The conspiracy theory of society

The 'conspiracy theory of society' is a passage written by Karl Popper in ???

The open society and its enemies: Volume II The high tide of prophecy: Hegel, Marx and the aftermath

Returning to the problem of Hegel’s political motives, we have, I think, more than sufficient reason to suspect that his philosophy was influenced by the interests of the Prussian government by which he was employed. But under the absolutism of Frederick William III, such an influence implied more than Schopenhauer or Schwegler could know; for only in the last decades have the documents been published that show the clarity and consistency with which this king insisted upon the complete subordination of all learning to state interest. ‘Abstract sciences’, we read in his educational programme19, ‘that touch only the academic world, and serve only to enlighten this group, are of course without value to the welfare of the State; it would be foolish to restrict them entirely, but it is healthy to keep them within proper limits.’ Hegel’s call to Berlin in 1818 came during the high tide of reaction, during the period which began with the king’s purging his government of the reformers and national liberals who had contributed so much to his success in the ‘War of Liberation’. Considering this fact, we may ask whether Hegel’s appointment was not a move to ‘keep philosophy within proper limits’, so as to enable her to be healthy and to serve ‘the welfare of the State’, that is to say, of Frederick William and his absolute rule. The same question is suggested to us when we read what a great admirer says20 of Hegel: ‘And in Berlin he remained till his death in 1831, the acknowledged dictator of one of the most powerful philosophic schools in the history of thought.’ (I think we should substitute ‘lack of thought’ for ‘thought’, because I cannot see what a dictator could possibly have to do with the history of thought, even if he were a dictator of philosophy. But otherwise, this revealing passage is only too true. For example, the concerted efforts of this powerful school succeeded, by a conspiracy of silence, in

These arc a few episodes in the career of the man whose ‘windbaggery’ has given rise to modern nationalism as well as to modern Idealist philosophy, erected upon the perversion of Kant’s teaching. (I follow Schopenhauer in distinguishing between Fichte’s ‘windbaggery’ and Hegel’s ‘charlatanry’, although I must admit that to insist on this distinction is perhaps a little pedantic.) The whole story is interesting mainly because of the light it throws upon the ‘history of philosophy’ and upon ‘history’ in general. I mean not only the perhaps more humorous than scandalous fact that such clowns are taken seriously, and that they are made the objects of a kind of worship, of solemn although often boring studies (and of examination papers to match). I mean not only the appalling fact that the windbag Fichte and the charlatan Hegel are treated on a level with men like Democritus, Pascal, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Kant, J. S. Mill, and Bertrand Russell, and that their moral teaching is taken seriously and perhaps even considered superior to that of these other men But I mean that many of these eulogist historians of philosophy unable to discriminate between thought and fancy, not to mention good and bad, dare to pronounce that their history is our judge, or that their history of philosophy is an implicit criticism of the different’ systems of thought’. For it is clear, I think, that their adulation can only be an implicit criticism of their histories of philosophy, and of that pomposity and conspiracy of noise by which the business of philosophy is glorified. It seems to be a law of what these people are pleased to call ‘human nature’ that bumptiousness grows in direct proportion to deficiency of thought and inversely to the amount of service rendered to human welfare.

