The Strange Death of Moral Britain by Christie Davies

Author:Christie Davies [Davies, Christie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology
ISBN: 9781351473224
Google: Rqw0DwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 15276927
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2004-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

(Based on data in Hansard, House of Commons 1930, vol. 237, cols. 1625–30.)

In a society where socialism has become an established force due to the total overthrow of the old order, socialists are enthusiastic supporters of capital punishment for all manner of offenses against the state including property crimes. Those who run a command economy, without the benefit of market forces and incentives are, like the leaders of an army, fearful as to what will happen if their commands are not obeyed.

Socialism is the extension of the military principle throughout the whole of society, reducing everything to commands, and permeating all relationships with a mixture of ideology and coercion. Most of Britain’s Labour politicians never aspired to such heights; rather, like the Liberals they remained in a state of permanent opposition, even when their party enjoyed power in Parliament. This opposition reflects a dimension of the way in which not only British society but any social order is stratified, which is quite different from the differentiation of society into economic classes according to systematic differences in the market position of individuals, even though the two may be correlated. We may call this dimension “dominion.”

In Britain and other complex and consolidated societies in which the state has achieved a monopoly over the use of legitimate force there exists a stratum of men (and increasingly today, but not in the past, women) who exercise and administer this force or sense that they may be called upon to do so: the actual and potential officers of the army, navy, and air force, senior police officers and civil servants in the relevant departments of state, and in the past the members of the colonial service. They constitute the category of the “dominant” and they exercise authority in relation to those we may term the “subordinate,” whose duty it is to support them and carry out their instructions. In a stable, long-established democratic society like Britain the members of the dominant category only exercise delegated power and ultimately they take their instructions from the elected politicians. Nonetheless, by reason of their experience, expertise, and social position they constitute an influential group and one that is conscious of its own identity, distinctiveness, and importance and to an extent of having its own distinctive ideology and morality. It is a group whose members have a sense of close affinity to the Conservative party; indeed, their commitment to traditional conservatism was probably stronger than is or was the case with elites defined in purely social or economic terms. Its members exercise or could be called upon to exercise a particular kind of power, the disciplined use of force. They have been a core group for British conservatism and the Conservative party has been the party of dominion calling upon popular support for policies of national unity and assertiveness. The moral values they espoused were those of duty and discipline, loyalty and honor, fortitude and sacrifice. Such values are essential to any society and were held in general respect

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