his own, and that he can exert his rule only by utilizing and pacifying them. This shows that even the extreme cases of sovereignty are never cases of pure sovereignty. They are never cases in which the will or the interest of one man (or, if there were such a thing, the will or the interest of one group) can achieve his aim directly, without giving up some of it in order to enlist powers which he cannot conquer. And in an overwhelming number of cases, the limitations of political power go much further than this.

I have stressed these empirical points, not because I wish to use them as an argument, but merely in order to avoid objections. My claim is that every theory of sovereignty omits to face a more fundamental question - the question, namely, whether we should not strive towards institutional control of the rulers by balancing their powers against other powers. This theory of checks and balances can at least claim careful consideration. The only objections to this claim, as far as I can see, are (1) that such a control is practically impossible, or (2) that it is essentially inconceivable since political power is essentially sovereign.³ Both of these dogmatic objections are, I believe, refuted by the facts; and with them fall a number of other influential views (for instance, the theory that the only alternative to the dictatorship of one class is that of another class).

In order to raise the question of institutional control of the rulers, we need not assume more than that governments are not always good or wise. But since I have said something about historical facts, I think I should confess that I feel inclined to go a little beyond this assumption. I am inclined to think that rulers

have rarely been above the average, either morally or intellectually, and often below it. And I think that it is reasonable to adopt, in politics, the principle of preparing for the worst, as well as we can, though we should, of course, at the same time try to obtain the best. It appears to me madness to base all our political efforts upon the faint hope that we shall be successful in obtaining excellent, or even competent, rulers. Strongly as I feel in these matters, I must insist, however, that my criticism of the theory of sovereignty does not depend on these more personal opinions.

Apart from these personal opinions, and apart from the above mentioned empirical arguments against the general theory of sovereignty, there is also a kind of logical argument which can be used to show the inconsistency of any of the particular forms of the theory of sovereignty; more precisely, the logical argument can be given different but analogous forms to combat the theory that the wisest should rule, or else the theories that the best, or the law, or the majority, etc., should rule. One particular form of this logical argument is directed against a too naive version of liberalism, of democracy, and of the principle that the majority should rule; and it is somewhat similar to the well-known ‘paradox of freedom’ which was used first, and with success, by Plato. In his criticism of democracy, and in his story of the rise of the tyrant, Plato raises implicitly the following question: What if it is the will of the people that they should not rule, but a tyrant instead? The free man, Plato suggests, may exercise his absolute freedom, first by defying the laws and ultimately by defying freedom itself and by clamouring for a tyrant.⁴ This is not just a far-fetched possibility; it has happened a number of times; and every time it has happened, it has put in a hopeless intellectual position all those democrats who adopt, as the ultimate basis of their political creed, the principle of majority rule or a similar form of the principle of sovereignty. On the one hand, the principle they have adopted demands from them that they should oppose any but the majority rule, and therefore the new tyranny; on the other hand, the same principle demands from them that they should accept any decision reached by the majority, and thus the rule of the new tyrant. The inconsistency of their theory must, of course, paralyse their actions.⁵ Those of us democrats who demand the institutional control of the rulers by the ruled, and especially the right of

dismissing the government by a majority vote, must therefore base these demands upon better grounds than a self-contradictory theory of sovereignty. (That this is possible will be briefly shown in the next section.)

Plato, we have seen, came near to discovering the paradoxes of freedom and of democracy. But what Plato and his followers overlooked is that all the other forms of the theory of sovereignty give rise to analogous inconsistencies. All theories of sovereignty are paradoxical. For instance, we may have selected ‘the wisest' or ‘the best' as a ruler. But ‘the wisest’ in his wisdom may find that not he but ‘the best’ should rule, and ‘the best’ in his goodness may perhaps decide that ‘the majority’ should rule. It is important to notice that even that form of the theory of sovereignty which demands the ‘Kingship of the Law’ is open to the same objection. This, in fact, was seen very early, as Heraclitus’s remark⁶ shows: ‘The law can demand, too, that the will of One Man must be obeyed. ’

In summing up this brief criticism, one can, I believe, assert that the theory of sovereignty is in a weak position, both empirically and logically. The least that can be demanded is that it must not be adopted without careful consideration of other possibilities.

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And indeed, it is not difficult to show that a theory of democratic control can be developed which is free of the paradox of sovereignty. The theory I have in mind is one which does not proceed, as it were, from a doctrine of the intrinsic goodness or righteousness of a majority rule, but rather from the baseness of tyranny; or more precisely, it rests upon the decision, or upon the adoption of the proposal, to avoid and to resist tyranny.

For we may distinguish two main types of government. The first type consists of governments which we can get rid of without bloodshed - for example, by way of general elections; that is to say, the social institutions provide means by which the rulers may be dismissed by the ruled, and the social traditions⁷ ensure that these institutions will not easily be destroyed by those who are in power. The second type consists of governments which the ruled cannot get rid of except by way of a successful revolution - that is to say,

in most cases, not at all. I suggest the term ‘democracy’ as a shorthand label for a government of the the first type, and the term ‘tyranny’ or ‘dictatorship’ for the second. This, I believe, corresponds closely to traditional usage. But I wish to make clear that no part of my argument depends on the choice of these labels; and should anybody reverse this usage (as is frequently done nowadays), then I should simply say that I am in favour of what he calls ‘tyranny’, and object to what he calls ‘democracy’; and I should reject as irrelevant any attempt to discover what ‘democracy’ ‘really’ or ‘essentially’ means, for example, by translating the term into ‘the rule of the people’. (For although ‘the people’ may influence the actions of their rulers by the threat of dismissal, they never rule themselves in any concrete, practical sense. [See also p. 96 above.])

If we make use of the two labels as suggested, then we can now describe, as the principle of a democratic policy, the proposal to create, develop, and protect, political institutions for the avoidance of tyranny. This principle does not imply that we can ever develop institutions of this kind which are faultless or foolproof, or which ensure that the policies adopted by a democratic government will be right or good or wise - or even necessarily better or wiser than the policies adopted by a benevolent tyrant. (Since no such assertions are made, the paradox of democracy is avoided.) What may be said, however, to be implied in the adoption of the democratic principle is the conviction that the acceptance of even a bad policy in a democracy (as long as we can work for a peaceful change) is preferable to the submission to a tyranny, however wise or benevolent. Seen in this light, the theory of democracy is not based upon the principle that the majority should rule; rather, the various equalitarian methods of democratic control, such as general elections and representative government, are to be considered as no more than well-tried and, in the presence of a widespread traditional distrust of tyranny, reasonably effective institutional safeguards against tyranny, always open to improvement, and even providing methods for their own improvement.

He who accepts the principle of democracy in this sense is therefore not bound to look upon the result of a democratic vote as an authoritative expression of what is right. Although he will accept a decision of the majority, for the sake of making the democratic institutions work, he will feel free to combat it by democratic means, and to work for its revision. And should he live to see the day when the majority vote destroys the democratic institutions, then this sad experience will tell him only that there does not exist a foolproof method of avoiding tyranny. But it need not weaken his decision to fight tyranny, nor will it expose his theory as inconsistent.

I

The legal or juridico-political system - the system of legal institutions enforced by the state - has to be understood, according to Marx, as one of the superstructures erected upon, and giving expression to, the actual productive forces of the economic system; Marx speaks¹ in this connection of ‘juridical and political superstructures’. It is not, of course, the only way in which the economic or material reality and the relations between the classes which correspond to it make their appearance in the world of ideologies and ideas. Another example of such a superstructure would be, according to Marxist views, the prevailing moral system. This, as opposed to the legal system, is not enforced by state power, but sanctioned by an ideology created and controlled by the ruling class. The difference is, roughly, one between persuasion and force (as Plato² would have said); and it is the state, the legal or political system, which uses force. It is, as Engels³ puts it, ‘a special repressive force’ for the coercion of the ruled by the rulers. ‘Political power, properly so called,’ says the Manifesto, ‘is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. ’⁴ A similar description is given by Lenin: ‘According to Marx, the state is an organ of class domination, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; its aim is the creation of an “order” which legalizes and

perpetuates this oppression____’⁵ The state, in brief, is just part of

the machinery by which the ruling class carries on its struggle.

