Icarus : $b or, The future of scienceRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Icarus : $b or, The future of science
Russell, Bertrand
Civilization; Science; Science and state
Another matter which needs to be treated quantitatively is the
degree of democracy, oligarchy, or monarchy in an organization. No
organization belongs completely to any one of the three types. There
must be executive officers, who will often in practice be able to
decide policy, even if in theory they cannot do so. And even if their
power depends upon persuasion, they may so completely control the
relevant publicity that they can always rely upon a majority. The
directors of a railway company, for instance, are to all intents and
purposes uncontrolled by the shareholders, who have no adequate means
of organizing an opposition if they should wish to do so. In America,
a railroad president is almost a monarch. In party politics, the power
of leaders, although it depends upon persuasion, continually increases
as printed propaganda becomes more important. For these reasons, even
where formal democracy increases, the real degree of democratic control
tends to diminish, except on a few questions which rouse strong popular
passions.
The result of these causes is that, in consequence of scientific
inventions which facilitate centralization and propaganda, groups
become more organized, more disciplined, more group-conscious,
and more docile to leaders. The effect of leaders on followers is
increased, and the control of events by a few prominent personalities
becomes more marked.
In all this there would be nothing very tragic, but for the fact, with
which science has nothing to do, that organization is almost wholly
national. If men were actuated by the love of gain, as the older
economists supposed, this would not be the case; the same causes which
have led to national trusts would have led to international trusts.
This has happened in a few instances, but not on a sufficiently wide
scale to affect politics or economics very vitally. Rivalry is, with
most well-to-do energetic people, a stronger motive than love of money.
Successful rivalry requires organization of rival forces; the tendency
is for a business such as oil, for example, to organize itself into two
rival groups, between them covering the world. They might, of course,
combine, and they would no doubt increase their wealth if they did
so. But combination would take the zest out of life. The object of a
football team, one might say, is to kick goals. If two rival teams
combined, and kicked the ball alternately over the two goals, many more
goals would be scored. Nevertheless no one suggests that this should
be done, the object of a football team being not to kick goals but
to win. So the object of a big business is not to make money, but to
win in the contest with some other business. If there were no other
business to be defeated, the whole thing would become uninteresting.
This rivalry has attached itself to nationalism, and enlisted the
support of the ordinary citizens of the countries concerned; they
seldom know what it is that they are supporting, but, like the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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