THE NEW STATE
By Mary Parker Follett

Chapter XIX
The True Democracy

Democracy is the rule of an interacting, interpermiating whole. 
The present advocates of democracy have, therefore, little kinship
with those ardent writers of the past who when they said they
believed in the people were thinking of working-men only.  A man
said to me once, "I am very democratic, I thoroughly enjoy a good
talk with a working-man."  What in the world has that to do with
democracy?  Democracy is faith in humanity, not faith in "poor"
people or "ignorant" people, but faith in every living soul. 
Democracy does not enthrone the working-man, it has nothing to do
with sympathy for the "lower classes"; the champions of democracy
are not looking down to raise any one up, they recognize that all
men must face each other squarely with the knowledge that the give-
and-take between them is to be equal.

  The enthusiasts of democracy to-day are those who have caught
sight of a great spiritual unity which is supported by the most
vital trend in philosophical thought and by the latest biologists
and social psychologists.  It is, above all, what we have learnt of
the psychical processes of association which makes us believe in
democracy.  Democracy is every one building the single life, not my
life and others, not the individual and the state, but my life
bound up with others, the individual which _is_ the state, the
state which _is_ the individual.   "When a man's eye shall be
single" -- do we quite know yet what that means?  Democracy is the
fullest possible acceptance of the single life.

  Thus democracy, although often considered a centrifugal tendency,
is rather a centripetal force.  Democracy is not a spreading out:
it is not the extension of the suffrage -- its merely external
aspect -- it is a drawing together; it is the imperative call for
the lacking parts of self.  It is the finding of the one will to
which the will of every single man and woman must contribute.  We
want woman to vote not that the suffrage may be extended to women
but that women may be included in the suffrage: we want what they
may have to add to the whole.  Democracy is an infinitely including
spirit.  We have an instinct for democracy because we have an
instinct for wholeness; we get wholeness only through reciprocal
relations, through infinitely expanding reciprocal relations. 
Democracy is really neither extending nor including merely, but
creating wholes.

  This is the primitive urge of all life.  This is the true nature
of man.  Democracy must find a form of government that is suited to
the nature of man and which will express that nature in its
manifold relations.  Or rather democracy is the self-creating
process of life appearing as the true nature of man, and through
the activity of man projecting itself into the visible world in
fitting form so that its essential oneness will declare itself. 
Democracy then is not an end, we must be weaving all the time the
web of democracy.

  The idea of democracy as representing the all-will; gives us a
new idea of aristocracy.  We believe in the few but not as opposed
to the many, only as included in all.  This makes a tremendous
change in political thought.  We believe in the influence of the
good and the wise, but they must exert their influence within the
social process; it must be by action and reaction, it must be by a
subtle permeation, it must be through the sporting instinct to take
back the ball which one has thrown.  The wise can never help us by
standing on one side and trying to get their wisdom across to the
unwise.  The unwise can never help us (what has often been
considered the most they could do for the world) by a passive
willingness for the wise to impose their wisdom upon them.  We need
the intermingling of all in the social process.  We need our
imperfections as well as our perfections.  So we offer what we have
-- our unwisdom our imperfections -- on the alter of the social
process, and it is only by this social process that the wonderful
transmutation can take place which makes of them the very stuff of
which the Perfect Society is to be made.  Imperfection meets
imperfection, or imperfection meets perfection; it is the _process_
which purifies, not the "influence" of the perfect on the
imperfect.  This is what faith in democracy means.  Moreover, there
is the ignorance of the ignorant and the ignorant of the wise;
there is the wisdom of the wise and the wisdom of the ignorant. 
Both kinds of ignorance have to be overcome, one as much as the
other; both kinds of wisdom have to prevail, one as much as the
other.

  In short, there is not a static world for the wise to influence. 
This truth is the blow to the old aristocracy.  But we need the
wise within this living, moving whole, this never-ceasing action
and interaction, and this truth is the basis of our new conception
of aristocracy.  Democracy is not opposed to aristocracy -- it
includes aristocracy.

  As biology shows us nature evolving by the power within itself,
so social psychology shows us society evolving by the power of its
own inner forces, of _all_ its inner forces.  There is no passive
material within it to be guided by a few.  There is no dead
material in a true democracy.

