The contexts of reform are more desirable in the democratic than in the totalitarian states; therefore the results of reform are likely to be better in the democratic states. Unhappily, contemporary circumstances are such that, unless the process is intelligently and actively resisted by men of good will, it is all but inevitable that these desirable contexts shall rapidly deteriorate. The reasons for this are simple. First of all, even the democratic peoples are imperialists and desire to beat the Fascist states at their own game of war. In order to prepare effectively for modern war, political power will have to be more highly centralized, self-governing institutions progressively abolished, opinion more strictly controlled and education militarized. In the second place, the democratic countries are still suffering to some extent from the economic depression which started in 1929.
The various governments concerned have resorted to a measure of economic planning in order to mitigate the hardships suffered by their peoples. Economic planning has given these governments an opportunity for strengthening their position. In England, for example, the central executive, the bureaucracy and the police are probably more powerful to-day than they have ever been. But the more powerful these forces become the less are they able to tolerate democratic liberty—even the small amount of it which exists among the so-called democratic peoples. Another point: economic planning inevitably leads to more economic planning, for the simple reason that the situation is so complex that planners cannot fail to make mistakes. Mistakes have to be remedied by the improvization and rapid enforcement of new plans.
It is probable that these new plans will also contain mistakes, which must in turn be remedied by yet other plans. And so on. Now, where planning has come to be associated with an increase in the power of the executive (and unfortunately this has been the case in all the democratic countries), every fresh access of planning activity, necessitated by mistakes in earlier plans, takes the country yet another step towards dictatorship. At the same time, as we have seen, comprehensive national planning leads to international chaos and consequent discord. In other words, national planning increases the risk of war; but war cannot be waged, or even prepared for, except by a highly centralized government. It will thus be seen that both directly and indirectly economic planning leads to a deterioration of the contexts in which desirable reform can be carried out.
In the chapters that follow I shall concentrate almost exclusively on the desirable contexts of reform. My reasons for this are simple. ‘Advanced thinkers’ have talked and written at endless length about the desirable reforms, especially economic reforms. All of us have heard of the public ownership of the means of production; production for use and not for profit; public control of finance and investment, and all the rest. All of us, I repeat, have heard of these ideas and most of us are agreed that they ought to be transferred from the realm of theory to that of fact. But how few of us ever pay any attention to the administrative, educational and psychological contexts in which the necessary reforms are to be carried out! How few of us ever stop to consider the means whereby they shall be enforced!
And yet our personal experience and the study of history make it abundantly clear that the means whereby we try to achieve something are at least as important as the end we wish to attain. Indeed, they are even more important. For the means employed inevitably determine the nature of the result achieved; whereas, however good the end aimed at may be, its goodness is powerless to counteract the effects of the bad means we use to reach it. Similarly, a reform may be in the highest degree desirable; but if the contexts in which that reform is enacted are undesirable, the results will inevitably be disappointing. These are simple and obvious truths. Nevertheless they are almost universally neglected. To illustrate these truths and to show how we might profitably act upon them will be my principal task in the ensuing pages.
A Note on Planning for the Future
Communities in which technological progress is being made are subject to continuous social change. Social changes caused by the advance of technology are often accompanied by much suffering and inconvenience. Can this be avoided?
A committee was recently appointed by the President of the United States to consider this question. Its report (referred to above) was made public in the summer of 1937 and is a very valuable document.
In the field of industry, the authors point out, technological progress never leads to any social changes which cannot be foreseen a good many years in advance. In most cases the first discovery of a new process is separated from its large-scale commercial application by at least a quarter of a century. (Often this period is considerably greater.) Any community which chooses to make use of the intelligence and imagination of its best scientific minds can foresee the probable social consequences of a given technological advance long years before they actually develop. Up to the present social changes due to technological progress have taken communities by surprise, not because they came suddenly, out of the blue, but because nobody in authority ever took the trouble to think out in advance what such changes were likely to be, or what were the best methods of preventing them from causing avoidable suffering. President Roosevelt’s commission has pointed out what are the recent inventions most likely to cause important social changes in the immediate future, and has suggested a design for the administrative machinery required to minimize their ill effects. The problem, in this case, is purely a problem for technicians.
There is one field in which very small technological advances may produce disproportionately great effects upon society; I refer to the field of armament manufacture. A slight change, for example, in the design of internal-combustion engines—so slight as to have no appreciable effect on the numbers of men employed in their construction—may bring (and indeed has actually brought) millions of innocent men, women and children a long step nearer to death by fire, poison and explosion. In this case, of course, the problem is not one for technicians; it is a problem that can be solved only when sufficient numbers of men of good will are prepared to make use of the methods by which, and by which alone, it can be solved. For the nature of these methods I must refer the reader to the chapters on War and Individual Work for Reform.
Rises and falls in the birth-rate are likely to produce social changes even more far-reaching than those produced by technological advances. It is about as certain as any future contingency can be that, half a century from now, the population of the industrialized countries of Western Europe will have declined, both absolutely and in relation to that of the countries of Eastern Europe. Thus, when Great Britain has only thirty-five million inhabitants, of whom less than a tenth will be under fifteen and more than a sixth over sixty, Russia will have about three hundred millions. Will a country so (relatively speaking) sparsely inhabited as the Britain of 1990 be able to keep up its position as a ‘First-class, Imperial Power’?
In the past Sweden, Portugal and Holland attempted to keep up the status of a Great Power on the basis of a population that was absolutely and relatively small. All of them failed in the attempt. If only for demographical reasons, Britain should take all possible steps to avoid a struggle for imperial power which, if not immediately fatal, will almost certainly prove fatal a couple of generations hence. In a militaristic world, relatively underpopulated countries cannot hope (unless protected by more powerful neighbours) to retain exclusive possession of large empires. British imperialism was all very well when Britain was, relatively, highly populous and, thanks to being an island, invulnerable. For an exceedingly vulnerable and relatively underpopulated Britain, imperialism is the policy of a lunatic. (See Griffin’s An Alternative to Rearmament, London, 1936.)
Here again the problem raised by a declining birth-rate is not a problem for technicians. It is part of the general problem of international politics and war, and can be solved only when sufficient numbers of people genuinely desire to solve it and are ready to take the appropriate steps for doing so.
Chapter VI NATURE OF THE MODERN STATE
For our present purposes, the significant facts about the governments of contemporary nations are these. There are a few rulers and many ruled. The rulers are generally actuated by love of power; occasionally by a sense of duty to society; more often and bewilderingly, by both at once. Their principal attachment is to pride, with which are often associated cruelty and avarice. The ruled, for the most part, quietly accept their subordinate position and even actual hardship and injustice. In certain circumstances it happens that they cease to accept and there is a revolt. But revolt is the exception; the general rule is obedience.
The patience of common humanity is the most important, and almost the most surprising, fact in history. Most men and women are prepared to tolerate the intolerable. The reasons for this extraordinary state of things are many and various. There is ignorance, first of all. Those who know of no state of affairs other than the intolerable are unaware that their lot might be improved. Then there is fear. Men