The fact that psychologism is forced to operate with the idea of a psychological origin of society constitutes in my opinion a decisive argument against it. But it is not the only one. Perhaps the most important criticism of psychologism is that it fails to undererstand the main task of the explanatory social sciences. This task is not, as the historicist believes, the prophecy of the future course of history. It is, rather, the discovery and explanation of the less obvious dependences within the social sphere. It is the discovery of the difficulties which stand in the way of social action—the study, as it were, of the unwieldiness, the resilience or the brittleness of the social stuff, of its resistance to our attempts to mould it and to work with it. In order to make my point clear, I shall briefly describe a theory which is widely held but which assumes what I consider the very opposite of the true aim of the social sciences; I call it the ‘co ho sincerely beli ly consummate their conspiracy. nspiracy theory of society’. It is the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the men or groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon (sometimes it is a hidden interest which has first to be revealed), and who have planned and conspired to bring it about. This view of the aims of the social sciences arises, of course from the mistaken theory that, whatever happens in society—especially happenings such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages, which people as a rule dislike—is the result of direct design by some powerful individuals and groups. This theory is widely held; it is older even than historicism (which, as shown by its primitive theistic form, is a derivative of the conspiracy theory). In its modern forms it is, like modern historicism, and a certain modern attitude towards ‘natural laws’, a typical result of the secularization of a religious superstition. The belief in the Homeric gods whose conspiracies explain the history of the Trojan War is gone. The gods are abandoned. But their place is filled by powerful men or groups—sinister pressure groups whose wickedness is responsible for all the evils we suffer from—such as the Learned Elders of Zion, or the monopolists, or the capitalists, or the imperialists. I do not wish to imply that conspiracies never happen. On the contrary, they are typical social phenomena. They become important, for example, whenever people who believe in the conspiracy theory get into power. And people w eve that they know how to make heaven on earth are most likely to adopt the conspiracy theory, and to get involved in a counter-conspiracy against non-existing conspirators. For the only explanation of their failure to produce their heaven is the evil intention of the Devil, who has a vested interest in hell. Conspiracies occur, it must be admitted. But the striking fact which, in spite of their occurrence, disproves the conspiracy theory is that few of these conspiracies are ultimately successful. Conspirators rare Why is this so? Why do achievements differ so widely from aspirations? Because this is usually the case in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. Social life is not only a trial of strength between opposing groups: it is action within a more or less resilient or brittle framework of institutions and traditions, and it creates—apart from any conscious counter-action—many unforeseen reactions in this framework, some of them perhaps even unforeseeable. To try to analyse these reactions and to foresee them as far as possible is, I believe, the main task of the social sciences. It is the task of analysing the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions—those repercussions whose significance is neglected both by the conspiracy theory and by psychologism, as already indicated. An action which proceeds precisely according to intention does not create a problem for social science (except that there may be a need to explain why in this particular case no unintended repercussions occurred). One of the most primitive economic actions may serve as an example in order to make the ide a of unintended consequences of our actions quite clear. If a man wishes urgently to buy a house, we can safely assume that he does not wish to raise the market price of houses. But the very fact that he appears on the market as a buyer will tend to raise market prices. And analogous remarks hold for the seller. Or to take an example from a very different field, if a man decides to insure his life, he is unlikely to have the intention of encouraging some people to invest their money in insurance shares. But he will do so nevertheless. We see here clearly that not all consequences of our actions are intended consequences; and accordingly, that the conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all results, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results. The examples given do not refute psychologism as easily as they refute the conspiracy theory, for one can argue that it is the sellers’ knowledge of a buyer’s presence in the market, and their hope of getting a higher price—in other words, psychological factors—which explain the repercussions described. This, of course, is quite true; but we must not forget that this knowledge and this hope are not ultimate data of human nature, and that they are, in their turn, explicable in terms of the social situation—the market situation. This social situation is hardly reducible to motives and to the general laws of ‘human nature’. Indeed, the interference of certain ‘traits of human nature’, such as our susceptibility to propaganda, may sometimes lead to deviations from the economic behaviour just mentioned. Furthermore, if the social situation is different from the one envisaged, then it is possible that the consumer, by the action of buying, may indirectly contribute to a cheapening of the article; for instance, by making its mass-production more profitable. And although this effect happens to further his interest as a consumer, it may have been caused just as involuntarily as the opposite effect, and altogether under precisely similar psychological conditions. It seems clear that the social situations which may lead to such widely different unwanted or unintended repercussions must be studied by a social science which is not bound to the prejudice that ‘it is imperative never to introduce any generalization into the social sciences until sufficient grounds can be pointed out in human nature’, as Mill said12. They must be studied by an autonomous social science. Continuing this argument against psychologism we may say that our actions are to a very large extent explicable in terms of the situation in which they occur. Of course, they are never fully explicable in terms of the situation alone; an explanation of the way in which a man, when crossing a street, dodges the cars which move on it may go beyond the situation, and may refer his motives, to an ‘instinct’ of self-preservation, or to his wish to avoid pain, etc. But this ‘psychological’ part of the explanation is very often trivial, as compared with the detailed determination of his action by what we may call the logic of the situation; and besides, it is impossible to include all psychological factors in the description of the situation. The analysis of situations, the situational logic, plays a very important part in social life as well as in the social sciences. It is, in fact, the method of economic analysis. As to an example outside economics, I refer to the ‘logic of power’13, which we may use in order to explain the moves of power politics as well as the working of certain political institutions. The method of applying a situational logic to the social sciences is not based on any psychological assumption concerning the rationality (or otherwise) of ‘human nature’. On the contrary: when we speak of ‘rational behaviour’ or of ‘irrational behaviour’ then we mean behaviour which is, or which is not, in accordance with the logic of that situation. In fact, the psychological analysis of an action in terms of its (rational or irrational) motives presupposes—as has been pointed out by Max Weber14—that we have previously developed some standard of what is to be considered as rational in the situation in question.

