Now this solution, you will at once see, must be different according as men’s interests are held to be naturally harmonious or naturally antagonistic.
In the one case, we must seek for the solution in Liberty—in the other, in Constraint. In the one case, we have only to be passive—in the other, we must necessarily offer opposition.
But Liberty assumes only one shape. Once convinced that each of the molecules which compose a fluid possesses in itself the force by which the general level is produced, we conclude that there is no surer or simpler way of seeing that level realized than not to interfere with it. All, then, who set out with this fundamental principle, that men’s interests are harmonious, will agree as to the practical solution of the social problem,—to abstain from displacing or thwarting those interests.
Constraint, on the other hand, may assume a thousand shapes, according to the views which we take of it, and which are infinitely varied. Those schools which set out with, the principle, that men’s interests are antagonistic, have done nothing yet towards the solution of the problem, unless it be that they have thrust aside Liberty. Among the infinite forms of Constraint, they have still to choose the one which they consider good, if indeed any of them be so. And then, as a crowning difficulty, they have to obtain universal acceptance, among men who are free agents, for the particular form of Constraint to which they have awarded the preference.
But, on this hypothesis, if human interests are, by their very nature, urged into fatal collision, and if this shock can be avoided only by the accidental invention of an artificial social order, the destiny of the human race becomes very hazardous, and we ask in terror,
1st, If any man is to be found who has discovered a satisfactory form of Constraint?
2d, Can this man bring to his way of thinking the innumerable schools who give the preference to other forms?
3d, Will mankind give in to that particular form which, by hypothesis, runs counter to all individual interests?
4th, Assuming that men will allow themselves to be rigged out in this new attire, what will happen if another inventor presents himself, with a coat of a different and improved cut? Are we to persevere in a vicious organization, knowing it to be vicious; or must we resolve to change that organization every morning according as the caprices of fashion and the fertility of inventors’ brains may dictate? [p035]
5th, Would not all the inventors whose plans have been rejected unite together against the particular organization which had been selected, and would not their success in disturbing society be in exact proportion to the degree in which that particular form of organization ran counter to all existing interests?