Franz Oppenheimer
The State
Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664590695
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I THEORIES OF THE STATE
THE SOCIOLOGICAL IDEA OF THE STATE
CHAPTER II THE GENESIS OF THE STATE
(a) POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC MEANS
(b) PEOPLES WITHOUT A STATE: HUNTSMEN AND GRUBBERS
(c) PEOPLES PRECEDING THE STATE: HERDSMEN AND VIKINGS
CHAPTER III THE PRIMITIVE FEUDAL STATE
(c) THE DIFFERENTIATION: GROUP THEORIES AND GROUP PSYCHOLOGY
(d) THE PRIMITIVE FEUDAL STATE OF HIGHER GRADE
(a) TRAFFIC IN PREHISTORIC TIMES
(b) TRADE AND THE PRIMITIVE STATE
(c) THE GENESIS OF THE MARITIME STATE
(d) ESSENCE AND ISSUE OF THE MARITIME STATES
CHAPTER V THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEUDAL STATE
(a) THE GENESIS OF LANDED PROPERTY
(b) THE CENTRAL POWER IN THE PRIMITIVE FEUDAL STATE
(c) THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DISINTEGRATION OF THE PRIMITIVE FEUDAL STATE
(e) THE DEVELOPED FEUDAL STATE
CHAPTER VI THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATE
(a) THE EMANCIPATION OF THE PEASANTRY
(b) THE GENESIS OF THE INDUSTRIAL STATE
(c) THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY ECONOMY
(d) THE MODERN CONSTITUTIONAL STATE
CHAPTER VII THE TENDENCY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE
THE STATE
CHAPTER I
THEORIES OF THE STATE
This treatise regards the State from the sociological standpoint only, not from the juristic—sociology, as I understand the word, being both a philosophy of history and a theory of economics. Our object is to trace the development of the State from its socio-psychological genesis up to its modern constitutional form; after that, we shall endeavor to present a well-founded prognosis concerning its future development. Since we shall trace only the State’s inner, essential being, we need not concern ourselves with the external forms of law under which its international and intra-national life is assumed. This treatise, in short, is a contribution to the philosophy of State development; but only in so far as the law of development here traced from its generic form affects also the social problems common to all forms of the modern State.
With this limitation of treatment in mind, we may at the outset dismiss all received doctrines of public law. Even a cursory examination of conventional theories of the State is sufficient to show that they furnish no explanation of its genesis, essence and purpose. These theories represent all possible shadings between all imaginable extremes. Rousseau derives the State from a social contract, while Carey ascribes its origin to a band of robbers. Plato and the followers of Karl Marx endow the State with omnipotence, making it the absolute lord over the citizen in all political and economic matters; while Plato even goes so far as to wish the State to regulate sexual relations. The Manchester school, on the other hand, going to the opposite extreme of liberalism, would have the State exercise only needful police functions, and would thus logically have as a result a scientific anarchism which must utterly exterminate the State. From these various and conflicting views, it is impossible either to establish a fixed principle, or to formulate a satisfactory concept of the real essence of the State.
This irreconcilable conflict of theories is easily explained by the fact that none of the conventional theories treats the State from the sociological view-point. Nevertheless, the State is a phenomenon common to all history, and its essential nature can only be made plain by a broad and comprehensive study of universal history. Except in the field of sociology, the king’s highway of science, no treatment of the State has heretofore taken this path. All previous theories of the State have been