{"id":3089,"date":"2013-07-13T01:45:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3089"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:45:51","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:51","slug":"53-the-need-of-administrative-unity-vol-25-the-human-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/25-the-human-cycle\/53-the-need-of-administrative-unity-vol-25-the-human-cycle","title":{"rendered":"-53_The Need of Administrative Unity.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChapter XXVI <\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Need of Administrative Unity<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI<\/font>N ALMOST<\/b> all current ideas of the first step towards international organisation, it is taken for granted that the nations
\n will continue to enjoy their separate existence and liberties
\nand will only leave to international action the prevention of war, the regulation of dangerous disputes, the power of settling great
\ninternational questions which they cannot settle by ordinary means. It is impossible that the development should stop there;
\nthis first step would necessarily lead to others which could travel only in one direction. Whatever authority were established, if it
\nis to be a true authority in any degree and not a mere concert for palaver, would find itself called upon to act more and more
\nfrequently and to assume always increasing powers. To avoid preventible disturbance and friction, to avert hereafter the recurrence of troubles and disasters which in the beginning the first limitations of its powers had debarred the new authority
\nfrom averting by a timely intervention before they came to a head, to bring about a coordination of activities for common
\nends, would be the principal motives impelling humanity to advance from a looser to a closer union, from a voluntary self subordination
\n\t\t\tin great and exceptional matters to an obligatory subordination in
\n\t\t\tmost matters. The desire of powerful nations to use it for their own
\n\t\t\tpurposes, the utility for weaker nations of appealing to it for the
\n\t\t\tprotection of their interests, the shock of actual or threatened
\n\t\t\tinternal disturbances and revolutions would all help to give the
\n\t\t\tinternational authority greater power and provide occasions for
\n\t\t\textending its normal action. Science, thought and religion, the
\n\t\t\tthree great forces which in modern times tend increasingly to
\n\t\t\toverride national distinctions and point the race towards unity of
\n\t\t\tlife and spirit, would become more impatient of national barriers,
\n\t\t\thostilities and divisions and lend their powerful influence to the
\n\t\t\tchange. The great struggle
\nbetween Capital and Labour might become rapidly world-wide, arrive at such an international organisation as would precipitate
\nthe inevitable step or even present the actual crisis which would bring about the transformation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 494<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur supposition for the moment is that a well-unified World-State with the nations for its provinces would be the
\nfinal outcome. At first taking up the regulation of international disputes and of economic treaties and relations, the international
\nauthority would start as an arbiter and an occasional executive power and change by degrees into a legislative body and a
\nstanding executive power. Its legislation would be absolutely necessary in international matters, if fresh convulsions are to
\nbe avoided; for it is idle to suppose that any international arrangement, any ordering of the world arrived at after the
\nclose of a great war and upheaval could be permanent and definitive. Injustice, inequalities, abnormalities, causes of quarrel
\nor dissatisfaction would remain in the relations of nation with nation, continent with continent which would lead to fresh
\nhostilities and explosions. As these are prevented in the nationState by the
\n\t\t\tlegislative authority which constantly modifies the existing system
\n\t\t\tof things in conformity with new ideas, interests, forces and
\n\t\t\tnecessities, so it would have to be in the developing World-State.
