The Basis of Society

Abstract

A SERIOUS error that has crept into the thought expended on social problems must be treated here. It consists of a false and misleading equation of problems and their solutions. Put in other words, the error consists in a failure to conceive a problem in terms of the greater whole of which it is a part, and to perceive that an adequate solution of the problem is unattainable without a correlated treatment of the larger problem. In fine, the complete solution of a social problem involves the transfiguration of society and of its component parts. How does the error in question manifest itself? When it is a question of the solution of an economic problem, a remedy, couched in economic terms, is suggested. If it is a political problem that it is desired to settle, solutions in terms of political transformation are broached. For the marital question, a sociological prescription is offered. If it is the question of international relations that is the object of attention, the suggested answer will make its appeal to international law, diplomacy, ethnology, and political science. Biological problems call forth a eugenic programme, problems of crime a criminological and penological prescription. For the solution of the problems connected with law and its execution, jurisprudence is appealed to. In fine, social problems are treated as independent wholes bearing no necessary relation to each other. The problems are simply collocated, and to each problem there is equated a solution, the latter generally couched in terms of the art or science within the province of which the related problem is held to lie. All of which is justifiable, but only when it is used in connection with another and more important method. The error that has just been mentioned consists of the utter neglect of the latter. The method in question is the conception of the unity of all social problems and of the consequent necessity of their joint solution by means of a gradual and fundamental transfiguration of society and its integrant parts-individuals, societies, and institutions. Society is one. Its problems are one. No one of these problems can be adequately treated except in so far as the society and the general social disharmony of which the problem is a segment are attended to. The solution of the social problem is one. A survey of social situations and their interconnections is suggestive. Take the problem of war. To abolish war, recourse is being 82