The evolution never took place,
except for a few months during the war. That was enough, and there was
a turn of the wheel against the omnivorous state in favor of several
new forms of pluralism. But this time society was to swing back not to
the atomic individualism of Adam Smith's economic man and Thomas
Jefferson's farmer, but to a sort of molecular individualism of
voluntary groups.
One of the interesting things about all these oscillations of theory
is that each in turn promises a world in which no one will have to
follow Machiavelli in order to survive. They are all established by
some form of coercion, they all exercise coercion in order to maintain
themselves, and they are all discarded as a result of coercion. Yet
they do not accept coercion, either physical power or special
position, patronage, or privilege, as part of their ideal. The
individualist said that self-enlightened self-interest would bring
internal and external peace. The socialist is sure that the motives to
aggression will disappear. The new pluralist hopes they
will. [Footnote: See G. D. H. Cole, _Social Theory,_ p. 142.]
Coercion is the surd in almost all social theory, except the
Machiavellian. The temptation to ignore it, because it is absurd,
inexpressible, and unmanageable, becomes overwhelming in any man who
is trying to rationalize human life.
2
The lengths to which a clever man will sometimes go in order to escape
a full recognition of the role of force is shown by Mr.
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