\n\t\t\tThis legislative power, as it developed, extended, regularised its
\n\t\t\taction, powers and processes, would become more complex and would be
\n\t\t\tbound to interfere at many points and override or substitute its own
\n\t\t\tfor the separate national action. That would imply the growth also
\n\t\t\tof its executive power and the development of an international
\n\t\t\texecutive organisation. At first it might confine itself to the most
\n\t\t\timportant questions and affairs which obviously demanded its
\n\t\t\tcontrol; but it would tend increasingly to stretch its hand to all
\n\t\t\tor most matters that could be viewed as having an international
\n\t\t\teffect and importance. Before long it would invade and occupy even
\n\t\t\tthose fields in which the nations are now jealous of their own
\n\t\t\trights and power. And eventually it would permeate the whole system
\n\t\t\tof the national life and subject it to international control in the
\n\t\t\tinterests of the better coordination of the united life, culture, 
\n\t\t\tscience, organisation, education, efficiency of the human race.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 495<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt would reduce the now free and separate nations first to the
\nposition of the States of the American union or the German empire and eventually perhaps to that of geographical provinces
\nor departments of the single nation of mankind. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe present obstacle to any such extreme consummation
\nis the still strong principle of nationalism, the sense of group separateness, the instinct of collective independence, its pride, its
\npleasure in itself, its various sources of egoistic self-satisfaction, its insistence on the subordination of the human idea to the
\nnational idea. But we are supposing that the new-born idea of internationalism will grow apace, subject to itself the past idea and
\ntemper of nationalism, become dominant and take possession of the human mind. As the larger nation-group has subordinated to
\nitself and tended to absorb all smaller clan, tribal and regional groups, as the larger empire-group now tends to subordinate
\nand might, if allowed to develop, eventually absorb the smaller nation-groups, we are supposing that the complete human group
\nof united mankind will subordinate to itself in the same way and eventually absorb all smaller groups of separated humanity.
\nIt is only by a growth of the international idea, the idea of a single humanity, that nationalism can disappear, if the old
\nnatural device of an external unification by conquest or other compulsive force continues to be no longer possible; for the
\nmethods of war have become too disastrous and no single empire has the means and the strength to overcome, whether rapidly or
\nin the gradual Roman way, the rest of the world. Undoubtedly, nationalism is a more powerful obstacle to farther unification
\nthan was the separativeness of the old pettier and less firmly selfconscious groupings which preceded the developed nation-State.
\nIt is still the most powerful sentiment in the collective human mind, still gives an indestructible vitality to the nation and is apt
\nto reappear even where it seemed to have been abolished. But we cannot argue safely from the present balance of tendencies in
\nthe beginning of a great era of transitions. Already there are at work not only ideas but forces, all the more powerful for being
\nforces of the future and not established powers of the present,
\nwhich may succeed in subordinating nationalism to themselves far earlier than we can at present conceive.
\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 496<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t If the principle of the World-State is carried to its logical conclusion and to its extreme consequences, the result will be a
\nprocess analogous in principle, with whatever necessary differences in the manner or form or extent of execution, to that by
\nwhich in the building of the nation-State the central government, first as a monarchy, then as a democratic assembly and executive,
\ngathered up the whole administration of the national life. There will be a centralisation of all control, military and police, administrative, judicial, legislative, economic, social and cultural in the one international authority. The spirit of the centralisation
\nwill be a strong unitarian idea and the principle of uniformity enforced for the greatest practical convenience and the result a
\nrationalised mechanism of human life and activities throughout the world with justice, universal well-being, economy of effort
\nand scientific efficiency as its principal objects. Instead of the individual activities of nation-groups each working for itself with
\nthe maximum of friction and waste and conflict, there will be an effort at coordination such as we now see in a well-organised
\nmodern State, of which the complete idea is a thoroughgoing State socialism, nowhere yet realised indeed, but rapidly coming into existence.1 If we glance briefly at each department of the communal activity, we shall see that this development is
\ninevitable. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe have seen already that all military power \u2014 and in the
\nWorld-State that would mean an international armed police \u2014 must be concentrated in the hands of one common authority;
\notherwise the State cannot endure. A certain concentration of the final power of decision in economic matters would be also
\nin time inevitable. And in the end this supremacy could not stop short of a complete control. For the economic life of the world
\nis becoming more and more one and indivisible; but the present state of
\n\t\t\tinternational relations is an anomalous condition of opposite
\n\t\t\tprinciples partly in conflict, partly accommodated to each other as
\n\t\t\tbest they can be, \u2014 but the best is bad and harmful to the common
\n\t\t\tinterest. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t1<\/sup> Since this was written, this coming into existence has become much more rapid and thoroughgoing in three at least of the greatest nations and a more hesitating and less
\nclearly self-conscious imitation of it is in evidence in smaller countries.  
