Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/568

 552 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

character of the entire institution. What is true of the state is true of the other social institutions, whether governmental or subordinate ; each one becomes an organization with a will of its own, enforced through the subordination of its members. The capacity of the human will, its range of free choice, is deepened and widened when competition has disappeared in monopoly. It becomes an institutional will, which is the will of the headman of the institution.

The problem of the reflective organization of society, follow- ing the breakdown of custom and the disappearance of com- petition, is how to check the capricious use of power by this headman in each institution, and to induce him continually to exalt justice above caprice. This is the problem of order and right.

We thus have the three constituents of sovereignty — coer- cion, order, right. Coercion originates as private property. The struggle for existence causes this to survive in the form of monopoly and centralization. Order emerges as a constituent of sovereignty in place of caprice only when sovereignty has extended over wide areas and when subordinate classes have earned the veto power in determining the sovereign will. Right takes its place as the moral aim of sovereignty when freedom has displaced material and competitive necessity ; when the strug- gle for property has ended in the monopoly of property. We are now to examine in detail the subordinate or persuasive insti- tutions of society with respect to the growth of organization, the extraction of coercion, and the injection of right.

John R. Commons. Syracuse University.

[ To be continued.^