9. One last point must be stressed before terminating
this article: the view of the State which we described
in the last paragraph is a view of the State as endowed
with authority, not as the holder of power nor as a
pure phenomenon of force. It is the view which nowa-
days prevails in the West with regard to the legitimacy
of power and the grounds of political obligation; but
it is by no means the only “ideology” that has gained
currency in the modern world to ensure discipline and
obedience. Some of these ideologies are in fact new
religions (for example, Hegel's theory of the State as
the visible revelation of God in history), and hardly
deserve to be considered by the political theorist except
for the tragic consequences they have wrought. Others,
to be sure, are squarely and precisely what, as we have
seen, ideologies purport to be—mere disguises of a
cruel reality, of the fact that always and everywhere
there have been, and there are, some who command
and others who obey. This is certainly the case with
a theory which encounters much favor at the present
day, the theory which explains and justifies political
dependence on the ground of the basic inequality of
men. Once again, there is nothing new in a theory of
this kind. One can find it in the Politics of Aristotle.
The superiority of race or intelligence has always been
invoked as an argument by those who happened to
have the upper hand. In a more sophisticated vein,
the doctrine of inequality has been recast of late as
the doctrine of the elites, which, in some of its versions,
teaches not only that all governments have always been
of the few, but that the few who govern deserve to
do so because of their special gifts and mettle.
The trouble with the “elitist” doctrine is that it is
inadequate by itself to provide a ground for political
obligation, and hence to confer “authority” upon the
“governing class” of relatively few individuals who are,
according to that doctrine, the State. In fact, there are
two alternatives: either the elite is “imposed” or else
it is “proposed.” In the first case, clearly it is not the
merits or the intrinsic superiority of the elite that
matter, but its capacity to seize power, if necessary
by force. In the second, which is obviously the case
in modern societies, since those merits and that superi-
ority call for recognition and acceptance on the part
of those on whom the elite is to exert its power, there
must be one point at least where rulers and ruled are
on a footing of equality. In neither case does the
“elitist” doctrine offer a third solution, in addition to
the old alternative of force or consent—of might or
of right.
If a conclusion may be drawn at the end of this brief
enquiry, this can only be that the idea of the State
does not allow a single, precise definition, but varies
according to the different levels on which political
phenomena can be approached. We must be aware of
how greatly the idea of the State has varied in time,
and of the likelihood that it will vary considerably
again, even in the near future. In fact, the “national
State,” with its jealous assertion of sovereignty, its rigid
boundaries, and also its emotional patriotism, is fast
appearing to modern eyes—at any rate in Europe—as
becoming a thing of the past. A new, a supra-national
State, is invoked and longed for by many, one which
will be the signal of the disappearance of those nation-
alisms which have brought Europe to the brink of ruin.
But will this mean the disappearance of the State, its
“withering away”—to use the familiar Marxist phrase?
So long as there will be an organization capable of
controlling force, regulating power, and securing
allegiance, one thing seems certain: whatever its size
and its shape, whatever the name by which the men
of the future will choose to call it, that organization
will still be a State.