Before proceeding to develop the consequences of this view of the state, it may be pointed out that it is partly an institutional and partly an essentialist theory. It is institutional in so far as Marx tries to ascertain what practical functions legal institutions have in social life. But it is essentialist in so far as Marx neither inquires into the variety of ends which these institutions may possibly serve (or be made to serve), nor suggests what institutional reforms are necessary in order to make the state serve those ends which he himself might deem desirable. Instead of making his demands or proposals concerning the functions which he wants the state, the legal institutions or the government to perform, he asks, 'What is the state?’; that is to say, he tries to discover the essential function of legal institutions. It has been shown before [in selection 6 above] that such a typically essentialist question cannot be answered in a satisfactory way; yet this question, undoubtedly, is in keeping with Marx’s essentialist and metaphysical approach which interprets the field of ideas and norms as the mere appearance on the face of an economic reality.

What are the consequences of this theory of the state? The most important consequence is that all politics, all legal and political institutions as well as all political struggles, can never be of primary importance. Politics is impotent. It can never alter decisively the economic reality. The main if not the only task of any enlightened political activity is to see that the alterations in the juridico-political cloak keep pace with the changes in the social reality, that is to say,

.

in the means of production and in the relations between the classes; in this way, such difficulties as must arise if politics lags behind these developments can be avoided. Or in other words, political developments are either superficial, unconditioned by the deeper reality of the social system, in which case they are doomed to be unimportant, and can never be of real help to the suppressed and exploited; or else they give expression to a change in the economic background and the class situation, in which case they are of the character of volcanic eruptions, of complete revolutions which can perhaps be foreseen, as they arise from the social system, and whose ferocity might then be mitigated by non-resistance to the eruptive forces, but which can be neither caused nor suppressed by political action.

These consequences show again the unity of Marx’s historicist system of thought. Yet considering that few movements have done as much as Marxism to stimulate interest in political action, the theory of the fundamental impotence of politics appears somewhat paradoxical. (Marxists might, of course, meet this remark with either of two arguments. The one is that in the theory expounded, political action has its function; for even though the workers’ party cannot, by its actions, improve the lot of the exploited masses, its fight awakens class consciousness and thereby prepares for the revolution. This would be the argument of the radical wing. The other argument, used by the moderate wing, asserts that there may exist historical periods in which political action can be directly helpful; the periods, namely, in which the forces of the two opposing classes are approximately in equilibrium. In such periods, political effort and energy may be decisive in achieving very significant improvements for the workers. - It is clear that this second argument sacrifices some of the fundamental positions of the theory, but without realizing this, and consequently without going to the root of the matter.)

It is worth noting that according to Marxist theory, the workers’ party can hardly make political mistakes of any importance, as long as the party continues to play its assigned role, and to press the claims of the workers energetically. For political mistakes cannot materially affect the actual class situation, and even less the economic reality on which everything else ultimately depends.

Another important consequence of the theory is that, in principle, all government, even democratic government, is a dictatorship of the ruling class over the ruled. The executive of the modem state’, says the Manifesto, ‘is merely a committee for managing the economic affairs of the whole bourgeoisie... .’⁶What we call a democracy is, according to this theory, nothing but that form of class dictatorship which happens to be most convenient in a certain historical situation. (This doctrine does not agree very well with the class equilibrium theory of the moderate wing mentioned above.) And just as the state, under capitalism, is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, so, after the social revolution, it will at first be a dictatorship of the proletariat. But this proletarian state must lose its function as soon as the resistance of the old bourgeoisie has broken down. For the proletarian revolution leads to a one-class society, and therefore to a classless society in which there can be no class dictatorship. Thus the state, deprived of any function, must disappear. ‘It withers away\ as Engels said.⁷

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The contrast between the legal and the social system is most clearly developed in Capital. In one of its theoretical parts, Marx approaches the analysis of the capitalist economic system by using the simplifying and idealizing assumption that the legal system is perfect in every respect. Freedom, equality before the law, justice, are all assumed to be guaranteed to everybody. There are no privileged classes before the law. Over and above that, he assumes that not even in the economic realm is there any kind of ‘robbery’; he assumes that a ‘just price’ is paid for all commodities, including the labour power which the worker sells to the capitalist on the labour market. The price for all these commodities is ‘just’, in the sense that all commodities are bought and sold in proportion to the average amount of labour needed for their reproduction (or using Marx’s terminology, they are bought and sold according to their true ‘value’).⁸ Of course, Marx knows that all this is an oversimplification, for it is his opinion that the workers are hardly ever treated as fairly as that; in other words, that they are usually cheated. But arguing from these idealized premises, he attempts to show that even under so excellent a legal system, the economic system would function in such a way that the workers would not be able to enjoy their freedom. In spite of all this ‘justice’, they would not be very much better off than slaves.⁹ For if they are poor, they can only sell themselves, their wives, and their children on the labour market, for as much as is necessary for the reproduction of their labour power. That is to say, for the whole of their labour power, they will not get more than the barest means of existence. This shows that exploitation is not merely robbery. It cannot be eliminated by merely legal means. (And Proudhon’s criticism that ‘property is theft’ is much too superficial.¹⁰)

In consequence of this, Marx was led to hold that the workers cannot hope much from the improvement of a legal system which as everybody knows grants to rich and poor alike the freedom of sleeping on park benches, and which threatens them alike with punishment for the attempt to live ‘without visible means of support’. In this way Marx arrived at what may be termed (in Hegelian language) the distinction between formal and material freedom. Formal¹¹ or legal freedom, although Marx does not rate

it low, turns out to be quite insufficient for securing to us that freedom which he considered to be the aim of the historical development of mankind. What matters is real, i.e. economic or material, freedom. This can be achieved only by an equal emancipation from drudgery. For this emancipation, ‘the shortening of the labour day is the fundamental prerequisite’.

What have we to say to Marx’s analysis? Are we to believe that politics, or the framework of legal institutions, is intrinsically impotent to remedy such a situation, and that only a complete social revolution, a complete change of the ‘social system’, can help? Or are we to believe the defenders of an unrestrained ‘capitalist’ system who emphasize (rightly, I think) the tremendous benefit to be derived from the mechanism of free markets, and who conclude from this that a truly free labour market would be of the greatest benefit to all concerned ?

I believe that the injustice and inhumanity of the unrestrained ‘capitalist system’ described by Marx cannot be questioned: but it can be interpreted in terms of what we called [in the previous selection] the paradox of freedom. Freedom, we have seen, defeats itself, if it is unlimited. Unlimited freedom means that a strong man is free to bully one who is weak and to rob him of his freedom. This is why we demand that the state should limit freedom to a certain extent, so that everyone’s freedom is protected by law. Nobody should be at the mercy of others, but all should have a right to be protected by the state.

Now I believe that these considerations, originally meant to apply to the realm of brute force, of physical intimidation, must be applied to the economic realm also. Even if the state protects its citizens from being bullied by physical violence (as it does, in principle, under the system of unrestrained capitalism), it may defeat our ends by its failure to protect them from the misuse of economic power. In such a state, the economically strong is still free to bully one who is economically weak, and to rob him of his freedom. Under these circumstances, unlimited economic freedom can be just as self-defeating as unlimited physical freedom, and economic power may be nearly as dangerous as

physical violence; for those who possess a surplus of food can force those who are starving into a ‘freely’ accepted servitude, without using violence. And assuming that the state limits its activities to the suppression of violence (and to the protection of property), a minority which is economically strong may in this way exploit the majority of those who are economically weak.

If this analysis is correct,¹² then the nature of the remedy is clear.

✓

It must be a political remedy - a remedy similar to the one which we use against physical violence. We must construct social institutions, enforced by the power of the state, for the protection of the economically weak from the economically strong. The state must see to it that nobody need enter into an inequitable arrangement out of fear of starvation, or economic ruin.

