center and periphery part 5

8/14/2019 Center and Periphery Part 5

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402 Expansionand Dependence of he Centergroups frontally and from the beginning means that many extremelyimportan t problems could not be formulated, to say nothing of resolved,even tentatively, on the basis ofthedata which they gathered. At the endof the preceding section, for example, we have shown that hypotheseswith regard to the conditions of danger under which primary groupsdisintegrate cannot be investigated from the materials presented eventhough some very intriguing hypotheses could be constructed. This is tosome extent the result of the failure of the Research Branch to paysufficiently detailed attention in their questionnaires to the soldiers'ownreport of their experiences under combat and ofthegeneral tendency toavoid the technical and substantive problems involved in the descriptionof group action and relationships. Only in a few cases were attemptsmade to discover actual performance.

Bu tmorefundamentally, the difficulties hereand elsewhere arise fromthe fact that for m any oftheproblems on whichwewould like more lightthe relevant variables were not observed. Those variables which wereobserved were almost invariably excellently observedobserved with adegree of precision and reliability seldom achieved in the history of socialscience. The limitations are not inherent in the techniques, nor in theauthors, whose judiciousness and imagination in interpretation leaves adeeply favorable impression. The difficulties seem rather to be thosewhich are almost inseparable from the .task of arriving at empiricallyadequate results on fundamental problems of social structure whiledoing research for administrative purposes.

However, The American Soldieralso shows that where research isscrupulously executed on problems which are of administrative importance, even though there fails to be completecongruitywith our scientificand theoretical needs, it cannotfailto produce da ta sufficiently rich andsufficiently reliable to provide many new hypotheses, some of which arefairly well supported by the data, some of which are suggested by thedata, and all of which are a challenge to gather data w ith equal skill morecentrally focused on the crucial theoretical problems which have beenbrought to our attention. And this is the achievement of the ResearchBranch, for which it is entitled to a worthy and prominent place in thegrowth of the empirical theory of society.

P a r t F i v e

A s p i r a t i o n s n d F r a g i l i t y o f t h e C e n t e r :T r a d i t i o n a l S o c i e t i e s a n d N e w S t a t e s


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2 T h e C o n c e n t r a t i o n a n d D i s p e r s i o n o fC h a r i s m a : T h e i r B e a r i n g o n E c o n o m i cP o l i c y i n U n d e r d e v e l o p e d C o u n t r i e s

iThe countries with underdeveloped economies are primarily peasantcountries, and their national unity is quite new and fragmentary. Theuneducated classes are rooted mainly in local"territorial and kinshipgroups; sometimes they are the dependents of feudal magnates to whomare directed whatever wider loyalties they have. They do not have thestrong sense of nationality which drives the leaders of their country, whoare often the creators ofthe hewnation and not merely ofthenew states.These leaders are strong and creative persons who have broken awayfrom the bonds oftheoldorderthe bonds of kin and family and localterritory. Even when they claim to speak on behalf of the deepertraditions of those whom they would lead, they have departedfrohi theactual traditions oftheculturein which they originated.They are "nationalized" and " politicized," and therein lies their chiefnovelty.The majority in the state, by contrast, lives in sometimes unthinking, sometimesobstinate, attachment to its traditional symbols. M ost of its life is "pre-national" and "prepolitical." The nation does not always, thus far,include most of the members ofthe state,evento the degreeof intermittentcitizenship, which is characteristic of modern states. It is unlikely therefore that the ideal ofnational economic development can provide sufficient, continuing motive power for the voluntary modification of.traditional procedures, for the renunciation of leisure and consumption, foradditional exertion, adaptive ingenuity, and initiative on the part of ordinary peasant,craftsman, factory worker, or small businessman. Thereisagreat gap between the highly political outlook of the intellectual andpublic eliteand t he prepolitical outlook of the mass ofthepopulation.

When the politicians seek to mobilize the human resources of theircountries oh behalf of mighty aspirations toward economicdevelopment,they do so by attempting to arouse devotion to the nation. Yet thecontinuous exhortations of prime ministers, politicians, and publicistsfrom the seat of government, from the platform, from the broadcastingstation, and from the pages of the press do not sink very far into thestructure of motivation which impels economic development They mayhere and there, for a short time, stir tens of thousands ofpersonsmostof whom a re no longer en gaged' in agricultureto an acutely andintensely developed sense of nationality, and these people may in theirPreviously published in a slightly different form in World Politics, vol.11(1968), pp. 1-19.


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406 Aspirations and Fragilityof theCenterturn prod others around them into working harder. Even if thesesecondary leaders are successful, the range of their possible influence isnarrowly confined, and the effect on the motivation of most of theworking population seems to be negligible. Nonetheless, much weight islaid by the ruling groups in these countries and by Western observers onnationaland political motivation of the actions required for economicgrowth.

This disjunction between the "politicized" leaders of the new state andthe mass ofthepopulationisusually attributed to the detribalization, theuneven modernization (or Westernization) of the small educated elite,which is said to have lost or renounced its contact with the traditionalculture of its compatriots. The relevant truth, however, lies elsewhere.Despite the obvious divergences between the traditional culture of themassand the modern culture oftheeducated, in its "political" orientationthe educated elite shows in one fundam ental way an im portant affinitywith the culture from which it is alleged to have been uprooted.The political conceptions which are expressed in the prevailing notionsof economic growth or development rest on a deep-lying image of thenature of society and of the right ordering of life. It is an image of the

concentration of charisma in those who rule the nation. One of thecentral features of the dominant conception of economic development isthat autonomous movement of the economic system is thought to beundesirable, even if possible. What are called "economic motives" aredistrusted because it is believed that no intrinsic value resides in theeconomicsphereinthe way in which the religious and political spherespossess the intrinsic value connected with sacred things. The only trulyrespected motives are those generated by authority, by the exercise ofthat sovereignty, religious or political, which entails communion with thesacred.The political leaders who live in the modern sector of their respectivesocieties, and who are usually less immediately involved in a traditionalwaywith the sacred, are legitimated in theirown eyesby their permeationwithth esacrednessof the nation. They feel themselves to be legitimatebecause they believe that they possess within themselves the spirit of thenation, that spirit which slumbered long and which is now awake inthem. It is with thischarismathis sacred qualityinherent in nationality that they would infuse the ordinary peasant and workingman.Ordinarypersons living in their tribal villages respond not to thecharisma embodied in national authority but to that which traditionlocates in the authority of their kinship groups, in their feudal and royalrulers, and in their priests and magicians. Both modern leaders and thetraditional mass are held in similar subjection by the charisma which isconcentrated in authority.Life in traditional societies is permeated by charismatic manifesta-

Concentrationa nd Dispersionof Charisma 407tions.1The traditional character ofthesesocieties, so often designated astheir most prominent feature, testifies to the way in which many thingsareinfused with sacredness to such a degree that great c are mustbetakento maintain "right relationships" through stereotyped action. Many ofthe events of daily life in traditional societies have a charismaticsignificance which has become attenuated in modern "secular society."Those strong personalities who break out of the round of traditionallife cease their affirmation of the concrete forms of that life, bu t theyretain the charismatic sensitivity which is essential to it. Indeed, thatsensitivity is often heightened by the strain of living without the comfortof traditional surroundings and tasks. When they renounce loyalty to thetribe and the divinities of the tribe, their responsiveness to sacredness,their readiness to discern sacredness, does not necessarily die; instead itseeks new objects. In some cases new, syncretistic religions promisesalvation; in others, a territorial symbol, assimilating some of thecharisma formerly attributed to symbols of tribe and village, becomes theobject of attachment. The continuity is as significant as the disjunction.Tribe is transcended, while the sacred earth retains its sacredness, itscharisma, although it is no longer circumscribed by the area withinwhich one's particular tribeone's kinship and ethnicgroupdwells.Many of the leading politicians in the new countries have the traits ofpersons who have recently dropped their immediate tribal bonds, but notfrom indifference. They retain the unitary response to charismaticthingsregardless of whether they are traditional or newlyemergentwhich is a feature of traditional societies or enthusiastic cultic associations. They are themselves almost always charismatic men in theconventional sociological sensestrikingly vivid personalities and ex-

1. Max Weber's classification oftypesof legitimate authority suffersfromtstendency to isolate charismatic authority fromhe traditional and rational-legaltypes. Its deficiencyliesin its failure to acknowledge in a systematic and explicitmanner that traditional and rational-legal authority both contain charismaticelements,and thatamajor differenceamong the three typesconsistsinvariationsin the intensity oftheattribution of charismatic properties to the incumbents ofauthoritativeroles. Cf. Max Weber,Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 2d.ed. (Tubingen, 1925), vol. 1, pp. 124, 140-48; vol. 2, pp. 753-78. His treatment of thetransformation of charisma leaves unsettled the question whether charisma"evaporates" or becomes attenuated in the course of its transformation. RudolfSohm'sKirchenrecht (2 vols, 1892), a work of the very greatest relevance tocontemporarysocialscience, and onefromwhichMaxWeber learned much, alsooverstressed the disjunction between charisma and ecclesiastical organization. Itis possiblethatsomeof the difficulties which arisefromhe acceptance of Sohm'sandWeber's views areattributableto theirinclination toseecharismatic qualitiessolely as thepossession of charismaticindividuals.RudolfOtto'sconception of the"numinous" offers an excellent point of departure for a reconsideration of thenature ofcharisma,its generalization, and itsfruitfulapplication in the studyofsociety. I have made a very tentative and preliminary effort in "Tradition andLiberty: Antinomy and Interdependence," Ethicsvol.68, no.3(April 1958), pp.155-57.


