Arizona daily citizen., 1901-11-29
DecentruhSahon Of
Economic Power
BY CHARLES FERGUSON

L
ing able to give or withhold bread from
the people. This power Is sometimes
called the money power but money
has no power unless its claims are
backed by the military and police
force. And, on the other hand, the
military and police force, though it
may infiict WOUNDS or imprisonments
upon the bodies OF the people when
its behests are disregarded. finds its
most ordinary and characteristic ex-
preston In the sphere of economies.
War Is commerce reversed. The final
terror of the machine-gun lies in the
fact that 1t can command the wheat
fields and the shops. All physical
force comes down at last to question
of the materials ami resources of econo-
mic prodhction---a question of board and
clothes The soldiers do the fighting
but the commissary always wins the
battle.
Now. broadly speaking. there are two
ways of ordering society-two ways of
executing Its civil law. The law may
depend 70 its enforcement upon cen
tralization of economic power or upon
a correlation of intelation Of in
tellectual power. In the former
case the sovereignty is said to
be In the government; in the latter. it
Is said to be In the people. All gov
ernment Is centralization of power.
of one kind or another. And political
and social evolution consists In gra-
dual transformation of government
and law from State in which the re-
lance of law is upon the economic
necessity of the people to State in
which the law depends for its enforce
ment upon the general intelligence and
reasonRbleness. Social evolution is
the passing of mankind from the rule
of economic necessity to that OF free
and consentaneous wills.
The starting point in the ascent OF
history and the lowest depths to which
a society can return In its failure and
overthrow, is the condition of a COM
plete Capitalization of economic pow
err Any society that exhibits this
phenomenon Is low down in the scale
OF progress. 1t does not much matter
whether the power over the peoples
bread be lodged In patriarch,
prince. a plutocracy, or an admins
trative bureau or whether 1t be de
rived by election or by heredity. The
fact that the law depends for It's en-
forcement solely upon the exercise OF
economic power. reveals low-spi-
rited and morally incompetent people
"a people lacking In the courage of
ideals and incapable of understanding
anything but brute fact.
The advance of the modern and de-
mocratic principle Is In exact cores
pondence with the gradual decentrali
zation of economic power and the gra-
dual correlation of intellectual pow
ers the miracle that America has ui
detaken to exhibit to the Old World Is
the spectacle of vast social system
depending for the steady maintenance
of its law and order, not upon any
mans power over any, other mans
bread, but solely upon the unfailing
concurrence of the minds OF the peo-
pie.
The United States is committed to
world-revolutionary enterprise the
shifting of the centre of gravity of uni
versal society from economics to in
tellect-from the rule OF necessity to
the rule of ideas.
The rise of political constitutional
ism in the Old World showed In the be-
ginnings of this great transaction-the
tentative formation within the body
of the old society OF new centrali-
ty OF social organization. A public
spirit or inchoate sovereignty of the
people was emboldened by the Reform
alton and the Renaissance to set up
the standard of the University and of
the human ideal against the hard Wis
age Of the sovereignty of kings But
Europe Is still ruled-unquestionabl
so-by the principle Of economic neces-
sity, the Capitalization of economic
power. 1t Is only in America as yet
that the scale has turned In favor of
government by the correlation Of intel
lectual forces. And the future of the
whole human race for ages to come
seems now to hang upon the faithful
ness OF the American people to the
American ideal.
We are not interested In propagating
a particular political system-that is
not the point The unbroken sway of
the economic forces would be as terri
BILE and sordid under president or
bureaucracy as under a prince. 1t is
not q question of the forms Of poll
tics. 1t Is Of no great account that we |
have substituted an elective for an |
hereditary government. That was in !
evitable indeed and has certain sig |
nificance as expressing our intention
OF substituting intelligent designs for |
unintelligible accidents. But there can |
be no execution OF intelligent designs |
without concurrence Of the intellec-
tual forces of society And that con-
currence or consentaneousness OF the |
minds Of the people and not the eler. /
tive principle Is the sine qua non of .
democracy.
Ii is false theoryOf our Government |
to which our defective constitution
al arrangements have lent some color
that we intend to put into the hands .
OF public officers immense economic |
and material forces with which to rule
us. relying for our defence against the
possibility of usurpation upon the mere
fact that we will dismiss them In two
years or more without reelection IL
they abuse us. The truth Is that we do
not intend to be ruled for a single day
or hour by economic and material
forces. The only power that we mean
to put into the hands of public officers T
Is the power OF official prestige-the
moral or intellectual power that comes
OF the general expectation that the peo-
pies representatives will truly repre-
sent the common social ideal
In the theory of American society