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 497<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t On the one side, there is the underlying
\nunity which makes each nation commercially dependent on all the rest. On the other there is the spirit of national jealousy,
\negoism and sense of separate existence which makes each nation attempt at once to assert its industrial independence and at
\nthe same time reach out for a hold of its outgoing commercial activities upon foreign markets. The interaction of these two
\nprinciples is regulated at present partly by the permitted working of natural forces, partly by tacit practice and understanding,
\npartly by systems of tariff protection, bounties, State aid of one kind or another on the one hand and commercial treaties and
\nagreements on the other. Inevitably, as the World-State grew, this would be felt to be an anomaly, a wasteful and uneconomical
\nprocess. An efficient international authority would be compelled more and more to intervene and modify the free arrangements
\nof nation with nation. The commercial interests of humanity at large would be given the first place; the independent proclivities
\nand commercial ambitions or jealousies of this or that nation would be compelled to subordinate themselves to the human
\ngood. The ideal of mutual exploitation would be replaced by the ideal of a fit and proper share in the united economic life
\nof the race. Especially, as socialism advanced and began to regulate the whole economic existence of separate countries, the
\nsame principle would gain ground in the international field and in the end the World-State would be called upon to take up
\ninto its hands the right ordering of the industrial production and distribution of the world. Each country might be allowed
\nfor a time to produce its own absolute necessities: but in the end it would probably be felt that this was no more necessary
\nthan for Wales or Scotland to produce all its own necessities independently of the rest of the British Isles or for one province
\nof India to be an economic unit independent of the rest of the country. Each would produce and distribute only what it could
\nto the best advantage, most naturally, most efficiently and most 
\n\t\t\teconomically, for the common need and demand of mankind in which its
\n\t\t\town would be inseparably included.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 498<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt would do this
\naccording to a system settled by the common will of mankind through its State government and under a method made uniform in its principles, however variable in local detail, so as to secure the simplest, smoothest and most rational working of a
\nnecessarily complicated machinery. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe administration of the general order of society is a less
\npressing matter of concern than it was to the nation-States in their period of formation, because those were times when the
\nelement of order had almost to be created and violence, crime and revolt were both more easy and more a natural and general
\npropensity of mankind. At the present day, not only are societies tolerably well-organised in this respect and equipped with the
\nabsolutely necessary agreements between country and country, but by an elaborate system of national, regional and municipal governments linked up by an increasingly rapid power of communication the State can regulate parts of the order of life
\nwith which the cruder governments of old were quite unable to deal with any full effect. In the World-State, it may be thought,
\neach country may be left to its own free action in matters of its internal order and, indeed, of all its separate political, social and
\ncultural life. But even here it is probable that the World-State would demand a greater centralisation and uniformity than we
\ncan now easily imagine. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the matter, for instance, of the continual struggle of society with the still ineradicable element of crime which it generates in its own bosom, the crudity of the present system is sure to be
\nrecognised and a serious attempt made to deal with it in a very radical manner. The first necessity would be the close observation and supervision of the great mass of constantly re-created corrupt human material in which the bacillus of crime finds its
\nnatural breeding-ground. This is at present done very crudely and imperfectly and, for the most part, after the event of actual
\ncrime by the separate police of each nation with extradition treaties and informal mutual aid as a device against evasion by
\nplace-shift. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 499<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t The World-State would insist on an international as
\nwell as a local supervision, not only to deal with the phenomenon of what may be called international crime and disorder which
\nis likely to increase largely under future conditions, but for the more important object of the prevention of crime. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor the second necessity it would feel would be the need to deal with crime at its roots and in its inception. It may attempt this, first, by a more enlightened method of education and moral and temperamental training which would render the
\ngrowth of criminal propensities more difficult; secondly, by scientific or eugenic methods of observation, treatment, isolation,
\nperhaps sterilisation of corrupt human material; thirdly, by a humane and enlightened gaol system and penological method
\nwhich would have for its aim not the punishment but the reform of the incipient and the formed criminal. It would insist
\non a certain uniformity of principle so that there might not be countries that would persevere in backward and old-world or
\ninferior or erratic systems and so defeat the general object. For this end centralisation of control would be necessary or at least
\nstrongly advisable. So too with the judicial method. The present system is still considered as enlightened and civilised, and it is
\nso comparatively with the mediaeval methods; but a time will surely come when it will be condemned as grotesque, inefficient,
\nirrational and in many of its principal features semi-barbaric, a half-conversion at most of the more confused and arbitrary
\nmethods of an earlier state of social thought and feeling and social life. With the development of a more rational system, the
\npreservation of the old juridical and judicial principles and methods in any part of the world would be felt to be intolerable and
\nthe World-State would be led to standardise the new principles and the new methods by a common legislation and probably a
\ngeneral centralised control. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn all these matters, it might be admitted, uniformity and
\n\t\t\tcentralisation would be beneficial and to some extent inevitable; no
\n\t\t\tjealousy of national separateness and independence could be allowed
\n\t\t\tunder such conditions to interfere with the common good of humanity.