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^408 Aspirationsan d Fragilityof the Centertremely sensitive. They arouse the charismatic sensibilities of others andthey do so largely because they pulsate in response to the symbols inwhich charisma is latent. They are charismatic because they are connected with "things" to which they (and others) ascribe charismaticsignificance. For the politicians and their zealous followers, charisma isresident not in tribes, or in elders and chiefs who possess the tribalcharisma, but only in the nation. The nation becomes the charismaticobject, and itisonly through their connection w ith it that charisma flowsinto persons. The rulers ofacountry are the most charismatic persons ofthat country, because they are closest to the source from which charismaradiates. As politicians who exercise authority in the state, and as partyleaders, which they m ust be in order to achieve a position of authority inthe state, their conduct naturally and frequently shows th at other motivesarid images are at work in them. The conduct of office and themanagement of a party machine impose lines of action which are farfrom identical in spirit with the charismatic disposition. Compromise,manipulation, rational judgment, and acceptance of opportunities forself-aggrandizement are among th e inevitable products of the exigenciesof leadership in the state and party. Nonetheless, the preponderance ofconsiderations of nationality is evidence of the persisting sacredness ofthe nation. The extreme nationalist sensibility of the rulers is not ademagogic mask to conceal self-seeking.

Rulers of new countries have experienced the revelation of nationality.Hence, because the nation is the ultimately significant entity, only thosewho rulein the first instance the politicians and derivatively, the civilservantsareendowed with the charisma of the nation. Those who donot share in this authority and, even more, those who do not affirm withvigor their membership in the national community are thought to sharevery little of this charisma. Tribal chieftains, traditional religious leaders,elders of kinship groups, merchants, cultivators, and craftsmen all falloutside this circle of the charisma of nationality within which politicalleaders, agitational journalists, and, to a lesser extent, civil servantsfind themselves. Of the modern professions and occupations, the law,because its practice is entwined with political authority and because it isso often the point of departure for a political career, and journalism,both under colonial rule and under conditions of sovereignty, seem topossess more of the charisma of nationality than any others.

Thus the religious sensitivity which is common in traditional societiesand in the traditional sectors of underdeveloped countries lives on in atransformed way in these societies as they move toward modernity. In itsaltered form, it penetrates into the life of the apparently "s ecular" state.There is less conflict between this particular transmogrification oftraditional society, with its displacement of the locus of charisma fromthe tribal to the territorial, and the modern education of many of thepolitical leaders and higher civil servants than is generally asserted by

Concentration and Dispersionof Charisma 409those who emphasize the "ambivalence" and "uprootedness" of theeducated elites of the new societies.,.The prevailing attitudes toward economic policy disclose an intimatecontinuity with ancestral sensitivity to charismatic things. The modernleadership oftheunderdeveloped countriesisvery largely socialistic in itsoutlook. Fabian socialists, Marxian social-democratic socialists, Gand-hian socialists, fellow-traveling socialists, Trotskyite communists, Titoistcommunists, cryptocommunist socialists, and outright communists fillmost of the political spectrum of these countries. Those who favor atraditionalist, religious state are usually socialists by implication. Thereare very few liberals in the economic sense, few who expect or wish to seetheir country make its economic progress through the "private sector."Although wealthy merchants have political influence, there is little moralsympathy with their activities or outlook. There are of coursepracticallyno proponents, except for tactical reasons, of the traditional tribalorganization of society.

It is usual to attribute the socialistic orientation of the educatedleadership of the underdeveloped countries to the atmosphere of theLondon School of Economics in,the1920s and 1930s, when so many ofthem studied there, to the personal and literary influence of the lateHarold Laski and G. D. H. Cole, to R. H. Tawney's The AcquisitiveSociety and Equality,to John Strachey'sT he ComingStruggle for Power,to theNewStatesman and to the Left Book Club. More generally, greatweight is given to the anti-imperialist attitudes of socialist and communist parties in the metropolitan countries. There is much truth in theseassertions. More emphasis should perhaps be placed on the fundamentalantibourgeois attitude of that section of the British and, to a lesserdegree, Continental intellectual classes which exercised such a fascination on the students who came to London, Oxford, and Paris from thethen dependent countries. The culture of the European intellectuals,whether it was socialistic or not, was hostile to the ethos and activities ofthe businessman, large and small. However, the roots of the attitude ofthe educated elite in underdeveloped countries lie within their owntraditional culture.

The orientation toward the political sphere which derived from thevicissitudes of native life and its immanent transformations, and thatwhich came from an adm iring contact with certain features of Europeanand particularly British intellectuallife, are thus more in harmony thanin conflict. Both move in the same direction. Both are indifferent to, andeven repelled by, everyday life and aboveallby an economic life which isdirected toward private gain. Both are impatient with the humdrum oftraditional life, with its inertness and compromise. Both wish to see lifelived in accordance with an ideal emanating from some creative source,from a genius, from a hero, from a lofty and inspiring authority. A greatdifference between them lies in the fact that the intellectuals of the


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410 Aspirationsan d Fragility ofthe Centerunderdeveloped countries have political power. They are the sole modernclass in their society; modernity rests on them.

IIIt is against this background tha t the intellectual political leaders of thenew countries conceive ofeconomicprogress. They envisage a system inwhich the initiative, on the whole, will come from the politicians and thecivil service, while the populace, if made sufficiently enthusiastic onbehalf of the national ideal, will carry out their schemes. They conduct apolicy which aims to create socialistic, governmentally initiated, controlled, or operated enterprises, because they assume that the initiativefor productive economic activity is lacking in the population at large an d,especially, in the present and any prospective en trepreneurial class. Thepoliticians and civil servants are convinced that they must arouse thepresent working force from what they think is a stateof torpor, and thatthey must train the prospective members of the working force to areadiness to accept goals beyond those they have been accustomed toachieve. They believe that the motivation of the working po pulation willbe adequate to their great national ideals only if it seeks to exceed itspresent level of aspiration in work and mode of life. There are very mixedfeelings about the extent to which the workingmen or peasantry shouldseek to enrich themselves, to improve their standard of living andotherwise enhance their earthly pleasure. On the one hand, humanitar-ianismand national pride counsel improvement ofthestandard of living;on the other hand, nationality and its glory counsel abstention fromconsumption, and so does an ethic of austerity.

The rulers of the new societies of Africa and Asia have no love for themaxim: Enrichissez-vous, or for thosewho.follow it. They wish,theirpeople to be more efficient in the use of resources which they possess o rwhich authority allocates to them. B ut tha t is as far as theywillusually goin seeking the diffusion of the ideal of individual ach ievement in th eirsocieties, and they are not eager to have that ideal dependent on thedesire for a continuously rising material standard of living. They seekefficiency without basing it on ambition, and moreover, they have nointerest in the specifically economic form of ambitionnamely economizingactivity.Ambition is a matter of motivation; efficiency is a matter of performance. A person can be efficient without being am bitious. Ambition isthe aspiration to meet or conform with a standard which is notautomatically achieved through the continuation of current practices.The ambitious person is one who tries to do something which he is notalready doing. He wishes to enter into a role which he does n ot alreadyoccupy, or, if he is in that role already, he seeks to conform more closelyto a certain standard of performance than he already does. No stress is

Concentration and Dispersionof Charisma 411laid here on the conservation ofmeansor resources, although such mightwell be a consequence of the actions of an ambitious person. In theeconomic sphere, it almost always is. It entails above all the individual'ssubjective attachm ent to a goal, regardless of whether he has chosen thegoal through his own imagination and reason or has assimilated it fromhis culture. Ambition requires exertion, but not necessarily initiative.Ambition need work only along well-prescribed paths, while efficiencymustseek,within a partially determinate framework, to find new ways ofexpending fewer resources to attain the givengoals, ortofind newwaysofexpending agivenquantity of resources in order to produce a maximumoutput. Efficiency in action is conformity with a given standard throughthe expenditure ofasfew resources as possible or, with a predeterminedquantity ofresources,the production ofaslarge an ou tput as possible. Itrequires initiative or creativity, which ambition does not, but theinitiative need not be that of the person performing the efficient action.He can be efficient by carrying out procedures which are stipulated forhimbysomeone else, in ordertoattain goals which are also stipulated forhim by someone else.