Chapter 15: Economic Historicism

To see Marx presented in this way, that is to say, as an opponent of any psychological theory of society, may possibly surprise some Marxists as well as some Anti-Marxists. For there seem to be many who believe in a very different story. Marx, they think, taught the all-pervading influence of the economic motive in the life of men; he succeeded in explaining its overpowering strength by showing that ‘man’s overmastering need was to get the means of living’1; he thus demonstrated the fundamental importance of such categories as the profit motive or the motive of class interest for the actions not only of individuals but also of social groups; and he showed how to use these categories for explaining the course of history. Indeed, they think that the very essence of Marxism is the doctrine that economic motives and especially class interest are the driving forces of history, and that it is precisely this doctrine to which the name ‘materialistic inte ven by Marx to certain of his opponents ). The ave sery, in order to gratify their vile s for profit. (And the Vulgar Marxist is sometimes seriously ncerned with the problem of reconciling the claims of Marx with tho e som rpretation of history’ or ‘historical materialism’ alludes, a name by which Marx and Engels tried to characterize the essence of their teaching. Such opinions are very common; but I have no doubt that they misinterpret Marx. Those who admire him for having held them, I may call Vulgar Marxists (alluding to the name ‘Vulgar Economist’ gi2 rage Vulgar Marxist believes that Marxism lays bare the sinister secrets of social life by revealing the hidden motives of greed and lust for material gain which actuate the powers behind the scenes of history; powers that cunningly and consciously create war, depression, unemployment, hunger in the midst of plenty, and all the other forms of social mi in order to gratify their vile s for profit. (And the Vulgar Marxist is sometimes seriously ncerned with the problem of reconciling the claims of Marx with tho e som rpretation of history’ or ‘historical materialism’ alludes, a name by which Marx and Engels tried to characterize the essence of their teaching. Such opinions are very common; but I have no doubt that they misinterpret Marx. Those who admire him for having held them, I may call Vulgar Marxists (alluding to the name ‘Vulgar Economist’ gi2 rage Vulgar Marxist believes that Marxism lays bare the sinister secrets of social life by revealing the hidden motives of greed and lust for material gain which actuate the powers behind the scenes of history; powers that cunningly and consciously create war, depression, unemployment, hunger in the midst of plenty, and all the other forms of social misery, in order to gratify their vile desires for profit. (and the Vulgar Marxiast is sometimes seriously concerned with the problem of reconciling the claims of Marx with those of Freud and Adler; and if he does not choose the one or the other of them, he may perhaps decide that hunger, love and lust for power3 are the Three Great Hidden Motives of Human Nature brought to light by Marx, Freud, and Adler, the Three Great Makers of the modern man’s philosophy. . .) Whether or not such views are tenable and attractive, they certainly seem to have very little to do with the doctrine which Marx called ‘historical materialism’. It must be admitted that h etimes speaks of such psychological phenomena as greed and the profit motive, etc., but never in order to explain history. He interpreted them, rather, as symptoms of the corrupting influence of the social system, i.e. of a system of institutions developed during the course of history; as effects rather than causes of corruption; as repercussions rather than moving forces of history. Rightly or wrongly, he saw in such phenomena as war, depression, unemployment, and hunger in the midst of plenty, not the result of a cunning conspiracy on the part of ‘big business’ or of ‘imperialist war-mongers’, but the unwanted social consequences of actions, directed towards different results, by agents who are caught in the network of the social system. He looked upon the human actors on the stage of history, including the ‘big’ ones, as mere puppets, irresistibly pulled by economic wires—by historical forces over which they have no control. The stage of history, he taught, is set in a social system which binds us all; it is set in the ‘kingdom of necessity’. (But one day the puppets will destroy this system and attain the ‘kingdom of freedom’.) This doctrine of Marx’s has been abandoned by most of his followers—perhaps for propagandist reasons, perhaps because they did not understand him—and a Vulgar Marxist Conspiracy Theory has very largely replaced the ingenious and highly original Marxian doctrine. It is a sad intellectual come-down, this comedown from the level of Capital to that of The Myth of the 20th Century. Yet such was Marx’s own philosophy of history, usually called ‘historical materialism’. It will be the main theme of these chapters. In the present chapter, I shall explain in broad outlines its ‘materialist’ or economic emphasis; after that, I shall discuss in more detail the role of class war and class interest and the Marxist conception of a ‘social system’.

Chapter 17: The Legal And The Social System

We thus arrive at a distinction between two entirely different methods29 by which the economic intervention of the state may proceed. The first is that of designing a ‘legal framework’ of protective institutions (laws restricting the powers of the owner of an animal, or of a landowner, are an example). The second is that of empowering organs of the state to act - within certain limits - as they consider necessary for achieving the ends laid down by the rulers for the time being. We may describe the first procedure as ‘institutional’ or ‘indirect’ intervention, and the second as ‘personal’ or ‘direct’ intervention. (Of course, intermediate cases exist.) There can be no doubt, from the point of view of democratic control, which of these methods is preferable. The obvious policy for all democratic intervention is to make use of the first method wherever this is possible, and to restrict the use of the second method to cases for which the first method is inadequate. (Such cases exist. The classical example is the Budget—this expression of the Chancellor’s discretion and sense of what is equitable and just. and it is conceivable although highly undesirable that a counter-cycle measure may have to be of a similar character).

