A State Is Born
tioning of a successful State, that is, in surrounding the kingship with a supporting caste of "mighty men," analogous to what we would today call a privileged class, and with a group of efficient "servants" whose functions corresponded with those of latter-day bureaucrats. In that way he facilitated the consolidation of power under Solomon.
The Saul-David-Solomon story is illustrative of the gestation of the State. At first, an aspiring chieftain fights his way to ascendancy as a lone wolf, knocking off rivals, and concentrates in himself all the power he can lay his hands on. This method has merit only insofar as the area of his sovereignty is limited to personal supervision. But it proves to be quite inefficacious, and moreover quite precarious. As his quest for power reaches beyond his purview, as it always does, he finds it necessary to delegate some of his power to and share his prerogatives with a supporting oligarchy—military, ecclesiastical (or intellectual) and, in time, commercial or industrial groups which lend themselves to his purpose in return for the special privileges he grants them. They serve as a moat to his castle. In addition to these favored blocs he must surround his citadel with a class of well-paid "servants" skilled in taking care of the details of sovereignty so that it can function with the least amount of friction.
The State is not, as many political scientists would make it, an inanimate thing; it consists of people, human beings, each of whom operates under an inner compulsion to get the most out of life with the least expenditure of labor. They differ from other human beings only in the fact that they have chosen (because they believe it to be easier) the political or predatory means of satisfying their desires rather than the economic or productive means. The fiction that the State is
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