\n\t\t\tBut at least in the choice of their political system and in other
\n\t\t\tspheres of their social life the nations might well be left to
\n\t\t\tfollow their own ideals and propensities and to be healthily and
\n\t\t\tnaturally free. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 500<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt may even be said that the nations
\nwould never tolerate any serious interference in these matters and that the attempt to use the World-State for such a purpose
\nwould be fatal to its existence. But, as a matter of fact, the principle of political non-interference is likely to be much less
\nadmitted in the future than it has been in the past or is at present. Always in times of great and passionate struggle between conflicting political ideas,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 between oligarchy and democracy in ancient Greece, between the old regime and the ideas of the
\nFrench Revolution in modern Europe, \u2014 the principle of political non-interference has gone to the wall. But now we see
\nanother phenomenon \u2014 the opposite principle of interference slowly erecting itself into a conscious rule of international life.
\nThere is more and more possible an intervention like the American interference in Cuba, not on avowed grounds of national
\ninterest, but ostensibly on behalf of liberty, constitutionalism and democracy or of an opposite social and political principle,
\non international grounds therefore and practically in the force of this idea that the internal arrangements of a country concern,
\nunder certain conditions of disorder or insufficiency, not only itself, but its neighbours and humanity at large. A similar principle was put forward by the Allies in regard to Greece during the war. It was applied to one of the most powerful nations of
\nthe world in the refusal of the Allies to treat with Germany or, practically, to re-admit it into the comity of nations unless it set
\naside its existing political system and principles and adopted the forms of modern democracy, dismissing all remnant of absolutist
\nrule.2 <\/sup> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis idea of the common interest of the race in the internal
\naffairs of a nation is bound to increase as the life of humanity becomes more unified. The great political question of the future 
\n\t\t\tis likely to be the challenge of Socialism, the full evolution of
\n\t\t\tthe omnipotent and omnipresent social State. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t2<\/sup>  The hardly disguised intervention of the Fascist Powers in Spain to combat and beat down the democratic Government of the country is a striking example of a tendency
\n likely to increase in the future. Since then there has been the interference in an opposite
\nsense with the Franco regime in the same country and the pressure put upon it, however incomplete and wavering, to change its method and principle.
\n   <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 501<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd if Socialism triumphs in the leading nations of the world, it will inevitably seek to impose its rule everywhere not only by indirect pressure, but
\neven by direct interference in what it would consider backward countries. An international authority, Parliamentary or other, in
\nwhich it commanded the majority or the chief influence, would be too ready a means to be neglected. Moreover, a World-State
\nwould probably no more find it possible to tolerate the continuance of certain nations as capitalist societies, itself being
\nsocialistic in major part, than a capitalist \u2014 or socialist \u2014 Great Britain would tolerate a socialist
\n\t\t\t\u2014 or capitalist \u2014 Scotland or
\nWales. On the other hand, if all nations become socialistic in form, it would be natural enough for the World-State to coordinate all these separate socialisms into one great system of human life. But Socialism pursued to its full development means
\nthe destruction of the distinction between political and social activities; it means the socialisation of the common life and
\nits subjection in all its parts to its own organised government and administration. Nothing small or great escapes its purview.
