Towards an enduring peace : $b A symposium of peace proposals and programs 1914-1916
History
Towards an enduring peace : $b A symposium of peace proposals and programs 1914-1916
Peace; World War, 1914-1918 -- Peace
The most striking fact, however, with respect to the question of the
relative stability and harmony of the various forms of organization
is that the largest and the most permanent relatively harmonious
organizations that have appeared among men are those great modern nations
whose inhabitants live in a unified area of characterization and are
essentially alike in language, race, customs, traditions and religion.
Homogeneity in all these respects, it is true, does not as yet exist
even on a national scale and there is certainly no prospect of such
homogeneity on a world scale in the near future. These considerations
must not blind us to the fact, however, that England, France, Spain,
Germany, Russia, Italy, the Scandinavian nations, the United States,
Japan and China—the largest and internally the most harmonious
organizations yet known to man—are each composed of individuals the
vast majority of whom are relatively alike in language, customs and
traditions, and for the most part in race and religion. Nations that
are markedly heterogeneous in the characteristics mentioned, such as
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Balkan States and European Turkey,
are notoriously unstable. Furthermore, the stability possessed by the
various utility-form organizations that exist within or among the stable
nations of the world is, in large part, the result of the stability and
permanence of the nations themselves. The stability of all three of the
utility forms thus rests upon the inherent stability of the sympathy type
of organization.
If the foregoing analysis be correct, certain propositions of great
importance for the problem of international peace may now be stated.
First, nationality on the basis of sympathy is likely to persist
for an indefinite period. Second, because of the ignorance of the
inhabitants of a number of important nations, the organizer-force and
the organizer-reward forms of government and of business organization
are also likely to persist, for a considerable period, in various parts
of the globe. Third, where the organizer-force or organizer-reward form
of organization is superimposed on nationality, readiness to maintain
harmony with other national groups can exist only when such international
harmony is to the interest of the organizer class in each of such
nations. Where the democratic-control-expert-executive form prevails,
readiness to maintain harmony with other national groups can exist only
when such international harmony is to the interest of each nation so
organized, taken as a whole.
[Sidenote: Peace will follow increasing like-mindedness among the
nations.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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