The attitude which is constitutive of economizing practice is, incontrast to this, one to which little is sacred except results and, indeed,no particular result except output in general. The economizing attitude isnot simply interested in employing as few resources as possible inparticular uses in order to get a fixed quantity of output of a particularcommodity. Itis interested in getting as much as possible from the available resources and in increasing the resources. It is interested not just inincreasing outpu t of particular commodities butinthe op timal increaseoftotal output.

The economizing attitude involves a boundless aspiration; its goal isnot fixedn quantity a t a particular point. There is no fin al resting place.It hasnodeterminate and specific goals, other than the most general goalof maximizing returns which commits the acting person to neitherparticular procedures nor particular ends. The category or sphere withinwhich the goal is sought within any given period of time is determined,but not the value or level to be achieved in that category; the more thatcan be achieved,thebetter.But if another category ofgoaloffers a betterreturn for resources invested, then the economizing attitude counsels ashift to that goal. Moreover, the goal is onewhich, from the standpoint ofthe economizing person, can never be attained. Each triumph leads toanother goal a little farther off.Here the economizing attitude differs from the attitude which prizesefficiency, which sets a target and attempts to use as little as possible ofthe available resources to achieve it, or which, with a fixed allotment ofresources, seeks to achieve as much as possible of a specific set of ends.Efficiency paysnoattention to alternative uses of the m eans or resources;it is concerned only with using what it has to achieve the end set or to


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412 Aspirationsan d Fragility ofthe Centerexceed the standard within its own category. The economizing orientation is, however, a readiness to shift the use ofaresource from, let us say,the raising of cocoa beans to the raising of groundn uts, should the latteruse appear more profitable, or to sell up and to enter retail trade ormanufacture, should action in those categories promise g reater returns.

Economizing, since it seeks to maximize total income, is forced into amore comprehen sive view of the field in which it must operate. Efficientaction need not take such a comprehensiveviewof thefield.Thus itisnoteconomizing to build factories which produce goods which cann ot meetcompetitive prices abroad or at home, however efficiently the factoriesare run. It is scarcely economizing to build steel mills in Burma orIndonesia or West Africa when foreign steel can be brought in muchmore cheaply from Japan or Ind ia or Europ e, however efficiently lab orworks and man agement organ izes in the former countries. Efficiencyconcerns itself with a narrower range of alternatives and opportunities.Economizing involves flexibility in the choice of goals, and it involvesmaximizing output relative to input; it does not involve either maximizing absolute output of particular goods or producing any particulargoods.

The disposition to act economically or "economizingly" disruptsreceived patterns of action. It isanomic, in the sense that it knows norules but its own.2Although it too works within a tradition , its traditionis one which allows room for innovation and, indeed, presses for it. Theeconomizing attitudeisa creative attitude. As a creative attitude, it givesexpression to the"genius"i.e., individualityof itsbearer. It expressesa charismatic quality.The creativity of the successful business enterpriser is as unattractiveto the political and intellectual elite of the underdeveloped countries as itis to the intellectuals of Western co untries (disregarding for the m omentcertain economists)and partly for the same reasons. The modernintellectuals in the West spurn the businessman in part because businessmen are hostile or unsympathetic to intellectuals. On a deeper levelof thought, they spurn the businessman because what he produces isthought to have only instrumental value. But, even more basically, theyspurn him because the intellectual, even the most secular, lives in a

2. Social scientists have tended to look askance a t anomic activities, inaccordance with their own tradition of the romantic ideal of a spontaneously"integrated"society.Althoughanomicactions are often perniciousor immoralinthemselves and in their consequences,therearesomewhichmay be perniciousorimmoral in themselves and most beneficial in their consequences. (This was theview of Mandeville and Adam Smith, but it has not entered very centrally intomodern sociology and particularly into the ethical-political outlook of modernsociologists.) And,finally here are anomic actions which are good in themselveslike works of art and scientific discoveries and the creation of neweconomic organizationsand whicharealsobeneficialin their consequences.It isonly theanti-business prejudice ofsocialscientists which denies the creativity ofeconomic activity.

Concentration and Dispersionof Charisma 413tradition which is historically of religious origin and which still retainsmuch of the substance with which that origin endowed it. This traditionderives from a culture which believed charismatic qualities were concentrated in those who knew sacred texts, who cultivated or enjoyed sacredstates of mind, meditations, and ritual actions, and who exercisedauthority and, in so doing, enunciated rules imbued with a charismaticor sacred quality.

Although it is a long distance from the m odern W estern intellectual'sculture to that of the traditional societies of Africa and Asia, in thisparticular respect the line of movement is straigh t The antichrematisticattitude of the modern intellectual is of a piece with the belief in theconcentration of charisma which is held by the elites of traditionalsocieties.The creativity of the craftsman and the business enterpriser has thusbeen denied the status of true creativity. Great artists, great militaryleaders, great rulers, great saints, great scientists have been acknowledged as genuinely creative, but not the great innovators in businessenterprise. Yet the daring imagination, the readiness to enter into terraincognitawhere the lessons of the past are insufficient, the deep

conviction and the unrelenting persistence and intensity of effort wouldappear to make the achievements of the great bu sinessman as creative asthe achievements of a great ruler or a great captain.In addition to the reasons mentioned abovenamely, the instrumental nature of the products of the businessman's activity and theirconsequent unconnectedness with the ultimate powers and mysteries ofthe universe, such as life and death and sovereignty over themthereisanother reason which is very pertinent to our concerns here. Theactivities of the b usinessman are carried on outside the do mains of theprophet, the intellectual, the warrior, the prince, or the statesman, inwhich it has been believed that charismatic manifestations are concentrated. From the standpoint of the traditional bearers who have claimed

the monopoly of creative charismatic powers, the business enterpriser isan outsider, a pretender, a denier of the legitimacy of the m onopoly. Hehas exercised initiativeoutside the sph ere of legitimate creativity. Th esphere within which he acts is thought to be repugn ant to the appearanceof charismatic qualities. Up to the present, economizing activity hasalmost always been outside the circle of concentrated charisma.

HIThere is no logical necessity for the self-sustaining, self-developingeconomic system to be a capitalistic economy, working through theinitiative of business enterprisers. It is logically and empirically possiblethat it could besocialistic.It is, however, most unlikely that it would bea centrally planned economy, run by government departments which


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414 Aspirationsan dFragilityof the Centermonopolize all initiative at their higher levels. Electronic computersmight permit the making of centralized decisions about optimal allocations of resources which would be beyond the powers of men unaidedby such machines, and if this were to occur it might permit theeconomizing attitude to come into play without decentralization. Butwhatever the power of the machinery which they may employ, politiciansand civil servants have little affinity with the economizing attitude.

Civil servants are interested in efficiency. Even when they becomeplanners, that remains their preponderant consideration, and there aregood reasons for this. They are always checked, at least in countries withparliamentary democracy, to see that they do not waste resources inachieving determinate goals; or, alternatively, they are expected toproduce a maximum of a given end with a determinate amount ofresources. Moreover, the strongly rooted departmental patriotism ofeventhe best civil services, which makes for narrowness of outlook, militatesagainst the operation of the economizing attitude, which requirescomprehensiveness of outlook.

