Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/835

 A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEIV OF SOVEREIGNTY 819

of organization which had sprung up as private associations through struggle and survival, and had shown by the fact of survival their strength and fitness, and then filled them with political functions. Their structure, that is, the organization of their coercive sanctions, was private and competitive in its ori- gin and growth. It became public simply by being legally rec- ognized as an organization and intrusted with public functions. Later, through the simple device of extension of the suffrage, subordinate and hitherto excluded classes, living in the area governed by the organization, were admitted to partnership in determining its will. This may be called the socialization of property and institutions. The democratization of institutions consisted in breaking up the centralized form which had resulted from survival, and creating small copies of it, each with similar unrestricted powers of private dominion. The socializa- tion of institutions consists in introducing the subordinate classes into partnership with the hitherto absolute proprietor. The family was democratized when polygamy was outlawed, and slaves and serfs were guaranteed possession and control of their wives and children. The family was socialized when the wife and children were granted the right to veto the arbitrary com- mands of the head of the family and so were made partners with him. Political parties were democratized through the guaranteed right of free assemblage, free speech, and free nomi- nation and election of candidates, whereby any group of per- sons could organize a party if they could persuade enough others to join. Parties are being socialized through the legal- ized ballot and primaries, by which the organization proper is transferred to sovereignty, and the subordinate members are guar- anteed approved rights of veto and persuasion within the organi- zation.' Democratization divides and multiplies an institution, restricting its centralizing tendencies, but retains its basis in private property. Socialization transfers it from private prop- erty to sovereignty, incorporates its organization into the consti- tution of the state, fixes the relations of its members to each other against capricious change, and amends it in such ways as

' See following chapter.