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isations that give an outlet to power-impulses, not only to those
that have economic functions. The tendency has been, in pro-
duction, to give rise to trusts that are coextensive with some
great State and its satellites, but seldom, outside the armament
industry, to the formation of world-wide trusts. Tariffs and col-
onies have caused big business to be intimately associated with
the State. Foreign conquest in the economic sphere has come to
be dependent upon the military strength of the nation to which
the trust in question belongs; it is no longer, except to a limited
extent, conducted by the old methods of purely business com-
petition. In Italy and Germany the relation between big business
and the State is more intimate and obvious than in democratic
countries, but it would be a mistake to suppose that big business,
under Fascism, controls the State more than it does in England,
France, or America. On the contrary, in Italy and Germany the
State has used the fear of Communism to make itself supreme
over big business as over everything else. For example, in Italy a
very drastic capital levy is being introduced, whereas a much
milder form of the same measure, when proposed by the British
Labour Party, caused a capitalist outcry which was completely
successful.
When two organisations with different but not incompatible
objects coalesce, the result is something more powerful than
either previous one, or even both together. Before the War, the
Great Northern went from London to York, the North Eastern
from York to Newcastle, and the North British from Newcastle to
Edinburgh; now the lner goes all the way, and is obviously
stronger than the three older Companies put together. Similarly
the biology of organisations 141
there is an advantage if the whole steel industry, from the extrac-
tion of the ore to ship-building, is controlled by one corpor-
ation. Hence there is a natural tendency to combination; and this
is true not only in the economic sphere. The logical outcome of
this process is for the most powerful organisation, usually the
State, to absorb all others. The same tendency would lead in
time to the creation of one World-State, if the purposes of differ-
ent States were not incompatible. If the purpose of States were
the wealth, health, intelligence, or happiness of their citizens
there would be no incompatibility; but since these, singly and
collectively, are thought less important than national power,
the purposes of different States conflict, and cannot be furthered
by amalgamation. Consequently a World-State is only to be
expected, if at all, through the conquest of the world by some
one national State, or through the universal adoption of some
creed transcending nationalism, such as first socialism, and then
communism, seemed to be in their early days.
The limitation to the growth of States owing to nationalism is
the most important example of a limitation which may be seen
also in party politics and in religion. I have been endeavouring in
this chapter to treat organisations as having a life independent of
their purpose. I think it important to note that, up to a point, this
is possible; but of course it is only up to a point that it is possible.
Beyond that point, it is necessary to consider the passion to
which the organisation appeals.
The desires of an individual can be collected into groups, each
group constituting what some psychologists call a  sentiment .
There will be to take politically important sentiments love of
home, of family, of country, love of power, love of enjoyment,
and so on; there will also be sentiments of aversion, such as fear
of pain, laziness, dislike of foreigners, hatred of alien creeds, and
so on. A man s sentiments at any given moment are a compli-
cated product of his nature, his past history, and his present
circumstances. Each sentiment, in so far as it is one which many
142 the biology of organisations
men can gratify cooperatively better than singly, will, given
opportunity, generate one or more organisations designed for its
gratification. Take, for example, family sentiment. This has given
rise, or has helped to give rise, to organisations for housing,
education, and life insurance, which are matters in which the
interests of different families are in harmony. But it has also in
the past more than in the present given rise to organisations
representing the interests of one family at the expense of others,
such as those of the retainers of the Montagues and Capulets
respectively. The dynastic State was an organisation of this sort.
Aristocracies are organisations of certain families to procure
their own privileges at the expense of the rest of the community.
Such organisations always involve, in a greater or less degree,
sentiments of aversion: fear, hatred, contempt, and so on. Where
such sentiments are strongly felt, they are an obstacle to the
growth of organisations.
Theology affords illustrations of this limitation. The Jews,
except during a few centuries round about the beginning of the
Christian era, have had no wish to convert the Gentiles; they [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]