Development of the State

71:4.1Eco­nomics, so­ci­ety, and gov­ern­ment must evolve if they are to re­main. Static con­di­tions on an evo­lu­tion­ary world are in­dica­tive of de­cay; only those in­sti­tu­tions which move for­ward with the evo­lu­tion­ary stream per­sist.

71:4.2The pro­gres­sive pro­gram of an ex­pand­ing civ­i­liza­tion em­braces:

71:4.31. Preser­va­tion of in­di­vid­ual lib­er­ties.

71:4.42. Pro­tec­tion of the home.

71:4.53. Pro­mo­tion of eco­nomic se­cu­rity.

71:4.64. Pre­ven­tion of dis­ease.

71:4.75. Com­pul­sory ed­u­ca­tion.

71:4.86. Com­pul­sory em­ploy­ment.

71:4.97. Prof­itable uti­liza­tion of leisure.

71:4.108. Care of the un­for­tu­nate.

71:4.119. Race im­prove­ment.

71:4.1210. Pro­mo­tion of sci­ence and art.

71:4.1311. Pro­mo­tion of phi­los­o­phy—wis­dom.

71:4.1412. Aug­men­ta­tion of cos­mic in­sight—spir­i­tu­al­ity.

71:4.15And this prog­ress in the arts of civ­i­liza­tion leads di­rectly to the re­al­iza­tion of the high­est hu­man and di­vine goals of mor­tal en­deavor—the so­cial achieve­ment of the broth­er­hood of man and the per­sonal sta­tus of God-con­scious­ness, which be­comes re­vealed in the su­preme de­sire of ev­ery in­di­vid­ual to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

71:4.16The ap­pear­ance of gen­uine broth­er­hood sig­ni­fies that a so­cial or­der has ar­rived in which all men de­light in bear­ing one an­other’s bur­dens; they ac­tu­ally de­sire to prac­tice the golden rule. But such an ideal so­ci­ety can­not be re­al­ized when ei­ther the weak or the wicked lie in wait to take un­fair and un­holy ad­van­tage of those who are chiefly ac­tu­ated by de­vo­tion to the ser­vice of truth, beauty, and good­ness. In such a sit­u­a­tion only one course is prac­ti­cal: The “golden rulers” may es­tab­lish a pro­gres­sive so­ci­ety in which they live ac­cord­ing to their ide­als while main­tain­ing an ad­e­quate de­fense against their be­nighted fel­lows who might seek ei­ther to ex­ploit their pa­cific predilec­tions or to de­stroy their ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion.

71:4.17Ide­al­ism can never sur­vive on an evolv­ing planet if the ide­al­ists in each gen­er­a­tion per­mit them­selves to be ex­ter­mi­nated by the baser or­ders of hu­man­ity. And here is the great test of ide­al­ism: Can an ad­vanced so­ci­ety main­tain that mil­i­tary pre­pared­ness which ren­ders it se­cure from all at­tack by its war-lov­ing neigh­bors with­out yield­ing to the temp­ta­tion to em­ploy this mil­i­tary strength in of­fen­sive op­er­a­tions against other peo­ples for pur­poses of self­ish gain or na­tional ag­gran­dize­ment? Na­tional sur­vival de­mands pre­pared­ness, and re­li­gious ide­al­ism alone can pre­vent the pros­ti­tu­tion of pre­pared­ness into ag­gres­sion. Only love, broth­er­hood, can pre­vent the strong from op­press­ing the weak.