From the point of view of piecemeal social engineering, the difference between the two methods is highly important. Only the first, the institutional method, makes it possible to make adjustments in the light of discussion and experience. It alone makes it possible to apply the method of trial and error to our political actions. It is long-term; yet the permanent legal framework can be slowly changed, in order to make allowances for unforeseen and undesired consequences, for changes in other parts of the framework, etc. It alone allows us to find out, by experience and analysis, what we actually were doing when we intervened with a certain aim in mind. Discretionary decisions of the rulers or civil servants are outside these rational methods. They are short-term term decisions, transitory, changing from day to day, or at best from year to year. As a rule (the Budget is the great exception) they cannot even be publically discussed, both because necessary information is lacking, and because the principles on which the decision is taken are obscure. If they exist at all, they are usually not institutionalized, but part of an internal departmental tradition. But it is not only in this sense that the first method can be described as rational and the second as irrational. It is also in an entirely different and highly important sense. The legal framework can be known and understood by the individual citizen; and it should be designed to be so understandable. Its functioning is predictable. It introduces a factor of certainty and security into social life. When it is altered, allowances can be made, during a transitional period, for those individuals who have laid their plans in the expectation of its constancy.

As opposed to this, the method of personal intervention must introduce an ever-growing element of unpredictability into social life, and with it will develop the feeling that social life is irrational and insecure. The use of discretionary powers is liable to grow quickly, once it has become an accepted method, since adjustments will be necessary, and adjustments to discretionary short-term decisions can hardly be carried out by institutional means. This tendency must greatly increase the irrationality of the system, creating in many the impression that there are hidden powers behind the scenes, and making them susceptible to the conspiracy theory of society with all its consequences—heresy hunts, national, social, and class hostility. In spite of all this, the obvious policy of preferring where possible the institutional method is far from being generally accepted. The failure to accept it is, I suppose, due to different reasons. One is that it needs a certain detachment to embark on the long-term task of re-designing the ‘legal framework’. But government live from hand to mouth, and discretionary powers belong to this styl of living —quite apart from the fact that rulers are inclined to love those powers for their own sake. But the most important reason is, undoubtedly, that the significance of the distinction between the two methods is not understood. The way to its understanding is blocked to the followers of Plato, Hegel, and Marx. They will never see that the old question ‘Who shall be the rulers?’ must be superseded by the more real one ‘How can we tame them?’

VIII If we now look back at Marx’s theory of the impotence of politics and of the power of historical forces, then we must admit that it is an imposing edifice. It is the direct result of his sociological method; of his economic historicism, of the doctrine that the development of the economic system, or of man’s metabolism, determines his social and political development. The experience of his time, his humanitarian indignation, and the need of bringing to the oppressed the consolation of a prophecy, the hope, or even the certainty, of their victory, all this is united in one grandiose philosophic system, comparable or even superior to the holistic systems of Plato and Hegel. It is only due to the accident that he was not a reactionary that the history of philosophy takes so little notice of him and assumes that he was mainly a propagandist. The reviewer of Capital who wrote: ‘At the first glance .. we come to the conclusion that the author is one of the greatest among the idealist philosophers, in the German, that is to say, the bad sense of the word “idealist”. But in actual fact, he is enormously more realistic than any of his predecessors ..’30, this reviewer hit the nail on the head. Marx was the last of the great holistic system builders. We should take care to leave it at that, and not to replace his by another Great System. What we need is not holism. It is piecemeal social engineering.

With this, I conclude my critical analysis of Marx’s philosophy of the method of social science, of his economic determinism as well as of his prophetic historicism. The final test of a method, however, must be its practical results. I therefore proceed now to a more detailed examination of the main result of his method, the prophecy of the impending advent of a classless society.

Conjectures and refutations

Popper also discussed the topic in: Conjectures and refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1962). The book has 42 references to the term 'conspiracy'.

The title of this lecture ('On the source of knowledge and of ignorance') is likely, I fear, to offend some critical ears. For although 'Sources of Knowledge' is in order, and 'Sources of Error' would have been in order too, the phrase 'Sources of Ignorance' is another matter. 'Ignorance is something negative: it is the absence of knowledge. But how on earth can the absence of anything have sources?.' This question was put to me by a friend when I confided to him the title I had chosen for this lecture. I was a little shaken by this for I had been, I confess, quite pleased with the title. Hard pressed for a reply I found myself improvising a rationalization, and explaining to my friend that the curious linguistic effect of the title was actually intended. I told him that I hoped to direct attention, through the phrasing of this title, to a number of historically important although unrecorded philosophical doctrines and among them, especially, to a conspiracy theory of ignorance which interprets ignorance not as a mere lack of knowledge but as the work of some mischievous power, the source of impure and evil influences which pervert and poison our minds and instil in us the habit of resistance to knowledge.