In addition, since so many important parts of government activity inany country require a p ure efficiency orientation , itisvery likely that civilservices will continue to attract andselectandthey will be fortunate ifthey get thempersons whose aspiration toward achievement presupposes externally prescribed goals. The flowering among civil servants ofan economizing attitude, with all its flexibility and willingness to takerisks, is further obstructedby the incapacity of politicians, parliamentaryor oligarchical, to make economizing decisions for a whole society, aswell as by the frequency of considerations of local advantage and ofsymbolic importance in political calculations. Even though a planningcommissionisfull of experts, political necessities in fact play a great role.As a result, civil servants move within a narrowing framework whichprevents them from acting as flexibly as the owners or directors of largefirms,whoare relatively little preoccupied with symbolic or local politicalconcerns such as engage the minds of politicians.In principle, a decentralized socialistic system of the type designed byOskar Lange and A. P.Lerner some years ago and now being tried inYugoslavia could accomodate the expression of economizing attitudes.This seems to me to be improbable, however, not for technical reasonsbut because the whole tradition of socialism is so permeated by belief inthe inevitability and propriety of the concentration of charisma.Now this does not mean that underdeveloped countries cannot makesubstantial improvements in the material conditions of their people, orthat they are doomed to remain in their present economically retrogradecondition. W hat is meant is that the system is likely to remain d ependentfor its motive force on the decisions of politicians and civil servants andthat the progress of the system will depend on the availability of exterior

models and sources of technological and organizational knowledge. In

Concentration and Dispersionof Charisma 415other words, there can be economic growth with little self-development ofthe economy.For a self-developing economy to emerge, there m ustbea dispersion ofcharisma from the sphere of political authority into other spheresnotably, the economic spheres. There must be an acknowledgment,throughout the significant sectors of the population, of the possibilitythat the "essential" spirit, thesacred of the society, can find expressionin actions other than the exercise of authority on behalf of the territorialcommunity and in the name of the nation. Herein rests the wholedifficulty.It is in the nature of the intense experience of charismatic qualitiesthat their dispersal should be viewed with anxiety and repugnance. It isin the nature of charismatic authority that the universality which it seeksmust emanate from a singlecenterits own. Thesame:considerationswhich cause churches to frown upon the efflorescence of sectarianismmake charismatic politicians resistant to the emergence of centers fromwhich a charisma that does not emanate from themwhichis, in a sense,a countercharismacan flow freely. In turn, the most powerfullycharismatic businessmen are no different from the politicians and theecclesiasts. When,fora brief span of American history, charisma seemedtobeconcentrated in the great businessmen, everyone elsewastreated bythe powerful industrialists as of secondary importance. Politicians andintellectuals were despised and churchmen were treated as handm aidens.In England and in Germany, during the periods of their greatestindustrial expansion, a similar tendency was to be observed, offset onlyby the irreducible charisma of the court and the aristocracy whichderived its charisma from the court. But these were only briefdiversionsin the long course of history; on the whole, traditions do not favor thebusinessman.

IVThe spirit of economizing innovation is a scarce good, and even themost dynamic economic system has only a minority of such spirits in itspopulation. It is not necessary formore than a small proportion of thepopulation to have an economizing disposition in order for that countryto develop economically, as long as natural resources are available andother institutionalconditionseconomic, legal, and politicalare favorable. A country in which everyone was of an economizing dispositionwould probably be such a cauldron of unrest and dissatisfaction that theorderly framework necessary for economic development would be injured. All that is necessary from the mass of the industrial andagricultural labor force is a certain measure of persistence, some sense ofworkmanship, and a preference for a higher income when the oppor

tunity for it isavailablei.e.,a moderate amount of ambition to measure


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416 Aspirationsan dFragility ofh eCenterup to a standard and to obtain additional rewards. Such ambition isnecessary not only for efficient performance but also because it is thepsychological matrix out of which the economizing attitude emerges.A host of tiny workshops, working with antiquated hand- or foot-powered machinery or even with electrical power, do not themselvesconstitute the economic progress of a society. A large number of smallfarms, the proprietors of which are seeking to increase their incomes,does not sound very significant. Both of these are, however, indispensablefor economic development. What they provide, aside from their contribution to output, is the recruiting ground and the atmosphere fromwhich can come forward more vigorous, more foresighted, more creativeentrepreneurial types.

The economizing spirit, with its readiness to enter markets and toadapt to the needs of the market, is as possible and necessary inagriculture as it is in industry and commerce. The fundamental components of the economizing dispositionthe readiness to consider andfollow alternatives, the location of goals in the rem oter future, and theexpansibility ofgoalsare the same for activity in agriculture as inindustry and trade. This is the chief utility of a very widespread,small-scale, economic activity. It creates an environment of sentimentand aspiration in which economizing activity comes to be taken forgranted as a good.There is no other way to form the economizing businessman or toselect him. Higher commercial and technical colleges are important forproviding knowledge of specific procedures and for training those whowill become subordinates or executives in the middle of any hierarchy.The innovators who start new waves of activity moving throughout thesociety are products of much less contrivable processes. They cannot bedeliberately created. They can only be provided with an area in which towork and be offered the necessary facilities, such as banking institutions,

markets, transportation, a labor force oriented toward achievement, etc.Of the modern types of aspirations toward achievement in underdeveloped countries, the most common are the ambition to enter the civilservice, and to practice one of the liberal professions, with law in thelead. Ofthese,the ambition to enter an administrative career is probablythe most fruitful for economic development, but it has serious limitations. It is of great advantage for a country like India to possess anoutstanding body of administrators. It is not, however, unqualifiedlyadvantageous. Quite apart from the burden on economic life of anexcessively large bu reaucracy, w hich becomes more inefficient as it growslarger, the bureaucratic variant of ambitionnamely, efficiencyis notconducive to economic progress. Ambition in the civil service is forcedinto the mold of striving to be more efficient, to deal with more files inless time,todo certain tasks with smaller funds. It encourages reluctanceto risk public resources. Furthermore, it reinforces a cultural pattern

Concentrationan dDispersionof Charisma 417which maintains the prevailing belief in the charismatic nature of thecenter of authority, and despises the occupations which pursue moneyand adventure. A great civil service, such as that of India or such as theSudanesecivil service was onthewayto becoming, enhances the dignityofits country and increases its respect for probity and devotion to thecommon good. Yet, there are other things in life, and a little reputationfor corruption in a civil service, painful though it is to contemplate,probably has some advantages in making the populace less awe-struckbefore its ruling group and less inclined to believe in its monopoly ofvirtue and ofcharisma.*

How are ambition and its more complex variants of efficiency andeconomizing generated, and how can creativity in economic life bedispersed?Ambitionleastofall, ambition in the economicsphereis not partof the culture of the underdeveloped countries. Ambition does notnecessarily require a high degree of development of individuality. Thereare ambitions which have to be realized by an intense exertion to attaintraditionally and authoritatively established ends through.the use ofsimilarly established procedures. The economizing attitude does, however, require some measure ofindividuality.Not perhaps great richnessor integration, but at least a center of gravity which lies within theindividual actor and not in the traditions or authorities which confronthim. An amorphous ego which does not a ttach itself to objects or rolesother than those immediately presented by the situation within the familyis the very opposite of individuality. The person in such a situation,characteristic of life in traditional societies, is not allowed to discover hisown path. It is laid out for him. Heisforced into a state of dependence to

the pointwherehe cannot exert himself continuously and independently.Where marriages are arranged, where most associates are members ofthe kinship group, and where also there is little heterogeneity in theeconomic environmentaswell as littleopportunity for effective choice(even when the desire for choiceexists)theself or theindividualityofthe adolescent does not acquire a differentiated and dete rmina te form.That incipient outward movement of the spirit which exists in everyhuman being atrophies in early adolescence in traditional societies.Curiosity, inventiveness, realistic fantasy,, expansive and disciplinedself-assertion wither in the seed. (Other qualities such as kindliness,humor, generosity, which are less dependent on the formation of3. More than a half-century ago, Max Weber observed that American work-ingmenpreferreda civilservice which they could despise to a bureaucratic castewhich would despise them.Gesammelte politische Schriften(Munich, 1921), p.431.


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^ w420 Aspirationsan dFragilityof heCenterlooseness of the wider kinship system and a continuous firmness of thenuclear family ties.

VIThe expansion of the market through better communications andtransportation contributes to the removal of limitations on the range ofperception and imagination. Entry into a larger market increases theopportunities and the competitive pressure for economizing; itdoesso byexhibiting a wider range of opportunities for the use of resources,especially personal or human resources. The expansion of the marketweakens the extended family system by providing opportunities for someof its members to live outside its immediate presence and its pressingdemands. T his in turn permits the emergence of dispositions which reactto the o pportunities of the mark et m ore economizingly than is possiblewhere markets are meager. The expansion of the market contributes toeconomizing not only because it widens the range of opportunity butbecause it enriches and enlivens the imagination. It engenders theeconomizing attitudes as well as enabling it to operate.

The learning of skills through organized education facilitates a moreready adaptation to the possibilities offered by the market, and thusworks in the economizing direction. However, the stimulation of theimagination, the arousing of curiosity, the enhancement of individualself-esteeminfact, the general stirring u p of the intellect and em otionsare far more important functions of education in underdevelopedcountries. They awaken individuals to new occupational and socialopportunities, to possibilities of life lived in styles different from theirown. In short, such stimulation makes them restless about their village-and kinship-dominated life, with the result that a few of them, havinglearned to read and write and having become curious about a life widerand more exhilarating than their own, try to find a new path corresponding to their own inclinations. This is why the governments ofunderdeveloped societies which spend 10 or more percent of theirbudgets on education are probably making a better investment in thecapital equipment of their country, however intangible and vague theobject, than those which spend only 3 or 4 percent and which put thedifference into factories for making machinery. Primarily vocationaleducation and "basic education" will extend the boundaries of imagination less than general education in humanistic and scientific subjectsand they will do less to enhance the self-esteem of their pupils.