This, of course, means that the principle of non-intervention, of an unrestrained economic system, has to be given up; if we wish freedom to be safeguarded, then we must demand that the policy of unlimited economic freedom be replaced by the planned economic intervention of the state. We must demand that unrestrained capitalism give way to an economic interventionism,¹³ And this is precisely what has happened. The economic system described and criticized by Marx has everywhere ceased to exist. It has been replaced, not by a system in which the state begins to lose its functions and consequently ‘shows signs of withering away’, but by various interventionist systems, in which the functions of the state in the economic realm are extended far beyond the protection of property and of ‘free contracts’.

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I should like to characterize the point here reached as the most central point in my analysis of Marxism. It is bnly here that we can begin to realize the significance of the clash between historicism and social engineering [discussed in selection 24], and its effect upon the policy of the friends of the open society.

Marxism claims to be more than a science. It does more than make a historical prophecy. It claims to be the basis for practical political action. It criticizes existing society, and it asserts that it can lead the way to a better world. But according to Marx’s own theory, we cannot at will alter the economic reality by, for example,

legal reforms. Politics can do no more than ‘shorten and lessen the birth pangs’.¹⁴ This, I think, is an extremely poor political programme, and its poverty is a consequence of the third-rate place which it attributes to political power in the hierarchy of powers. For according to Marx, the real power lies in the evolution of machinery; next in importance is the system of economic class relationships; and the least important influence is that of politics.

A directly opposite view is implied in the position we have reached in our analysis. It considers political power as fundamental. Political power, from this point of view, can control economic power. This means an immense extension of the field of political activities. We can ask what we wish to achieve and how to achieve it. We can, for instance, develop a rational political programme for the protection of the economically weak. We can make laws to limit exploitation. We can limit the working day; but we can do much more. By law, we can insure the workers (or better still, all citizens) against disability, unemployment, and old age. In this way we can make impossible such forms of exploitation as are based upon the helpless economic position of a worker who must yield to anything in order not to starve. And when we are able by law to guarantee a livelihood to everybody willing to work, and there is no reason why we should not achieve that, then the protection of the freedom of the citizen from economic fear and economic intimidation will approach completeness. From this point of view, political power is the key to economic protection. Political power and its control are everything. Economic power must not be permitted to dominate political power; if necessary, it must be fought and brought under control by political power.

From the point of view reached, we can say that Marx’s disparaging attitude towards political power not only means that he neglects to develop a theory of the most important potential means of bettering the lot of the economically weak, but also that he neglects the greatest potential danger to human freedom. His naive view that, in a classless society, state power would lose its function and ‘wither away’ shows very clearly that he never grasped the paradox of freedom, and that he never understood the function which state power could and should perform, in the service of freedom and humanity. (Yet this view of Marx stands witness to the fact that he was, ultimately, an individualist, in spite of his collectivist appeal to class consciousness.) In this way, the Marxian view is analogous to the liberal belief that all we need is ‘equality of opportunity’. We certainly need this. But it is not enough. It does not protect those who are less gifted, or less ruthless, or less lucky, from becoming objects of exploitation for those who are more gifted, or ruthless, or lucky.

Moreover, from the point of view we have reached, what Marxists describe disparagingly as ‘mere formal freedom’ becomes the basis of everything else. This ‘mere formal freedom’, i.e. democracy, the right of the people to judge and to dismiss their government, is the only known device by which we can try to protect ourselves against the misuse of political power [see section ii to selection 25 above]; it is the control of the rulers by the ruled. And since political power can control economic power, political democracy is also the only means for the control of economic power by the ruled. Without democratic control, there can be no earthly reason why any government should not use its political and economic power for purposes very different from the protection of the freedom of its citizens.

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It is the fundamental role of ‘formal freedom’ which is overlooked by Marxists who think that formal democracy is not enough and wish to supplement it by what they usually call ‘economic democracy’; a vague and utterly superficial phrase which obscures the fact that ‘merely formal freedom’ is the only guarantee of a democratic economic policy.

Marx discovered the significance of economic power; and it is understandable that he exaggerated its status. He and the Marxists see economic power everywhere. Their argument runs: he who has the money has the power; for if necessary, he can buy guns and even gangsters. But this is a roundabout argument. In fact, it contains an admission that the man who has the gun has the power. And if he who has the gun becomes aware of this, then it may not be long until he has both the gun and the money. But under an unrestrained capitalism, Marx’s argument applies, to some extent; for a rule which develops institutions for the control of guns and gangsters but not of the power of money is liable to come under the influence of this power. In such a state, an uncontrolled gangsterism of wealth may rule. But Marx himself, I think, would have been the first to admit that this is not true of all states; that there have been times in history when, for example, all exploitation was looting, directly based upon the power of the mailed fist. And today there will be few to support the naive view that the ‘progress of history⁵ has once and for all put an end to these more direct ways of exploiting men, and that, once formal freedom has been achieved, it is impossible for us to fall again under the sway of such primitive forms of exploitation.

These considerations should be sufficient for refuting the dogmatic doctrine that economic power is more fundamental than physical power, or the power of the state. The dogma that economic power is at the root of all evil must be discarded. Its place must be taken by an understanding of the dangers of any form of uncontrolled power. Money as such is not particularly dangerous. It becomes dangerous only if it can buy power, either directly, or by enslaving the economically weak who must sell themselves in order to live.

We must think in these matters in even more materialist terms, as it were, than Marx did. We must realize that the control of physical power and of physical exploitation remains the central political problem. In order to establish this control, we must establish ‘merely formal freedom’. Once we have achieved this, and have learnt how to use it for the control of political power, everything rests with us. We must not blame anybody else any longer, nor cry out against the sinister economic demons behind the scenes. For in a democracy, we hold the keys to the control of the demons. We can tame them. We must realize this and use the keys; we must construct institutions for the democratic control of economic power, and for our protection from economic exploitation.

Much has been made by Marxists of the possibility of buying votes, either directly or by buying propaganda. But closer consideration shows that we have here a good example of the power-political situation analysed above. Once we have achieved formal freedom, we can control vote buying in every form. There are laws to limit the expenditure on electioneering, and it rests

entirely with us to see that much more stringent laws of this kind are introduced. The legal system can be made a powerful instrument for its own protection. In addition, we can influence public opinion, and insist upon a much more rigid moral code in political matters. All this we can do; but we must first realize that social engineering of this kind is our task, that it is in our power, and that we must not wait for economic earthquakes miraculously to produce a new economic world for us, so that all we shall have to do will be to unveil it, to remove the old political cloak.

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Of course, in practice Marxists never fully relied on the doctrine of the impotence of political power. So far as they had an opportunity to act, or to plan action, they usually assumed, like everybody else, that political power can be used for the control of economic power. But their plans and actions were never based on a clear refutation of their original theory, nor upon any well-considered view of that most fundamental problem of all politics: the control of the controller, of the dangerous accumulation of power represented in the state. They never realized the full significance of democracy as the only known means to achieve this control.

As a consequence they never realized the danger inherent in a policy of increasing the power of the state. Although they abandoned more or less unconsciously the doctrine of the impotence of politics, they retained the view that state power presents no important problem, and that it is bad only if it is in the hands of the bourgeoisie. They did not realize that all power, and political power at least as much as economic power, is dangerous. Thus they retained their formula of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They did not understand the principle that all large-scale politics must be institutional, not personal; and when clamouring for the extension of state powers (in contrast to Marx’s view of the state) they never considered that the wrong persons might one day get hold of these extended powers. This is part of the reason why, as far as they proceeded to consider state intervention, they planned to give the state practically limitless powers in the economic realm. They retained Marx’s holistic and

Utopian belief that only a brand new ‘social system’ can improve matters.

