Is the state a permanently necessary institution? The principle of integration embodied in the state is a fundamental one. It is the principle of coöperation for coöperation. The good of any institution is that of coöperation for some end. The primary end of the state is that of coöperation itself. Its purpose is that of enabling men to live and work together in peace. Loyalty to the national group is loyalty to the principle of human coöperation. The most valuable thing about the state is not that it does this or that, but that it gets men working together. It provides the setting for further cooperation. In its protection against enemies either within or without the group, it is acting to keep the coöperation of the members of the group from being interfered with.
Thus it will be seen that the state is essentially a peace unit. There are those who deny this. There are two theories of the state. One is that it is a peace unit. The other is that it is a war unit. It is, according to this latter view, organized for the waging of war. Because of this latter view there has been of late a great deal of opposition to and criticism of the state. It is alleged that all the other things besides fighting which the state once did have been taken over by other agencies better fitted to do them, and that really the only thing which the state now has as its purpose is that of declaring and making war. The citizens coöperate in the state only when they have a fight on with another state. But it may be replied that it is hardly fair to charge all our troubles in war to the state. Wars have been waged where there was no state in the modern sense; they have been carried on by other agencies than states; and states have lived together peaceably. Savage individuals, savage tribes, feudal barons have all fought. Race riots have given vent to hatred. Representatives of labor and capital have fought pitched battles. The United States and Canada have lived side by side without ever having found it necessary to declare war or even fortify the frontier.
And the state is really a peace unit. It exists primarily for the purpose of keeping order within the area of its jurisdiction. It becomes apparent here how some of the beliefs of patriotism are well-founded. The state is needed as the protector of one’s self. In the Middle Ages, in the absence of any other agency to provide protection, there grew up voluntary associations, founded and operated usually by warriors, and called regna, whose business it was to keep the peace. Here was an attempt to do the work of the state. But the attempt failed, and there are now no such organizations. One would not miss the mark far in hazarding the opinion that they failed because they did not represent a peace unit composed of an integrated people occupying a given extent of territory. What has been said here would indicate that what we need to do is so to extend the integration of society that the whole world will be a peace unit. The whole problem of keeping peace should be made an internal problem. There should be no foes without.
The state is the ultimate protector of all the values of life. The citizen was right when he believed that his earthly salvation depended upon his state. The state itself does not usually furnish the goods of life, although it does on occasion furnish them. That is not its primary business. It does not even guarantee the goods of life. Much, of course, depends upon the individual himself. But the just state does ultimately protect the individual in all rightful opportunities in which he as an individual or in voluntary association with others cannot protect himself. The civilized life itself at present depends upon the state. The very word “civilization” is derived from a term meaning “state.” It is that which is possible where there is a settled order provided by the state. One can imagine what the state means if he pictures himself at the fringe of civilization where he would miss the many values of life which the state makes possible. The state does its work for the most part noiselessly, but it is just because it is so efficient that it is so noiseless. We are not conscious of its working, and therefore assume that it is otiose. But it is with us all the time, and providing the opportunity for all the values of life. The state is a kind of second nature which does not guarantee happy living, but offers the opportunities for such a life.
The state does, however, go beyond its primary purpose. It has not, as a matter of fact, been restricted purely to acting the part of policeman or night-watchman. Philosophers have disputed a good deal about the functions of the state. But when all is said and done it has been found necessary for the state to engage in some activities which were not purely those of providing protection, but were designed to promote positively the general welfare. The state truly, as Aristotle said, even though it has originated in the bare needs of life, has continued for the sake of the good life. The state strives to aid men in a positive way. Some community interests thought to be in the province of the state are those of education, transportation, communication, sanitation, taxation, and the maintenance of economic justice. And this positive character of the state’s functions renders patriotism all the more strongly entrenched.
As already has been intimated, syndicalistic organizations are being put forward as rivals of the state. Industry is one of the chief interests of men, and is especially virulent at the present time. There are those who would organize society according to occupation. And when society was completely organized in this way there would be, so it is thought, no further excuse for the existence of the state. All the legitimate common concerns of men would be taken care of by syndicalistic organizations. The economic arguments for or against syndicalism are of secondary importance in this connection; the point of interest is that which bears on syndicalism as a principle of government. Graham Wallas has studied these questions. He points to the mediæval experience under the guild system. He says that quarrels between the crafts were rife, as were quarrels between the craftsmen and the merchants; that the people hated strangers as well as the police; that the public health was neglected; and that the cities found it impossible to keep order in their own streets during a trade dispute.[188] The fact is that the growth of power on the part of Labor and Capital and the conflicts arising because of that power render the state more necessary rather than less so.
There is a true sense in which the state embodies the general will. It is, in the area of its jurisdiction, the representatives not of a class, but of all the people living in that area. It is the repository of the collective will of its citizens. Therefore, it is fitted to keep the peace, and to be for the purpose of keeping peace, the user of force. The cry has been raised, “Why is the state armed? No other institution feels it necessary to be equipped with an armament.” But the truth is that it is just because the state is armed that no other institution needs to be. One police force is enough. We shall always need the state to keep other institutions in harmony. And institutions which exist for other purposes than that of the maintenance of law and order will have to submit to regulation by the state for the sake of law and order. It will be the state’s business, among other things, to maintain a democracy of institutions.
The state, because of the generality of its character, plays an important role in federating the loyalties of men. Economic interests, religious interests, and so on, do not exhaust the catalogue of human activities. Each individual will have touch with other individuals with whom he would not outside the state be organized in any institution. One may have a neighbor who is of another trade or church. The state brings one into a common life with his neighbors. The state’s character as a power helps it to occupy this role as federator of loyalties. It is back of all the institutions of life; it sustains them. Consequently the loyalties given to the other institutions tend to head up in the state. It is a universal, too, because its unifying principle, that of space, is so universal. Such a principle is very general, and may be empty unless enriched by many differentiations within itself; the life that it unifies may be very meagre without those differentiations, but generality is akin to universality, and just because the principle is so general, it may act as a unifier of many in one. A loyalty that shall be an organizer of all loyalties is needed. For the individual, even after he is a member of all the voluntary organizations to which he is eligible, there ought to be that which will unify his whole life. So likewise there ought to be that which will unify the whole of mankind. The state and the church seem to be the only institutions which in ideal are capable of achieving these results. And at the present time we seem nearer a universal political than religious unification of mankind. Human nature is a long way from being ready to warrant putting one’s trust in it as the guarantee of peace and justice because each human being loves his neighbor as himself. At any rate, the state will have a fundamental purpose as an integration of mankind for so long a time to come that it may be said to be permanently necessary. The character of the state as being the condition of all the values of civilized life, the embodiment of the general will, and the federator of human loyalties, throws light upon the phenomenon that when the state calls the individual every other loyalty must go.
The state seems still to be entitled to its place in the sun. But we must keep ourselves at the point where we can criticize our political loyalties. Some states on occasion need reform. The morality of nations must be criticized. States have grown in response to the needs of human beings. They must be kept subservient to those needs. The state is not divine. There is no divine right of kings, and there is no divine right of states, except as these institutions meet the real needs of real human beings. The state has justified its existence, but that doesn’t mean that the existence of any particular kind of state is justified.
In other words, patriotism seems to be necessitated by the fundamental order of reality. Its existence is justified. Patriotism is essentially a fundamental human good. But that fact doesn’t justify all that is found in patriotism. Consequently, the problem is not only to evaluate patriotism as an essential ideal, but also to criticize the faults and virtues of its different forms. Something of that criticism will be the effort of the concluding chapter.