Page:Neurath O. (1942) International Planning for Freedom.pdf/9

430 There are many local authorities (one of our loyalties belongs to them) who may not be very efficient, from the business point of view, but perhaps they do something by their very existence for the preservation of civil liberty, stubbornly fighting against central forces which invariably have a certain tendency to reduce freedom for it is much simpler to rule by command than by compromise and agreement.

If people like to act in 'accordance with their personal conscience' on 'intra-national' and 'inter-national' matters and want to have a social organisation which allows them to do so, then they must accept as part of the bargain that magistrates and other office-holders at different places may sometimes have divergent opinions and take divergent decisions, an inequality which can hardly be totally removed as long as one likes 'his own conscience'.

Some muddle thus seems to be unavoidable in a society of free men and within a democratic world commonwealth. People who like freedom and see these relations, will not give bad names to a muddle without analyzing whether this muddle is perhaps related to civil liberty or not; Plato disliked democracy, the kind of state in which there is the greatest variety of human nature and together with it - as he stressed - much disorder and muddle. On the other hand, social engineers should not overlook that often social institutions of old tradition, praised as pillars of civil liberty, do nothing but hamper both freedom and desired changes in our social order.

Perhaps in the long run just a more-than-one-party organization with its muddle will be more efficient even in terms of technical efficiency. On an average, a more or less stable democratic organization seems to present an extremely high degree of resistance. In a one-party system, an essential part of all administrative energy is consumed by fighting against deviations. In a well-established democracy, men antagonistic to certain decisions of the community are mostly well known by the public, the society is adapted to them and often puts them into less important posts for some time, using them again when the situation has changed. People in such an organization are able to act much more 'in harmony with their own conscience' - their higher resistance is, as it were, paid by the muddle.

Acting 'in harmony with their own conscience' is an element of happiness, but that does not imply that people who are acting 'in harmony with their own conscience' are socially simpler to handle than others who are