Creativity, and the belief in one's charisma which goes with it, can bedispersed in a society only when thosewhobear it are self-confident, havea sense of their own intrinsic value, and are in consequence convinced ofthe intrinsic value of the actions they undertake.The economizing orientation is sustained by the self-esteem and

Concentrationan dDispersionof Charisma 421self-confidence of the enterpriser, by his conviction that he is doingsomething valuable. There are the products of his own personal expan-siveness, his prior personal achievements in enterprise, the atmosphere ofconfidence and self-respect in which he worksi.e., the immediateculture of the entrepreneurial classes and the wider culture. Every knownculture, even that of the United States, has strong anti-economizingcomponents; there is, furthermore, a tendency within families in whichthe economizing disposition has once been strong for it to becomeenfeebled and to yield to the lure of the learned professions, politics, thecivil service, the army, etc. Yet continuous economic developmentrequires that both the structure ofthesociety and at least some parts ofthe culture offer the stimulus which turns ambition into economizing andthe legitimation which only cultural values can give. In most underdeveloped countries, this tradition has still to be created. It cannot ofcourse be created deliberately. But it can be helped to grow by theestablishment of favorable conditions. Successful enterprise will help tocreate it, butso willa sympathetic and appreciative public opinion. Suchopinion scarcely exists today in the underdeveloped countries. Businessmen are distrustedabove all, by the educated in government, ineducation, journalism, an dliteratureandthey are not highly prized bythe traditions which survive even in the modern sector of the society.Thus anything which raises the appreciation of the potential creativityof persons outside the circle of the traditionally consecrated bearers ofreligious and political charisma must in the long run make the economiesof underdeveloped countries more dynamic. Political democracy, religious effervescence, universal elementary education, internal migration,the widening of the cognitive m ap through study and experience are allimportant in the transformation of the human being from a recipient oftradition and an object of authority into an independent, differentiatedinitiating individual. For this, it is indispensable tha t men and women inunderdeveloped societies come to feel and believe that a "spark ofdivinity" or some other manifestation of what is sacred to human lifeswells as much in those who liveoutsidethe circle of authority as it doesin those who live within it.


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2 2 O p p o s i t i o n i n t h e N e w S t a t e so f A s i a a n d A f r i c a

iMy analysis of opposition in the new states is affected by two propositions. The first is that opposition is inherent in political life, and nopolitical system can avoid engendering and sustaining some form ofopposition to the incumbents of the main positions of authority in thestate. The secondisthat the best form of opposition is public opposition,organized for the most part in a party or parties with some measure ofstability and coherence, publicly acknowledged, and institutionalized ina two- or several-party system and through a complex of public libertieswhich permit the open criticism of the established regime and thedominant p arty or parties by individuals and organizations. It should beborne in mind that the following analysis is based largely on conditionsobtaining in the early 1960s.

Regarding the first assumption, it must be emphasized at the outsetthat complete consensus is not the "natural condition*' of humansociety. However much it might have been desired by certain politicalphilosophers and rulers, it has never been attained, nor is it ever likely tobe. In a sense politics is the art of opposing and of dealing withopposition. The keeping together of one's own organization is a functionof the way in which internal opposition is dealt with; it is also a functionof thewayin which the external opposition is dealt with. Coping with externaloppositionwhat is ordinarily regarded as opposition and notfactionisonly a variant and complication of this process. Opposition isa means to power and improvement.Each humanwill is potentially in opposition to each otherwill.Theestablishment ofa society,the conduct of a family, the management of acivil service, the maintenance of a clique, a political party, or aparliamentary faction, all involve, as does every collective activity, whathas been called the identification of interests, or the aggregation ofdemands. Every practicing politician who builds a following is inevitablyconcerned with opposition, not only against the group which is constituted by his following and himself, but within his own following andbetween that following and himself. Factions within parties, blocs,intraparty conflicts, represent opposition within a party, and coping withthem is as important for the survival in power of a politician, whether inoffice or out of office, as coping with the opp osition offered to thepoliticians who occupy the position of central authority within a government by parties or groups who do not sh are in governmental office.

Oppositionin the New States 423Looked at from the standpoint of a governing party, the entire society,and every associate and follower at the moment, is a potential opponent.Every obedient or passive citizen is a potential resistant. The successfulpolitician is onewhocan reduce the probability of the emergence of thesepotential oppositions into active oppositions, who can delimit theinfluence of those which doexist,and who can gain and hold the kinds ofcollaboration called for by his policies.Within an opposition party or group, the tasks are threefold: toprevent the emergence of internal opposition, to delimit or reduce theresistance of those who affirm, or are indifferent to, the rule of thedominant opponent, and to modify the policies exercised from thedominant positions in the state, either through succession, blocking,persuasion, or criticism. Thus all political action can be looked upon asthe coping with actual or p otential opposition and of making one's ownopposition to the other sideeffectivei.e.,by modifying the opponent'sbehaviorsothat he conforms with one's demands or bysoweakening himthat he cann ot continue in his previous role and by increasing on e's ownfollowing and influence.

The ubiquity of the tasks of coping with opposition testifies to thepermanence of the sources of opposition. Single-party regimes haveproblems of opposition just as two-party and multiparty regimes do.Opposition is not just an affair of parties. It need not be organized;amorphous opposition can under certain conditions be very effective.The forms of opposition in a one-partyregime are different from those ofrfregimes in which opposition is constitutionally perm itted to ex ist, butthey are op positional nonetheless. The structures created by oppositionin theone-partyregimearemorefragile because they cannot be organizedunder the p rotection of the laws, because they are not adm itted into thepattern of public opinion, and because they are hampered in contendingfor public support. They are therefore weaker in the influence they canexert than they would be under conditions of public opposition.The legal suppression of an opposition party does not mean theabolition of opposition. It means the absence of organized, party-formedopposition in the legislative body and in electoral campaigns and as afree and openly operating force in public discussion, but this does notmean that the opposing interests and desires which were previouslyexpressed publicly by a prohibited party when it was legal have ceased toexist. Fund amental interests and desires might be frustrated, discouraged, and disorganized, but they still remain after suppression. Theymight become less intense through being disorganized and through beingforced out ofthepublic arena. They mightgiveplace to apathy or even toaffirmation of the dominant party's outlook in some cases, but by andlarge the dispositions which set opposition going will remain.States, as differentiated by tribe, caste, religion, languag e, wealth, andregion as so many of the societies of the new states are, cannot avoid


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424 Aspirationsan dFragility ofthe Centerdisagreement, somewhere in the society, with governmental policies.Differences in outlook between secular and religious sectors of the population will impel conflicting choices with rega rd to policies. Differences indegree of attachment to present as over against future satisfaction breedconflict and opposition. There are also cultural antipathies based onreligious abhorrence and historically remembered grievances. Finallyand ultimately, there is the ineluctable fact of scarcity: what one gets,another cannothave.What is given to one region or caste or occupationalgroup or class or tribe or cultural or religious community is withheldfrom another. The considerablegovernmentalization of their economiesand their poverty means that in the new states certain groups will feelthat they are getting less than others as a result of governmental policiesand will resent those policies. The intensification of wants, where someeconomic progress is achieved, will only heighten the likelihood ofgreater demands directed toward the government, and dissatisfactionwith its failure to produce the results desired by one section of the population or the other. Changes ofany significant sort in the social structureare bound to affect some persons prejudicially, and their grievances willbe the grounds of potential opposition.

These differences ate compo unded by the differences in the incidenceof advanced education which confers special opportunities and condemns those who do not possess it to permanent disadvantages.Finally, the very incumbency of the seats of authority in a new stateprovides advantages in pleasure, income, and prestige such as few otherpersons in the society possess. More persons want them than possessthem. These are only a few instances of the occasions, provocative ofdissatisfaction, around which oppositional sentiments might be generated.Onlya regime of boundless plenitude could abolish them becausethey arise from the basic fact of scarcity in relation to wants.With respect tomysecond proposition, I try in what follows to suspendmy preference for the public, organized, and constitutional opposition ofthe two- and multi-party systems, and the system of public liberties. I willdo this not because I regard it as inferior to the alternative modes oforganizing and practicing opposition. I do regard it as.superior. But Iwish to do justice to systems which have different practices an d whichclaim tha t they can get along without such opposition or th at they havemore efficacious means of achieving what open, public, and organizedopposition can achieve. I recognize that very few countries can attain tothe condition which I regard as best, and in those in which it is attainedthe system does not always work well and it has its costs, which aresometimes heavy. There are countries in which opposition parties areallowed but are ineffectual because they are disorganized and incompetent; there are countries which would have no opposition parties-becausethere is little opposition, and what little there is has been unableto organize itselfwellenough tosurvive;and there are those in which the

Oppositioni nthe New States 425opposition parties are genuine obstac les to the effectiveness of government.

