The organizer-reward and democratic systems.
The organizer-reward form of organization also appears to have its own peculiar tendency towards instability. This was true of the feudal systems of the past, and is true of the great business corporations of to-day, both of which are examples of the organizer-reward form. In the feudal system the reward offered by the organizers in return for service was protection; in modern industry the reward is a money wage. In both cases, however, when subordinate members of the organization have been ignorant, there has been some tendency towards the exploitation as well as the utilization of such members. To the extent, however, that intelligence has developed, there has been less and less voluntary continuance of organizations whose utility has been thought by the subordinate members to be limited to one class in the organization. Force has been met by force. Since intelligence is increasing, it is not fortuitous that the great internal problem of advanced nations is the control of such exploitive industry as exists, while the great political problem of less advanced nations is the struggle for democracy. In both cases the struggle is to prevent the organizer-reward form from becoming the organizer-force form and to replace the instability and the lack of harmony of these forms by the greater stability and greater harmony of the democratic-control-expert-executive form. Far more than is the case in the other utility forms, the democratic form directs its policies with a view to the welfare of all its members. Minorities are represented on the executive staff. All members of the organization participate in control. The danger of dissatisfaction on the part of non-executive members is reduced to a minimum.
National homogeneity means strength.
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.
Peace will follow increasing like-mindedness among the nations.
These propositions mean that, under present conditions, permanent world peace can be produced only if in the organizer-force and in the organizer-reward nations the organizer is less interested in personal fame than in the welfare of the whole organization, if the organizing class does not seek aggrandizement or if the organizing class is willing to permit a peaceful transition within the nation to the democratic-control-expert-executive form of organization rather than to seek perpetuation of its own control through foreign war. They mean also that such peace can be maintained only if democratic nations can be kept free from that trooping of emotion which sometimes suddenly sweeps vast bodies of men into unreasoning demand for aggressive action, and if the interests of such nations lead them to desire international peace....
Let there be produced sufficient likeness among the peoples of the world, and harmonious organization based on sympathy will follow of itself. If there be created a sufficient likeness among all peoples in ideals of progress, in the desire for the betterment of the entire human race, and in other equally important mental and moral respects, then world harmony, based on sympathy, will ultimately develop in the same way that the present harmony within homogeneous nations has resulted, in large part, from a sympathy spontaneously created by resemblance in race, language, religion and customs.
That final permanent international peace can come, however, only on the basis of world-wide like-mindedness is the chief contention of this essay. If this contention is correct, advocates of international peace must not only adopt policies calculated to produce like-mindedness, but must not shrink from the endeavor to produce the central executive organization—the natural result of like-mindedness, and in itself, if established, a creator of like-mindedness.
From the standpoint of producing like-mindedness it is of comparatively small moment what one of a number of possible projects is used for the initial attempt. It is of supreme importance only that the project chosen should be the one most likely to succeed in evolving common response and cooperation.