The Doctrine of Power and Party Conflict

The fundamental problem in politics is that of the balance of power. It is a balance which has to be struck not only in foreign affairs but, quite as much, in the domestic management of states. Only, it may be suggested, when real equilibrium has been secured, is that efficient, smooth and healthy working of the social system possible which finds external expression in a normal and resilient form of conservatism as distinct from the tetanus of the morbid and hysterical form. But it is futile to speak of striking a balance of social interests unless we are justified in supposing that the units have a certain constancy of characteristics and persistence of activity.Now the units of social force are, in the last analysis, the so-called ‘free wills’ of the individuals necessarily brought into contact as component members of a society. The contact is necessary: civilization admits of no ‘wild ass freedom.’ To assert that these ‘persons with a will of their own’ behave in accordance not only with an ‘altruistic’ gregarious tendency but also with a differentiating, assertive tendency, is to make a psychological assumption. To affirm that this self-assertive tendency may perhaps be religiously sublimated but that it is under all circumstances inextinguishable, is to make another psychological assumption.