,,the ,,phantom ,,public ,,by ,,walter ,,lippmann ,,new ,,york ,,harcourt1 ,,brace ,,and ,,company ,,copyright1 #aibe1 ,,by ,,harcourt1 ,,brace ,,and ,,company1 ,,inc4 ,printed in the ,u4 ,s4 ,a4 ,,to ,,learned ,,hand 8,the ,voice of the ,people has been said to be the voice of ,god3 and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed1 it is not true in fact40--,alexander ,hamilton1 ,june #ah1 #aghg1 at the ,federal ,convention 7,yates's notes1 cited ,sources and ,documents ,illustrating the ,american ,revolution1 edited by ,s4 ,g4 ,morison74 8444 consider #8,government by ,public ,opinion' as a formula4444 ,it is an admirable formula3 but it presupposes1 not only that public opinion exists1 but that on any particular question there is a public opinion ready to decide the issue4 ,indeed1 it presupposes that the supreme statesman in democratic government is public opinion4 ,many of the shortcomings of democratic government are due to the fact that public opinion is not necessarily a great statesman at all40--,from 8,some ,thoughts on ,public ,life10 a lecture by ,viscount ,grey of ,fallodon1 ,february #c1 #aibc4 ,contents ,,part ,i ,chapter ,page ,i4 ,the ,disenchanted ,man #ac ,,ii4 ,the ,unattainable ,ideal #bb ,,iii4 ,agents and ,bystanders #dj ,,iv4 ,what the ,public ,does #ed ,v4 ,the ,neutralization of ,arbitrary ,force #fc ,,part ,,ii ,,vi4 ,the ,question ,aristotle ,asked #gg ,,vii4 ,the ,nature of a ,problem #ha ,,viii4 ,social ,contracts #ie ,,ix4 ,the ,two ,questions ,before the ,public #ajg ,x4 ,the ,main ,value of ,public ,debate #aaj ,,xi4 ,the ,defective ,rule #aae ,,xii4 ,the ,criteria of ,reform #abe ,,xiii4 ,the ,principles of ,public ,opinion #adc ,,part ,,iii ,,xiv4 ,society in ,its ,place #aee ,,xv4 ,absentee ,rulers #agc ,,xvi4 ,the ,realms of ,disorder #ahg ,index #bja ,,part ,i ,chapter ,i ,,the ,,disenchanted ,,man #a ,the private citizen today has come to feel rather like a deaf spectator in the back row1 who ought to keep his mind on the mystery off there1 but cannot quite manage to keep awake4 ,he knows he is somehow affected by what is going on4 ,rules and regulations continually1 taxes annually and wars occasionally remind him that he is being swept along by great drifts of circumstance4 ,yet these public affairs are in no convincing way his affairs4 ,they are for the most part invisible4 ,they are managed1 if they are managed at all1 at distant centers1 from behind the scenes1 by unnamed powers4 ,as a private person he does not know for certain what is going on1 or who is doing it1 or where he is being carried4 ,no newspaper reports his environment so that he can grasp it2 no school has taught him how to imagine it2 his ideals1 often1 do not fit with it2 listening to speeches1 uttering opinions and voting do not1 he finds1 enable him to govern it4 ,he lives in a world which he cannot see1 does not understand and is unable to direct4 ,in the cold light of experience he knows that his sovereignty is a fiction4 ,he reigns in theory1 but in fact he does not govern4 ,contemplating himself and his actual accomplishments in public affairs1 contrasting the influence he exerts with the influence he is supposed according to democratic theory to exert1 he must say of his sovereignty what ,bismarck said of ,napoleon ,,iii43 8,at a distance it is something1 but close to it is nothing at all40#a ,when1 during an agitation of some sort1 say a political campaign1 he hears himself and some thirty million others described as the source of all wisdom and power and righteousness1 the prime mover and the ultimate goal1 the remnants of sanity in him protest4 ,he cannot all the time play ,chanticleer who was so dazzled and delighted because he himself had caused the sun to rise4 ,for when the private man has lived through the romantic age in politics and is no longer moved by the stale echoes of its hot cries1 when he is sober and unimpressed1 his own part in public affairs appears to him a pretentious thing1 a second rate1 an inconsequential4 ,you cannot move him then with a good straight talk about service and civic duty1 nor by waving a flag in his face1 nor by sending a boy scout after him to make him vote4 ,he is a man back home from a crusade to make the world something or other it did not become2 he has been tantalized too often by the foam of events1 has seen the gas go out of it1 and1 with sour derision for the stuff1 he is saying with the author of ,trivia3#b 8#8,self-determination1' one of them insisted4 8#8,arbitration1' cried another4 8#8,coperation1' suggested the mildest of the party4 8#8,confiscation1' answered an uncompromising female4 8,i1 too1 became intoxicated with the sound of these vocables4 ,and were they not the cure for all our ills8 8#8,inoculation6' ,i chimed in4 #8,transubstantiation1 alliteration1 inundation1 flagellation1 and afforestation6'0 #b ,it is well known that nothing like the whole people takes part in public affairs4 ,of the