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Editor's Introduction To:
Constitution For Utopia

John W. Campbell, Jr.

 

The late John W. Campbell, Jr. dominated science fiction for thirty years. More: he influenced the thinking of a generation of readers and writers both through his story selections and editorials. Trained largely as an engineer, Campbell had boundless faith in rational thought and the ability of the human race to act rationally.

He also believed that his editorials spoke to the potential leadership of the world. He was right, of course: many of the best and brightest did read Astounding Science Fiction. Most of them were technically oriented, and went to engineering schools rather than liberal arts, but that wouldn't have disturbed Campbell a bit. As far as he was concerned, the engineers were the truly important people of the West, and if they would only organize, something might come of that.

 

Mankind has been drawing up pictures of The Good Society for five thousand years. Plato's Republic attempts to define the harmonious state, and Plato wasn't the first to try it. Since him there have been literally thousands of others: intellectuals such as Michael Harrington and Marseglio of Padua; dried-out old lizards sunning themselves in Santa Barbara as they rewrite the Constitution of the United States; poets such as Dante; experienced statesmen such as Machiavelli and Sir Thomas More; irresponsible literary gadflies such as Jean Jacques Rousseau.

Given all that talent focused on the question, one might think there is little new to say, but that never daunted Campbell, who rejects most of what has been written before, then turns Acton's dictum about power on its head.

In effect, Campbell says that the form of government doesn't matter: monarchy, aristocracy, empire, republic, democracy—all will work if the rulers are wise and benevolent; none will if they are not.

The key, according to Campbell, is that whoever governs must be responsible. It is not absolute power that corrupts, it is absolute immunity from the consequences of abusing that power that turns one into a Kurtz or a Stalin.

 

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