In examining the optimistic epistemology inherent in certain ideas of liberalism, I found a cluster of doctrines which, although often accepted implicitly, have not, to my knowledge, been explicitly discussed or even noticed by philosophers or historians. The most fundamental of them is one which I have already mentioned--the doctrine that truth is manifest. The strangest of them is the conspiracy theory of ignorance, which is a curious outgrowth from the doctrine of manifest truth. By the doctrine that truth is manifest I mean, you will recall, the optimistic view that truth, if put before us naked, is always recognizable as truth. Thus truth, if it does not reveal itself, has only to be unveiled, or dis-covered. Once this is done, there is no need for further argument. We have been given eyes to see the truth, and the 'natural light' of reason to see it by.

This doctrine is at the heart of the teaching of both Descartes and Bacon. Descartes based his optimistic epistemology on the important theory of the veracitas dei. What we clearly and distinctly see to be true must indeed be true; for otherwise God would be deceiving us. Thus the truthfulness of God must make truth manifest. In Bacon we have a similar doctrine. It might be described as the doctrine of the veracitas naturae, the truthfulness of Nature. Nature is an open book. He who reads it with a pure mind cannot misread it. Only if his mind is poisoned by prejudice can he fall into error. This last remark shows that the doctrine that truth is manifest creates the need to explain falsehood. Knowledge, the possession of truth, need not be explained. But how can we ever fall into error if truth is manifest? The answer is: through our own sinful refusal to see the manifest truth; or because our minds harbour prejudices inculcated by education and tradition, or other evil influences which have perverted our originally pure and innocent minds.

Ignorance may be the work of powers conspiring to keep us in ignorance, to poison our minds by filling them with falsehood, and to blind our eyes so that they cannot see the manifest truth. Such prejudices and such powers, then, are sources of ignorance.

The conspiracy theory of ignorance is fairly well known in its Marxian form as the conspiracy of a capitalist press that perverts and suppresses truth and fills the workers' minds with false ideologies. Prominent among these, of course, are the doctrines of religion. It is surprising to find how unoriginal this Marxist theory is. The wicked and fraudulent priest who keeps the people in ignorance was a stock figure of the eighteenth century and, I am afraid, one of the inspirations of liberalism. It can be traced back to the protestant belief in the conspiracy of the Roman Church, and also to the beliefs of those dissenters who held similar views about the Established Church. (Elsewhere I have traced the pre-history of this belief back to Plato's uncle Critias; see chapter 8, section ii, of my Open Society.)

This curious belief in a conspiracy is the almost inevitable consequence of the optimistic belief that truth, and therefore goodness, must prevail if only truth is given a fair chance. 'Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?' (Areopagitica). So when Milton's Truth was put to the worse, the necessary inference was that the encounter had not been free and open: if the manifest truth does not prevail, it must have been maliciously suppressed. One can see that an attitude of tolerance which is based upon an optimistic faith in the victory of truth may easily be shaken. For it is liable to turn into a conspiracy theory which would be hard to reconcile with an attitude of tolerance.

I do not assert that there was never a grain of truth in this conspiracy theory. But in the main it was a myth, just as the theory of manifest truth from which it grew was a myth. For the simple truth is that truth is often hard to come by, and that once found it may easily be lost again. Erroneous beliefs may have an astonishing power to survive, for thousands of years, in defiance of experience, and without the aid of any conspiracy. The history of science, and especially of medicine, could furnish us with a number of good examples. One example is, indeed, the general conspiracy theory itself. I mean the erroneous view that whenever something evil happens it must be due to the evil will of an evil power. Various forms of this view have survived down to our own day.

Now I come to a brief outline of the task of a theory of tradition. A theory of tradition must be a sociological theory, because tradition is obviously a social phenomenon. I mention this because I wish briefly to discuss with you the task of the theoretical social sciences. This has often been misunderstood. In order to explain what is, I think, the central task of social science, I should like to begin by describing a theory which is held by very many rationalists a theory which I think implies exactly the opposite of the true aim of the social sciences. I shall call this theory the 'conspiracy theory of society'. This theory, which is more primitive than most forms of theism, is akin to Homer's theory of society. Homer conceived the power of the gods in such a way that whatever happened on the plain before Troy was only a reflection of the various conspiracies on Olympus. The conspiracy theory of society is just a version of this theism, of a belief in gods whose whims and wills rule everything. It comes from abandoning God and then asking: 'Who is in his place?' His place is then filled by various powerful men and groups--sinister pressure groups, who are to be blamed for having planned the great depression and all the evils from which we suffer.

The conspiracy theory of society is very widespread, and has very little truth in it. Only when conspiracy theoreticians come into power does it become something like a theory which accounts for things which actually happen (a case of what I have called the 'Oedipus Effect'). For example, when Hitler came into power, believing in the conspiracy myth of the Learned Elders of Zion, he tried to outdo their conspiracy with his own counterconspiracy. But the interesting thing is that such a conspiracy never--or 'hardly ever'--turns out in the way that is intended.

