The decline of a State is not equivalent to a mortal sickness therein.
States are organisms subject to diseases and to decay as are the
organisms of men’s bodies; but they are not subject to a rhythmic rise
and fall as is the body of a man. A State in its decline is never a
State doomed or a State dying. States perish slowly or by violence, but
never without remedy and rarely without violence.
The decline of a State differs with the texture of it. A democratic
State will decline from a lowering of its potential, that is of its
ever-ready energy to act in a crisis, to correct and to control its
servants in common times, to watch them narrowly and suspect them at
all times. A despotic State will decline when the despot is not in
point of fact the true depository of despotic power, but some other
acting in his name, of whom the people know little and cannot judge; or
when the despot, though fully in view and recognized, lacks will; or
when (which is rare) he is so inhuman as to miss the general sense of
his subjects. An oligarchic State, or aristocracy as it is called, will
decline principally through two agencies which are, first, illusion,
and secondly, lack of civic aptitude. For an oligarchic State tends
very readily to illusion, being conducted by men who live at leisure,
satisfy their passions, are immune from the laws, and prefer to shield
themselves from reality. Their capacity or appetite for illusion will
rapidly pervade those below them, for in an aristocracy the rulers are
subjected to a sort of worship from the rest of the community, and thus
it comes about that aristocracies in their decline accept fantastic
histories of their own past, conceive victory possible without armies,
wealth to be an indication of ability, and national security to be a
natural gift rather than a product of the will. Such communities
further fail from the lack of civic aptitude, as was said above, which
means that they deliberately elect to leave the mass of citizens
incompetent and irresponsible for generations, so that, when any more
strain is upon them, they look at once for some men other than
themselves to relieve them, and are incapable of corporate action upon
their own account.
The decline of a State differs also according to whether it be a great
State or a small one, for in the first indifference, in the latter
faction, are a peril, and in the first ignorance, in the latter private
spite.
Then again, the decline of a State will differ according to whether its
strength is rooted originally in commerce, in arms, or in production;
and if in production, then whether in the production of the artisan or
in that of the peasant. If arms be the basis of the State, then that
the army should become professional and apart is a symptom of decline
and a cause of it; if commerce, the substitution of hazards and
imaginaries for the transport of real goods and the search after real
demand; if production, the discontent or apathy of the producer; as
with peasants an ill system in the taxation of the land or in the
things necessary for its tillage, such as a misgovernment of its
irrigation in a dry country; the permission of private exactions and
tolls in a fertile one; the toleration of thieves and forestallers, and
so forth. Artisans, upon the other hand, may well flourish, though the
State be corrupt in such matters, but they must be secured in a high
wage and be given a vast liberty of protest, for if they sink to be
slaves in fact, they will from the nature of their toil grow both weak
and foolish. Yet is not the State endangered by the artisan’s throwing
off a refuse of ill-paid and starving men who are either too many for
the work or unskilful at it? Such an excretion would poison a
peasantry, remaining in their body as it were, but artisans are purged
thereby. This refuse it is for the State to decide upon. It may in an
artisan State be used for soldiery (since such States commonly maintain
but small armies and are commonly indifferent to military glory), or it
may be set to useful labour, or again, destroyed; but this last use is
repugnant to humanity, and so in the long run hurtful to the State.
In the decline of a State, of whatever nature that State be, two vices
will immediately appear and grow: these are Avarice and Fear; and men
will more readily accept the imputation of Avarice than of Fear, for
Avarice is the less despicable of the two—yet in fact Fear will be by
far the strongest passion of the time.
Avarice will show itself not indeed in a mere greed of gain (for this
is common to all societies whether flourishing or failing), but rather
in a sort of taking for granted and permeation of the mere love of
money, so that history will be explained by it, wars judged by their
booty or begun in order to enrich a few, love between men and women
wholly subordinated to it, especially among the rich: wealth made a
test for responsibility and great salaries invented and paid to those
who serve the State. This vice will also be apparent in the easy
acquaintance of all who are possessed of wealth and their segregation
from the less fortunate, for avarice cleaves society flatways, keeping
the scum of it quite clear of the middle, the middle of it quite clear
of the dregs, and so forth. It is a further mark of avarice in its last
stages that the rich are surrounded with lies in which they themselves
believe. Thus, in the last phase, there are no parasites but only
friends, no gifts but only loans, which are more esteemed favours than
gifts once were. No one vicious but only tedious, and no one a poltroon
but only slack.
Of Fear in the decline of a State it may be said that it is so much the
master passion of such decline as to eat up all others. Coming by
travel from a healthy State to one diseased, Fear is the first point
you take. Men dare not print or say what they feel of the judges, the
public governors, the action of the police, the controllers of fortunes
and of news. This Fear will have about it something comic, providing
infinite joy to the foreigner, and modifying with laughter the lament
of the patriot. A miserable hack that never had a will of his own, but
ran to do what he was told for twenty years at the bidding of his
masters, being raised to the Bench will be praised for an impartial
virtue more than human. A drunken fellow, the son of a drunkard, having
stolen control over some half-dozen sheets, must be named under the
breath or not at all. A powerful minister may be accused with sturdy
courage of something which he did not do and no one would mind his
doing, but under the influence of Fear, to tell the least little truth
about him will put a whole assembly into a sort of blankness.
This vice has for its most laughable effect the raising of a whole host
of phantoms, and when a State is so far gone that civic Fear is quite
normal to the citizens, then you will find them blenching with terror
at a piece of print, a whispered accusation. Bankruptcy, though they be
possessed of nothing, and even the ill-will of women. Moneylenders
under this influence have the greatest power, next after them,
blackmailers of all kinds, and next after these eccentrics who may
blurt or break out. Those who have least power in the decline of a
State, are priests, soldiers, the mothers of many children, the lovers
of one woman, and saints.