The apotheosis of the state

Born in sin, the bastard offspring of declining autocracy and bureaucracy run amok, the state is a giant wielded by pygmies.^[300] Considered as individuals, bureaucrats, even the highest-positioned among them, may be mild, harmless, and somewhat self-effacing people; but collectively they have created a monster whose power far outstrips that of the mightiest empires of old.

At the time it first saw the light of day the state was comparatively small and weak, even to the point where megalomaniac rulers could sometimes look down on it and claim that it was identical with their own persons. From then on, however, it grew and grew. Stage by stage it separated itself from, and raised itself above, civil society. As it did so, it commissioned maps and used them to make political statements about itself; it built up an infrastructure of ‘‘statistical” information; it increased taxes, and, which is perhaps more important, concentrated them in its own hands.

Beginning in Britain during the last years of the eighteenth century, one state after another also felt strong enough to spread its wings over the most important commodity of all, i.e., money. To be sure, the early attempts were hesitant and led to at least one spectacular bankruptcy; but after 1800 the switch from bullion toward state-issued paper imprinted with the picture of the sovereign proved unstoppable. During the nine­teenth century most states still maintained the link between money and precious metal. Once World Wars I and II had caused that link to be severed and money had become simply so much paper, though, states used the need to fight other states as the excuse for dominating the economy directly by means of their own laws, regulations, and fiats. By and large, the process whereby the meaning of money was transformed took place not simply in this state or that but was very much part of the development of the state as such. From Washington DC, through Lon­don and Paris, and Rome and Berlin, all the way to Moscow and Tokyo, the principles were the same. The main difference between ‘‘free’’ and totalitarian states consisted in the fact that the former chose their rulers by democratic elections; although, as Hitler once pointed out, judging by his own popularity, the Nazi regime may have been the most democratic in history.^[301] Hence they did not have to employ the instruments of coer­cion at their disposal quite as ruthlessly, or to the same extent, as the latter.

150

Initially the state was conceived as a mere instrument for imposing law and order: a body, made up of institutions and laws and people who served in them and carried them out, which would run like a machine in performing its task.

151

Protected and often abetted by the state, modern science and modern technology were able to flourish as never before. As noted above, had it not been for printed forms on the one hand and gunpowder on the other, the state could never have seen the light of day. Later both Hobbes, as the person who really invented the state, and his fellow English political scientist, James Harrington, took a keen interest in science and resorted to scientific models as underpinnings for the political constructs they had in mind.^[302] Tackling the problem from the opposite direction, Francis Bacon in New Atlantis (1637) described an imaginary state which sys­tematically harnessed science to increase its own power.

These, however, were just the beginnings. Not only did the state use science and technology to enhance its military capabilities for combating other states, but the same devices also reinforced its grip on every inch of territory and the life of every individual. Thus, from about 1850 on, the governments of France, Prussia (later Germany), Piedmont (later Italy), and Canada all systematically promoted the construction of railways with the objective of linking their various provinces with each other and bringing them under central control.^[305] In the United States, it was primarily political considerations which led to the construction of the north-south lines linking the midwest with the Gulf of Mexico as well as the east-west network, with the result, for example, that almost a gener­ation had to pass before the transcontinental railway began to run more than one train a week and was able to show a profit. In Russia, as a comparative newcomer to the world of states,¹⁵⁶ so close was the link between the railways and the government which financed them that, to quote Lenin, ‘‘when the trains stop that will be the end.”¹⁵⁷ Limiting ourselves to those countries which have been made the subject of detailed research, France, Russia, Japan, Argentina, and Australia all deliberately exploited the telegraph for the same purpose even if, as happened in the first-named, the price to be paid for imposing a state monopoly over the field of telecommunications was technological backwardness.¹⁵⁸

Finally, the transformation of the state into a god on earth both presupposed the existence of the popular press and helped the latter find a focus for its interests.

¹⁵⁵ M. Merger, ‘‘Les chemins de fer italiens: leur construction et leurs effets,” Histoire, Economie et Societe, 11, 1, 1992, pp. 109-20; B. Mazlish, ed., The Railroad and the Space Program: An Exploration in Historical Analogy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965), pp. 29-30. ¹⁵⁶ See below, ch. 5, ‘‘Toward Eastern Europe,” pp. 264-81.

¹⁵⁷ On the history of Russia’s railways, see V. Y. Larechev, ‘‘The Trend Towards State Monopoly in Pre-Revolutionary Russia’s Railways,’’ Journal of Transport History, 6, 2, 1985, pp. 37-47; the Lenin quote is from J. N. Westwood, A History of Russian Railways (London: Allen and Unwin, 1964), p. 7.

¹⁵⁸ P. Grisset, ‘‘L’etat et les telecommunications internationales au debut du XXe siecle en France: un monopole sterile,’’ Histoire, Economie et Societe, 6, 2, 1987, pp. 181-207.

¹⁵⁹ Figures are from G. A. Cranfield, The Press and Society: From Caxton to Northcliffe (London: Longman, 1978), p. 139.

¹⁶⁰ L. Reynolds, ‘‘Autocratic Journalism: The Case of the St. Petersburg Telegraphic Agency,’’ Slavic Review, 49, 1, 1990, pp. 48-57. race” mourn a person of whose very existence they may previously have been unaware.¹⁶¹ By the time of World War I, another US president, Woodrow Wilson, was meeting the press twice a week - as good an indication as any of its ability to make public life revolve around the state.

In return for fostering technological development which made possible a much-augmented standard of living the state exacted protection money. Essentially it consisted of unlimited blood and treasure, a development which climaxed during the first half of the twentieth century. Reveling in total war, the state demanded and obtained sacrifice on a scale which, had they been able to imagine it, would have made even the old Aztec gods blanch. Nor were the differences between the ‘‘totalitarian” and ‘‘democ­ratic” countries as great as people at the time liked to believe. Other things being equal, those states whose regimes were most efficient in squeezing the last ounce of marrow out of their citizens' bones went on to victory, whereas those which were smaller or less successful in performing this praiseworthy task went down to defeat. As usual the price was paid by the citizens, not by the state per se. In the defeated countries a few leaders lost their heads, whether with or without a trial; they were, in any case, dispensable, as is proved by the fact that, without exception, the states in question had risen out of the ashes and were back on their feet within less than five years after the largest war in history had ended. The stage was set for the state's Indian summer - one last shining rise in its power before its inevitable decline. Before we can turn to that story, however, it is neces­sary to explain how the state spread from Europe, where it originated, to the remaining areas of the globe.

¹⁶¹ M. Sewell, ‘‘‘All the English Race is in Mourning': The Assassination of President Garfield and Anglo-American Relations,'' Historical Journal, 34, 3, 1991, pp. 665-86.