This remark can be taken as a clue to what is the true task of a social theory. Hitler, I said, made a conspiracy that failed. Why did it fail? Not just because other people conspired against Hitler. It failed, simply, because it is one of the striking things about social life that nothing ever comes off exactly as intended. Things always turn out a little bit differently. We hardly ever produce in social life precisely the effect that we wish to produce, and we usually get things that we do not want into the bargain. Of course, we act with certain aims in mind; but apart from the question of these aims (which we may or may not really achieve) there are always certain unwanted consequences of our actions; and usually these unwanted consequences cannot be eliminated. I will give you a very simple example. Let us say that a man in a small village must sell his house. Not long before there was a man who bought a house in that village because he needed one urgently. Now there is a seller. He will find that, under normal conditions, he will not get nearly as much for his house as the buyer had to pay when he wanted to buy a similar one. That is to say, the very fact that somebody wants to sell his house lowers the market price. And this is generally so. Whoever wants to sell something always depresses the market value of what he wants to sell; whoever wants to buy something raises the market value of what he wants to buy. This is true, of course, only for small free markets. I do not say that the economic system of free markets cannot be replaced by another one. But in a market economy this is what happens. You will agree with me that there is no need to prove that the man who wants to sell something has usually no intention of lowering the market price, and that the man who wants to buy something has no intention of raising it. We have here a typical instance of unwanted consequences. The situation described is typical of the social situation. In all social situations we have individuals who do things; who want things; who have certain aims. In so far as they act in the way in which they want to act, and realize the aims which they intend to realize, no problem arises for the social sciences (except the problem whether their wants and aims can perhaps be socially explained, for example by certain traditions). The characteristic problems of the social sciences arise only out of our wish to know the unintended consequences, and more especially the unwanted consequences which may arise if we do certain things. We wish to foresee not only the direct consequences but also these unwanted indirect consequences. Why should we wish to foresee them? Either because of our scientific curiosity, or because we want to be prepared for them; we may wish, if possible, to meet them and prevent them from becoming too important. (This means, again, action, and with it the creation of further unwanted consequences.)

I think that the people who approach the social sciences with a ready-made conspiracy theory thereby deny themselves the possibility of ever understanding what the task of the social sciences is, for they assume that we can explain practically everything in society by asking who wanted it, whereas the real task of the social sciences is to explain those things which nobody wants--such as, for example, a war, or a depression. (Lenin's revolution, and especially Hitler's revolution and Hitler's war are, I think, exceptions. These were indeed conspiracies. But they were consequences of the fact that conspiracy theoreticians came into power--who, most significantly, failed to consummate their conspiracies.) It is the task of social theory to explain how the unintended consequences of our intentions and actions arise, and what kind of consequences arise if people do this that or the other in a certain social situation. And it is, especially, the task of the social sciences to analyse in this way the existence and the functioning of institutions (such as police forces or insurance companies or schools or governments) and of social collectives (such as states or nations or classes or other social groups). The conspiracy theorist will believe that institutions can be understood completely as the result of conscious design; and as to collectives, he usually ascribes to them a kind of group personality, treating them as conspiring agents, just as if they were individual men. As opposed to this view, the social theorist should recognize that the persistence of institutions and collectives creates a problem to be solved in terms of an analysis of individual social actions and their unintended (and often unwanted) social consequences, as well as their intended ones. The task of a theory of tradition must be viewed in a similar light. It is only very rarely that people consciously wish to create a tradition; and even in these cases they are not likely to succeed. On the other hand, people who never dreamt of creating a tradition may nevertheless do so, without having any such intention. Thus we arrive at one of the problems of the theory of tradition: how do traditions arise--and, more important, how do they persist--as the (possibly unintended) consequences of people's actions?

A second and more important problem is this: what is the function of tradition in social life? Has it any function which is rationally understandable, in the way in which we can give an account of the function of schools, or of the police force, or of a grocer's shop, the Stock Exchange, or other such social institutions? Can we analyse the functions of traditions? That is perhaps the main task of a theory of tradition. My way of approaching this task will be to analyse a particular tradition--the rational or scientific tradition--as an example, and I intend later to make use of this analysis for various purposes.

What then is the task of the social sciences, and how can they be useful? In order to answer this question, I shall first briefly mention two naïve theories of society which must be disposed of before we can understand the function of the social sciences. The first is the theory that the social sciences study the behaviour of social wholes, such as groups, nations, classes, societies, civilizations, etc. These social wholes are conceived as the empirical objects which the social sciences