I have criticized this Utopian and Romantic approach to social engineering [in selection 24].¹⁵ But I wish to add here that economic intervention, even the piecemeal methods advocated here, will tend to increase the power of the state. Interventionism is therefore extremely dangerous. This is not a decisive argument against it; state power must always remain a dangerous though necessary evil. But it should be a warning that if we relax our watchfulness, and if we do not strengthen our democratic institutions while giving more power to the state by interventionist ‘planning’, then we may lose our freedom. And if freedom is lost, everything is lost, including ‘planning’. For why should plans for the welfare of the people be carried out if the people have no power to enforce them? Only freedom can make security secure.

We thus see that there is not only a paradox of freedom but also a paradox of state planning. If we plan too much, if we give too much power to the state, then freedom will be lost, and that will be the end of planning.

Such considerations lead us back to our plea for piecemeal, and against Utopian or holistic, methods of social engineering. And they lead us back to our demand that measures should be planned to fight concrete evils rather than to establish some ideal good [see especially pp. 317f. above]. State intervention should be limited to what is really necessary for the protection of freedom.

But it is not enough to say that our solution should be a minimum solution; that we should be watchful; and that we should not give more power to the state than is necessary for the protection of freedom. These remarks may raise problems, but they do not show a way to a solution. It is even conceivable that there is no solution; that the acquisition of new economic powers by a state - whose powers, as compared to those of its citizens, are always dangerously great - will make it irresistible. So far, we have shown neither that freedom can be preserved, nor how it can be preserved.

Under these circumstances it may be useful to remember our earlier considerations concerning the question of the control of political power and the paradox of freedom.

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If we now look back at Marx’s theory of the impotence of politics and of the power of historical forces, then we must admit that it is an imposing edifice. It is the direct result of his sociological method; of his economic historicism, of the doctrine that the development of the economic system, or of man’s metabolism, determines his social and political development. The experience of his time, his humanitarian indignation, and the need of bringing to the oppressed the consolation of a prophecy, the hope, or even the certainty, of their victory, all this is united in one grandiose philosophic system, comparable or even superior to the holistic systems of Plato and Hegel. It is only due to the accident that he was not a reactionary that the history of philosophy takes so little notice of him and assumes that he was mainly a propagandist. The reviewer of Capital who wrote: ‘At the first glance... we come to the conclusion that the author is one of the greatest among the idealist philosophers, in the German, that is to say, the bad sense of the word “idealist”. But in actual fact, he is enormously more realistic than any of his predecessors.. .’,¹⁶ this reviewer hit the nail on the head. Marx was the last of the great holistic system builders. We should take care to leave it at that, and not to replace his by another Great System. What we need is not holism. It is piecemeal social engineering.

The problem of individualism and collectivism is closely related to that of equality and inequality. Before going on to discuss it, a few terminological remarks seem to be necessary.

The term ‘individualism’ can be used (according to The Oxford English Dictionary) in two different ways: (1) in opposition to collectivism, and (2) in opposition to altruism. There is no other word to express the former meaning, but several synonyms for the latter, for example ‘egoism’ or ‘selfishness’. This is why in what follows I shall use the term ‘individualism’ exclusively in sense (1), using terms like ‘egoism’ or ‘selfishness’ if sense (2) is intended. A little table may be useful:

(1) Individualism    is opposed to    (T) Collectivism.

(2) Egoism    is opposed to    {T) Altruism.

Now these four terms describe certain attitudes, or demands, or decisions, or proposals, for codes of normative laws. Though necessarily vague, they can, I believe, be easily illustrated by examples and so be used with a precision sufficient for our present purpose. Let us begin with collectivism.¹ Plato’s demand that the individual should subserve the interests of the whole, whether this be the universe, the city, the tribe, the race, or any other collective body, is illustrated by the following passage.² ‘The part exists for the sake of the whole, but the whole does not exist for the sake of

the part____You are created for the sake of the whole and not the

whole for the sake of you.’ This quotation not only illustrates holism and collectivism, but also conveys its strong emotional appeal of which Plato was conscious (as can be seen from the preamble to the passage). The appeal is to various feelings, e.g. the longing to belong to a group or a tribe; and one factor in it is the moral appeal for altruism and against selfishness, or egoism. Plato suggests that if you cannot sacrifice your interests for the sake of the whole, then you are selfish.

Now a glance at our little table will show that this is not so. Collectivism is not opposed to egoism, nor is it identical with altruism or unselfishness. Collective or group egoism, for instance class egoism, is a very common thing (Plato knew³ this very well), and this shows clearly enough that collectivism as such is not opposed to selfishness. On the other hand, an anti-collectivist, i.e. an individualist, can, at the same time, be an altruist; he can be ready to make sacrifices in order to help other individuals. One of the best examples of this attitude is perhaps Dickens. It would be difficult to say which is the stronger, his passionate hatred of selfishness or his passionate interest in individuals with all their human weaknesses; and this attitude is combined with a dislike, not only of what we now call collective bodies or collectives (and, quite wrongly, Parliament as well), but even of a genuinely devoted altruism, if directed towards anonymous groups rather than concrete individuals. (I remind the reader of Mrs Jellyby in Bleak House, ‘a lady devoted to public duties’.) These illustrations, I think, explain sufficiently clearly the meaning of our four terms; and they show that any of the terms in our table can be combined with either of the two terms that stand in the other line (which gives four possible combinations).

Now it is interesting that for Plato, and for most Platonists, an altruistic individualism (as for instance that of Dickens) cannot exist. According to Plato, the only alternative to collectivism is egoism; he simply identifies all altruism with collectivism, and all individualism with egoism. This is not a matter of terminology, of mere words, for instead of four possibilities, Plato recognized only two. This has created considerable confusion in speculation on ethical matters, even down to our own day.

Plato’s identification of individualism with egoism furnishes him with a powerful weapon for his defence of collectivism as well as for his attack upon individualism. In defending collectivism, he can appeal to our humanitarian feeling of unselfishness; in his attack, he can brand all individualists as selfish, as incapable of devotion to anything but themselves. This attack, although aimed

by Plato against individualism in our sense, i.e. against the rights of human individuals, reaches of course only a very different target, egoism. But this difference is constantly ignored by Plato and by most Platonists.

Why did Plato try to attack individualism? I think he knew very well what he was doing when he trained his guns upon this position, for individualism, perhaps even more than equalitarian-ism, was a stronghold in the defences of the new humanitarian creed. The emancipation of the individual was indeed the great spiritual revolution which had led to the breakdown of tribalism and to the rise of democracy. Plato’s uncanny sociological intuition shows itself in the way in which he invariably discerned the enemy wherever he met him.

Individualism was part of the old intuitive idea of justice. That justice is not, as Plato would have it, the health and harmony of the state, but rather a certain way of treating individuals, is emphasized by Aristotle, it will be remembered, when he says ‘justice is something that pertains to persons’.⁴ This individualistic element had been emphasized by the generation of Pericles. Pericles himself made it clear that the laws must guarantee equal justice ‘to all alike in their private disputes’; but he went further. ‘We do not feel called upon’, he said, ‘to nag at our neighbour if he chooses to go his own way.’ (Compare this with Plato’s remark⁵ that the state does not produce men ‘for the purpose of letting them loose, each to go his own way...’.) Pericles insists that this individualism must be linked with altruism: ‘We are taught ... never to forget that we must protect the injured’; and his speech culminates in a description of the young Athenian who grows up ‘to a happy versatility, and self-reliance’.

This individuahsm, united with altruism, has become the basis of our western civilization. It is the central doctrine of Christianity (‘love your neighbour’, say the Scriptures, not ‘love your tribe’); and it is the core of all ethical doctrines which have grown from our civilization and stimulated it. It is also, for instance, Kant’s central practical doctrine (‘always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as mere means to your ends’). There is no other thought which has been so powerful in the moral development of man.

