An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its PerpetuationVeblen, Thorstein
Philosophy
An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation
Veblen, Thorstein
Peace; World War, 1914-1918 -- Peace
The effectual difference between these two theoretically contrasted
types of governmental establishments is doubtless grave enough, and for
many purposes it is consequential, but it is after all not of such a
nature as need greatly detain the argument at this point. The two differ
less, in effect, in that range of their functioning which comes in
question here than in their bearing on the community's fortunes apart
from questions of war and peace. In all cases there stand over in this
bearing certain primary characteristics of the ancient regime, which all
these modern establishments have in common, though not all in an equal
degree of preservation and effectiveness. They are, e.g., all vested
with certain attributes of "sovereignty." In all cases the citizen still
proves on closer attention to be in some measure a "subject" of the
State, in that he is invariably conceived to owe a "duty" to the
constituted authorities in one respect and another. All civilised
governments take cognizance of Treason, Sedition, and the like; and all
good citizens are not only content but profoundly insistent on the clear
duty of the citizen on this head. The bias of loyalty is not a matter on
which argument is tolerated. By virtue of this bias of loyalty, or
"civic duty"--which still has much of the color of feudal
allegiance--the governmental establishment is within its rights in
coercively controlling and directing the actions of the citizen, or
subject, in those respects that so lie within his duty; as also in
authoritatively turning his abilities to account for the purposes that
so lie within the governmental discretion, as, e.g., the Common Defense.
These rights and powers still remain to the governmental establishment
even at the widest democratic departure from that ancient pattern of
masterful tutelage and usufruct that marked the old-fashioned
patrimonial State,--and that still marks the better preserved ones among
its modern derivatives. And so intrinsic to these governmental
establishments are these discretionary powers, and by so unfailing a
popular bias are they still accounted a matter of course and of
axiomatic necessity, that they have invariably been retained also among
the attributes of those democratic governments that trace their origin
to a revolutionary break with the old order.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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