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V.J. Chalupa On Post-Modern Politics
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CHAPTER 20 PRINCIPLES OF
POLITICS -- USEFULNESS Methodology The
means subjected to this scrutiny is given by the very definition of politics: it
is "sharing in the direction of public affairs," i.e., the power of
the state. The state should be ordered so that it is suitable for the
implementation of the above defined purpose selected by the criterion of
achievability. The outcome of this search is the identification of guidelines
applicable to various arrangements of the state which can serve for the
evaluation of political programs and their respective implementation. The Individual and
the Collective Man
is a social being, i.e., a being whose natural environment is the presence of
other beings of the same kind. Unlike animal communities where the life of their
individual members and their mutual relationship (including conflict) is a
function of survival and development of the community, in human communities
there exist a tension and conflict between individual members and between their
groups as well as between an individual and the group whose member he is. In
animal communities, the limitations imposed on members are not experienced as
oppression, in human communities they often are. The tension between the
community and its individuals, respectively the community and their groups, is
the dynamic force driving the differentiation and evolution of human collectives
(societies); seen as a manifestation of freedom, this tension takes the form of
a conflict of interests of individuals pursuing their subjective goals of
happiness singly or together with others, and the collective and its objective
goal, in other words, a conflict between the freedom of individuals and the
needs of the collective.
The balancing of this conflict takes place on a scale whose two limiting points
are opposite: either the interest of the abstract individual is considered as
supreme or the interest of the collective is considered as supreme:
individualism or collectivism. From the standpoint of the spiritual development
of the community, the question as posed is erroneous: its answer cannot be
"either -- or." The arrangement of the object of care is to be such
that at a maximum differentiation (individualistic elements) integration is
preserved and/or prevails (collectivist elements).
The State as
Institution The
main actor of balancing individualistic and collectivists elements in society is
the state. Its actions take place in two areas: politics and economy. The
political area arranges the relations between individuals and their groups, the
economic area arranges the procuring and utilization of their material means. Individualistic
State The
classification of states as individualistic and collectivists is different from
the classification as autonomous and heteronomous normgivers. An individualistic
state puts freedom of individuals above other values; it has to divide
the collective which is its object of care, into individuals and to restrain or
subdue individuals and their groups who identify their interests with the
interests of the collective as a whole and who consequently strive to put limits
on individual interests they consider as harmful for the society, in other words
to limit individuals' freedom. This interference is more intrusive if the state
adopts in the interest of individual happiness a policy aimed at abolishing
differences between individuals so that some do not have advantage over others
due to inequality of heredity or environment. The main instrument of such
endeavors is the redistribution of material goods in the direction of assistance
to the weaker individuals or elimination of the weaker ones in favor of the
stronger individuals, the creation of an artificial environment for the
spiritual evolution of all individual members of the society, and more recently
by efforts to suppress imperfect genes by preventive measures and elimination of
individuals who, for any reason (heredity, age, infirmity) are lacking the
minimum of qualities considered. The standard of equality too often assumes the
shape of uniformity. From the viewpoint of such a purpose of the state,
institutions mediating between the state and the individual appear as harmful
obstacles especially if they reinforce qualities at variance from the standard:
primarily the family with its singularity of heredity and cultural environment,
then also private schools, private association based on singular characteristics
(gender, religion, nationality) and institutions whose purpose is to promote the
interest of groups based on such singularities (primarily churches). The same
calculation of benefits and harms induces the state to limit the competence of
self-governing entities because they express, articulate and promote their
constituents' interests which delay or resist the ideal of equality/uniformity.
The autonomy in the formation of the will of the state shifts away from
competition between opinions on the best arrangement of society as a whole to a
struggle of groups harnessing the power of the state to procure the means for
the subjective happiness of their individual members. A state of this type is
reduced to function as a heterogeneous normgiver. In
order to safeguard the autonomy of all individuals the state winds up in a
situation where it itself must define what is in the interest of individuals, at
which point their freedom disproportionately violates the freedom of other
individuals, and prevent or punish actions which deviate from its perceptions.