\nBirth and marriage, labour and amusement and rest, education, culture, training of physique and character, the socialistic sense
\nleaves nothing outside its scope and its busy intolerant control. Therefore, granting an international Socialism, neither the politics nor the social life of the separate peoples is likely to escape the centralised control of the World-State.3
\nSuch a world-system is remote indeed from our present conceptions and established habits of life, but these conceptions and
\nhabits are already subjected at their roots to powerful forces of change. Uniformity is becoming more and more the law of
\nthe world; it is becoming more and more difficult, in spite of sentiment and in spite of conscious efforts of conservation and
\nrevival, for local individualities to survive. But the triumph of 3
\nThis aspect of Socialism in action has received a striking confirmation in the trend to total governmental control in Germany and Italy. The strife between national (Fascist)
\nSocialism and pure Marxist Socialism could not have been foreseen at the time of writing; but whichever form prevails, there is an identical principle.uniformity
\n\t\t\twould naturally make for centralisation; the radical incentive to
\n\t\t\tseparateness would disappear. 
\n   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 502<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd centralisation
\nonce accomplished would in its turn make for a more complete uniformity. Such decentralisation as might be indispensable in
\na uniform humanity would be needed for convenience of administration, not on the ground of true separative variations.
\nOnce the national sentiment has gone under before a dominant internationalism, large questions of culture and race would be
\nthe only grounds left for the preservation of a strong though subordinate principle of separation in the World-State. But difference of culture is quite as much threatened today as any other more outward principle of group variation. The differences between the European nations are simply minor variations of a common occidental culture. And now that Science, that
\ngreat power for uniformity of thought and life and method, is becoming more and more the greater part and threatens to
\nbecome the whole of culture and life, the importance of these variations is likely to decrease. The only radical difference that
\nstill exists is between the mind of the Occident and the mind of the Orient. But here too Asia is undergoing the shock of
\nEuropeanism and Europe is beginning to feel, however slightly, the reflux of Asiaticism. A common world-culture is the most
\nprobable outcome. The valid objection to centralisation will then be greatly diminished in force, if not removed altogether. Racesense is perhaps a stronger obstacle because it is more irrational; but this too may be removed by the closer intellectual, cultural
\nand physical intercourse which is inevitable in the not distant future. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe dream of the cosmopolitan socialist thinker may therefore be
\n\t\t\trealised after all. And given the powerful continuance of the
\n\t\t\tpresent trend of world-forces, it is in a way inevitable. Even what
\n\t\t\tseems now most a chimera, a common language, may become a reality.
\n\t\t\tFor a State naturally tends to establish one language as the
\n\t\t\tinstrument of all its public affairs, its thought, its literature;
\n\t\t\tthe rest sink into patois, dialects, provincial tongues, like Welsh
\n\t\t\tin Great Britain or Breton and Provencal in France; \u00b8 exceptions
\n\t\t\tlike Switzerland are few, hardly more than one or  two in
\n\t\t\tnumber, and are preserved only by unusually favourable conditions. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 503<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is difficult indeed to suppose that languages with
\npowerful literatures spoken by millions of cultured men will allow themselves to be put into a quite secondary position, much
\nless snuffed out by any old or new speech of man. But it cannot be quite certainly said that scientific reason, taking possession of
\nthe mind of the race and thrusting aside separative sentiment as a barbaric anachronism, may not accomplish one day even this
\npsychological miracle. In any case, variety of language need be no insuperable obstacle to uniformity of culture, to uniformity
\nof education, life and organisation or to a regulating scientific machinery applied to all departments of life and settled for the
\ncommon good by the united will and intelligence of the human race. For that would be what a World-State, such as we have
\nimagined, would stand for, its meaning, its justification, its human object. It is likely indeed that this and nothing less would
\ncome in the end to be regarded as the full justification of its existence.
\n   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 504<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font> <\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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