arance of impartiality
so that its citizens may enjoy for a while a sense of the reality of
their private game, it must on the whole make the rules in its own
interest. It must help those men to win who are most capable of using
their winnings for the benefit of society.

III

CONSTRUCTIVE DISCRIMINATION

Assuming, then, that a democracy cannot avoid the constant assertion of
national responsibility for the national welfare, an all-important
question remains as to the way in which and the purpose for which this
interference should be exercised. Should it be exercised on behalf of
individual liberty? Should it be exercised on behalf of social equality?
Is there any way in which it can be exercised on behalf both of liberty
and equality?

Hamilton and the constitutional liberals asserted that the state should
interfere exclusively on behalf of individual liberty; but Hamilton was
no democrat and was not outlining the policy of a democratic state. In
point of fact democracies have never been satisfied with a definition of
democratic policy in terms of liberty. Not only have the particular
friends of liberty usually been hostile to democracy, but democracies
both in idea and behavior have frequently been hostile to liberty; and
they have been justified in distrusting a political regime organized
wholly or even chiefly for its benefit. "La Liberte," says Mr. Emile
Faguet, in the preface to his "Politiques et Moralistes du Dix-Neuvieme
Siecle"--"La Liberte s'oppose a l'Egalite, car La Liberte est
aristocratique par essence. La Liberte ne se donne jamais, ne s'octroie
jamais; elle se conquiert. Or ne peuvent la conquerir que des groupes
sociaux qui out su se donne la coherence, l'organisation et la
discipline et qui par consequent, sont des groupes aristocratiques."
The fact that states organized exclusively or largely for the benefit
of liberty are essentially aristocratic explains the hostile and
suspicious attitude of democracies towards such a principle of political
action.

Only a comparatively small minority are capable at any one time of
exercising political, economic, and civil liberties in an able,
efficient, or thoroughly worthy manner; and a regime wrought for the
benefit of such a minority would become at best a state, in which
economic, political, and social power would be very unevenly
distributed--a state like the Orleans Monarchy in France of the
"Bourgeoisie" and the "Intellectuals." Such a state migh