For instance, it must violate the freedom of religion, of speech and of assembly
to protect the right to abortion or to suppress propagation of anti-semitism; it
limits the right to privacy to prevent formation of clubs or associations whose
members wish to restrict membership to individuals of the same race, religion,
sex or nationality; it violates the right of ownership by prohibiting owners to
sell their property or hire employees according to the owners' preferences, and
so forth. The result is a status of unceasing conflicts of interest between
individuals, groups of individuals and the state which the state (usually by its
judicial branch) must decide (for examples see Attachment No.8). A state
enforcing consistent individualism is marked by a growth of the executive and
judicial branches of government and by bloated bureaucracy -- at the expense of
individual freedom. In the interest of the abstract individual, the state can
not only restrict variability, but also eliminate the evolutionary element of
competition and replace it by regulations impossible to create and to enforce
without an all-pervading network of bureaucracy which is by its very nature an
instrument of heterogeneity and a barrier to autonomy even for those individuals
in whose name and interest the state intervenes. From the standpoint of
spiritual development, individualism elevated to the highest value is regressive
because it limits variability and leads to uniformity and mass conformity. The
elevation of the pursuit of subjective happiness of individuals to the highest
value affects society also in another dimension. A purely individualistic state
considers family and progeny as matters of individual fancy which it limits
directly or indirectly whenever they could impinge on the self-fulfillment of
other individuals. Its population policies are not neutral: they prefer an ever
growing happiness of a diminishing number of individuals to a lesser degree of
happiness of a greater number of individuals. It is a fact that the decision of
one generation not to have children would bring about the death of such a
society. Such an extreme situation will not occur, but the decision of a great
part of a society not to reproduce has consequences considered as harmful even
from the standpoint of a society prevailingly individualistic; a decline of
spiritual development and viability of societies whose states pursued
individualism beyond a certain point is clearly observable (see Appendix
6). Collectivist
state A
collectivist state inclines towards heteronomous normgiving except in instances
when the object of care of its ruling political organization is identical with
the state's population at least to such an extent that other groups are not
strong enough to threaten the society's consensus and when the population is
culturally and otherwise integrated to such an extent that the cultural
integration takes place of the enforcement by the government. (Such was the
situation of the American colonies at the time of the establishment of the
American federation: their population originated biologically from Great Britain
and was culturally integrated by the protestant Christian faith and ethics whose
observance was protected by social pressure and local self-government without
the interference of the state; other components -- atheists, Catholics and Jews
as well as violators of the community's ethics -- were excluded from the
direction of public affairs while empowered citizens enjoyed extensive liberties
in matters of public administration.) In general: the scope of autonomy of
subjects of a collectivist state is commensurate with the extent of the cohesion
and cultural consensus of its population. Such
a situation is exceptional. As a rule, heteronomy in normgiving prevails, the
state and its power are the main or only element of integration. Variability is
artificially hampered or precluded, the freedom of individuals is limited or
removed, selection takes place artificially by suppression of anything (actually
or allegedly) harmful to the object of care or threatening the state which is
the means protecting it. The power of the state is extended to the economy in
the form of direct regulating or planning economic activities or their
performance by state organs. The emerging stratum of professional politicians
and bureaucracy replaces in
practice the original object of care, and because it is not a collective capable
of performing alone all functions needed for its survival, it becomes partly a
parasitic element which accelerates the decline of a fully collectivists society
or, at best, stabilizes it by stagnation. The results of such an arrangement
have been demonstrated by the evolution and fate of the communist society based
exclusively on collectivist principles. State
as Cultivator of Spiritual Development A
state whose objective is the maximum spiritual development of a certain
collective is not located somewhere on a line connecting fully individualistic
and fully collectivist state systems, nor is it a compromise of the two. Its
characteristic is such a combination of elements of autonomy and of heteronomy
which ensure the maximum space for variability and selection within the
framework of the nation's integration. The extent and relationship of these
elements depend on a number of factors, among them: homogeneity of the
population, the kind of culture, level of education, political responsibility
and maturity of the citizens. Because
of the abundance of human potentialities which are contradictory in every
individual (almost every individual has the potential of a criminal as well as
of a saint), the full actualization of all genes into qualities is impossible.
