The
secret of great state-builders, like Alexander Hamilton, is that they
know how to calculate these principles.
CHAPTER XIX
THE OLD IMAGE IN A NEW FORM: GUILD SOCIALISM.
Whenever the quarrels of self-centered groups become unbearable,
reformers in the past found themselves forced to choose between two
great alternatives. They could take the path to Rome and impose a
Roman peace upon the warring tribes. They could take the path to
isolation, to autonomy and self-sufficiency. Almost always they chose
that path which they had least recently travelled. If they had tried
out the deadening monotony of empire, they cherished above all other
things the simple freedom of their own community. But if they had seen
this simple freedom squandered in parochial jealousies they longed for
the spacious order of a great and powerful state.
Whichever choice they made, the essential difficulty was the same. If
decisions were decentralized they soon floundered in a chaos of local
opinions. If they were centralized, the policy of the state was based
on the opinions of a small social set at the capital. In any case
force was necessary to defend one local right against another, or to
impose law and order on the localities, or to resist class government
at the center, or to defend the whole society, centralized or
decentralized, against the outer barbarian.
Modern democracy and the industrial system were both born in a time of
reaction against kings, crown government, and a regime of detailed
economic regulation.
Pages:
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305