Social regulation

“ Let there be careful study of the developing needs and opportunities of society, and let the results of study declare themselves in developing legal principles of social self-control. I am not now referring to any particular measures, but to the principle that legislation which creates corporations without corresponding regulation is as anomalous and socially dangerous as a regime of domestic relations ruled solely by the instinct of propagation, without responsibilty for the training of children. ”

“ It is that of mere stewardship and the regulation indispensable to society.
The Social Forces Ready for Our Methods.
Now that our theory of social reform is fully substantiated by fact, our methods shown to be in harmony with popular sentiment, our idea of democratic government clearly defined, and our final aim political justice, there remains some consideration of early possible practical steps in line with these principles and of the probable trend of events afterward. ”

“ Hence, the higher the organization of society, the more mischievous legislative regulation is sure to be. Our discussions, therefore, only show how far we are from having a social science adequate to bear its share of human interests by the side of the other sciences on which human welfare now depends, and, also, how great is our peril for lack of a harmonious development on this side. ”

“ The home, the school, the church, the club, business, profession, trade, and union, all insist on strict, correct conformity to standard; all demand authoritatively implicit obedience and submission to rule and regulation. ”

“ Organizations of associated labour, chambers and other general associations, self-managing communities of interest, other self-managing organizations and communities, agencies of the socio-political communities, trade unions and other socio-political organizations and social organizations shall, by means of social compacts, ensure and adjust self-management regulation of socio-economic and other relations of broader common concern to the parties to the compacts, or of general social concern. ”

“ Especially in what is designated as applied economics and applied sociology there is to be found material a large part of which relates directly to the regulation and administration of governmental affairs. Thus in portions of the courses designated as labor problems, money and banking, public finance, trust problems, public utility regulation, problems in social welfare, and immigration, primary consideration is frequently given to government activities and to the influences and conditions surrounding government control. ”

“ General laws are meant to regulate our conduct to each other, within certain rules; that the confidence necessary for the social union may be maintained. A principle laid down by the law, is promulgated as a general rule; and in the confidence that this rule will be respected by all; or that if violated, society will punish the violator, it is recognised as a general principle of action. ”

“ The people, being subject to the laws, ought to be their author: the conditions of the society ought to be regulated solely by those who come together to form it. But how are they to regulate them? Is it to be by common agreement, by a sudden inspiration? ”

“ The modern judges for himself—makes his own laws, as a god, knowing good and evil. No doubt in time a new social law will emerge—with new sanctions. Meanwhile, here we are, in a moment of transition, manufacturing new types, exploring new combinations—by which let those who come after profit! ”

“ The social organization system and legal regime, ranging from ancestral family and community principles and ethical and moral standards, passing through production and trade relations, solidarity and social responsibility, forms of community and state administration; up to a very complex system of laws, rules, uses and customs that embodied free work by the community, the stewardships and charges system, which allowed the orderly and balanced community life as well as relationships and exchanges with other communities or states. ”

“ If an agreement exists, who is to execute its provisions? And if some refuse to assist, and shirk social duties, have they any claim to the assistance of the organization, have they any social rights? ”

“ Back of all formal contracts or statutes or institutions, therefore, is this unwritten law of civilization that every citizen shall be a public servant. The cycles of social growth, arrest, decay, have always illustrated in turn observance, neglect and violation of this law. Men and institutions have begun by serving their day and generation in a socially needful way. They have sometimes ended by making their day and generation serve them in a socially harmful way. ”

“ This brings us to the question of the force which dominates the making of laws, and I shall attempt to show that it is the needs of a community as distinguished from the needs of the individuals who compose it. If the standard of justice is subjective; that is, if laws are made by either individuals or communities, we must begin the study of law with a study of the evolution of the human race. While it was once thought that the individual was the unit into which the race was originally divided, almost everyone now concedes that the unit was the social group. ”

“ The protection of constitutionality and legality shall be ensured in order to realize the socio-economic and political relations laid down by the constitution and statute, and to protect the freedoms of man and the citizen, self-management, social property, the self-management and other rights of organizations of associated labour and other self-managing organizations and communities and socio-political communities. ”

“ The sociologist and the statesman should co-operate in discovering the laws of society and the methods of utilizing them, so as to let the social forces flow freely and strongly, untrammelled by penal statutes, mandatory laws, irritating prohibitions, and annoying obstacles. ”

“ Until we have developed and applied, much beyond present standards, the policy and practice of social agency on the part of individuals in the conduct of business, direct public control, and even public management of many kinds of business is the dictate of reason, of prudence and of patriotism. ”

“ This theory of the direction of control can be verified by examining the facts. The legal, social or moral codes actually enforced in a community express the social will, seeing they are collective products, and intended to regulate conduct. The study of these, therefore, reveals the direction of social control.
If we study undeveloped societies, we find no such formulations of the social will. If we study very advanced societies, we find the social will formulated into such general principles and abstract propositions that its true tendency does not appear on the surface. ”

“ Of all the problems with which the science of government is confronted in the present and the near future, there are few in the domain of Social Policy of greater importance, or more fraught with serious possibilities in their results, than the establishment on a democratic basis, both in constitution and in administration, of the organs of Labour Protection. ”