study in the same way in which biology studies animals or plants. This view must be rejected as naïve. It completely overlooks the fact that these so-called social wholes are very largely postulates of popular social theories rather than empirical objects; and that while there are, admittedly, such empirical objects as the crowd of people here assembled, it is quite untrue that names like 'the middle-class' stand for any such empirical groups. What they stand for is a kind of ideal object whose existence depends upon theoretical assumptions. Accordingly, the belief in the empirical existence of social wholes or collectives, which may be described as naïve collectivism, has to be replaced by the demand that social phenomena, including collectives, should be analysed in terms of individuals and their actions and relations. But this demand may easily give rise to another mistaken view, the second and more important of the two views to be disposed of. It may be described as the conspiracy theory of society. It is the view that whatever happens in society--including things which people as a rule dislike, such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages--are the results of direct design by some powerful individuals or groups. This view is very widespread, although it is, I have no doubt, a somewhat primitive kind of superstition. It is older than historicism (which may even be said to be a derivative of the conspiracy theory); and in its modern form, it is the typical result of the secularization of religious superstitions. The belief in the Homeric gods whose conspiracies were responsible for the vicissitudes of the Trojan War is gone. But the place of the gods on Homer's Olympus is now taken by the Learned Elders of Zion, or by the monopolists, or the capitalists, or the imperialists.

Against the conspiracy theory of society I do not, of course, assert that conspiracies never happen. But I assert two things. First, they are not very frequent, and do not change the character of social life. Assuming that conspiracies

were to cease, we should still be faced with fundamentally the same problems which have always faced us. Secondly, I assert that conspiracies are very rarely successful. The results achieved differ widely, as a rule, from the results aimed at. (Consider the Nazi conspiracy.) Why do the results achieved by a conspiracy as a rule differ widely from the results aimed at? Because this is what usually happens in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. And this remark gives us an opportunity to formulate the main task of the theoretical social sciences. It is to trace the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions. I may give a simple example. If a man wishes urgently to buy a house in a certain district, we can safely assume that he does not wish to raise the market price of houses in that district. But the very fact that he appears on the market as a buyer will tend to raise market prices. And analogous remarks hold for the seller. Or to take an example from a very different field, if a man decides to insure his life, he is unlikely to have the intention of encouraging other people to invest their money in insurance shares. But he will do so nevertheless. We see here clearly that not all consequences of our actions are intended consequences; and accordingly, that the conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all events, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results.

It should be mentioned in this connection that Karl Marx himself was one of the first to emphasize the importance, for

the social sciences, of these unintended consequences. In his more mature utterances, he says that we are all caught in the net of the social system. The capitalist is not a demoniac conspirator, but a man who is forced by circumstances to act as he does; he is no more responsible for the state of affairs than is the proletarian. This view of Marx's has been abandoned--perhaps for propagandist reasons, perhaps because people did not understand it--and a Vulgar Marxist Conspiracy theory has very largely replaced it. It is a come-down-the come-down from Marx to Goebbels. But it is clear that the adoption of the conspiracy theory can hardly be avoided by those who believe that they know how to make heaven on earth. The only explanation for their failure to produce this heaven is the malevolence of the devil who has a vested interest in hell.

The view that it is the task of the theoretical sciences to discover the unintended consequences of our actions brings these sciences very close to the experimental natural sciences. The analogy cannot here be developed in detail, but it may be remarked that both lead us to the formulation of practical technological rules stating what we cannot do.

