This book deals with political power—more specifically, with the impact of certain conceptions of political power upon social organization in modern Western society. It begins with what I have called the loss of community, for of all symptoms of the impact of power upon human personality in the contemporary Western world the most revealing seems to me to be the preoccupation, in so many spheres of thought and action, with community—community lost and community to be gained. I do not doubt that behind this preoccupation there lie many historical changes and dislocations—economic, religious, and moral. But I have chosen to deal with the political causes of the manifold alienations that lie behind the contemporary quest for community. Moral securities and allegiances always have a close and continuing connection with the centers and diffusions of authority in any age or culture. Fundamental changes in culture cannot help but be reflected in even the most primary of social relationships and psychological identifications. Put in these terms, we cannot possibly miss the revolutionary importance, in modern Western society, of the political State and of idea systems which have made the State preeminent. With all regard for the important social and psychological changes that have been induced by technological, economic, and religious forces in modern society, I believe that the greatest single influence upon social organization in the modern West has been the developing concentration of function and power of the sovereign political State. To regard the State as simply a legal relationship, as a mere superstructure of power, is profoundly delusive. The real significance of the modern State is inseparable from its successive penetrations of man's economic, religious, kinship, and local allegiances, and its revolutionary dislocations of established centers of function and authority. These, I believe, are the penetrations and dislocations that form the most illuminating perspective for the twentieth-century's obsessive quest for moral certainty and social community and that make so difficult present-day problems of freedom and democracy. These are the essential subject matter of this book.
Sections of this book have appeared in The American Journal of Sociology, The Journal of Politics, The Journal of the History of Ideas, and in the book, Studies in Leadership, edited by Alvin Gouldner and published by Harper and Brothers. Permission to republish these sections in slightly revised form is gratefully acknowledged.
References in the book have been held to a bare minimum, and they can do no more than suggest the extent of my indebtedness to the many minds that have dealt with various aspects of my subject. To all of them I gladly record here an appreciation not the less genuine for its necessary generality. There are certain individuals to whom I owe thanks of a special kind. The first is the late Frederick J. Teggart, for many years Professor of Social Institutions at the University of California at Berkeley. The second is George P. Adams, Mills Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity at the same university. It is unnecessary to attempt to indicate the precise nature of my debt to each; suffice it to say that apart from interests and insights gained originally from both of these men it is difficult for me to imagine any part of this book's coming into existence. I desire to express appreciation also to Robert M. MacIver whose learned and perceptive writings on the nature of association and authority were the beginnings of my own interest in the subject and have remained valued sources of enlightenment. It is a pleasure to acknowledge gratefully here the suggestions and encouragement of my friends Reinhard Bendix, Kingsley Davis, Robert Merton, and Maria Rogers, all of whom took time to read an early draft of the manuscript. Naturally, no one of them is to be held responsible for any shortcomings the book may have.
Finally, I must express deepest appreciation to the University of California, in part for leave and financial assistance which made possible much of the writing of the book, but chiefly for the privilege of membership in its distinguished company of teachers and scholars.
Robert A. Nisbet
Berkeley
December 1952