Category: Political Thought

Law as a source of authority: To those for whom law is a simple command, legal by virtue of the source from Which it comes, it is not likely that such complexities as these will be popular. We are urging that law is, in truth, not the will of the State, but that from which…

Co-ordination and federalism: My point may perhaps be made by saying that since society is essentially federal in nature, the body which seeks to impose the necessary unities must be so built that the diversities have a place therein. If it is true, as I have argued, that no association included the whole of myself,…

Representation for authority: This is at least the path to a solution of the two issues in the problem of authority that I outlined earlier in this article. It does not, as in the classic theory of politics, begin by postulating the necessary unity of society and continue by insisting on the supremacy of the…

Authority and allegiance: Here is the head and center of the problem of authority. That problem, as I conceive it, is twofold in nature. It is the problem Of making the solutions of the ultimately unifying authority able to command the willing allegiance of citizens, and Of discovering a process through which the likelihood of…

The place of consent in politics: The view of the State discussed in the previous Article involves a new attitude to the problem of authority. It involves, of Course, the exercise of power by persons and it admits that the number of persons legally entrusted with power is likely to remain small. But its center…

The movement towards a new order: No effort is more suspect in our time than the criticism of the existing rights of property. It is wrong because it is subversive. It is futile because it is Utopian. It is erroneous because it runs counter to the eternal laws of human nature. But the existing rights…

The Problem of incentive: If this be true, the main problem of property is a psychological one. The old system has passed because the spread of education made it impossible to utilize the motives which were sufficient for its functioning a half-century ago. Largely it was built upon fear, and systems built upon fear bear…

Property as a theory of industrial organization: A society might pay a just reward to its members and still remain essentially unfree. Nothing is easier than to persuade men to exchange power for material comfort. The rights of property  must, therefore, to be well founded involve a theory of industrial organization not less than a…

Property And Effort: Practically speaking, theories of reward have divided themselves into four main classes. There is the general communist case for equality of income. The argument on its behalf is a much stronger argument than is generally admitted. A man’s “pull” upon society is very largely what his purchasing power is if, therefore, we…

The Moral Basis Of Property: Such a concept of property is conceivable if we seek to view man as a subject of rights. He has then the right to control things in the degree that such control enables him to be his best self. He can claim, that is, such a share of the national…