1 recognize that oppositional action is not always beneficial either tosociety as a whole or to the incumbentpartybenefit to the latter, afterall, is not the intention ofoppositionorto those on behalf ofwhomtheopposition party ostensibly conducts its activities. I recognize, too, theparamount importance of the stability of government for its effectivenessin thenewstates where so muchisexpected and there aresofew hands todo what needs to be done.

Nonetheless, all these things being conceded, the fact is that opposition is ineluctable. It cannot be conjured away by doctrines which assertthe harmony of all interests or which assert that only morally illegitimate"reactionaries" would oppose the dominant party. It can seldom bepersecuted into complete cessation. This requires tha t ways befound"torender opposition beneficial to the polity and to diminish its potentialharmfulness.The main argument, however, for acknowledging the existence ofopposition is that it can be useful and indeed indispensable to theattainment of almost universally recognized values. No government inthe new states, any more than in the advanced states, does its work sowell oris soclearly aware of the defects of its procedures and accomplishments that its performance is incapable of improvement, and that adisclosure of its deficiences and suggestions about how they might beremedied could not improve it. Every government which is concernedwith survival and efficiency needs organs of critical evaluation of itsaccomplishments and intentions. History is the graveyard of rulers whowould not listen tocritirisro^andi tisjust as often the graveyard of theirpeoples, condemned by the vanity and obstinacy of their rulers. No party,however successful it is in recruiting outstanding intelligences andimaginations, can claim to have a monopoly of these qualities. The

possession of supreme authority in the state, although it educates itspossessors, also exacerbates their vanity and impels them to look awayfrom truths which are unpleasantfend dangerous. Rulers would surelybenefitbylearning ofthe views of detached and imaginative intelligencesabout what they might do instead of what they are already un dertaking.No ruling party can afford indefinitely to disregard sectional interestswhile it concentrates its attention on what it defines as the common good.Nor should it do so, either in prudence or in justice. Sectional interestscannot be denied some acknowledgment and c are. Otherwise alienationand hostility will increase, and the ruling party's intentions will befrustrated. What is more, practically all ruling parties today assert thatthey exist to serve the people, to respond to their desires. Ruling partieshave not only to instigate changes; they must also be responsive to desiresfor change emanating from outside themselves.Moreover, no set of rulers can last forever. It must have a succession.


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426 Aspirationsan dFragility ofthe CenterBecause error is inevitable, because there are sectional interests, andbecause the years of life are limited and resources scarce, every government must confront the problems to which these fundamen tal facts giverise. For these same reasons opposition is inevitable. Some ruling partiesand their theorists deny these facts explicitly or implicitly, they deny thepossibility of legitimate opposition, and they therefore, deny the right toexistence of opposition parties and of individual, unorganized criticism.Others acknowledge the facts but claim that the problems which give

rise to opposition can be solved best without opposition parties. Theyclaim tha_t within their one-party regimes, the problems to which thesefacts give rise can be better solved than by any alternative arrangementThey concede that opposition is bound to exist but believe tha t it shouldnot be publicly acknowledged or allowed public expression. They assertthat the right form of opposition is closed opposition.I do not wish to prejudge these claims but rather to examine them asdispassionately as possible.

IIThe new states of Asia and Africa, in the early 1960s, presented avariegated picture with respect to the status and mode of action of theiropposition pa rties. Inonlyabout a third of the new states were oppositionparties regardedasconstitutionally legitimate. Israel, Lebanon, Morocco,India, Ceylon, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Nigeria, Malaysia, Philippines,Sudan, and a few others allowed opposition to exist in a public andinstitutional form. In Israel a system of a frequently varying coalitiongovernment and open opposition parties prevailed with full freedom ofpublic discussion. In Nigeria the multiparty system with a coalitiongovernment and open opposition parties still functioned, although itnearly collapsed in 1963 because a major, but minority, party in theprevious coalition boycotted the federal electionaspart of its leaders'unsuccessful scheme to make a coup d'etat.In India, which has had themost stable and completely civilian government, opposition was free;parties in opposition to the ruling party were numerous and ineffectual,and for the most part worked within the constitution. Ceylon permittedtwo major parties and a considerable number of lesser parties. Both theseSouth Asian regimes permitted full freedom of discussion, although thepreviously dominant Ceylonese party had sought to control the press.Pakistan and Sudan, having witnessed the dissolution of parties bymilitary regimes, hadbythe1960sreturned to approximations of a partysystem. Malaysia, too, maintained one, although it had to amputate onepart of the country to avoid suppression of the locally based People'sAction Party of Singapore. Sierra Leone maintained a party system too,which had proceeded without crisis since independence.The Arab Middle Eastern states, the Maghreb states except Morocco,

Oppositioni nthe New States Allnearly all of the French-speaking African states, Ghana, Tanzania,Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and Burma did not have public oppositionparties. Indonesia under Sukarno allowed thePKIto exist alongside thePNI, but no other parties were allowed. None of these countries wasimmune to opposition. In about half of them, the incumbent governments in the 1950s and early 1960s had to admit the factual existence ofopposition in the form of repressive measures or in the form of asuccessful coup d'etat. Most of the acts of repression of illegal oppositionallegedly intending to employ violent means were committed withinstates already denying both the constitutional legitimacy of oppositionand, by implication, the existence of any oppositional interests except"reactionary" ones. Opposition occurred in these states after it hadalready been legally abolished and its existence implicitly denied.

Among the one-party states, Guinee acknowledged that its youthmightbetempted to become oppositional. It had condemned the leadersof its teachers' union for illegal oppositionwhich it designated assubversion. The most continuously and stably dominated of the one-party regimes, Tunisia, had by the 1960s seen one of its major architectsin exile and assassinated under obscure circumstances. The regime itselfcontended that it was the object of conspiracy. In Algeria there was acoup d'etat by the military in a harshly repressive one-party state whichhad already experienced during its brief tenure a regional-militaryrebellion and the trials of conspirators against the previously rulinggovernment. In the new one-party regime in Tanzania, no opposition wasacknowledged to exist, but the former leader of the opposition, Mr.Tumbo,was banished from public life. The newly adherent members ofthe government from Zanzibar encouraged or permitted the resistance oftheir followers to the desires of the government in Dar-es-Salaam. InGhana there were several accusations of subversive intentions, allegedattempts to assassinate the president, and other manifestations ofopposition to the ruling party. In Togo, President Olympio was assassinated by a group of army officers and noncommissioned officers andpoliticians returned from exileto joftiin the conspiracy. Similar manifestations have occurred in many of the other one-party regimes.Still, what is notable about the new states is not that they haveopposition. Tha tisto be expected. Nor is it surprising that they have notbeen assuccessfulasthe totalitarianstates,which some of them adm ire asembodiments ofmodernity,in suppressing the expression of oppositionalsentiments. Their elites have had involuntarily to acknowledge thispublicly, by the brute fact of their displacement by the forcible action ofa closed opposition. (Where subversive powers arejstrongthe army isalmost always the only strong subversivepowerit is easy for them tooverthrow the incumbent party. The institutions of public order in mostof the new states are very feeble an d c annot successfully cope with strongsubversive elements.) What is more interesting at this point in our


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428 Aspirationsan dFragility ofthe Centerdiscussion is that in many states in which the rulers strive for modernity,for progressive and differentiated societies, they are so intole rant ofopposition, and particularly of opposition parties.

IllWe must therefore seek to answer the question: Under what conditionsdoes the ruling party tolerate the opposition? (Or, in an alternativeformulation: Under what conditions does the ruling party either abolishthe legal existence of opposition parties or force them to amalgamatethemselves with the ruling party?)

