Authority and the Individual was published by Allen and Unwin in 1949, based on the first series of BBC Reith Lectures delivered by Russell in late 1948. The six lectures address the fundamental political question: how can societies maintain the cohesion and order necessary for survival while preserving the individual freedom necessary for happiness and progress?
Russell traces the tension through history: from small tribal societies (which demanded conformity but offered emotional security), through the classical and medieval periods (which developed increasingly complex structures of authority), to the modern industrial state (which combines unprecedented material prosperity with unprecedented demands for standardized behavior). His argument is that modernity has solved the problem of order — modern states rarely collapse into anarchy — but has intensified the problem of freedom: bureaucratic organization, mass production, and mass media all tend toward uniformity, and the creative individual (the artist, the scientist, the reformer) finds fewer and fewer spaces in which to operate.
Russell’s prescriptions are characteristically liberal in the classical sense: decentralization of power, tolerance of eccentricity, support for the arts and sciences, and the recognition that a society that suppresses individuality may gain short-term efficiency but loses long-term adaptability. He is suspicious of all large-scale organizations — governments, corporations, churches — and argues that the best society is one in which power is distributed widely and in which no single institution can dominate the whole of life.
Collecting Authority and the Individual
First edition (Allen and Unwin, London, 1949): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $50–$150
- Very good: $20–$50