Plato was right when he saw in this doctrine the enemy of his caste state; and he hated it more than any other of the ‘subversive’ doctrines of his time. In order to show this even more clearly, I shall quote two passages from the Laws⁶ whose truly astonishing hostility towards the individual is, I think, too little appreciated. The first of them is famous as a reference to the Republic, whose ‘community of women and children and property’ it discusses. Plato describes here the constitution of the Republic as ‘the highest form of the state’. In this highest state, he tells us, ‘there is common property of wives, of children, and of all chattels. And everything possible has been done to eradicate from our life everywhere and in every way all that is private and individual. So far as it can be done, even those things which nature herself has made private and individual have somehow become the common property of all. Our very eyes and ears and hands seem to see, to hear, and to act, as if they belonged not to individuals but to the community. All men are moulded to be unanimous in the utmost degree in bestowing praise and blame, and they even rejoice and grieve about the same things, and at the same time. And all the laws are perfected for unifying the city to the utmost.’ Plato goes on to say that ‘no man can find a better criterion of the highest excellence of a state than the principles just expounded’; and he describes such a state as ‘divine’, and as the ‘model’ or ‘pattern’ or ‘original’ of the state, i.e. as its Form or Idea. This is Plato’s own view of the Republic, expressed at a time when he had given up hope of realizing his political ideal in all its glory.

The second passage, also from the Laws, is, if possible, even more outspoken. It should be emphasized that the passage deals primarily with military expeditions and with military discipline, but Plato leaves no doubt that these same militarist principles should be adhered to not only in war, but also ‘in peace, and from the earliest childhood on’. Like other totalitarian militarists and admirers of Sparta, Plato urges that the all-important requirements of military discipline must be paramount, even in peace, and that they must determine the whole life of all citizens; for not only the full citizens (who are all soldiers) and the children, but also the very beasts must spend their whole life in a state of permanent and total mobilization.⁷ ‘The greatest principle of all’, he writes, ‘is that nobody, whether male or female, should ever be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do

anything at all on his own initiative, neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace - to his leader he shall direct his eye, and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matters he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals⁸... only if he has been told to do so. ... In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it. In this way the life of all will be spent in total community. There is no law, nor will there ever be one, which is superior to this, or better and more effective in ensuring salvation and victory in war. And in times of peace, and from the earliest childhood on should it be fostered - this habit of ruling others, and of being ruled by others. And every trace of anarchy should be utterly eradicated from all the life of all the men, and even of the wild beasts which are subject to men.’

These are strong words. Never was a man more in earnest in his hostility towards the individual. And this hatred is deeply rooted in the fundamental dualism of Plato’s philosophy; he hated the individual and his freedom just as he hated the varying particular experiences, the variety of the changing world of sensible things. In the field of politics, the individual is to Plato the Evil One himself.

This attitude, anti-humanitarian and anti-Christian as it is, has been consistently idealized. It has been interpreted as humane, as unselfish, as altruistic, and as Christian. E. B. England, for instance, calls⁹ the first of these two passages from the Laws ‘a vigorous denunciation of selfishness’. Similar words are used by Barker, when discussing Plato’s theory of justice. He says that Plato’s aim was ‘to replace selfishness and civil discord by harmony’, and that ‘the old harmony of the interests of the State and the individual ... is thus restored in the teachings of Plato; but restored on a new and higher level, because it has been elevated into a conscious sense of harmony’. Such statements and countless similar ones can be easily explained if we remember Plato’s identification of individualism with egoism; for all these Platonists believe that anti-individualism is the same as selflessness. This illustrates my contention that this identification had the effect of a successful piece of anti-humanitarian propaganda, and that it has confused speculation on ethical matters down to our own time. But

we must also realize that those who, deceived by this identification and by highsounding words, exalt Plato’s reputation as a teacher of morals and announce to the world that his ethics is the nearest approach to Christianity before Christ, are preparing the way for totalitarianism and especially for a totalitarian, anti-Christian interpretation of Christianity. And this is a dangerous thing, for there have been times when Christianity was dominated by totalitarian ideas. There was an Inquisition; and, in another form, it may come again.

It may therefore be worth while to mention some further reasons why guileless people have persuaded themselves of the humaneness of Plato’s intentions. One is that when preparing the ground for his collectivist doctrines, Plato usually begins by quoting a maxim or proverb (which seems to be of Pythagorean origin): ‘Friends have in common all things they possess.’¹⁰ This is, undoubtedly, an unselfish, highminded and excellent sentiment. Who could suspect that an argument starting from such a commendable assumption would arrive at a wholly antihumanitarian conclusion? Another and important point is that there are many genuinely humanitarian sentiments expressed in Plato’s dialogues, particularly in those written before the Republic when he was still under the influence of Socrates. I mention especially Socrates’s doctrine, in the Gorgias, that it is worse to do injustice than to suffer it. Clearly, this doctrine is not only altruistic, but also individuahstic; for in a collectivist theory of justice like that of the Republic, injustice is an act against the state, not against a particular man, and though a man may commit an act of injustice, only the collective can suffer from it. But in the Gorgias we find nothing of the kind. The theory of justice is a perfectly normal one, and the examples of injustice given by ‘Socrates’ (who has here probably a good deal of the real Socrates in him) are such as boxing a man’s ears, injuring, or killing him. Socrates’s teaching that it is better to suffer such acts than to do them is indeed very similar to Christian teaching, and his doctrine of justice fits in excellently with the spirit of Pericles.

Now the Republic develops a new doctrine of justice which is not merely incompatible with such an individualism, but utterly hostile towards it. But a reader may easily believe that Plato is still holding fast to the doctrine of the Gorgias. For in the Republic,

Plato frequently alludes to the doctrine that it is better to suffer than to commit injustice, in spite of the fact that this is simply nonsense from the point of view of the collectivist theory of justice proffered in this work. Furthermore, we hear in the Republic the opponents of ‘Socrates’ giving voice to the opposite theory, that it is good and pleasant to inflict injustice, and bad to suffer it. Of course, every humanitarian is repelled by such cynicism, and when Plato formulates his aims through the mouth of Socrates: ‘I fear to commit a sin if I permit such evil talk about Justice in my presence, without doing my utmost to defend her’,¹¹ then the trusting reader is convinced of Plato’s good intentions, and ready to follow him wherever he goes.

The effect of this assurance of Plato’s is much enhanced by the fact that it follows, and is contrasted with, the cynical and selfish speeches¹² of Thrasymachus, who is depicted as a political desperado of the worst kind. At the same time, the reader is led to identify individualism with the views of Thrasymachus, and to think that Plato, in his fight against it, is fighting against all the subversive and nihilistic tendencies of his time. But we should not allow ourselves to be frightened by an individualist bogy such as Thrasymachus (there is a great similarity between his portrait and the modern collectivist bogy of ‘bolshevism’) into accepting another more real and more dangerous because less obvious form of barbarism. For Plato replaces Thrasymachus’s doctrine that the individual’s might is right by the equally barbaric doctrine that right is everything that furthers the stability and the might of the state.

To sum up. Because of his radical collectivism, Plato is not even interested in those problems which men usually call the problems of justice, that is to say, in the impartial weighing of the contesting claims of individuals. Nor is he interested in adjusting the individual’s claims to those of the state. For the individual is altogether inferior. ‘I legislate with a view to what is best for the whole state’, says Plato, ‘... for I justly place the interests of the individual on an inferior level of value.’¹³ He is concerned solely with the collective whole as such, and justice, to him, is nothing but the health, unity, and stability of the collective body.

A concise formulation of Marx’s opposition to psychologism (the term is due to Husserl), i.e. to the plausible doctrine that all laws of social life must be ultimately reducible to the psychological laws of ‘human nature’, is his famous epigram: ‘It is not the consciousness of man that determines his existence - rather, it is his social existence that determines his consciousness.’¹1 may state at once that in elucidating this epigram and developing what I believe to be Marx’s anti-psychologism, I am developing a view to which I subscribe myself.

