Page:Gregg - Gandhiism versus socialism.pdf/26

 itself is sometimes an influence toward violence in political and economic organizations. In a huge association it is psychologically impossible for the few who manage it to know the detailed facts about distant localities. They have not the time, and the reports that reach them are inadequate and biased. Therefore the managers cannot help issuing unjust orders, and the inevitable bureaucracy naturally desires to control. With the general prepossession toward violence anyhow, the difficult situations caused by the ignorance of those in command will be controlled by the military and the police. This is true in disputes be tween industrial corporations and their workers as well as in disputes between governments and people. Many weaknesses attributed to modern democracy are really due only to immensity of organization.

But Asiatic civilization has traditionally been founded on village life, only loosely integrated into larger district and national units. Two facts indicate that there must be considerable validity in this form of political, social and economic organization. One is the great permanence and stability of those civilizations, despite many invasions, wars and famines. Another is the fact that all the great religions have come from Asia, although Communists and some others consider this a weakness rather than a strength.

Small-scale organization would considerably affect the problems of social control. Village populations are so small that every one knows every one else. Therefore the trust that evolves in such surroundings is far more real and complete than the trust that exists in huge organizations where so much is necessarily based on hearsay. Public opinion counts so greatly in a village that there is less need to rely on physical force to control the people. In villages there are, no doubt, distinct and often hard social divisions, but the gaps between people are not so great as among city folk and people in large organizations. In vil-