There can be no real
freedom or democracy until the men who do the work in a business also
control its management.
Another measure which would do much to increase liberty would be an
increase of self-government for subordinate groups, whether
geographical or economic or defined by some common belief, like
religious sects. A modern state is so vast and its machinery is so
little understood that even when a man has a vote he does not feel
himself any effective part of the force which determines its policy.
Except in matters where he can act in conjunction with an
exceptionally powerful group, he feels himself almost impotent, and
the government remains a remote impersonal circumstance, which must be
simply endured, like the weather. By a share in the control of
smaller bodies, a man might regain some of that sense of personal
opportunity and responsibility which belonged to the citizen of a
city-state in ancient Greece or medieval Italy.
When any group of men has a strong corporate consciousness--such as
belongs, for example, to a nation or a trade or a religious
body--liberty demands that it should be free to decide for itself all
matters which are of great importance to the outside world. This is
the basis of the universal claim for national independence. But
nations are by no means the only groups which ought to have
self-government for their internal concerns.
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