Even in a constitutional state, the outer form of government is not the decisive factor; the fight of the classes is carried on and leads to the same result in a republic as in a monarchy. In spite of this, it must be admitted that there is more probability, that, other things being equal, the curve of development of the state in a monarchy will be more sweeping, with less secondary incurvity, because the prince is less affected by momentary losses of popularity, is not so sensitive to momentary gusts of disapproval, as is a president elected for a short term of years, and he can therefore shape his policies for longer periods of time.
We must not fail to mention a special form of officialdom, the scientific staffs of the universities, whose influence on the upward development of the state must not be underestimated. Not only is this a creation of the economic means, as were the officials themselves, but it at the same time represents an historical force, the need of causality, which we found heretofore only as an ally of the conquering state. We saw that this need created superstition while the state was on a primitive stage; its bastard, the taboo, we found in all cases to be an effective means of control by the master class. From these same needs then, science was developed, attacking and destroying superstition, and thereby assisting in preparation of the path of evolution. That is the incalculable historical service of science and especially of the universities.
CHAPTER VII
THE TENDENCY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE
We have endeavored to discover the development of the state from its most remote past up to present times, following its course like an explorer, from its source down the streams to its effluence in the plains. Broad and powerfully its waves roll by, until it disappears into the mist of the horizon, into unexplored and, for the present-day observer, undiscoverable regions.
Just as broadly and powerfully the stream of history—and until the present day all history has been the history of states—rolls past our view, and the course thereof is covered by the blanketing fogs of the future. Shall we dare to set up hypotheses concerning the future course, until “with unrestrained joy he sinks into the arms of his waiting, expectant father”? (Goethe’s Prometheus.) Is it possible to establish a scientifically founded prognosis in regard to the future development of the state?
I believe in this possibility. The tendency[141] of state development unmistakably leads to one point: seen in its essentials the state will cease to be the “developed political means” and will become “a freemen’s citizenship.” In other words, its outer shell will remain in essentials the form which was developed in the constitutional state, under which the administration will be carried on by an officialdom. But the content of the states heretofore known will have changed its vital element by the disappearance of the economic exploitation of one class by another. And since the state will, by this, come to be without either classes or class interests, the bureaucracy of the future will truly have attained that ideal of the impartial guardian of the common interests, which nowadays it laboriously attempts to reach. The “state” of the future will be “society” guided by self-government.
Libraries full of books have been written on the delimitation of the concepts “state” and “society.” The problem, however, from our point of view has an easy solution. The “state” is the fully developed political means, society the fully developed economic means. Heretofore state and society were indissolubly intertwined: in the “freemen’s citizenship,” there will be no “state” but only “society.”
This prognosis of the future development of the state contains by inclusion all of those famous formulæ, whereby, the great philosophical historians have endeavored to determine the “resulting value” of universal history. It contains the “progress from warlike activity to peaceful labor” of St. Simon, as well as Hegel’s “development from slavery to freedom”; the “evolution of humanity” of Herder, as well as “the penetration of reason through nature” of Schleiermacher.