The second law of thermodynamics can be expressed as the technological warning, 'You cannot build a machine which is 100 per cent efficient'. A similar rule of the social sciences would be, 'You cannot, without increasing productivity, raise the real income of the working population' and 'You cannot equalize real incomes and at the same time raise productivity'. An example of a promising hypothesis in this field which is by no means generally accepted-- or, in other words, a problem that is still open--is the following: 'You cannot have a full employment policy without inflation.' These examples may show the way in which the social sciences are practically important. They do not allow us to make historical prophecies, but they may give us an idea of what can, and what cannot, be done in the political field. We have seen that the historicist doctrine is untenable, but this fact does not lead us to lose faith in science or in reason. On the contrary, we now see that it gives rise to a clearer insight into the role of science in social life. Its practical role is the modest one of helping us to understand even the more remote consequences of possible actions, and thus of helping us to choose our actions more wisely. X The elimination of the historicist doctrine destroys Marxism completely as far as its scientific pretensions go. But it does not yet destroy the more technical or political claims of Marxism--that only a social revolution, a complete recasting of our social system, can produce social conditions fit for men to live in. I shall not here discuss the problem of the humanitarian aims of Marxism. I find that there is a very great deal in these aims which I can accept. The hope of reducing misery and violence, and of increasing freedom, is one, I believe, which inspired Marx and many of his followers; it is a hope which inspires most of us. But I am convinced that these aims cannot be realized by revolutionary methods. On the contrary, I am convinced that revolutionary methods can only make things worse--that they will increase unnecessary suffering; that they will lead to more and more violence; and that they must destroy freedom. This becomes clear when we realize that a revolution always destroys the institutional and traditional framework of society. It must thereby endanger the very set of values for the realization of which it has been undertaken. Indeed, a set of values can have social significance only in so far as there exists a social tradition which upholds them. This is true of the aims of a revolution as much as of any other values. But if you begin to revolutionize society and to eradicate its traditions, you cannot stop this process if and when you please. In a revolution, everything is questioned, including the aims of the well-meaning revolutionaries; aims -343- which grow from, and which were necessarily a part of, the society which the revolution destroys. Some people say that they do not mind this; that it is their greatest wish to clean the canvas thoroughly--to create a social tabula rasa, and to begin afresh by painting on it a brand new social system. But they should not be surprised if they find that once they destroy tradition, civilization disappears with it. They will find that mankind have returned to the position in which Adam and Eve began--or, using less biblical language, that they have returned to the beasts. All that these revolutionary progressivists will then be able to do is to begin the slow process of human evolution again (and so to arrive in a few thousand years perhaps at another capitalist period, which will lead them to another sweeping revolution, followed by another return to the beasts, and so on, for ever and ever). In other words, there is no earthly reason why a society whose traditional set of values has been destroyed should, of its own accord, become a better society (unless you believe in political miracles, 3 or hope that once the conspiracy of the devilish capitalists is broken up, society will naturally tend to become beautiful and good). Marxists, of course, will not admit this. But the Marxist view, that is to say, the view that the social revolution will lead to a better world, is only understandable on the historicist assumptions of Marxism. If you know, on the basis of historical prophecy, what the result of the social revolution must be, and if you know that the result is all that we hope for, then, but only then, can you consider the revolution with its untold suffering as a means to the end of untold happiness. But with the elimination of the historicist doctrine, the theory of revolution becomes completely untenable. The view that it will be the task of the revolution to rid us of the capitalist conspiracy, and with it, of opposition to social reform, is widely held; but it is untenable, even if we assume for a moment that such a conspiracy exists. For a revolution is liable to replace old masters by new ones, and who guarantees that the new ones will be better? The theory of revolution overlooks the most important aspect of social life--that what we need is not so much good men as good institutions. Even the best man may be corrupted by power; but institutions which permit the ruled to exert some effective control over the rulers will force even bad rulers to do what the ruled consider to be in their interests. Or to put it another way, we should like to have good rulers, but historical experience shows us that we are not likely to get them. This is why it is of such importance to design institutions which prevent even bad rulers from causing too much damage. There are only two kinds of governmental institutions, those which provide for a change of the government without bloodshed, and those which do not. But if the government cannot be changed without bloodshed, it cannot, in most cases, be removed at all. We need not quarrel about words, and about such pseudo-problems as the true or essential meaning of the word 'democracy'. You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of govern____________________ 3The phrase is due to Julius Kraft. -344- ment. I personally prefer to call the type of government which can be removed without violence 'democracy', and the other 'tyranny'. But, as I said, this is not a quarrel about words, but an important distinction between two types of institutions. Marxists have been taught to think in terms not of institutions but of classes. Classes, however, never rule, any more than nations. The rulers are always certain persons. And, whatever class they may once have belonged to, once they are rulers they belong to the ruling class. Marxists nowadays do not think in terms of institutions; they put their faith in certain personalities, or perhaps in the fact that certain persons were once proletarians--a result of their belief in the overruling importance of classes and class loyalties. Rationalists, on the contrary, are more inclined to rely on institutions for controlling men. This is the main difference. XI But what ought the rulers to do? In opposition to most historicists, I believe that this question is far from vain; it is one which we ought to discuss. For in a democracy, the rulers will be compelled by the threat of dismissal to do what public opinion wants them to do. And public opinion is a thing which all can influence, and especially philosophers. In democracies, the ideas of philosophers have often influenced future developments--with a very considerable time-lag, to be sure. British social policy is now that of Bentham, and of John Stuart Mill who summed up its aim as that of 'securing full employment at high wages for the whole labouring population'. I believe that philosophers should continue to discuss the proper aims of social policy in the light of the experience of the last fifty years. Instead of confining themselves to discussing the 'nature' of ethics, or of the greatest good, etc., they should think about such fundamental and difficult ethical and political questions as are raised by the fact that political freedom is impossible without some principle of equality before the law; that, since absolute freedom is impossible, we must, with Kant, demand in its stead equality with respect to those limitations of freedom which are the unavoidable consequences of social life; and that, on the other hand, the pursuit of equality, especially in its economic sense, much as it is desirable in itself, may become a threat to freedom. And similarly, they should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle of the Utilitarians can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship, and the proposal that we should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle--the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.

This modified Utilitarianism could, I believe, lead much more easily to agreement on social reform. For new ways of happiness are theoretical, unreal things, about which it may be difficult to form an opinion. But misery is with us, here and now, and it will be with us for a long time to come. We all know it from experience. Let us make it our task to impress on public opinion the simple thought that it is wise to combat the most urgent and real social evils one by one, here and now, instead of sacrificing generations for a distant and perhaps forever unrealizable greatest good.