As a first approximation, we may say that toleration of oppositionexists where one or several of the following factors are present: (i) theruling party alone or in coalition is obviously safe by a very substantialmajority and is confident of its continued safety; (ii) the ruling party hasa strong attachm ent to constitutional government; (iii) the conduct of theopposition is relatively unaggressive; (iv) the opposition is large anddifficult to suppress without the p robability of strong resistance by armsor by significant public opinion; and (v) the rulers do not regardthemselves as the sole bearers of the charisma of nationality.The ruling party suppresses opposition parties or forces them tocoalesce with itself when it feels insecure about the stability of itsmajority; and where the opposition, although weak, is regarded as adangerto thesecurity of the incu mbentelite.The assessment of danger tothe security of the state is a subjective phenomenon. It is oftenunconnected with any realistically assessed high probability of asuccessful effort of the opposition party to displace the ruling party.Efforts to suppressthe public existence of an opposition party havehitherto been successful except where the opposition has a particularterritorial or regional base or where it has substantial foreign support(e.g., the difficulties of the centra l governm ents in Congo-Leopoldville(now Zaire), Sudan, Iraq, India, and Indonesia in suppressing the

territorially based opposition in Katanga and Orient Provinces, in theSouthern Sudan, in Kurdistan, Nagaland, and Sumatra and the Celebes). The condemned opposition parties have not as p arties been able toresisteffectivelytheirleaders have been put in prison or driven out ofthe country and their party machines have crumbled. They have not beenable to call strikes or rally counterpressure w hen the governing party haswished to take strong action against them.Despite the almost always evident incapacity of public oppositionparties to resist their owndestructionwhichwould lead to the conclusion that they could not by the same token-subvert or overcome theincumbent government (even if they were of a mind to do so)rulingparties in the new states nonetheless incline very often to the suppression

of those who oppose them. Indeed, iftheallegedly subversive opposition

Oppositionin the New States 429parties were strong enough to resist their dissolution, the ruling partieswould perhaps be a bit less ready to suppress them. Conversely, if theopposition parties were as subversive and as dangerously so as theirruling antagonists assert, they probably could succeed in subversionbecause the ruling parties and their governments are also very fragile.Their resistive powers are notverygreat At least, so the large proportionof successes among actually undertaken coups would seem to indicate.

It seems clear that it is not because the governments have been in realdanger from the opposition parties that they have suppressed them. As amatter of fact, it is not often alleged by a government when it suppressesor amalgamates an opposition party that it is doing so because theopposition endangered its own tenure. What it reacts against is more animputed subversiveintentionasubversive state ofmindratherthan afactual probability of subversion. Prohibition or suppression is more apunishment fora wrongstate of mind thanit isa forestalling of a probablepernicious action.The a rguments usually given for suppression of opposition is that thereis no need for an opposition because the ruling party and the people areone. It is also said th at because ofashortage of personnel for the heavyand deman ding tasks of development, it is wasteful for educated personsto be encouraged to spend their time in criticizing when what they shouldbe doingisworking for the progress of their countries. At times, it is saidthat the populace would be distracted from its concentration on the tasksset by development program s by hearing the criticisms m ade by opposition parties. Finally, it is said that the abolition of opposition partiesenhances the stability of government and thereby provides the firmframework needed for social and economic development.

There is not much em pirical basis for these argumen ts. In no countryin the world are party and people one, and no more in the underdeveloped countries than in the advanced ones. It is no more than a doctrinalbelief of political elites that they embody completely all the interests ofthe people whom they rule and that they care for them all equally andcompletely. The fact that it is only a belief does not, however, make it lessreal or less effective. In many cases it is probably a sincerely held belief.

It is certainly tru e th at it is a necessity for the new states to economizein the use of scarce educated talent Very few of the new states havereached the pointwherethey have an unemployable surplus of outstanding graduates and technically trained "cadres." (India is the obviousexception.) But it is no less true tha t the suppression of opposition doesnot result in the employment of the talents of the opposition. They arevery often, as in Ghana, incarcerated or exiled, or otherwise, even if leftat liberty, held arm 's length from governmental responsibility. They areseldom given important posts in the governmentalthough in Kenyathis seems to have been done for at leastsomeof the leaders of the KenyaAfrican Democratic Union when it was amalgamated with the Kenya


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430 Aspirations and Fragilityof theCenterAfrican National Union. Still, the belief that talents must be conservedand used for th e fulfillment of anoverridinglyimpo rtant goal is a realitytoo. iThere are no grounds for believing that the inefficacy of so manymeasures for the improvement of agricultural technique and output, forthe promotion of industrial production, in the countries which havepermitted public opposition, are attributable to the demoralizing effectof public criticism of the measures to which the government is committed. Erroneous economic policies and inefficiency are not attributableto the activity of open opposition parties or a free press. The economicmisfortunes of Guinee certainly could not be assigned to such a causebecause Guinee did not have public opposition. People do not workharder or more efficiently when theyare n ot allowed to know of criticismsof government policies. States without public opposition do not havehigher rates of economic growth th an do states which tolerate op position.Where, as in the Ivory Coast, the growth rate of a one-party state isrelatively high, it is largely a consequence of foreign aid.

As regards the argument from stability, this too has no empiricalfoundation. The one-partygovernmentsgovernments who have suppressed theiroppositionarenolessunstable than the types of regimethey do not wish to resemble. Attempted coups d'etat have happenedmore frequently in one-party regimes than in regimes with open opposition parties (Mali, Ivory Coast, Togoland, Dahomey, Iraq).Since the arguments which are used to justify the suppression ofopposition by governing parties seem to be empirically baseless, why arethey employed? They are employed in pa rt to give ajustification, in termsof a principle involving the common good, to actions which serve theparticular advantage of the ruling party. They are invoked because theruling party is attached to the symbols and roles of power and does notwant to be replaced. They are also invoked and applied because they areactually believed.Why are they believed? The beliefs in question ap pear to derive froman unarticulated politicalmetaphysic,' from a conception of the nationas a metaphysical essence which finds its purest manifestation in thosewho believein and give expression to it by the fact of their incumbency inthe positions of authoritative responsibility for the custody and propagation of that unitary national essence. (This metaphysic, although of aquite different historical origin, bears a close structural similarity to thehistorical metaphysics of Marxism-Leninism, which places the Communist party in an analagous position in the communist countries.) The

1.ProfessorW.Arthur Lewis wrote: "A struggle for independence is highlyemotional... .The men who thrust themselves forward...feel that they areHeaven-sent, and that anyone who stands in their way is a traitor to Heaven'scause."Politics in West Africa(London: Allen & Unwin,andNew York:OxfordUniversity Press, 1965).

Oppositioni nthe NewStates 431metaphysic of the national essence grew into a mind-filling reality in thecourse of the agitation and negotiations for independence. Those whoagitated and otherwise contended for the independence of the stillscarcely existent nation became possessed by this essence, which theysought to emancipate from the accidents which encumbered it, such asthe rule of the ethnically alien, the influence of traditional indigenousauthorities and otherswhomanifested in their political action or in theirtribal and communal attachments theirnonparticipationin th at essence.According to this "metaphysic of the nation," one cannot simultaneously be of the nation and yet antagonistic toward its highest andfullest em bod im ent In a situation in which society is very different fromthe state, the incumbents of the ruling positions in the state regardthemselves as the exclusive custodians of what is essential in the society.The empirically existing society, with its tribal divisions, its traditionalleaders, its educated class with divergent loyalties and aspirations, is abad accident of history, of mistakes by dead and living persons w ho didnot or do not see that their existence is fundamentally anomalous.

How could such a conception have arisen? It h as two major exogenousintellectual sources: Rousseau and the doctrines of the dictatorship ofthe proletariat, to both of which many French-speaking African politicians were susceptible in the latter part of the 1930s and m ore so in the1940s. Of the four English-speaking African states which have suppressed or amalgamated with their publicly organized opposition, atleast one has been markedly influenced by the Leninist idea of thedictatorship of the proletariat, and the others have been somewhatinfluenced by it. But the doctrinal influences could not explain why theopposition has been suppressed in so many countries which have beennot at all influenced by Rousseau and very little more by Marxism-Leninism. The dominan t political elites have their prejudices, an d someof them come from and a re reinforced by political theories. But by andlarge, political theory seems a factor of minorsignificancealmost anepiphenomenonentering into a pattern of thought which is generatedfrom experience, passion, and the necessities of collective pride, individual dignity, and vanity, and the colonial situation.Thereisan inherent dynamic in the colonial situation of proud personswith a need for dignity and a resentment against those who deny it tothem. There is a need for a self identification, which enhances d ignity.The nature of this self-identification is influenced by the scope of therejected but still obtaining colonial authority, and the ineffable experience of a distinguishing color.Itgains intensity from th eself-identification which arises first from an active leading role in the independencemovement and then from the fact of incumbency in the central po sitions

of authority in thenew states.The very thinness of its spread in the restofsociety makes for a more acute consciousness of one's own circle ofconfreres as the exclusive bearers of the quality of nationality.