“ When, therefore, the instructed in general can be brought to recognize one social arrangement, or political or other institution, as good, and another as bad—one as desirable, another as condemnable, very much has been done towards giving to the one, or withdrawing from the other, that preponderance of social force which enables it to subsist. ”

“ The fact that laws and institutions must be constantly remolded in the progress of time by the active reason and conscience of the people, is what has probably given rise to the notion, just now so popular, that ethical considerations do, or ought to, regulate legislation and social relations. ”

“ Which of these forces shall dominate in any case, must depend largely upon the comparative importance or value of the social interests that will be thereby promoted or impaired. [23] One of the most fundamental social interests is that law shall be uniform and impartial. ”

“ The struggle for existence and well-being is regulated by social laws. If these were perfect, each individual could satisfy his wants in an equitable measure, that is to say in the measure of his faculties, his labor, and the service he renders to the community. ”

“ For the end and intent of such laws being only to regulate the behaviour of mankind, as they are members of society, and stand in various relations to each other, they have consequently no business or concern with any but social or relative duties. ”

“ Any extension of the authority of the State, any fresh regulation of the transactions of individual citizens, is often pronounced to be socialistic without asking what the object or nature of the regulations may be. ”

“ The type of government pleaded for in these pages is one which assumes that no special interest shall have precedence over the good of the social whole, and which requires that every separate interest shall be subordinated to and co-ordinated into a general scheme of social welfare. ”

“ The perfect industrial organisation is, I shall assume, compatible with or rather a condition of a perfect organisation of other kinds. In the most general terms we have to consider what are the principles of social organisation, which of course implies a certain balance between the various organs and a thorough nutrition of all, while yet we may for a moment confine our attention to the purely industrial or economic part of the question. How, if at all, does the principle of equality or of social justice enter the problem? ”

“ In any case, social legislation is not to be justified by any but the most general abstract principle,—the attainment of the best social result. The best test of social protective laws is their contribution to a higher independence and to a freer competition on a higher, more worthy, and more humane plane. ”

“ In primitive society legislation as a source of law had little or no place, custom and usage supplying whatever rules were found to be necessary for the regulation of the common affairs of the community. ”

“ There is no group of (let us say) ethical institutions answering to domestic, industrial or professional institutions. Social control, as I shall show, is exercised through all kinds of instruments in turn—through religious, governmental and professional organizations, through amorphous masses of people, through individuals and through super-organic products, such as folk-lore, tradition, ceremonial poetry and works of art. A classification, therefore, according to the institution, organ or agency by which control is exercised will not be satisfactory. ”

“ The state is for him the complex of those social relations out of which rights arise, so far as those rights have come to be regulated and harmonised according to a general law, which is recognised by a certain multitude of persons, and which there is sufficient power to secure against violation from without and from within. The other forms of community which precede and are independent of the formation of the state, do not continue to exist outside it, nor yet are they superseded by it. ”

“ The laws which regulate this relation bear the name of political laws, and are also called fundamental laws, not without reason if they are wise. For, if there is, in each State, only one good system, the people that is in possession of it should hold fast to this; but if the established order is bad, why should laws that prevent men from being good be regarded as fundamental? ”

“ Now the same principles, actuated by the same kind of love, should be at the bottom of all social government. I believe that we shall be better able in practice to place wise limits to interference by regulating and enlightening the animus which prompts it, than by laying down rules for its action determined upon abstract considerations. ”

“ The doctrine, however, that institutions must in the course of generations slowly change to conform to social conditions and social forces, according to the mature convictions of great masses of men, is a very different thing from the notion that rights and duties should be at the sport of all the crude notions which, from time to time, may gain the assent of even an important group of the population. ”

“ Equality of rights, duties and responsibilities of the people in conformity with uniform constitutionality and legality; Solidarity and cooperation of the working people and working organizations, their interest and their unrestricted initiative in developing production and other social and personal activities in behalf of man and his social community; Economic and social security of man. ”

“ A higher authority might, in certain cases, order societies to be dissolved. These provisions related to voluntary societies; but it was competent for communal authorities also to order the formation of a friendly society, and to make a regulation compelling all workmen not already members of a society to join it. ”

“ The state is construed to be a mechanism of public service, operated by the Body Politic, and the actual regulation and regimentation of society is accomplished by natural socio-economic laws which, of course, are both universal and unavoidable.
"We pride ourselves on the high status of the individual in comparison to the barely-tolerable existence of the state. ”

“ To understand this progress as necessary we must consider not so much the motives for the establishment of the body politic, as the forms it assumes in actuality, and the faults that necessarily attend it: for the flaws which make social institutions necessary are the same as make the abuse of them unavoidable. ”

“ Consequently, the first point I want you to remember is that “law and order” are there to preserve certain relationships in the conduct of society, and that these relationships are conserved by those who control society, and who are utterly indifferent as to the injurious manner in which they operate upon the working class. There is the first force you come up against in your examination of how society is regulated, and how its affairs are conducted. ”