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Jose Ortega Y Gassett, The Revolt Of The Masses
CHAPTER XIII: THE GREATEST DANGER, THE STATE
Page 4
As the State is a matter of technique- of public order and administration- the "ancien regime" reaches the end of the XVIIIth Century with a very weak State, harassed on all sides by a widespread social revolt. The disproportion between State power and social power at this time is such that comparing the situation then with that of the time of Charlemagne, the XVIIIth-Century State appears degenerate. The Carolingian State was of course much less powerful than the State of Louis XVI, but, on the other hand, the society surrounding it was entirely lacking in strength.[4] The enormous disproportion between social strength and the strength of public power made possible the Revolution, the revolutions- up to 1848.
[4]It would be worth while insisting on this point and making clear that the epoch of absolute monarchies in Europe has coincided with very weak States. How is this to be explained? Why, if the State was all-powerful, "absolute," did it not make itself stronger? One of the causes is that indicated, the incapacity- technical, organising, bureaucratic- of the aristocracies of blood. But this is not enough. Besides that, it also happened that the absolute State and those aristocracies did not want to aggrandise the State at the expense of society in general. Contrary to the common belief, the absolute State instinctively respects society much more than our democratic State, which is more intelligent but has less sense of historic responsibility.
But with the Revolution the middle class took possession of public power and applied their undeniable qualities to the State, and in little more than a generation created a powerful State, which brought revolutions to an end. Since 1848, that is to say, since the beginning of the second generation of bourgeois governments, there have been no genuine revolutions in Europe. Not assuredly because there were no motives for them, but because there were no means. Public power was brought to the level of social power. Good-bye for ever to Revolutions! The only thing now possible in Europe is their opposite: the coup d'etat. Everything which in following years tried to look like a revolution was only a coup d'etat in disguise. In our days the State has come to be a formidable machine which works in marvellous fashion; of wonderful efficiency by reason of the quantity and precision of its means. Once it is set up in the midst of society, it is enough to touch a button for its enormous levers to start working and exercise their overwhelming power on any portion whatever of the social framework.