Power by Russell Bertrand

Author:Russell, Bertrand
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-135-15254-3
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-12-21T05:00:00+00:00

11

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANISATIONS

We have been considering hitherto the sentiments which are the most important psychological sources of power: tradition, especially in the form of respect for priests and kings; fear and personal ambition, which are the sources of naked power; the substitution of a new creed for an old one, which is the source of revolutionary power; and the interactions between creeds and other sources of power. We come now to a new department of our subject: the study of the organisations through which power is exercised, considered first as organisms with a life of their own, their in relation to their forms of government, and finally as affecting the lives of the individuals who compose them. In this section of our subject, organisms are to be considered as far as possible without regard to their purposes, in the way in which men are considered in anatomy and biochemistry.

The subject to be discussed in this chapter, namely the biology of organisations, depends upon the fact that an organisation is also an organism, with a life of its own, and a tendency to growth and decay. Competition between organisations is analogous to competition between individual animals and plants, and can be viewed, in a more or less Darwinian manner. But this analogy, like others, must not be pressed too far; it may serve to suggest and to illuminate, but not to demonstrate. For example, we must not assume that decay is inevitable where social organisations are concerned.

Power is dependent upon organisation in the main, but not wholly. Purely psychological power, such as that of Plato or Galileo, may exist without any corresponding social institution. But as a rule even such power is not important unless it is propagated by a Church, a political party, or some analogous social organism. For the present, I shall ignore power which is not connected with an organisation.

An organisation is a set of people who are combined in virtue of activities directed to common ends. It may be purely voluntary, like a club; it may be a natural biological group, like a family or a clan; it may be compulsory, like a State; or it may be a complicated mixture, like a railway company. The purpose of the organisation may be explicit or unexpressed, conscious or unconscious; it may be military or political, economic or religious, educational or athletic, and so on. Every organisation, whatever its character and whatever its purpose, involves some redistribution of power. There must be a government, which takes decisions in the name of the whole body, and has more power than the single members have, at any rate as regards the purposes for which the organisation exists. As men grow more civilised and technique grows more complicated, the advantages of combination become increasingly evident. But combination always involves some surrender of independence: we may acquire increased power over others, but they also acquire power over us. More and more, the important decisions are those of bodies of men, not of single individuals.

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