{"id":3164,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3164"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:24","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:24","slug":"28-the-need-of-administrative-unity-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-ideal-of-human-unity\/28-the-need-of-administrative-unity-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-28_The Need of Administrative Unity.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nCHAPTER XXVI<\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE NEED OF ADMINISTRATIVE UNITY<\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nI<\/font>N<\/font>
\nALMOST<\/font> all current ideas of the first step towards
\ninternational organisation, it is taken for granted that the nations will
\ncontinue to enjoy their separate existence and liberties and will only leave to
\ninternational action the prevention of war, the regulation of dangerous
\ndisputes, the power of settling great international questions which they cannot
\nsettle by ordinary means. It is impossible that the development should stop
\nthere; this first step would necessarily lead to others which could travel only
\nin one direction. Whatever authority were established, if it is to be a true
\nauthority in any degree and not a mere concert for palaver, would find itself
\ncalled upon to act more frequently and to assume always increasing powers. To
\navoid preventible disturbance and friction, to avert hereafter the recurrence of
\ntroubles and disasters which in the beginning the first limitations of its
\npowers had debarred the new authority from exercising by a timely intervention
\nbefore they came to a head, to bring about a co-ordination of activities for
\ncommon ends would be the principal motives impelling humanity to advance from a
\nlooser to a closer union, from a voluntary self-subordination in great and
\nexceptional matters to an obligatory subordination in most matters. The desire
\nof powerful nations to use it for their own purposes, the utility for weaker
\nnations of appealing to it for the protection of their interests, the shock of
\nactual or threatened internal disturbances and revolutions would all help to
\ngive the international authority greater power and provide occasions for <\/i>
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-236<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nextending its normal action. Science, thought and
\nreligion, the three great forces which in modem times tend increasingly to
\noverride national distinctions and point the race towards unity of life and
\nspirit, would become more impatient of national barriers, hostilities and
\ndivisions and lend their powerful influence to the change. The great struggle
\nbetween Capital and Labour might become rapidly world-wide, arrive at such an
\ninternational organisation as would precipitate the inevitable step or even
\npresent the actual crisis which would bring about the transformation. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nOur supposition for the moment is that a
\nwell-unified World-State with the nations for its provinces would be the final
\noutcome. At first taking up the regulation of international disputes and of
\neconomic treaties and relations, the international authority would start as an
\narbiter and an occasional executive power and change by degrees into a
\nlegislative body and a standing executive power. Its legislation would be
\nabsolutely necessary in international matters, if fresh convulsions are to be
\navoided; for it is idle to suppose that any international arrangement, any
\nordering of the world arrived at after the close of a great war and upheaval
\ncould be permanent and definitive. Injustice, inequalities, abnormalities,
\ncauses of quarrel or dissatisfaction would remain in the relations of nation
\nwith nation, continent with continent which would lead to fresh hostilities and
\nexplosions. As these are prevented in the nation-State by the legislative
\nauthority which constantly modifies the existing system of things in conformity
\nwith new ideas, interests, forces and necessities, so it would have to be in the
\ndeveloping World-State. This legislative power as it developed, extended,
\nregularised its actions, powers and processes, would become more complex and
\nwould be bound to interfere at many points and override or substitute its own
\nfor the separate national action. That would imply the growth also of its
\nexecutive power and the development of an international executive organisation.
\nAt first it might confine itself to the most important questions and affairs
\nwhich obviously demanded its control; but it would tend increasingly to <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-237<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nstretch its hand to all or most
\nmatters that could be viewed as having an international effect and importance.
