Comparative Federalism

Modem societies, - like organized societies of all eras, - suffer from antithetical aspirations, from competing institutionalizations of that which is desirable, and that which, though unwelcome, is inevitable. Men clearly see the advantages of localism, of the self determination of small peoples, of l' amour du chocher uninhibited by imperial sovereign- ty. At the same time men everywhere are seeing the clear necessity of bigness in organization of national effort. When the question is military organization no one has much doubt that strength derives from power- ful union. The Swiss, to be sure, have continued independent not because of their power, but because of the convenience of their in- dependent existence. In a world-society of titans, there must be members who are small, respected, independent and unfeared, available to be intermediaries. If Switzerland did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent her. But the power centers are those with the big battalions and the megatons of bombs; both demand great aggregates. Tomorrow's military power structure is calculated in the hundreds of millions of people. The world will afford only a few Switzerlands. The drive toward bigness is as inevitable in the economic world as in that of destructive machines. Economic problems in the next century, and in the next after it, will require the concentrated re- sources of the nations; we must produce adequate food for the billions, or else billions will war against billions.