No fixed state of society, only temporary 'fixes'

We think today that if only we can set up the right social / economic policies (whether welfare state, or libertarian, or fascist, or whatever) we can assure ourselves of eternal prosperity—that we will be able to live like the 1950s, or 1990s, forever (ideally with continual technological progress at the same time).

In fact the realistic view is that wealth, ‘development level’, social cohesion, productivity, balance of trade, and so on are all continually changing, both within a country and in the world outside it. No permanent ‘state’ can be established—only temporary ‘fixes’. Chesterton said: “All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always paintng it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post.” (Orthodoxy)

The medievals called the goddess Fortune, who constantly turns her Wheel and causes one nation to be preeminent for a time, then to sink into decline and give another nation its turn. And unlike us the medievals thought Fortune was arbitrary—wealth, prosperity, power, did not correspond to merit or desert, but with the chances of the world. I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

One thing we do understand today is that wealth, prosperity, and power are not pure chance, but that human choices have an impact and therefore good choices can improve one’s chances—but nevertheless it is an important corrective to this view to realize that time and chance happeneth to them all. A few historical illustrations:

If one were to look at the world in the year 1300 and were asked to predict which nation would be preeminent in wealth, reach, and influence for the next three hundred years, a good guess would have been northern Italy. Northern Italy was the wealthiest place in Europe, the most cultured and best-educated with the best universities, the most rational legal system, the greatest trade connections, flourishing industry, lively social mobility and free associations, and—above all—the most advanced techniques for business and commercial organization and the most advanced technology and science in the world. Yet Italy’s preeminence did not last even one century, let alone three. A series of wars, the plague, currency crises, and a number of external forces combined to throw Italy into a downward spiral which led in a few centuries to Italy being a notably underdeveloped nation in comparison with others of its time. And by 1600 the culture of northern Italy had changed to one hostile to work and business, quite in contrast to 300 years earlier.

Similarly if one looked in the sixteenth century Spain and Portugal would appear to be the natural world leaders. Come back in a hundred years, and it’s the Low Countries—the Netherlands and Belgium.

In the nineteenth century everything indicated that Great Britain would be the preeminent world power of the twentieth century. Her wealth, technology, and science—greatest in all the world—her navy, her vast empire; how could anything dislodge this? Yet Great Britain was not the greatest power of the twentieth century, it was the United States of America. And although there were trends that could be glimpsed which foreshadowed this, Great Britain’s eclipse by the United States was brought on above all by the First World War: an external event with its own chance causes.

No state of society, no matter how seemingly well-fixed, can persist in a static way. There will be change from within and also change outside which will alter its conditions. Therefore, since we cannot be responsible for achieving the impossible, it cannot be our responsibility to achieve ‘a just society’, ‘a prosperous society’, or whatever ideal you like—not in the sense of building a certain structure that achieves this. Our responsibility as social beings must rather be to do the right thing here and now—what does justice require now? what must we do to be prosperous now?—and the measure of ‘a just society’ would not be permanent structures but rather dispositions and habits.

This does not mean without taking thought for the long term, but without imagining that we can assume what conditions the long term will impose upon us. In this way social responsibility becomes a macrocosm of individual responsibility—no reasonable individual attempts to, or imagines that he can, establish a fixed and permanent ideal situation for his own life; at the very least he knows that he must age at the rate of sixty seconds per minute and one day indeed must die. Therefore individual responsibility does not entail making assurance for the future, but doing the right thing in the present. Likewise for social responsibility.