Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/95

 A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW OF SOVEREIGNTY 8 1

power to put one's own opinion or desire into effect regardless of the desires and opinions of others. This power is con- trolled and directed, therefore, not by proof and logic, but by appeals to the sense of justice and expediency. It belongs to the realm of opinion rather than demonstration and under- standing. Here we have the essential mark which separates the political from the technical and business problems. In the technical field there is no power of compulsion. One must act according to unchangeable laws governing human nature and physical nature. " We conquer nature by obeying her," that is, by knowledge and skill, not by opinions and prejudice.

In the business field we apparently come nearer to com- pulsion. Successful business discipline at present depends on the power to appoint, promote, and discharge subordinates. But this power exists only in so far as the laws of property permit and enforce it. Here the business problem depends upon the political forces that regulate property. The business manager is allowed to use compulsion only to the extent that the people through their laws have chosen. His success within this area is based primarily on tact and persuasion.

The political problem of the state occurs at exactly this point. It is concerned with the extent to which compulsion shall be used by private persons, by sects or classes, in pro- moting their interests. It is not independent of technology and business. In fact, as shown above, it depends on these to further its ends. It cannot override them, but it can use them. It is concerned only with the questions : Who shall get the advan- tages of social production ? For whose benefit shall services be rendered, and who shall bear the burdens ? It deals with social classes, whereas the technical problem deals with the material of nature and the business problem deals with individuals.

We saw in the chapter on order that private property and sovereignty together constitute the total of coercion which exists in a given society. We saw in the chapter on right that coercion, originating and developing in the necessities of the struggle for survival, and becoming a matter of ethical choice in proportion as necessity gives way to freedom, is prone, however,