The state relies on various kinds of environment to develop the potentialities
it considers as good, and impede the development of the potentialities it
considers as harmful. Cultural consensus, tradition and social custom assume a
large portion of the pressure which the state would otherwise have to exert. In
this respect, the freedom of lower institutions works in favor of an organic
development of society and has an integrative function: the community's values
are handed over to its new members by the influence of the prevailing cultural
atmosphere, so that deviations from the prevailing value system must overcome
the inertia of the environment, are thus tested and their absorption by the
existing culture is not disruptive. Spiritual
developments needs the security provided by a legal state. The lack of security
renders variability and selection impossible; the potentialities of the
population cannot develop into actualities, they are stymied or deformed. The
most favorable environment for spiritual growth is democracy. It secures
variability by protecting an "inalienable" sphere of freedom (i.e., a
social space in which the state does not impose any duties) to individuals as
well as their natural (traditional) and artificial (rationally created)
institutions and organizations. Democracy is therefore characterized by a system
of human rights (defined by absence
of duties towards the state), pluralism of institutions and organizations, a
strong system of self-government (cf. Chapter 5) in which higher instances
perform only those functions which lower instances are unable to perform at all
or only ineffectively. This structure ensures not only a diversity of
potentialities, but also a diversity of environments in which they develop,
i.e., differentiation. On all levels of public administration and in all
organizations of a political nature, normgiving is based on the principle of
autonomy. Among
the basic institutions of society, an exceptionally important role in the
differentiation as well as integration of society belong to the family and the
local community. The
family is a permanent personal and
economic community of a man and a women for mutual care and support and the
generation and raising of progeny to perpetuate the continuity of propagation. A
family perpetuates the biological as well as cultural heritage of the spouses,
it performs the inculturation of children; therefore the state has a legitimate
interest in its protection and support. Here it conflicts with full
individualism which condemns ties restricting complete self-fulfillment of the
individual in the utilization of financial resources, pursuit of a career and
entertainment and especially sexual exploits. The state protects the family
legally by rendering difficult the violation of the marital promises at least to
the same extent as it would impede and conceivably punish the violation of other
contractual obligations, imposes on parents the obligation to care for their
children and protects their right to do so, and empowers them to lay down and
enforce the rules of family's life. The
economic foundation of the family is the so-called family wage, i.e., a wage
policy which renders the income of one of the parents sufficient to cover the
essential needs of the entire family. One way in which the state recognizes the
role of maternity is the granting of "salaries" to full-time mothers.
These positive measures are complemented by negative measures which transfer the
standard of living of citizens free of family ties and responsibilities to those
who assume them so that the living
standards of the former do not exceed those of the latter in a degree which
would dissuade people from forming and raising families. The
function of local communities approaches that of families in the sense that they
maintain a measure of physical continuity of their members and their own
cultural environment. The state supports communities by granting them the widest
possible legal autonomy ("self-government") compatible with the
democratic character of the state, and by not syphoning away their needed
financial resources and allows communities the right to deny residence to
non-residents or to get rid of non-residents whose presence is legally defined
as harmful to the community. The
principal means of the state to preserve the integration of its society is the
majority principle, no matter how arranged in details; but in itself, this
principle is too weak to insure integration. Therefore, prerequisites of
democracy include a prevailing societal consensus concerning the purpose (the
"mission") of the state or the nation and the corresponding
"civic religion" maintained by custom, morals and social pressure.
When sections of the population have contradictory principles considered by
them, for this or that reason, as inviolable (religious, national, philosophical
taboos), the majority principle is considered by the minority as tyranny, and
such contradictions result either in restriction of democracy or the collapse of
the state. The purest form of democratic integration is the validity of the
decision of the majority in the system of direct democracy. In extremis, the
so-called Madison's paradox is to be resolved in favor of the majority.
Additional measures in favor of integration are: the system of indirect
(representative) democracy, the limitation of the number of political parties
through majority representation, a minimum number of applicants to qualify for
nominating candidates in elections, separation and reinforcement of the
executive branch by direct election of the head of the state, the right of the
head of the state to govern by decree or a constitutionally secured right of
some non-political organization (mostly the army) to assume power in case of the
state's imminent or actual disintegration. The
Economic Order In
the economy, the element of variability is represented by self-reliance and
personal responsibility, individual initiative, private ownership and private
enterprise; the element of selection by competition. These elements cause the
economy based on private enterprise and the market to be the order most capable
of creating economic growth as the material basis for spiritual development. At
the same time, some of its features have side effects acting in the opposite
way. It creates needs artificially, it concentrates human attention on material
goods and away from spiritual goods. The pressure towards expansion of markets
leads to appealing to the most common denominators of the greatest number of
people, i.e., to their instincts, and results in standardization of taste and
habits on an ever declining level of vulgarity and uniformity -- it creates the
mass consumer society. The
selectivity of the market brings forth a group of people living in luxury and
another one living in want. Poverty (misery, i.e., lack of food, habitat,
clothing, education and health care) is an environment inhibiting the unfolding
of potential, and luxury is an environment which does not require effort and
therefore eliminates the element of selection. The spiritual development of
society (of a nation) is therefore narrowed down to a stratum which lives above
the level of poverty and below the level of luxury; material sufficiency
combined with frugality and effort is the economic environment most favorable
