Rousseau. Hegel. Hall.

As soon as the act of association becomes reality, it substitutes for the person of each of the contracting parties a moral and collective body made up of as many members as the constituting assembly has votes, which body receives from this very act of constitution its unity, its dispersed self, and its will. The public person thus formed by the union of individuals was known in the old days as a City, but now as the Republic or Body Politic. This, when it fulfils a passive role, is known by its members as The State, when an active one, as The Sovereign People, and, in contrast to other similar bodies, as a Power. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract: The Act of Association, 1762.

In the history of the World, only those peoples can come under our notice which form a state. For it must be understood that this latter is the realisation of Freedom, i.e. of the absolute final aim, and that it exists for its own sake. It must further be understood that all the worth which the human being possesses – all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State. Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Berlin, 1823-1831.

Is American decline, such as it has been, the result of traditional factors, or does it rather result from the provisions of services for capitalist society as a whole?

Theorists of decline occasionally give the impression that the United States once could do as it wished, but now is more or less impotent. The image of a [U.S.] golden age is much exaggerated.

Democracy is a resource quite as much as a stumbling block, at least for an intelligent and determined elite. This suggests a final factor whose impact is improperly understood but of undoubted importance.

During the Second World War something like a political class was created in the United States. If this class was at times constrained by the popular passions it had itself in part aroused and by the institutional surroundings in which it had to work, its fundamental unity meant that it could, when it acted skilfully, have its way most of the time; a determined political elite could still succeed in most of the tasks it set itself. John A. Hall, Will the United States Decline as did Britain? in The Rise and Decline of the Nation State, edited by Michael Mann, 1990.