Is society a machine, and should it be?

Questions

1. Q35Does treating the state as an artificial machine give its members grounds to redesign it?

   Yes2

   • 1795Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, in a Series of Letters

     The state may be rebuilt on reason, but unlike a clock it cannot be stopped for repair; the living clockwork of the state must be repaired while it runs.

   • 1917Lenin, The State and Revolution

     Lenin interprets Marx as requiring the working class to smash ready-made state machinery rather than merely take possession of it.

   No4

   • 1651Hobbes, Leviathan

     Hobbes criticizes private conscience as a competing judge of good and evil where civil law has determined the matter, arguing that competing private judgments would divide the commonwealth.

   • 1809Müller, The Elements of Statecraft

     The state is not a machine or a factory but an organic union of all physical and spiritual needs grown through history, so it cannot be redesigned by contract.

   • 1829Carlyle, Signs of the Times

     The age trusts machinery in politics as in industry, believing good government is a matter of mechanical arrangements; Carlyle holds that social health depends on inward, dynamic forces that no constitution-making can supply.

   • 1860Spencer, The Social Organism

     Society is a growth and not a manufacture; constitutions are not made but grow, so treating the state as a contrivance to be redesigned mistakes its nature.

2. Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?

   Yes4

   • 1784Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?

     In the 'private' use of reason within an office, an officer, tax official or clergyman must obey and not argue; he may criticize freely only as a scholar addressing the public.

   • 1821Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right

     Civil servants are educated to a dispassionate, upright demeanor in which personal passions and ties give way to universal interests.

   • 1887Wilson, The Study of Administration

     Administration should be a separate science carried out by trained officials under political direction, kept apart from politics.

   • 1919Weber, Politics as a Vocation

     The honor of the civil servant is to carry out a superior's order conscientiously as if it were his own conviction, even when he thinks it wrong; personal responsibility belongs to the political leader.

   No2

   • 1849Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government

     Most men serve the state 'not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies', as soldiers, jailers and constables, and so give up moral judgment; conscience must come first.

   • 1894Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You

     The state spreads each act of violence across many officials, each of whom says he only obeyed orders, so that no one feels responsible; every official must refuse.

Works

• 1651Hobbes, Leviathan
• 1784Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
• 1795Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, in a Series of Letters
• 1809Müller, The Elements of Statecraft
• 1821Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right
• 1829Carlyle, Signs of the Times
• 1849Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government
• 1860Spencer, The Social Organism
• 1887Wilson, The Study of Administration
• 1894Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You
• 1917Lenin, The State and Revolution
• 1919Weber, Politics as a Vocation