for the spiritual development of individuals and of society. By
differentiation evolution deepens the division of society into the rich and the
poor and the evolution of ownership of means of production proceeds in the same
direction. It leads to the concentration of means of production in the ownership
of a narrowing number of gigantic enterprises employing an ever growing number
of people; persons not owning means of production are the first ones to suffer
from a disequilibrium in the economic balance and the last ones to be integrated
in the economic process during the forming of a new balance: their status
changes from workers to unemployeds. Extra-political concentration of ownership
and centralization of means of production as well as agreements limiting
competition and restricting production have consequences inhibiting selection. The
market economy possesses its own selectivity -- it influences the access to
leading economic functions. The emphasis on financial gains generates a
mechanism which selects for key positions persons who see in the accumulation of
money the central value of life at the expense of cultural and moral values --
economic materialism. This ethic affects and dominates other areas of society,
especially politics
and public affairs. Voltaire rejected Christianity for his personal life, but
approved of it for others, because it prevented his taylor from stealing;
however, the reality is such that the market and private enterprise systems can
function only if its leaders observe moral values. American economy flourished
as long as it ran within the parameters of strict Protestant morality; it began
its decline in the Sixties which represent the start of the rejection of any
objective morality by American elites. In
order to counteract side effects of economic individualism which inhibit
spiritual development the state intervenes in various ways and to various
extent. The
state counteracts the increasing polarization of society (the rich and the poor)
by transferring a part of the highest incomes to those with the lowest incomes,
mainly by progressive taxes and welfare payments, also by luxury or
"sin" taxes and property taxes. The obstacles to variability and
selection are handled by legislation prohibiting trusts, cartels, price fixing
and by measures promoting competition. The composition of the national product
is influenced by the state through subsidies for production of desirable goods
and by taxing or prohibition of goods harmful to the ideal of a better society. The
state can affect the economy also through its ownership of means of production
either as a minority shareholder sharing the decision making process of the
corporation, or as a majority shareholder it influences the market by producing
goods or providing services which would not be provided by the free play of an
individualistic economy. An
ultimate form of integrating interference by the state into the economy is its
transformation from a market economy into a directed or planned economy in which
the elements of competition, initiative and private ownership are integrated
into the fulfillment of the centrally conceived plan of production and
consumption. The culmination of of
the interference of the state in the economy is the transfer of the ownership of
means of production to the state or its organs, i.e., socialism . A
justification for socialism is the assertion that it overcomes the separation of
means of production from those who work with them, through the legal fiction
that the state represents (also or exclusively) the workers and that means of
production owned by the state are actually owned by the workers or by all
citizens. This fiction failed in practice: the real decisions concerning the
utilization of means of production passed inevitably to the managers and the
bureaucracy (a similar development took place also in gigantic enterprises of
the capitalist system) to the detriment of productivity, efficiency and
inventiveness. Experiments with transferring the decision making in state owned
enterprises to employees have failed for another reason: people generally prefer
immediate concrete gain to an uncertain hope for a larger gain in the far
future. With harmful effects on productivity of the enterprise and the economy,
they vote for immediate wage increases or perks rather than for the expectation
that their increased and improved performance will somehow benefit them later in
the form of profit sharing. For
the protection of the moral environment in which the economy functions, the
state can use three methods. First, punishment of economic activities violating
the cultural traditions of the society. Second, state ownership of certain key
sectors of the economy to manage them technocraticly, i.e., by pursuing the goal
of technical perfection rather than financial gain. Third, a steep taxation of
the portion of income used for "conspicuous consumption" rather than
productive investments encourages the selection to leadership positions of
persons motivated by the "building instinct" rather than by facile and
fast enrichment --"greed." . The
proximate purposes whose attainment should be promoted by the state's selective
utilization of the above means are: The
principle of plurality is applied also to economy and allows for competition of
all types of entrepreneurship within the framework of both evolutionary
principles. In the interest of integration, the state interferes with the
economic activity in order to produce a univirtual society, a society in which
barriers between economic and social strata are fluid and not rigid, where all
members of the society have equal rights and equal duties. In a univirtual
society, the distance between the wealthiest and most powerful and the poorest
and weakest members is minimized. In order to preserve selection, the state
promotes a situation of a steadily improving standard of living in which members
of society occupy the social space between poverty (i.e., above the existential
minimum) and luxury. Poverty is an absolute quality, not a relative one. To be
poor is to be hungry, thirsty, to lack shelter, clothing, to be sick without
medical help; one who has less than others have is not necessarily poor. A
corollary of political pluralism is a mixed economy in which coexist planning
with competition, dirigism and private enterprise and where the disposition of
means of production is spread among the population: through democratic control
of publicly owned enterprises, through shares in corporations, through
participation in cooperatives, through private ownership of individually or
family owned enterprises, and in which taxation and other measures of the state
promote a univirtual society of the type which the population has chosen through
a democratic legislative process. Each
intervention by the state requires additional bureaucracy, with the usual
consequences. The structure of the state as described above (democracy, wih
strong self-government) is capable to limit and keep fencing them in. With
increasing equality, too, productivity slows down, and, as consequence of
progressing equality, the loss of productivity
results in the fact that the lowest income of an economically more egalitarian
society is lower than it would be in a less egalitarian society due to its
higher productivity. This is the point in which economic nivelization must stop.
