Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

without any thought as to whether it is „just or unjust, mild or cruel, praiseworthy or blameworthy.“
The principle of „reason of state“ (ragione di stato) demands that everything that
serves power must be carried through to its logical conclusion. The more a prince is able to
play the sly fox, i.e., the better he masters the art „of presenting himself ‘as if’ and presenting
himself ‘as if not’, the more his means will be considered by all to be honorable and praiseworthy“;
for only appearance and success impress the rabble, „and in the world there is only
rabble.“ 3
b) The ‘ideology of power’ has been taken up by modern sociologists. Thus, for example,
Franz Oppenheimer (Der Staat, l923), explains that to the two primal forces which impel all
life onwards and upwards, hunger (self-preservation) and love (preservation of the species), a
third was added in the earliest social structures: the drive for recognition and power. Man then
realized that power presupposes wealth and that one can acquire earthly goods in two ways:
either through one’s own work and thus through an economical means of acquisition, or
through the violent appropriation of another’s work, i.e., through a political means of acquisition.
The farming tribes that lived in the fruitful lowlands availed themselves of their own
work for their sustenance; the warlike herdsman dwelling on the pasture lands, however, preferred
to make use of the ‘political means’ by descending upon the indigenous farmers, robbing
them, and killing them. „The mainspring of all history“ and the „originating cause of all
states“ is the „opposition between farmers and herdsmen, between workers and robbers, between
lowlands and pasture lands.“ The first stage is robbery and murder: „The smaller, but
tight and mobile force (of the herdsmen) is almost always victorious over the larger, splintered
mass (of the farmers), as is the panther over the buffalo.“ But it soon begins to dawn
upon the wild herdsmen that a slain farmer can no longer plow and sow. They then allow him
to live and even defend him against other nomadic tribes: „From the two original ethnic
groups, who are different in blood and often enough different in language and different in
race“, there comes to be „one people with one language, one set of mores, and one national
feeling.“ The two groups „penetrate each other, mix with one another, and fuse in customs
and mores, language and worship, into a single unity.“ That is the development „of the formation
of the state in every sense.“
c) Leopold von Wiese sets out from similar considerations. Following Vojtech Tuka, he distinguishes
the „carnine“ (Latin: caro) and the „domine“ (Latin: domus) social systems. At the
early stage of „carninity,“ blood relation was an „adequate cement within the clan and tribe.“
The „possibility of a longer existence for a system approaching the pure type of the carnine
order“ was, however, only slight, since this system could maintain itself only „in spatial isolation
and with slight population increase.“ War must be designated as the „most important disintegrating
factor“: „robbery, conquest, fighting on all sides.“ At first, the victors exterminated
the vanquished, but soon recognized that it is more advantageous to force the defeated
into their service. From this kind of warfare there arose ‘the office of chieftain’, the kingship,
and thus the state. The ruler bestowed plots of land upon his followers at arms, and in this
way „the firmly established house of stone or wood“ become the centre of the „domine“ social
system. 4
d) The Marxist-Bolshevist theory of the state rests upon a power-ideology interpretation
mixed with historical materialism. After the period of primitive communism, it is explained,
the state arose simultaneously with private property as the instrument of suppression and exploitation
of the oppressed classes. After the victory of socialism, the state will at first continue
to exist as the „dictatorship of the proletariat,“ which, according to Lenin, „is an iron
3 Il Principe, chap. 18.
4 L. v. Wiese, Gesellschaftliche Stände und Klassen (Munich, 1950), 12ff.
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