As an elementary illustration, and a first step in our examination, we may refer to the problem of the so-called rules of exogamy, i.e. the problem of explaining the wide distribution, among the most diverse cultures, of marriage laws apparently designed to prevent inbreeding. Mill and his psychologistic school of sociology (it was joined later by many psychoanalysts) would try to explain these rules by an appeal to ‘human nature’, for instance to some sort of instinctive aversion against incest (developed perhaps through natural selection, or else through ‘repression’); and something like this would also be the naive or popular explanation. Adopting the point of view expressed in Marx’s epigram, however, one could ask whether it is not the other way round, that is to say, whether the apparent instinct is not rather a product of education, the effect rather than the cause of the social rules and traditions demanding exogamy and forbidding incest.² It is clear that these two approaches correspond exactly to the very ancient problem whether social laws are ‘natural’ or ‘conventional’. In a question such as the one chosen here as an illustration, it would be difficult to determine which of the two theories is the correct one, the explanation of the traditional social rules by instinct or the explanation of an apparent instinct by traditional social rules. The possibility of deciding such questions by experiment has, however, been shown in a similar case, that of the apparently instinctive aversion to snakes. This aversion has a greater semblance of being instinctive or ‘natural’ in that it is exhibited not only by men but also by all anthropoid apes and most monkeys as well. But

experiments seem to indicate that this fear is conventional.

*

appears to be a product of education, not only in the human race but also for instance in chimpanzees, since both young children and young chimpanzees who have not been taught to fear snakes do not exhibit the alleged instinct.³ This example should be taken as a warning. We are faced here with an aversion which is apparently universal, even beyond the human race. But although from the fact that a habit is not universal we might perhaps argue against its being based on an instinct (but even this argument is dangerous since there are social customs enforcing the suppression of instincts), we see that the converse is certainly not true. The universal occurrence of a certain behaviour is not a decisive argument in favour of its instinctive character, or of its being

rooted in ‘human nature’.

Such considerations may show how naive it is to assume that all social laws must be derivable, in principle, from the psychology of ‘human nature’. But this analysis is still rather crude. In order to proceed one step further, we may try to analyse more directly the main thesis of psychologism, the doctrine that, society being the product of interacting minds, social laws must ultimately be reducible to psychological laws, since the events of social life, including its conventions, must be the outcome of motives springing from the minds of individual men.

Against this doctrine of psychologism, the defenders of an autonomous sociology can advance institutionalist views.⁴ They can point out, first of all, that no action can ever be explained by motive

alone; if motives (or any other psychological or behaviourist concepts) are to be used in the explanation, then they must be

and

supplemented by a reference to the general situation

especially to the environment. In the case of human actions, this environment is very largely of a social nature; thus our actions

cannot be explained without reference to our social environment to social institutions and to their manner of functioning.

IS

5

therefore impossible, the institutionalist may contend, to reduce sociology to a psychological or behaviourist analysis of our actions; rather, every such analysis presupposes sociology, which therefore cannot wholly depend on psychological analysis. Sociology, or at least a very important part of it, must be autonomous.

Against this view, the followers of psychologism may retort that they are quite ready to admit the great importance of environmental factors, whether natural or social; but the structure (they may prefer the fashionable word ‘pattern’) of the social environment, as opposed to the natural environment, is manmade; and therefore it must be explicable in terms of human nature, in accordance with the doctrine of psychologism. For instance, the characteristic institution which economists call ‘the market’, and whose functioning is the main object of their studies, can be derived in the last analysis from the psychology of ‘economic man’, or, to use Mill’s phraseology, from the psychological ‘phenomena ... of the pursuit of wealth’. Moreover, the followers of psychologism insist that it is because of the peculiar psychological structure of human nature that institutions play such an important role in our society, and that, once established, they show a tendency to become a traditional and a comparatively fixed part of our environment. Finally - and this is their decisive point - the origin as well as the development of traditions must be explicable in terms of human nature. When tracing back traditions and institutions to their origin, we must find that their introduction is explicable in psychological terms, since they have been introduced by man for some purpose or other, and under the influence of certain motives. And even if these motives have been forgotton in the course of time, then that forgetfulness, as well as our readiness to put up with institutions whose purpose is obscure, is in its turn based on human nature. Thus ‘All phenomena of society are phenomena of human nature’, as Mill said; and ‘The Laws of the phenomena of society are, and can be, nothing but the laws of the actions and passions of human beings’, that is to say, ‘the laws of individual human nature. Men are not, when brought together, converted into another kind of substance____’⁵

This last remark of Mill's exhibits one of the most praiseworthy aspects of psychologism, namely, its sane opposition to collectivism and holism, its refusal to be impressed by Rousseau’s or

Hegel’s romanticism - by a general will or a national spirit, or perhaps, by a group mind. Psychologism is, I believe, correct only in so far as it insists upon what may be called ‘methodological individualism’ as opposed to ‘methodological collectivism’;⁶ it rightly insists that the ‘behaviour’ and the ‘actions’ of collectives, such as states or social groups, must be reduced to the behaviour and to the actions of human individuals. But the belief that the choice of such an individualistic method implies the choice of a psychological method is mistaken (as will be shown below), even though it may appear very convincing at first sight. And that psychologism as such moves on rather dangerous ground, apart from its commendable individualistic method, can be seen from some further passages of Mill’s argument. For they show that psychologism is forced to adopt historicist methods. The attempt to reduce the facts of our social environment to psychological facts forces us into speculations about origins and developments. When analysing Plato’s sociology (in The Open Society and Its Enemies, chapter 5), we had an opportunity of gauging the dubious merits of such an approach to social science. In criticizing Mill, we shall now try to deal it a decisive blow.

It is undoubtedly Mill’s psychologism which forces him to adopt a historicist method; and he is even vaguely aware of the barrenness or poverty of historicism, since he tries to account for this barrenness by pointing out the difficulties arising from the tremendous complexity of the interaction of so many individual minds. ‘. . . while it is . . . imperative’, he says, ‘. . . never to introduce any generalisation ... into the social science unless sufficient grounds can be pointed out for it in human nature, I do not think any one will contend that it would have been possible, setting out from the principles of human nature and from the general circumstances of the position of our species, to determine a priori the order in which human development must take place, and to predict, consequently, the general facts of history up to the present time’. The reason he gives is that ‘[after] the first few terms of the series, the influence exercised over each generation by the generations which preceded it becomes ... more and more preponderant over all other influences’. (In other words, the social environment becomes a dominant influence.) ‘So long a series of

actions and reactions ... could not possibly be computed by human faculties____’⁷

This argument, and especially Mill’s remark on ‘the first few terms of the series’, are a striking revelation of the weakness of the psychologistic version of historicism. If all regularities in social life, the laws of our social environment, of all institutions, etc., are ultimately to be explained by, and reduced to, the ‘actions and passions of human beings’, then such an approach forces upon us not only the idea of historico-causal development, but also the idea of the first steps of such a development. For the stress on the psychological origin of social rules or institutions can only mean that they can be traced back to a state when their introduction was dependent solely upon psychological factors, or more precisely, when it was independent of any established social institutions. Psychologism is thus forced, whether it likes it or not, to operate with the idea of a beginning of society, and with the idea of a human nature and a human psychology as they existed prior to society. In other words, Mill’s remark concerning the ‘first few terms of the series’ of social development is not an accidental slip, as one might perhaps believe, but the appropriate expression of the desperate position forced upon him. It is a desperate position because this theory of a pre-social human nature which explains the foundation of society - a psychologistic version of the ‘social contract’ - is not only an historical myth, but also, as it were, a methodological myth. It can hardly be seriously discussed, for we have every reason to believe that man or rather his ancestor was social prior to being human (considering, for example, that language presupposes society). But this implies that social institutions, and with them, typical social regularities or sociological laws,⁸ must have existed prior to what some people are pleased to call ‘human nature’, and to human psychology. If a reduction is to be attempted at all, it would therefore be more hopeful to attempt a reduction or interpretation of psychology in terms of sociology than the other way round.