It is possible that, together with the protection of a certain moral standard of
economic activities, interference by the state slows down economic growth and
technical inventiveness; from the standpoint of spiritual growth, the price paid
for acquisition of technical innovations from abroad is to be considered as
prevailingly profitable. Foreign
Policy The
purpose of the state is to protect the function of a nation as agent of
differentiation and selection in the spiritual evolution of humanity, to be the
expression of national individuality in law, economy and institualization of the
national life. The
ultimate problem of a pure individualistic state is contest - through
competition or conflict -- with other states. A pure individualism does not
include any rational justification why an individual should sacrifice his
possessions, health or even life in order that other individuals can pursue
their interests; by doing so the individual would negate his highest value: his
own interest. Therefore, a survival of an individualistic state depends on those
who reject its philosophical underpinning. In order to overcome this weakness,
individualistic states must induce other states to accept also the
individualistic political philosophy. The way to accomplish it is their
membership in supranational organizations which promote individualistic
principles. For this reason, states based on individualistic
principles are much more willing to renounce portion of their
sovereignty than states pursuing primarily the interest of a nation as a whole:
they expect that international organizations will impose through their
bureaucracies individualistic values to all membership states (for factual
information see Chapter 24). A
state whose primary purpose is the unlimited interest of a certain collective,
is in its relation to wider communities, regional or global, a disintegrating
factor, because its objective is maximum and therefore leads towards expansion
and aggression, i.e., to the promotion of interests and spreading cultural,
economic and political (including its sovereignty) values by force. Contest
between nations as agents of spiritual evolution is shifting clearly to
competition rather than conflict; therefore readying an aggressive war is
evidently the wrong policy. The situation is different in the case of a
defensive war: there is the danger that nations and states left behind in
competition could have recourse to methods of violent conflict as means of
self-assertion or survival, and the same way may be chosen by successful states
whose purposes are achievable only at the expense of other states or nations. A
state should therefore be ready to fight a defensive war in the sense that
aggression will not pay, that even success would cost the aggressor unbearable
harm. The
military measures are to be usefully combined with the strengthening of the
international law and order provided that self-reliance is not replaced by
reliance on others' strength to repel a potential aggressor. Only a state whose
defensive strength has the potential to transform an aggressor's success in
Pyrrhic victory, is a state really independent and sovereign and ensures that
its members will not be subjected the sovereignty of a different state against
their will. International
Relations A
state is the sovereign agent of integration with regard to the society subjected
to it. In its outward relations, it is an agent of differentiation and selection
and therefore requires a counterforce of international integration. Such
counterforce can be created only at the expense of the sovereignty of states. A
contractual limitation of states' sovereignty with preservation of the principle
of states' sovereignty is not binding and not effective, because not
enforceable. Enforceability presupposes the creation of a politically acting
subject superior to states and endowed, in at least embryonic form, with powers
forming the sovereignty of a state: legislative, judicial and executive powers.
