Functional socialism

CHAPTER III STATUS

As far into the past as the memory of man runneth, to the days of the most rudimentary forms of society, and in all civilizations, the active spirits have sought escape from status, from that fixed and seemingly unchangeable relation of man to man, imposed either by custom or by law. Indeed, what is statutory law if it be not the constant readaptation of status to new conditions? For, even though it apparently deals with rules and principles, mainly relating to propetty, it is a command to every individual at his peril to fit himself into the legal framework ordained by authority. The effect of this is that status becomes a class definition. It finds clearest expression in military peoples: becomes obligatory to the point of death in war: persists in the memory or threat of war. Even in the East, where the war mentality is largely superseded by the caste system, itself an obvious form of status, there have been those who dreamed of caste or status as a factor in the struggle for equality and fellowship.

MODERN HIERARCHIES

In our own day and generation State service is