Chapter XIII

Ratzenhofer's Epitome of His Theory¹

The social process of men exhibits (a) forces operating throughout its extent, (b) regular procedures, and (c) inner necessities; all of which are to be regarded as manifestations of conformity to law in the sociological realm. Thus:

1. The sustentation and the multiplication of human beings are the occasions of all social contacts. Their influence creates the impetus to the peaceful relationships and to the hostile interruptions which social structure may encounter. In social reaction they manifest themselves as the instinct of self-preservation (rivalry for food—Brotneid) and the sexual instinct (hence the blood-bond—Blutliebe). All possible motors of social contact are modifications or evolutionary forms of these natural impulses, in the same sense in which the various forms of the interests that control the individual are modalities, or evolutionary qualities, of the inborn interest.
2. In every creature the instinct of self-preservation and the sexual impulse are in juxtaposition with the life-conditions, to which species and individual must adapt themselves, and which they strive to exploit in accordance with their inborn capability. Man and his communities are accordingly perfected products of that primal force which works in the endowment of their order in the evolutionary series, and of those life-conditions. which are changing in the course of terrestrial development.
3. Every creature has originally the disposition to fulfill without hindrance his primal impulses. It would eat without labor and without struggle, and it would reproduce itself without limits. This impulse leads men to spread over the earth's surface, in order to be unhindered in finding food and abode. This impulse is indirectly the occasion for the variations of men and of their social structures, because it compels them either to exchange or to modify their life-conditions.

4. The limitations upon exchange of life-conditions which are introduced by increase of population force upon individuals and upon social structures the struggle for existence. It compels men to decide whether they will at last labor for their subsistence, and by social organization, in spite of increased numbers, accommodate themselves to their abodes--which amounts to the beginning of culture; or whether, to the same end, they will destroy or subjugate other men, the latter alternative leading to forcible struggle and to organized compulsion.

   Whether communities decide upon the former or the latter course is determined radically by the conditions of life among which they develop; for only those people decide primarily in favor of culture who are in tolerable life-conditions. Only those decide for war whose life-conditions are inadequate.

5. Although nan, like all other creatures, would prefer to feed and propagate at peace with his kind, yet progressive increase of numbers and the need of sustenance develop his individual interest into absolute hostility toward all fellowmen. . In so far as men constitute a community of interests through the blood-bond, or co-operation in labor or war, this hostility is silent; only to break out, however, at every disturbance of the community of interest. This outbreak will disregard community of origin and all previous: relationships: Absolute hostility is the psychical guardian over the continuance of a community of interests.

6. The origin of all social interrelations is the blood-bond. Hence all primitive social structures are based on community of origin. Through increase of numbers and the quest for food, the primitive social structure is forced into spatial'differentiations; which further leads, through the various lifeconditions, to race-differentiation. Contacts between differ: entiated men lead to fight or to battle. The latter has for its purpose the destruction of opponents, in order to get control of their food-supply and their abodes, or the conversion of them into servants. The last is a social compromise between destruction and culture. Hence it leads to a higher step in the social process, in which the social structure no longer rests principally upon blood-relationship, but upon culture and a system of control.

7. The social structures of like origin are always simple. Subjugation by rulers is the beginning of social articulation, and of the State.

   Since sustentation and multiplication lead to continual expansion, and thence to subjugation of some people by others; since the conditions of life tend to become progressively more complex in their effects; and since culture enriches without limit the forms of human requirements, there begins, with this first articulation, an incalculable differentiation of social structures. Culture promotes commerce, which in itself has, a dissolving influence upon the restraints of the unified social structure, of origin, common culture, or.common control (State). Hence commerce tends to spread differentiation without limit over all social structures. The differentiation : and the blending of social structures is the practical content of the social process. It is the social effect of the struggle for existence, and the social means of .paralyzing absolute hos-- tility. In this social process of differentiation and of blending, the controlling influence of the primal force, with its appertaining interest, asserts itself in the social realm.

8. The social process is a continuous rhythm of the individualization of structures arising anew out of others already in existence—i. e., the reappearance in the social realm of the biological phenomena of the propagation of organisms; and, on the other hand, of the socialization of social structures already existing—i. e., the reappearance in the social realm of the physiological phenomenon of the somatic upbuilding of organisms. Social differentiation is as limitless as the increase of organisms. Both individualization and socialization have their roots in the inborn interest of the individual; or, in turn, in the concrete interest of each social structure. Differentiation is stimulated by variation of interests. This variation of : interests, however, is the consequence of the increase of numbers, and of the quest for food, under the influence of different life-conditions. In the individualizing side of the process, variation asserts itself. In the socializing side, the evolution of the social structure is foremost.

9. Differentiation (or impulse to individualism) has its boundaries in the number of individuals; i. e., differentiation can go on up to the atomization of society, because each individual may regard his own interest as the content of a social structure. Socialization (or inpulse to form communities) is bounded only by "humanity;" i. e., " humanity" may become a social structure, if throughout that most inclusive range a unifying interest comes to be felt as a need. . The practical boundaries. of differentiation are, however, those interests which arise in the struggle for existence, fromn the requirements of men in connection with the life-conditions. The practical boundary of socialization is the extent of copartnership which these interests find to be feasible.

