John Dewey

The creation of adequately flexible and responsive political and legal machinery has so far been beyond the wit of man.

An epoch in which the needs of a newly forming public are counteracted by established forms of the state is one in which there is increasing disparagement and disregard of the state.

And direct action is taken by many other interests than those which employ “direct action” as a slogan, often most energetically by intrenched class-interests which profess the greatest reverence for the established “law and order” of the…

By its very nature, a state is ever something to be scrutinized, investigated, searched for.

Almost as soon as its form is stabilized, it needs to be re-made.

It is a practical problem of human beings living in association with one another, of mankind generically.

It demands power to perceive and recognize the consequences of the behavior of individuals joined in groups and to trace them to their source and origin.

It involves selection of persons to serve as representatives of the interests created by these perceived consequences and to define the functions which they shall possess and employ.

It requires institution of a government such that those having the renown and power which goes with the exercise of these functions shall employ them for the public and not turn them to their own private benefit.

Only the exigencies of a rigid philosophy can lead us to suppose that there is some one form or idea of The State which these protean historic states have realized in various degrees of perfection.

The only statement which can be made is a purely formal one: the state is the organization of the public effected through officials for the protection of the interests shared by its members.

If one wishes to realize the distance which may lie between “facts” and the meaning of facts, let one go to the field of social discussion.