This brings us back to Marx’s epigram at the beginning [of this selection]. Men - i.e. human minds, the needs, the hopes, fears, and expectations, the motives and aspirations of human individuals - are, if anything, the product of life in society rather than its creators. [See also selection 22, section n.] It must be admitted that the structure of our social environment is manmade in a certain sense; that its institutions and traditions are the work neither of God nor of nature, but the results of human actions and decisions, and alterable by human actions and decisions. But this does not mean that they are all consciously designed, and explicable in terms of needs, hopes, or motives. On the contrary, even those which arise as the result of conscious and intentional human actions are, as a rule, the indirect, the unintended, and often the unwanted byproducts of such actions. ‘Only a minority of social institutions are consciously designed, while the vast majority have just “grown”, as the undesigned results of human actions’, as I said [on p.308 above];⁹ and we can add that even most of the few institutions which were consciously and successfully designed (say, a newly founded university, or a trade union) do not turn out according to plan - again because of the unintended social repercussions resulting from their intentional creation. For their creation affects not only many other social institutions but also ‘human nature’ - hopes, fears, and ambitions, first of those more immediately involved, and later often of all members of the society. One of the consequences of this is that the moral values of a society - the demands and proposals recognized by all, or by very nearly all, of its members - are closely bound up with its institutions and traditions, and that they cannot survive the destruction of the institutions and traditions of the society.¹⁰

All this holds most emphatically for the more ancient periods of social development, i.e. for the closed society, in which the conscious design of institutions is a most exceptional event, if it happens at all. Today, things may begin to be different, owing to our slowly increasing knowledge of society, i.e. owing to the study of the unintended repercussions of our plans and actions; and one day, men may even become the conscious creators of an open society, and thereby of a greater part of their own fate. (Marx himself entertained this hope.) But all this is partly a matter of degree, and although we may learn to foresee many of the unintended consequences of our actions (the main aim of all social technology), there will always be many which we did not foresee.

The fact that psychologism is forced to operate with the idea of a psychological origin of society constitutes in my opinion a

decisive argument against it. But it is not the only one. Perhaps the most important criticism of psychologism is that it fails to understand the main task of the explanatory social sciences.

This task is not, as the historicist believes, the prophecy of the future course of history. It is, rather, the discovery and explanation of the less obvious dependences within the social sphere. It is the discovery of the difficulties which stand in the way of social action - the study, as it were, of the unwieldiness, the resilience or the brittleness of the social stuff, of its resistance to our attempts to mould it and to work with it.

In order to make my point clear, I shall briefly describe a theory which is widely held but which assumes what I consider the very opposite of the true aim of the social sciences; I call it the ‘conspiracy theory of society’. It is the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the men or groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon (sometimes it is a hidden interest which has first to be revealed), and who have planned and conspired to bring it about.¹¹

This view of the aims of the social sciences arises, of course, from the mistaken theory that, whatever happens in society - especially happenings such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages, which people as a rule dislike - is the result of direct design by some powerful individuals and groups. This theory is widely held; it is older even than historicism (which, as shown by its primitive theistic form, is a derivative of the conspiracy theory). In its modem forms it is, like modem historicism, and a certain modern attitude towards ‘natural laws’, a typical result of the secularization of a religious superstition. The belief in the Homeric gods whose conspiracies explain the history of the Trojan War is gone. The gods are abandoned. But their place is filled by powerful men or groups - sinister pressure groups whose wickedness is responsible for all the evils we suffer from - such as the Learned Elders of Zion, or the monopolists, or the capitalists, or the imperialists.

I do not wish to imply that conspiracies never happen. On the contrary, they are typical social phenomena. They become important, for example, whenever people who believe in the conspiracy theory get into power. And people who sincerely believe that they know how to make heaven on earth are most likely to adopt the conspiracy theory, and to get involved in a

counterconspiracy against non-existing conspirators. For the only explanation of their failure to produce their heaven is the evil intention of the Devil, who has a vested interest in hell.

Conspiracies occur, it must be admitted. But the striking fact which, in spite of their occurrence, disproves the conspiracy theory is that few of these conspiracies are ultimately successful. Conspirators rarely consummate their conspiracy.

Why is this so? Why do achievements differ so widely from aspirations? Because this is usually the case in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. Social life is not only a trial of strength between opposing groups: it is action within a more or less resilient or brittle framework of institutions and traditions, and it creates apart from any conscious counteraction - many unforeseen reactions in this framework, some of them perhaps even unforeseeable.

To try to analyse these reactions and to foresee them as far as possible is, I believe, the main task of the social sciences. It is the task of analysing the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions - those repercussions whose significance is neglected both by the conspiracy theory and by psychologism, as already indicated. An action which proceeds precisely according to intention does not create a problem for social science (except that there may be a need to explain why in this particular case no unintended repercussions occurred). One of the most primitive economic actions may serve as an example in order to make the idea of unintended consequences of our actions quite clear. If a man wishes urgently to buy a house, we can safely assume that he does not wish to raise the market price of houses. But the very fact that he appears on the market as a buyer will tend to raise market prices. And analogous remarks hold for the seller. Or to take an example from a very different field, if a man decides to insure his life, he is unlikely to have the intention of encouraging some people to invest their money in insurance shares. But he will do so nevertheless. We see here clearly that not all consequences of our actions are intended consequences; and accordingly, that the conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all results, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results.

The examples given do not refute psychologism as easily as they refute the conspiracy theory, for one can argue that it is the sellers’ knowledge of a buyer’s presence in the market, and their hope of getting a higher price - in other words, psychological factors -which explain the repercussions described. This, of course, is quite true; but we must not forget that this knowledge and this hope are not ultimate data of human nature, and that they are, in their turn, explicable in terms of the social situation - the market situation.

This social situation is hardly reducible to motives and to the general laws of ‘human nature’. Indeed, the interference of certain ‘traits of human nature’, such as our susceptibility to propaganda, may sometimes lead to deviations from the economic behaviour just mentioned. Furthermore, if the social situation is different from the one envisaged, then it is possible that the consumer, by the action of buying, may indirectly contribute to a cheapening of the article; for instance, by making its mass production more profitable. And although this effect happens to further his interest as a consumer, it may have been caused just as involuntarily as the opposite effect, and altogether under precisely similar psychological conditions. It seems clear that the social situations which may lead to such widely different unwanted or unintended repercussions must be studied by a social science which is not bound to the prejudice that ‘it is ... imperative... never to introduce any generalisation into the social science unless sufficient grounds can be pointed out for it in human nature’, as Mill said.¹² They must be studied by an autonomous social science.

Continuing this argument against psychologism we may say that our actions are to a very large extent explicable in terms of the situation in which they occur. Of course, they are never fully explicable in terms of the situation alone; an explanation of the way in which a man, when crossing a street, dodges the cars which move on it may go beyond the situation, and may refer to his motives, to an ‘instinct’ of self-preservation, or to his wish to avoid pain, etc. But this ‘psychological’ part of the explanation is very often trivial, as compared with the detailed determination of his action by what we may call the logic of the situation; and besides, it is impossible to include all psychological factors in the description of the situation. The analysis of situations, the situational logic, plays a very important part in social life as well as in the social sciences. It is, in fact, the method of economic analysis. As to an example outside economics, I refer to the ‘logic of power’,¹³ which we may use in order to explain the moves of power politics as well as the working of certain political institutions. The method of applying a situational logic to the social sciences is not based on any psychological assumption concerning the rationality (or otherwise) of ‘human nature’. On the contrary: when we speak of ‘rational behaviour’ or of ‘irrational behaviour’ then we mean behaviour which is, or which is not, in accordance with the logic of that situation. In fact, the psychological analysis of an action in terms of its (rational or irrational) motives presupposes - as has been pointed out by Max Weber¹⁴ - that we have previously developed some standard of what is to be considered as rational in the situation in question.

