Masao Maruyama
When analyzing general issues of a theoretic nature, Japanese theorists – whether philosophers, sociologists or political scientists – usually view the problems through the prism of their own country, its history and culture. (Western theorists do likewise, though.) Masao Maruyama is a sociologist of a different type. Even though he wrote a lot about Japan, about its peculiarities and specificity, whenever he touched on some aspects of theory in social sciences, he appeared as a theorist thoroughly conversant with all the world’s scientific literature, including mastery of the dialectical method (an extremely rare ability among Western bourgeois scholars!) In 1953 he wrote an article for a dictionary of political science titled "Some Problems of Political Power»”; it was later inserted as Chapter 9 in one of his books.[33] Maruyama’s views on this issue differ from those of Western sociologists – even the ones who wrote on this topic 50 years after him.
He begins by pointing out clearly that “political power” is one of the types of social power. It has to be distinguished, however, from blind physical force (р. 268). The latter warning is due, I think, to the fact that in Maruyama’s years Spencer’s ideas were still popular, and those practically reduced all these powers to one phenomenon (which we shall revisit). Maruyama didn’t deny, though, certain possible analogies of political processes to processes of the physical type. For example, the law of inertia is in effect when revolutionary forces try to influence social stagnation or when repressive forces act against unexpected social changes. Analogies may also suggest themselves with the fact that force means quantity of mass and acceleration, and traditional leaders feel instinctively the necessity to use restraining springs to avoid the actions of unexpected forces. Still, one should realize that forces in society differ from physical forces.
In Maruyama’s conception power is defined as a substantive concept which is inherent to man or a group of people. In other words, he regards power as substance, as power in itself, definite and immutable, backed by external manifestations of power’s specific properties. There also exists, however, a view of force as interaction under specific circumstances; this view is called the relational or functional concept.
Maruyama points out with perfect justification that approaches in themselves depend on the authors’ political ideologies, which are in turn historical. In his opinion, the substantive conception prevails in countries with stable regimes where class and social mobility is practically absent. Whereas the functional conception prevails in those countries where there is no monopoly of power, where communications are well developed and social groups emerge spontaneously, and mutual control is performed between them on a regular basis. These things are characteristic, of course, of the countries of Western Europe which gravitate toward democracy and constitutionalism; it was for a reason that this conception was presented in Locke’s work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Book 2, chapter 21).
The second conception reflects objectively the realities which emerged as early as the stage of division of labor in primeval society; it emphasizes the organization itself as a “system” abstracted from individuals’ interpersonal processes. The form of man’s self-alienation originates in that same stage. Engels offered a classical analysis of this process as he described the process of communal authority’s transformation into the ruling class and the emergence of puissance publique (public authority). The development of society led ultimately to this: system, organization, authority and power all became substances.
Unlike his Western colleagues, Maruyama shows the historicity of the emergence of this kind of conception, and, most importantly, its necessity in certain time periods or in certain countries depending on the concrete situation.
At the same time any power is reliance on someone against someone else. To what purpose should someone support it, and to what purpose it should be directed against someone? Maruyama tied power perfectly justifiably to “values” accepted by those over whom this very power is exercised. And this is particularly important: “It changes as they change (the values).” (р. 272) For example, the image of power – false or true, no matter – can determine the power relations themselves both in the international arena and in domestic politics. In this connection, in particular, the loss of prestige often has a colossal impact on power, even if neither the economic parameters nor the military potential have changed. (This approach would certainly not appeal to Bierstedt.) As for values – we shall revisit the topic.
It makes sense at this point to pay attention to Maruyama’s curious observation about the reasons why the substantive concept became established in Marxism-Leninism. He writes: “Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century, which produced Marxism, and Russia at the beginning of twentieth century, in which Marxism developed into Leninism, were just at the stage of the ‘eruption of classes’ following the disintegration of the aristocracy; they had yet to experience the amorphous condition of mass society. This left a definite stamp on their categories of thought.” (р. 274)
These “thoughts” were about how to wrestle power from the class enemy and how to bring order to the amorphous societies after seizing power. Hence the emphasis on a strong state, on the authoritarian type of regime; this emphasis inevitably becomes established in the legislative system. Curiously, Maruyama himself was quite amazed that on the theoretical level Marxism explained perfectly well the historical forms of power, while in practice it followed other views - the politico-technical kind, not abstracted in theory - and there appears to be no correlation between the two. Even though Maruyama was well acquainted with the theory of Marxism, he lost sight at some point of Lenin’s expression: Marxism is not a dogma, it is a guide for action. The state created by the Bolsheviks within the bounds of Russia had no analogies either in the existing world or in the past. That, however, is a digression from the topic.
So power correlates to the “values” accepted by society. What are these “values”?
The ancient Chinese had a simple answer: “the power over life, death, and property.” The physical security of any life has been the fundamental value which mankind has been protecting throughout the centuries. Hence the control over people’s actions manifested itself as possibilities to deprive people of this fundamental value (through killing, incarceration or other punishment). “Thus of latent tendency of all power is to organize the physical means of coercion or violence.” (р. 276) However, as Maruyama notes, even violence retreated before that firm conviction: liberty or death.
Maruyama lists social values, for example a certain level of well-being. He also notes that to some people material values may prove less significant than such nonmaterial things as respect, love, reputation, authority and other such values. He argues with Harold Lasswell about the ranking of values (which is more valuable?). This is not important, though; what’s important in this case is that power itself becomes a value, since it makes possible to realize all other values. Hence the struggle for power is justified.
I will not delve here into Maruyama’s detailed reasoning about forms of power, on the subject of why communists prefer one type of authority while democrats prefer another – these are topics for political science. What is important to us is that Maruyama linked power to values and showed that power governs these values and controls them. However, he did not answer the question: why did these values become values? And why is power so closely interconnected with them? I think that he didn’t ask himself this question, since his analysis, same as the analysis of the scholars listed before him, was built within the framework of sociology; sociologists have other tasks. The task of my research is to answer the question: what is power in society, and how is it related to progress?