The steps in this process have
been clearly marked in earlier civilizations. They are playing a
decisive role in the day-to-day life of western civilization. They
extend from early forms of government under leaders selected or elected
by popular acclaim or at least by popular consent, to more or less
permanent leadership enjoying many political privileges, including the
selection of its successors.
Under the pressure of social emergency, engendered within the social
group or imposed from outside the group by migration, intrusion or
invasion, leadership takes the measures which it considers necessary to
preserve and/or extend its authority. Each emergency offers leadership
an opportunity or an excuse to by-pass custom and/or law, overlook
whatever public opinion may exist and proceed to the measures needed to
meet the emergency. In each organized social group the exercise of
authority has provided the leadership with a near-monopoly of money and
weapons in the hands of a permanent military elite. The use of this
elite to deal with the emergency is accepted by civil authority as a
matter of course.
When social division of function has produced and armed a military
elite, leadership turns to this elite in any emergency arising from
natural disaster or social crisis. The outcome is a community directed
by a military arm seeking to perpetuate and enlarge its own role in the
determination and exercise of public authority, using any means which
seems likely to produce the desired results.
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