This is the equivalent of establishing a super-state which is sovereign and
defines as well as enforces the limitation of state sovereignty (see Chapter
12). From
the viewpoint of the spiritual development of humanity it is necessary to
subordinate the interrelationship of states to an order which excludes forms of
interstate contests prevailingly harmful to humanity as a whole and to limit
state sovereignty by institutions which guarantee such an order and/or enforce
its observance even by non-members, or at least defend members' common values
against outside threats. Under no circumstances, however, should such
integration interfere with the freedom of individual states to be an independent
legal, economic and institutional expression of various national cultures. Such
restriction of the power of supranational (the word supranational is used
instead of the more accurate, but not common expression "superstate")
institutions requires a legal limitation and definition of their jurisdiction
right at the time of their constitution, i.e., in their charter, statutes or
other founding document, as well as structural measures. The purpose of both is
to render impossible or at least difficult the use of a partial limitation of
state sovereignty for the purpose of subjugating some nations by others or by
the supranational bureaucracy which will inevitable arise with a tendency to
pursue their own agenda rather than to execute the will of its respective
normgivers. Such tendencies manifest themselves by limitation of the states'
jurisdiction over their own subjects (citizens, other inhabitants,
organizations). Limitations of the state's power concerning movement of its
population and its composition, freedom of association, economic activities and
armed forces can result in the loss of the independence of a nation in spite of
the preservation of a formal independence of its state. Parallel and
commensurate with the abdication of part of their sovereignties, nations must
strengthen and/or create self-governing and non-governmental organizations for
the preservation and development of their culture and identity. An exclusive
reliance on the power of the state will be impossible in an era of supranational
institutions. The
sovereignty of states in supranational organizations is protected by the
principle of legal equality of states, but legal equality does not arrest the
shifts in actual power relations. Such shifts occur regardless of states' legal
equality outside the framework of supranational institutions, but ultimately are
reflected even there. Especially
important for nations is to conserve the control of their economy, because after
the elimination of conflicts, i.e., after securing peace, the changes in power
relationships shifted to the area of indirect contest, in the first place to
economic competition. The evolution of supranational organizations is abandoning
the principle of unanimity in both its forms in favor of informal, ad hoc
flexible arrangements which reflect more accurately the power relationship of
participants (for example, the role of the United States in the conflict with
Iraq, its intervention in Panama and in Granada, or the air strike on Libya). Attempts
to express formally the power relationships of states by their representation in
supranational organizations on the basis of the size of their respective
populations are successful only when other power factors, especially economic
strength, are per capita more or less equal, otherwise the numbers do not
reflect the real situation at all. (A state possessing nuclear armaments is
superior to a state not capable to produce it even if the latter's population is
significantly more numerous.) One of the possibilities of future development of
supranational organizations is a bicameral system where one of the chambers is
based on the principle of equality of states represented by their governments,
the other chamber on populations represented by directly elected
representatives. Another, possibly parallel option is a constitution based on a
Charter of Inalienable Rights of Nations similar to the Charter of Human Rights
and granting to each member state an area outside of jurisdiction of any
international organization. None
of these arrangements does resolve the explosive tensions stemming from the fact
that borders of states and of nations do not coincide and that a state cannot
fulfill integrally its role of expressing the national individuality and
protecting the national interest without somehow infringing on the development
of national or other minorities. So far the development was in the direction of
violent rearrangement of such borders so that both coincide, with accompanying
"ethnic cleansing", expulsion of other nationalities or even genocide. At
the same time, the protection of minority rights evidences features reminiscent
of sovereignty based on personality rather than on territory, when a national
state arrogates itself the right of protection or interference over members of
the same nationality on the territory under the sovereignty of other states. From
the standpoint of national interests, the territorial principle is defensive
while the personality principle opens the door to penetration of states
protecting the interests of nations already settled on a territory. Experience
of recent history has demonstrated that granting equal personal rights to all
citizens regardless of nationality does not solve this problem and that ignoring
the vitality and reality of nations in the building of an international order is
dysfunctional. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, peaceful transfers of
population and adjustments of borders seem to be the only alternative to drawn
out tensions erupting repeatedly in violent conflicts of civil, guerilla, and
genocidal wars with the potential of destroying peace between states drawn into
such conflicts. The progress of international relations from national states, i.e., states whose primary purpose is formed by the culture of one nation, to supranational and/or international entities by renouncing a part of national sovereignties to supranational authorities can be based on mutual accommodations or, like the emergence of domestic law, by imposition of an order by force. From the standpoint of spiritual growth of humanity, the former way is more useful, but the latter way is more practical and feasible. Their mutual interpenetration and combination is, of course, possible and probable starting with sanctions against a certain state or group of states in the interest of peace or for international humanitarian interventions and progressing towards defense of common interests of humanity such as prohibition of chemical, bacteriological or nuclear armaments or protection of environment or common resources to undertaking common global projects like regulation of weather and space exploration or colonization. The technical means are available, but politics has not yet found the proper organizational forms to actualize all technology's potentialities.
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