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432 Aspirations and Fragility ofthe CenterWe must not, however, overlook the simple facts of attachment topower and the prestige and perquisites associated with power, ofirritation at being made the focus of criticism as such, and of touchinessin response to criticism for shortcomings of which one is more or lessaware. There is also the further unpleasantness of being criticized bypersons who were once one's associates and colleagues, indeed almostbrothers. This wounded and aggressive response to criticism, actual and

anticipated, draws additional force from the antagonism felt towardcritics from ethnic groups other than that oftheleaders ofthedominantparty, an antagonism and rivalry which is prior to the relationship ofruler and critical opponent. Ethnic antagonisms within the broadercircles of the elites andcounterelitesof the new states are aggravated bythe strain oftheethnic attachments within the self of those who seek toovercome them in a higher national identity.It m ust, however, be pointed out th at, despite the anxieties of the elitesof the ruling pa rties of the new states abou t the dangers of d isintegrationbecause of divergent ethnic attachments, the suppression of oppositionparties in order to avoid such disintegration has not been justified by thefacts. The problem of national unity is an urgent one, but the suppres

sion of parties did not preventtheSouth Sudanese from revolting. On theother hand, no state already established and functioning has broken upbecause of secessionist tendencies among its ethnic minorities.The sense of exclusive custodianship of the national essence whichresults in the identification of the state, the party, and the society is notequally pronounced everywhere. There are countries where it has becomeattenuated by experience and the passage of time and where it mustcontend with a deeper tradition of constitutional government. In thosecountries, when politicians become irritated w ith their critics, they do notproceed repressively against them because they acknowledge their fundamental right to existence. There are not many new states where thishappens. India is the chiefexampleof a country w here a longer process

of growth of the sense of Indian nationality and a longer experience ofpolitical activity, as constitutional as was possible under a colonialregime, gradually established a powerfully compelling tradition ofrespect for the institutions and procedure through which collectivedecisions are made. Ceylon, too, has somethingsimilar.Pakistan, despiteits failures and the military interregnum and despite the rather shorthistory ofthesentiment of Pakistani nationality and the grave ecologicalobstacles to its formation, likewise seems to be to some extent abeneficiary ofthisprolonged exposure to the c ulture of constitutionalism.Sierra Leone and Israel are also the bearers of a well-establishedconstitutional culture and of a longer history of the sense of nationalitythan is generally found in Africa. In Israel it was imported with the

political culture of the dominant parties. In Sierra Leone it is part of a

Oppositionin the New States 433general culture of relatively long establishment as well as of theexceptional personal qualities of Dr. Margai.

In these more tolerant regimes, the image of the nation and the senseof national identity has become sufficiently flexible to coexist withperceived differences, which are not thought to impair or diminish thereality of the nation. Nationality there does not require uniformity.Elsewhereinthe Third World, where opposition pa rties are permitted

to exist as long as they maintain a discreet and modest attitude, as inMorocco and in Senegal until at least the 1960s, or where they are sostrong that to attempt to suppress them would precipitate a crisis moreserious than the rulers care to face, as was until recently the case inNigeria, Lebanon, and Malaysia, political prudence on the part of soberand artful political leaders seems to be a major factor. Of course, in allthese cases there is a mixture of motives.

IVThe necessity of contending with an incumbent elite which is sofundamentally distrustful toward oppositionand above all towardpublic oppositionrenders the situation of opposition parties very difficult. "Dining with the opposition"in the phrase attributed to SirWilliam Harcourtisa necessary condition for bringing the oppositioninto the consensual relationship with rulers which is at the foundation ofconstitutional opposition parties. Where the incumbent elite, which inmost cases has very much the upper hand, takes its point of departure inthe belief that thosewhooppose it in particular m atters are its enemies inall that counts in life, a corresponding attitude is sustained in theopposition. If enmity is cultivated, enmity is harvested.

Here and there in the new states there a re oppositional politicians whohave transcended this attitude. I think first of all ofMr.Minoo Masani,when he was leader oftheSwatantraparty,and Mr. Asoka Mehta, whenhe was leader of the Praja Socialist party. They were successful in theirresistance to the profoundly alienating experiences of oppositionalpolitics. These men were the rare product of a combination of personalqualities of moral self-discipline and political sophistication, of personalattachment to certain leaders of the dominant party and of the strengthof their devotion to the traditions of constitutional politics and of thegreat leaders of the independence movement. They were greatly aided inthis attitude by the profoundly constitutional attitude of JawaharlaNehru and by their personal attachment to him.The traditional pomp and elaborate procedural machinery of parliamentary institutions which in advanced countries restrains the impulsesof opposition parties do not serve to bring about the same consequencesin the new states. The formalities do not correspond to or evoke deeply


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434 Aspirationsand Fragilityofthe Centerrooted attitudes. India, where experience of parliamentary debate isolder, is an exception. The speaker's position there is more generallyesteemed, and the strong machinery of party discipline by the rulingparty leadership hasestablished'an air of decorum which wild opposition cannot unsettle and which imposes a tone of sobriety on theopposition parties. But in India, too, "walkouts" are not infrequent evenamong oppositional parliamentarians who think they are committed tothe parliamentary system.In most of the other new states, when opposition parties were allowedto exist, they opposed with relatively little regard forparliamentary procedure and even less regard for parliamentary etiquette. African politicallanguageis very rouglithose who use itmight not mean it as aggressivelyasitisregarded by those whohaveto listen to it Itisfilled with threats an daccusations which might or might not be seriously intended by those whoassert them, but it contributes to the roughening of the rhetoric ofparliamentary life. Opposition parties reply in kind, and, as a result, theopposition party appears to be more inimical to the incumbent government andto publicorder thaninfact it is.

Nor does the structure of the party system as it operates in the newstates do much to bring the opposition into the partially consensualrelationship necessary for the effectiveness of a public opposition party.In none of the new states of Asia and Africa has the opposition party hadthe beneficial influence of a two-party system which disciplines opposition by holding before it the possibility that it might have to assumeoffice and then bear the responsibility of doing a betterjobthan those ithas been criticizing.The two-party system is rare to the point of nonexistence in the newstates. In some of them, independence was attained in a situation inwhich one major party, considerably outweighing all the other parties,either maintainedorextended its preponderance. India, B urma, Pakistan,Ghana, Tanzania, and Tunisia were instances ofthis.A situation of oneheavily preponderant party which appears immovably established in itsvast preponderance has been discouraging to opposition and injuriousto its action.People do not liketoback a cerain loser, and the opposition parties aretherefore bound to be small and to become discouraged and desperateunder these conditions. Discouragement about their prospects of growthnot only keeps them small, it also makes them smaller by stirring u p thejealousies and disputes which are endemic in failing organizations.Desperation to make a mark and to score somehow off the dominantparty is accentuated by die-hard qualities of those who remain in theopposition as wellasby the humiliation ofpuniness. These factors drivethe oppositioninto wild accusations, walkouts, boycotts of parliamentarysessions, obstructive actions, nonsensical charges, triviality, etc. Suchbehavior dooms the opposition party to ineffectiveness. The aggressive-

Oppositionin the New States 435nessof oppositional rhetoric, which is promoted by these conditions, alsolays them open to charges of subversive intent, with which the dominantparty is, in any case, ready enough.Certain new states have come into existence with a plurality ofapproximately equal competing partiesas in Indonesia, Israel, andNigeriaand a coalition was necessitated for the establishment ofgovernment. No more than Congress-like parties, except for otherreasons, do coalition governments, unless they are conducted with tactand loyalty, generate the parliamentary culture necessary to "c/viTize"the conduct of opposition parties. This is true both of those outside andof those within the coalition government On the contrary, the weakerparties in a coalition, having to compromise their principles so muchbefore the demands of the major party, are fearful that their followerswill suspect their probity. They must therefore give some evidence totheir following and to those whose support they might seek in the futurethat their principles have not been wholly compromised. Thus theyoppose within the government and outside as well. Much of theiropposition is symbolic, because when they are moderately responsible orfairly attached to sharing in office, they do not wish to break up thecoalition. Hence they are oppositional in rhetoric, as if to hide theirattachment to office. Nonetheless, it has the effect of stimulating theopposition outside the government, since the outsiders, to maintain theiroppositional self-respect, must oppose even more vehemently.

These qualities of lesser parties within coalition governments appearalso in regimes in which the dominant, Congress-like party of themoment of independenceas in Burma or Pakistanbegins to falterand disintegrate as a result of the wear and tear of office and thedemoralizing,effects of long unchallenged supremacy. Factions withinthe party become more pronounced; they become almost embryonicparties. In public speeches and at party conventions, opposition to theinternally dominant group becomes embittered and a

center and periphery part 5

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