ABSTRACT
The distinct nature of the two principles, the tribe-state and the tribe-nation, is as essential for the appreciation of the political and cultural troubles of the modern world as it is important for the understanding of the nature of democracy and of freedom. It is the freedom of nationhood and the oppression of nationalities which since the French Revolution has been the dominant principle of political unrest, agitation, and warfare in the western world. The beginnings of the tribe-state indeed probably took place through the formation of a local group within the tribe-nation, for the purpose of the co-ordination of institutional interests, policing, defense and aggression. The formation of the tribe-state brought about the effective abolition of internal discord, replacing internal feuds by the decisions of organized authority; it was probably the result of a long evolutionary process, through the working of internal forces within the small groups in the tribe.
