George Walford: Leviathan

One of these illustrations shows the masses constituting the state, personified in the figure of the monarch. The other shows them constituting a power which smashes the state, personified in a member of what is commonly called the ruling class.

They are separated by three centuries which have seen the introduction of universal franchise, general literacy, universal compulsory education, mass communications, automation, computers, mechanised transport, aviation, the world-wide spread of industrial capitalism, the appearance of socialist, communist and anarchist movements and revolutions in some of the most powerful states.

After all these changes in the conditions of life, which illustration best represents the mental attitudes of the mass of British people today? What does this say about the theory that it is the conditions of life which fundamentally determine mental attitudes?

from Ideological Commentary 38, March 1989.