10. Differentiation, consequently, frees men from irksome social restraints, so that they may live for those interests which are inborn, or to which they have become devoted through social influence. Differentiation, accordingly, fluctuates along the line of social necessity, between variations of the individual will.

    Socialization, on the other hand, confines men in restraints, in order to reach the needed support and co-operation for fulfilling and securing their natural or supposed interest; or in restraints which the force of social conditions imposes upon them. Socialization vibrates along the line of social necessity, between voluntary submission for the sake of a social interest, and forcible subjugation under an alien interest.

11. For differentiation, as well as for socialization, social necessity is either the interest involved and implicit in the immanent capabilities of men, or that which is prescribed by the life-conditions and determined by the social situation. Subjective motive and external compulsion may temporarily veto the social necessity, but in the result of general evolution it nevertheless arrives at unlimited realization.

12. The more men spread over the available places of abode (life-conditions) in consequence of increase of numbers —i. e., the more occasions for social variation enter—the more variations of individual choice (departures from social necessity) will occur in the social process, so that socializing constraint (subjugation) is necessary in order to bring social necessity to its proper influence. Every subjugation determines a relation of control. The social type of this reciprocal relationship is the State.

    But because the individual will degenerates, the socializing constraint degenerates also, and it produces systems of control which are contrary to social necessity; i. e., States which do not fulfl their task of procuring social order. Then differentiation, supported by public intercourse and the aggrieved interests in the State, interposes, and dismembers, reforms, or destroys the State, until the demands of social necessity are satisfied.

13. The species of control in the State depends upon the evolutionary stage of the social process. The transition from the simple to the complex social structure, the progress, from the destruction of all alien social structures to varying blending of them, is marked by the State in which conquerors rule. The predominance of peaceful interests, on the basis of a community character assured by conquest, opens the culture-State. This State attempts to bring the necessity of control over the subjugated into harmony with creative culture-freedom.
14. Struggle and war, in general social disturbances, consolidate social structures. They are, consequently, sources of. political power. Culture and commerce weaken the social bond. They are, consequently, sources of social differentiation and of political dismemberment; but at the same time they occasion extension of the social relationship.
15. Just as variation leads to relative perfection and complexity of organisms, so social differentiation produces a more highly developed and complicated combination of social structures in superordination, co-ordination, and subordination: Through their interests and life-conditions these structures are in reciprocal dependence, which extends as far as societary contacts are possible between them. While social structures originally occupied a kind of isolated position within their environment, contacts between them became later more frequent, until at last men are surrounded by a web of social relationships, which may sometime make "humanity" take on the appearance of a social structure. Propagation, sustentation, and exploitation are the causes; war, culture, and commerce, the means; harmonious satisfaction of interests, the end of this social development.
16. While the web of social relationships grows closer, violent disturbances of social conditions diminish, because every disturbance in the complex framework of the reciprocally dependent social structure is felt on many sides, and presently on all sides, as opposed to interest. Just as in the case of sparse population the dominant power orders social affairs in the politically independent social structure by means of force, so in case of denser population the dominant power. will maintain order in social affairs through compromise of the opposing interests. The culture-State comes into the foreground in consequence of the greater density of the society, and, by the side of violent subjugation, industrial exploitation by means of capital gains influence. What sort of controlling system follows this mixture of political and industrial control is not yet disclosed by the social process.
17. That absolute hostility imbedded in the nature.of individuality, which at first did not come to expression on account of the absence of social contacts (with the exception of those consequent upon blood-relationship), which, however, became dominant during the extension of the social process throughout mankind, is suppressed again by universal socialization. Deficiency of social contacts in the original condition of mankind, and the diffculty of social disturbances if culture is gen- y eral, have here the same result. Absolute hostility breaks out again, however, when unlike social structures with like interests encounter each other in the struggle for existence, if no superior power controls them, or if no interdependence of interest brings them to agreement.
18. In the degree in which the culture-State takes the place of the conquest-State, the differences among men in the satisfaction of interests equalize themselves. Political, social, and industrial inequality among men transform themselves again into such equality in participation of enjoyment as prevailed in primitive social conditions. General socialization of men complicates the social structure, to be sure. It tends, however, to produce concord of interests through increasing perfection of the social organization; nevertheless, with existing varieties of life-conditions it cannot remove all occasions for. social conflict.

Social order is an organizing of the struggle for existence, for the purpose of assuring sustenance and the propagation of wholesome generations. It is, accordingly, justifiable to assume, as the conclusion of social development, a condition in which, in spite of manifoldness of individualities in adaptation to their occupations, there will ensue a cultural, political, and social equality of men under the leadership of individuals who are intellectually and morally the most perfect. Under a system of control by ethical and intellectual authority, social development without degeneration of inborn and acquired interests might be possible; but the equality must remain for an incalculable period modified by inequality and by changes of life-conditions.

Notes