\nBefore long it would invade and occupy even those fields in which the nations
\nare now jealous of their own rights and powers. And eventually it would permeate
\nthe whole system of the national life and subject it to international control in
\nthe interests of the better co-ordination of the united life, culture, science,
\norganisation education, efficiency of the human race. It would reduce the now
\nfree and separate nations first to the position of the States of the American
\nUnion or the German empire and eventually perhaps to that of geographical
\nprovinces or departments of the single nation of mankind. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe present obstacle to any such extreme
\nconsummation is the still strong principle of nationalism, the sense of group
\nseparateness, the instinct of collective independence, its pride, its pleasure
\nin itself, its various sources of egoistic self-satisfaction, its insistence on
\nthe subordination of the human idea to the national idea. But we are supposing
\nthat the new-born idea of internationalism will grow apace, subject to itself
\nthe past idea and temper of nationalism, and become dominant and take possession
\nof the human mind. As the larger nation-group has subordinated to itself and
\ntended to absorb all smaller clan, tribal and regional groups, as the larger
\nempire group now tends to subordinate and might, if allowed to develop,
\neventually absorb the smaller nation-groups, we are supposing that the complete
\nhuman group of united mankind will subordinate to itself in the same way and
\neventually absorb all smaller groups of separated humanity. It is only by a
\ngrowth of the international idea, the idea of a single humanity, that
\nnationalism can disappear, if the old natural device of an external unification
\nby conquest or other compulsive force continues to be no longer possible; for
\nthe methods of war have become too disastrous and no single empire has the means
\nand the strength to overcome, whether rapidly or in the gradual Roman way, the
\nrest of the world. Undoubtedly, nationalism is a more powerful obstacle to
\nfarther unification than was the separativeness of the old pettier and less
\nfirmly <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-238<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nself-conscious groupings which preceded the
\ndeveloped nation-State. It is still the most powerful sentiment in the
\ncollective human mind, still gives an indestructible vitality to the nation and
\nis apt to reappear even where it seemed to have been abolished. But we cannot
\nargue safely from the present balance of tendencies in the beginning of a great
\nera of transitions. Already there are at work not only ideas but forces, all the
\nmore powerful for being forces of the future and not established powers of the
\npresent, which may succeed in subordinating nationalism to themselves far
\nearlier than we can at present conceive. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIf the principle of the World-State is carried to
\nits logical conclusion and to its extreme consequences the result will be a
\nprocess analogous, in principle, with whatever necessary differences in the
\nmanner or form or extent of execution to that by which in the building of the
\nnation-State the central government, first as a monarchy, then as a democratic
\nassembly and executive, gathered up the whole administration of the national
\nlife. There will be a centralisation of all control, military and police,
\nadministrative, judicial, legislative, economic, social and cultural in the one
\ninternational authority. The spirit of the centralisation will be a strong
\nunitarian idea and the principle of uniformity enforced for the greatest
\npractical convenience and the result a rationalised mechanism of human life and
\nactivities throughout the world with justice, universal well-being, economy of
\neffort and scientific efficiency as its principal objects. Instead of the
\nindividual activities of nation-groups each working for itself with the maximum
\nof friction and waste and conflict, there will be an effort at co-ordination,
\nsuch as we now see in a well-organised modern State, of which the complete idea
\nis a thorough going State socialism, nowhere yet realised indeed, but rapidly
\ncoming into existence.* If we glance briefly at each department of the communal
\nactivity, we shall see that this development is inevitable. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n*Since this was written, this coming into
\nexistence has become much more rapid and thoroughgoing in three at least of the
\ngreatest nations, and a more hesitating and less clearly self-conscious
\nimitation of it is in evidence in smaller countries. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-239<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nWe have seen already that all military power,\u2014and
\nin the World-State that would mean an international armed police, \u2014 must be
\nconcentrated in the hands of one common authority; otherwise the State cannot
\nendure. A certain concentration of the final power of decision in economic
\nmatters would be also in time inevitable. And in the end this supremacy could
\nnot stop short of a complete control. For, the economic life of the world is
\nbecoming more and more one and indivisible; but the present state of
\ninternational relations is an anomalous condition of opposite principles partly
\nin conflict, partly accommodated to each other as best they can be,\u2014but the best
\nis bad and harmful to the common interest. On the one side there is the
\nunderlying unity which makes each nation commercially dependent on all the rest.