  When people see the confusion of our present life, its
formlessness and planlessness, the servile following of the crowd,
the ignorance of the average man, his satisfaction in his
ignorance, the insignificance of the collective life, its blindness
and its hopelessness, they say they do not believe in democracy. 
But this is not democracy.  The so-called evils of democracy --
favoritism, bribery, graft, bossism -- are the evils of our lack of
democracy, of our party system and the abuses which that system has
brought into our representative government.  It is not democracy
which is "on trial," as is so often said, but it is we ourselves
who are on trial.  We have been constantly trying to see what
democracy meant from the point of view of institutions, we have
never yet tried to see what it meant from the point of view of men.

  If life could be made mechanical, our method would be correct,
but as mechanics is creature and life its superabounding creator,
such method is wholly wrong.  When people say that the cure for the
evils of democracy is more democracy, they usually mean that while,
we have some "popular" institutions, we have not enough, and that
when we get enough "popular" institutions, our inadequacies will be
met.  But no form is going to fulfil our needs.  This is important
to remember just now, with all the agitation for "democratic
control."  You cannot establish democratic control by legislation:
it is not democratic control to allow the people to assent to or
refuse a war decided on by diplomats; there is only one way to get
democratic control -- by people learning how to evolve collective
ideas.  The essence of democracy is not in institutions, is not
even in "brotherhood"; it is in that organizing of men which makes
most sure, most perfect, the bringing forth of the common idea. 
Democracy has one task only -- to free the creative spirit of man. 
This is done through group organization.  We are sometimes told
that democracy is an attitude and must grow up in the hearts of
men.  But this is not enough.  Democracy is a method, a scientific
technique of evolving the will of the people.  For this reason the
study of group psychology is a necessary preliminary to the study
of democracy.  Neither party bosses nor unscrupulous capitalists
are our undoing, but our own lack of knowing how to do things
together.

  The startling truth that the war is bringing home to many of us
is that unity must be something more than a sentiment, it must be
an actual system of organization.  We are now beginning to see that
if you want the fruits of unity, you must _have_ unity, a real
unity, a cooperative collectivism.  Unity is neither a sentiment
nor an intellectual conception, it is a psychological process
produced by actual psychic interaction.

  How shall we gain a practical understanding of this essential
unity of man?  By practicing it with the first person we meet; by
approaching every man with the consciousness of the complexity of
his needs, of the vastness of his powers.  Much is written of the
power of history and tradition in giving unity to a community or
nation.  This has been overemphasized.  If this were the only way
of getting unity, there would be little hope for the future in
America, where we have to make a unity of people with widely
differing traditions, and little hope for the future of Europe
where peace is unthinkable unless the past can be forgotten and new
ties made on the basis of mutual understanding and mutual
obligation.  To have democracy we must live it day by day. 
Democracy is the actual commingling of men in order that each shall
have continuous access to the needs and the wants of others. 
Democracy is not a form of government; the democratic soul is born
within the group and then it develops its own forms.

  Democracy then is a great spiritual force evolving itself from
men, utilizing each, completing his incompleteness by weaving
together all in the many-membered community life which is the true
Theophany.  The world to-day is growing more spiritual, and I say
this not in spite of the Great War, but because of all this war has
shown us of the inner forces bursting forth in fuller and fuller
expression.  The Great War has been the Great Call to humanity and
humanity is answering.  It is breaking down the ramparts to free
the way for the entrance of a larger spirit which is to fill every
single being by interflowing between them all.  France, England,
America -- how the beacon lights flash from one to the other -- the
program of the British Labor Party, the speeches of our American
President, the news of the indomitable courage of France -- these
are like the fires in Europe on St. John's Eve, which flash their
signals from hill-top to hill-top.  Even the school children of
France and America write letters to each other.  American men and
women are working for the reconstruction of France as they would
work for the reconstruction of their own homes -- and all this
because we are all sharing the same hope.  A new faith is in our
hearts.  The Great War is the herald of another world for men.  The
coming of democracy is the spiritual rebirth.  We have been told
that our physical birth and life are not all, that we are to be
born again of water and the spirit.  Not indeed of _water_ and
spirit, but of _blood_ and spirit, are the warring children of men,
a groaning, growing humanity, coming to the Great Rebirth.