My arguments against psychologism should not be misunderstood. They are not, of course, intended to show that psychological studies and discoveries are of little importance for the social scientist. They mean, rather, that psychology - the psychology of the individual - is one of the social sciences, even though it is not the basis of all social science. Nobody would deny the importance for political science of psychological facts such as the craving for power, and the various neurotic phenomena connected with it. But ‘craving for power’ is undoubtedly a social notion as well as a psychological one: we must not forget that, if we study, for example, the first appearance in childhood of this craving, then we study it in the setting of a certain social institution, for example, that of our modern family. (The Eskimo family may give rise to rather different phenomena.) Another psychological fact which is significant for sociology, and which raises grave political and institutional problems, is that to live in the haven of a tribe, or of a ‘community’ approaching a tribe, is for many men an emotional necessity (especially for young people who, perhaps in accordance with a parallelism between ontogenetic and phylogenetic development, seem to have to pass through a tribal or ‘American Indian’ stage). That my attack on psychologism is not intended as an attack on all psychological considerations may be seen from the use I have made elsewhere¹⁵ of such a concept as the ‘strain of civilization’, which is partly the result of this unsatisfied emotional need. This concept refers to certain feelings of uneasiness, and is therefore a

psychological concept. But at the same time, it is a sociological concept also; for it not only characterizes these feelings as unpleasant and unsettling, etc., but relates them to a certain social situation, and to the contrast between an open and a closed society. (Many psychological concepts such as ambition or love have an analogous status.) Also, we must not overlook the great merits which psychologism has acquired by advocating a methodological individualism and by opposing a methodological collectivism; for it lends support to the important doctrine that all social phenomena, and especially the functioning of all social institutions, should always be understood as resulting from the decisions, actions, attitudes, etc., of human individuals, and that we should never be satisfied by an explanation in terms of so-called ‘collectives’ (states, nations, races, etc.). The mistake of psychologism is its presumption that this methodological individualism in the field of social science implies the programme of reducing all social phenomena and all social regularities to psychological phenomena and psychological laws. The danger of this presumption is its inclination towards historicism, as we have seen. That it is unwarranted is shown by the need for a theory of the unintended social repercussions of our actions, and by the need for what I have described as the logic of social situations.

In defending and developing Marx’s view that the problems of society are irreducible to those of‘human nature’, I have permitted myself to go beyond the arguments actually propounded by Marx. Marx did not speak of ‘psychologism’, nor did he criticize it systematically; nor was it Mill whom he had in mind in the epigram quoted at the beginning of this chapter. The force of this epigram is directed, rather, against ‘idealism’, in its Hegelian form. Yet so far as the problem of the psychological nature of society is concerned, Mill’s psychologism can be said to coincide with the idealist theory combated by Marx.¹⁶ As it happened, however, it was just the influence of another element in Hegelianism, namely Hegel’s Platonizing collectivism, his theory that the state and the nation are more ‘real’ than the individual who owes everything to them, that led Marx to the view expounded in this chapter. (An instance of the fact that one can sometimes extract a valuable suggestion even from an absurd philosophical theory.) Thus, historically, Marx developed certain of Hegel’s views concerning

the superiority of society over the individual, and used them as arguments against other views of Hegel. Yet since I consider Mill a worthier opponent than Hegel, I have not kept to the history of Marx’s ideas, but have tried to develop them in the form of an argument against Mill.

In this paper I wish to consider the problem of explanation in the social sciences, and briefly to compare and contrast it with the analogous problem in the natural sciences [discussed in selection 12 above]. My thesis is that social explanations are very similar to certain physical explanations, but that the problem of explanation in the social sciences does give rise to problems that are not encountered in the natural sciences.

Let me begin by distinguishing between two kinds of problems of explanation or prediction.

(1)    The first kind is the problem of explaining or predicting one or a smallish number of singular events. An example from the natural sciences would be, ‘When will the next lunar eclipse (or, say, the next two or three lunar eclipses) occur?’ An example from the social sciences would be, ‘When will there be the next rise in the rate of unemployment in the Midlands, or in Western Ontario?’

(2)    The second kind of problem is the problem of explaining, or predicting, a certain kind or type of event. An example from the natural sciences would be, ‘Why do lunar eclipses occur again and again, and only when there is a full moon?’ An example from the social sciences would be, ‘Why is there a seasonal increase and decrease of unemployment in the building industry?’

The difference between these two kinds of problem is that the first can be solved without constructing a model, while the second is most easily solved with the help of constructing a model.

Now it seems to me that in the theoretical social sciences it is hardly ever possible to answer questions of the first kind. The theoretical social sciences operate almost always by the method of constructing typical situations or conditions - that is, by the

method of constructing models. (This is connected with the fact that in the social sciences, there is, in Hayek’s terminology, less ‘explanation in detail’ and more ‘explanation in principle’ than in the physical sciences.)

It is important to realize the close similarity of explanations in the social sciences with explanations of the second kind in the natural sciences. Suppose, in the natural sciences, we wish to explain the repeated occurrence of lunar eclipses. In this case we may construct an actual mechanical model, or refer to a perspective drawing. For our limited purpose, the model may be very rough indeed. It may consist of a fixed lamp: the sun; a little wooden earth rotating in a circle round the sun, and a little moon rotating in a circle round the earth. One thing would be essential however: the planes of the two movements must be so inclined towards each other that we obtain lunar eclipses sometimes, but not always, when the moon is full.

A critical discussion of our rough model must give rise, however, to a new problem, ‘How are earth and moon propelled in the real world?’; and with this we may come to Newton’s laws of motion. There is no need, however, to introduce initial conditions explicitly into our solution: as far as problems of the second kind are concerned (the explanation of types of events) initial conditions may be completely replaced by the construction of the model, which one might say, incorporates typical initial conditions. But if we wish to make the model move, or work, or, as we may say, if we wish to ‘animate’ the model; that is, if we wish to represent the way in which the various elements of the model act upon each other, then we do need universal laws (in this case, the consequences of approximating Newton’s laws of motion).

So much for the natural sciences. As for the social sciences, I have elsewhere [in the previous selection] proposed that we can construct our models by means of situational analysis, which provides us with models (rough and ready models to be sure) of typical social situations. And my thesis is that only in this way can we explain and understand what happens in society: social events.

Now if situational analysis presents us with a model, the question arises: what corresponds here to Newton’s universal laws of motion which, as we have said, ‘animate’ the model of the solar system? Or in other words, how is the model of a social situation ‘animated’?

The usual mistake made here is to assume that in the case of human society, the ‘animation’ of a social model has to be provided by the human anima or psyche, and that here, therefore, we have to replace Newton’s laws of motion either by laws of human psychology in general, or perhaps by the laws of individual psychology pertaining to the individual characters who are involved as act or s in our situation.

But this is a mistake, for more reasons than one. First of all, in our situational analysis itself we replace concrete psychological experiences (or desires, hopes, tendencies) by abstract and typical situational elements, such as ‘aims’ and ‘knowledge’. Secondly, it is the central point of situational analysis that we need, in order to ‘animate’ it, no more than the assumption that the various persons or agents involved act adequately, or appropriately \; that is to say, in accordance with the situation. Here we must remember, of course, that the situation, as I use the term, already contains all the relevant aims and all the available relevant knowledge, especially that of possible means for realizing these aims.

Thus there is only one animating law involved - the principle of acting appropriately to the situation; clearly an almost empty principle. It is known in the literature under the name ‘rationality principle’, a name which has led to countless misunderstandings.

1

It is my conviction that by expressing the problem of politics in the form ‘Who should rule?’ or ‘Whose will should be supreme?’, etc., Plato created a lasting confusion in political philosophy. It is indeed analogous to the confusion he created in the field of moral philosophy by his identification [discussed in selection 27] of collectivism and altruism. It is clear that once the question ‘Who should rule?’ is asked, it is hard to avoid some such reply as ‘the best’ or ‘the wisest’ or ‘the bom ruler’ or ‘he who masters the art of ruling’ (or, perhaps, ‘The General Will’ or ‘The Master Race’ or ‘The Industrial Workers’ or ‘The People’). But such a reply, convincing as it may sound - for who would advocate the rule of ‘the worst’ or ‘the greatest fool’ or ‘the bom slave’? - is, as I shall try to show, quite useless.

First of all, such a reply is liable to persuade us that some fundamental problem of political theory has been solved. But if we approach political theory from a different angle, then we find that