\nOn the other there is the spirit of national jealousy, egoism and sense of
\nseparate existence which makes each nation attempt at once to assert its
\nindustrial independence and at the same time reach out for a hold of its
\noutgoing commercial activities upon foreign markets. The interaction of these
\ntwo principles is regulated at present partly by the permitted working of
\nnatural forces, partly by tacit practice and understanding, partly by systems of
\ntariff protection, bounties, State aid of one kind or another on the one hand
\nand commercial treaties and agreements on the other. Inevitably as the
\nworld-State grew, this would be felt to be an anomaly, a wasteful and
\nuneconomical process. An efficient international authority would be compelled
\nmore and more to intervene and modify the free arrangements of nation with
\nnation. The commercial interests of humanity at large would be given the first
\nplace; the independent proclivities and commercial ambitions or jealousies of
\nthis and 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
\nand proper share in the united economic life of the race. Especially, as
\nsocialism advanced and began to regulate the whole economic existence of
\nseparate countries, the same principle would gain ground in the inter’ national
\nfield and in the end the World-State would be called <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-240<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nupon to take up into its hands
\nthe right ordering of the industrial production and distribution of the world.
\nEach country plight be allowed for a time to produce its own absolute
\nnecessities: but in the end it would probably be felt that this was no more
\nnecessary than for Wales or Scotland to produce all its own necessities
\nindependently of the rest of the British Isles, or for one province of India to
\nbe an economic unit independent of the rest of the country; each would produce
\nand distribute only what it could to the best advantage, most naturally, most
\nefficiently and most economically, for the common need and demand of mankind in
\nwhich its own would be inseparably included. It would do this according to a
\nsystem settled by the common will of mankind through its State government and
\nunder a method made uniform in its principles, however variable in local detail,
\nso as to secure the simplest, smoothest and most rational working of a
\nnecessarily complicated machinery. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe administration of the general order of society
\nis a less pressing matter of concern than it was to the nation-States in their
\nperiod of formation, because those were times when the element of order had
\nalmost to be created and violence, crime and revolt were both more easy and more
\na natural and general propensity of mankind. At the present day, not only are
\nsocieties tolerably well organised in this respect and equipped with the
\nabsolutely necessary agreements between country and country, but by an elaborate
\nsystem of national, regional and municipal governments linked up by an
\nincreasingly rapid power of communication the State can regulate parts of the
\norder of life with which the cruder governments of old were quite unable to deal
\nwith any full effect. In the World-State, it may be thought, each country may be
\nleft to its own free action in matters of its internal order, and, indeed, of
\nall its separate political, social and cultural life. But even here it is
\nprobable that the World-State Would demand a greater centralisation and
\nuniformity than we can now easily imagine. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn the matter, for instance, of the continual
\nstruggle of society with the still ineradicable element of crime which it <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-241<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\ngenerates in its own bosom, the crudity of the
\npresent system is sure to be recognised and a serious attempt made to deal with it in a very
\nradical manner. The first necessity would be the close observation and
\nsupervision of the great mass of constantly recreated, corrupt human material in
\nwhich the bacillus of crime finds its natural breeding-ground. This is at
\npresent done very crudely and imperfectly, and for the most part after the event
\nof actual crime, by the separate police of each nation with extradition treaties
\nand informal mutual aid as a device against evasion by deplacement. The
\nWorld-State would insist on an international as well as a local supervision, not
\nonly to deal with the phenomenon of what may be called international crime and
\ndisorder which is likely to increase largely under future conditions, but for
\nthe more important object of the prevention of crime. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFor, the second necessity it would feel would be
\nthe need to deal with crime at its roots and in its inception. It may attempt
\nthis first, by a more enlightened method of education and moral and
