But, by a
curious coincidence, hardly had it reached full development when the social body
began to decay. Already in the
times of the Antonines (IInd Century), the State overbears society with its
anti-vital supremacy. Society begins to be enslaved, to be unable to live except
in the service of the State. The whole of life is bureaucratised. What results?
The bureaucratisation of life brings about its absolute decay in all orders.
Wealth diminishes, births are few. Then the State, in order to attend to its own
needs, forces on still more the bureaucratisation of human existence. This
bureaucratisation to the second power is the militarisation of society. The
State's most urgent need is its apparatus of war, its army. Before all the State
is the producer of security (that security, be it remembered, of which the
mass-man is born). Hence, above all, an army. The Severi, of African origin,
militarise the world. Vain task! Misery increases, women are every day less
fruitful, even soldiers are lacking. After the time of the Severi, the army has
to be recruited from foreigners. Is the paradoxical, tragic process of Statism now realised?
Society, that it may live better, creates the State as an instrument. Then the
State gets the upper hand and society has to begin to live for the State.[5] But for all that the State is still composed of the members of that
society. But soon these do not suffice to support it, and it has to call in
foreigners: first Dalmatians, then Germans. These foreigners take possession of
the State, and the rest of society, the former populace, has to live as their
slaves- slaves of people with whom they have nothing in common. This is what
State intervention leads to: the people are converted into fuel to feed the mere
machine which is the State. The skeleton eats up the flesh around it. The
scaffolding becomes the owner and tenant of the house.
[5]Recall the
last words of Septimus Severus to his sons: "Remain united, pay the
soldiers, and take no heed of the rest."
