Extension of state control is not so much a question of increasing or diminishing as of reorganizing restraints. There is no difficulty in understanding why the extension of state control on the one side should not go hand in hand with determined resistance to encroachments on the other. Practically what is called increase of state control is often of the nature of decrease in the total amount of restraint. The object of state coercion is to a large degree to override coercion by individuals and by associations of individuals within the state, and such a function, so far as I can see, is consistent only with the assumption of the competence of the state to decide between the conflicting interests.

Read Along: https://www.nationalreformation.org/post/the-nature-of-the-community

Written by Wilbur Urban

Narrated by Joshua Noyer

Urban, Wilbur. “The Nature of the Community.” The Philosophical Review 28, no. 6 (November 1919): 547–61.