\ntemperamental training which would render the growth of criminal propensities
\nmore difficult; secondly, by scientific or eugenic methods of observation,
\ntreatment, isolation, perhaps sterilisation of corrupt human material; thirdly,
\nby a humane and enlightened goal system and penological method which would have
\nfor its aim not the punishment but the reform of the incipient and the formed
\ncriminal. It would insist on a certain uniformity of principle so that there
\nmight 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
\ncentralisation of control would be necessary or at least strongly advisable. So
\ntoo with the judicial method. The present system is still considered as
\nenlightened and civilised, and it is so comparatively with the mediaeval
\nmethods; but a time will surely come when it will be condemned as grotesque,
\ninefficient, irrational and in many of its principal features semi-barbaric, a
\nhalf-conversion at most of the more confused and arbitrary methods of an earlier
\nstate of social thought and feeling and social life. With the development <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-242<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

of a more rational system, the
\npreservation of the old juridical and judicial principles and methods in any
\npart of the world would be felt to be intolerable and the World-State would he
\nled to standardise the new principles and the new methods by a common
\nlegislation and probably a general centralised control. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn all these matters, it might be admitted,
\nuniformity and centralisation would be beneficial and to some extent inevitable;
\nno jealousy of national separateness and independence could be allowed under
\nsuch conditions to interfere with the common good of humanity. But, at least in
\ntheir choice of their political system and in other spheres of their social life
\nthe nations might well be left to follow their own ideals and propensities and
\nto be healthily and naturally free. It may even be said that the nations would
\nnever tolerate any serious interference in these matters and that the attempt to
\nuse the World-State for such a purpose would be fatal to its existence. But, as
\na matter of fact, the principle of 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
\ntimes of great and passionate struggle between conflicting political
\nideas,\u2014between oligarchy and democracy in ancient Greece, between the old regime
\nand the ideas of the French Revolution in modem Europe,\u2014the principle of
\npolitical non-interference has gone to the wall. But now we see another
\nphenomenon\u2014the opposite principle of interference slowly erecting itself into a
\nconscious rule of international life. There is more and more possible an
\nintervention like the American interference in Cuba, not on avowed grounds of
\nnational interest, but ostensibly on behalf of liberty, constitutionalism and
\ndemocracy, or of an opposite social and political principle, on international
\ngrounds therefore and practically in the force of this idea that the internal
\narrangements of a country concern, under certain conditions of disorder or
\ninsufficiency, not only itself, but its neighbours and humanity at large. A
\nsimilar principle was put forward by the Allies in regard to Greece during the
\nwar. It was applied to one of the most powerful nations of the world in the
\nrefusal of the <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-243<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nAllies to treat with Germany or, practically, to
\nre-admit it into the comity of nations unless it set aside its existing politics
\nsystem and principles and adopted the forms of modern democracy, dismissing all
\nremnant of absolutist rule.* <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis idea of the common interest of the race in the
\ninterns affairs of a nation is bound to increase as the life of humanity becomes
\nmore unified. The great political question of the future is likely to be the
\nchallenge of Socialism, the full evolution of the omnipotent State. And if
\nSocialism triumphs in the leading nations of the world, it will inevitably seek
\nto impose its rule everywhere not only by indirect pressure, but even by direct
\ninterference in what it would consider backward countries. An international
\nauthority. Parliamentary or other, in which it commanded the majority or the
\nchief influence, would be too ready a means to be neglected. Moreover, a
\nWorld-State would probably no more find it possible to tolerate the continuance
\non certain nations as capitalist societies, itself being socialistic in\u00a6 major
\npart, than a capitalist\u2014or socialist\u2014Great Britain would tolerate a socialist\u2014or
\ncapitalist\u2014Scotland or Wales. On the other hand if all nations become
\nsocialistic in form, it would be natural enough for the World-State to
\nco-ordinate all these separate socialisms into one great system of human life.
\nBut Socialism pursued to its full development means the destruction of the
\ndistinction between political and social activities; it means the socialisation
\nof the common life and its subjection in all its parts to its own organised
\ngovernment and administration. Nothing small or great escapes its purview. Birth
\nand marriage, labour and amusement and rest, education, culture, training of
\nphysique and character\u2014the socialistic sense leaves nothing outside its scope
\nand its busy intolerant control. Therefore, granting an international socialism,
\nneither the politics nor the social life <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* The hardly disguised intervention of the
\nFascist Powers in Spain to combat and beat down the democratic Government of the
\ncountry is a striking example of what is likely to increase in the future. Since
\nthen there has been the interference in an opposite sense with the Franco regime
\nin the same country and the pressure put upon it, however incomplete and
\nwavering, change its method and principle. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-244<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof the separate peoples is likely to escape the
\ncentralised control of the world-State.* <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nSuch a world-system is remote indeed from our
\npresent conceptions and established habits of life, but these conceptions and
\nhabits are already subjected at their roots to powerful forces of change.
\nUniformity is becoming more and more the law of the world; it is becoming more
\nand more difficult, in spite of sentiment and in spite of conscious efforts of
\nconservation and revival, for local individualities to survive. But the triumph
\nof uniformity would naturally make for centralisation; the radical incentive to
\nseparateness would disappear. And centralisation once accomplished would in its
\nturn make for a more complete uniformity. Such decentralisation as might be
\nindispensable in a uniform humanity would be needed for convenience of
\nadministration, not the ground of true separative variations. Once the national
\nsentiment has gone under before a dominant internationalism, large questions of
\nculture and race would be the only grounds left for the preservation of a
\nstrong, though subordinate, principle of separation in the World-State. But
\ndifference of culture is quite as much threatened today as any other more
\noutward principle of group variation. The differences between the European
\nnations are simply minor variations of a common occidental culture. And now that
\nscience, that great power for uniformity of thought and life and method, is
\nbecoming more and more the greater part and threatens to become the whole
\nculture and life, the importance of these variations is likely to decrease. The
\nonly radical difference that still exists is between the mind of the Occident
\nand 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
\nAsiaticism. A common world-culture is the most probable outcome. The valid
\nobjection to centralisation will then be greatly diminished<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* This aspect of socialism in action has
\nreceived a striking confirmation in the trend to total governmental control in
\nGermany and Italy. The strife between national (Fascist) Socialism and pure
\nMarxist Socialism could not have been foreseen at the time of writing; but
\nwhichever form prevails, there is an identical principle. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-245<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nin force, if not removed
\naltogether. Race-sense is perhaps a stronger obstacle because it is more
\nirrational; but this too may be removed by the closer intellectual, cultural and
\nphysical intercourse which is inevitable in the not distant future. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe dream of the cosmopolitan socialist thinker may
\ntherefore be realised after all. And given the powerful continuance of the
\npresent trend of world-forces, it is in a way inevitable. Even what seems now
\nmost a chimera, a common language, may become a reality. For a State naturally
\ntends to establish one language as the instrument of all its public affairs, its
\nthought, its literature; the rest sink into patois, dialects, provincial
\ntongues, like Welsh in Great Britain or Breton and Provencal in France;
\nexceptions like Switzerland are few, hardly more than one or two in number, and
\nare preserved only by unusually favourable conditions. It is difficult indeed to
\nsuppose that languages with powerful literatures spoken by millions of cultured
\nmen will allow themselves to be put into a quite secondary position, much less
\nsnuffed out by any old or new speech of man. But it cannot be quite certainly
\nsaid that scientific reason taking possession of the mind of the race and
\nthrusting aside separative sentiment as a barbaric anachronism may not
\naccomplish one day even this psychological miracle. In any case, variety of
\nlanguage need be no insuperable obstacle to uniformity of culture, to uniformity
\nof education, life and organisation or to a regulating scientific machinery
\napplied to all departments of life and settled for the common good by the united
\nwill and intelligence of the human race. For that would be what a World-State,
\nsuch as we have imagined, would stand for, its meaning, its justification, its
\nhuman object. It is likely indeed that this and nothing less would come in the
\nend to be regarded as the full justification of its existence. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-246<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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