eligible voters in the ,united ,states less than half go to the polls even in a presidential year4#c ,during the campaign of #aibd a special effort was made to bring out more voters4 ,they did not come out4 ,the ,constitution1 the nation1 the party system1 the presidential succession1 private property1 all were supposed to be in danger4 ,one party prophesied red ruin1 another black corruption1 a third tyranny and imperialism if the voters did not go to the polls in greater numbers4 ,half the citizenship was unmoved4 ,the students used to write books about voting4 ,they are now beginning to write books about nonvoting4 ,at the ,university of ,chicago ,professor ,merriam and ,mr4 ,gosnell have made an elaborate inquiry#d into the reason why1 at the typical ,chicago mayoral election of #aibc1 there were1 out of #a1djj1jjj eligible electors1 only #ijj1jjj who registered1 and out of those who registered there were only #gbc1jjj who finally managed to vote4 ,thousands of persons were interviewed4 ,about #cj per cent of the abstainers had1 or at least claimed to have had1 an insuperable difficulty about going to the polls4 ,they were ill1 they were absent from the city1 they were women detained at home by a child or an invalid1 they had had insufficient legal residence4 ,the other #gj per cent1 representing about half a million free and sovereign citizens of this ,republic1 did not even pretend to have a reason for not voting1 which1 in effect1 was not an admission that they did not care about voting4 ,they were needed at their work1 the polls were crowded1 the polls were inconveniently located1 they were afraid to tell their age1 they did not believe in woman suffrage1 the husband objected1 politics is rotten1 elections are rotten1 they were afraid to vote1 they did not know there was an election4 ,about a quarter of those who were interviewed had the honesty to say they were wholly uninterested4 ,yet ,bryce is authority for the statement that 8the will of the sovereign people is expressed 444 in the ,united ,states 444 by as large a proportion of the registered voters as in any other country40#e ,and certainly ,mr4 ,lowell's tables on the use of the initiative and referendum in ,switzerland in the main support the view that the indifference of the ,american voter is not unique4#f ,in fact1 realistic political thinkers in ,europe long ago abandoned the notion that the collective mass of the people direct the course of public affairs4 ,robert ,michels1 himself a ,socialist1 says flatly that 8the majority is permanently incapable of self-government10#g and quotes approvingly the remark of a ,swedish ,socialist ,deputy1 ,gustaf ,f4 ,steffen1 that 8even after the victory there will always remain in political life the leaders and the led40 ,michels1 who is a political thinker of great penetration1 unburdens himself finally on the subject by printing a remark of ,hertzen's that the victory of an opposition party amounts to 8passing from the sphere of envy to the sphere of avarice40 ,there is then nothing particularly new in the disenchantment which the private citizen expresses by not voting at all1 by voting only for the head of the ticket1 by staying away from the primaries1 by not reading speeches and documents1 by the whole list of sins of omission for which he is denounced4 ,i shall not denounce him further4 ,my sympathies are with him1 for ,i believe that he has been saddled with an impossible task and that he is asked to practice an unattainable ideal4 ,i find it so myself for1 although public business is my main interest and ,i give most of my time to watching it1 ,i cannot find time to do what is expected of me in the theory of democracy2 that is1 to know what is going on and to have an opinion worth expressing on every question which confronts a self-governing community4 ,and ,i have not happened to meet anybody1 from a ,president of the ,united ,states to a professor of political science1 who came anywhere near to embodying the accepted ideal of the sovereign and omnicompetent citizen4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,cited ,philip ,guedalla1 ,the ,second ,empire4 #b ,logan ,pearsall ,smith1 ,more ,trivia1 p4 #da4 #c ,cf4 ,simon ,michelet1 ,stay-at-,home ,vote and ,absentee ,voters1 pamphlet of the ,national ,get ,out the ,vote ,club2 also ,a4 ,m4 ,schlesinger and ,e4 ,m4 ,erickson1 8,the ,vanishing ,voter10 ,new ,republic1 ,oct4 #ae1 #aibd4 ,the percentage of the popular to the eligible vote from #ahfe to #aibj declined from #hc4ea per cent to #eb4cf per cent4 #d ,charles ,edward ,merriam and ,harvey ,foote ,gosnell1 ,non-,voting3 ,causes and ,methods of ,control4 #e ,james ,bryce1 ,modern ,democracies1 ,vol4 ,,ii1 p4 #eb4 #f ,a4 ,lawrence ,lowell1 ,public ,opinion and ,popular ,government4 ,cf4 ,appendices4 #g ,robert ,michels1 ,political ,parties1 p4 #cij4 ,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,unattainable ,,ideal ,i have tried to imagine how the perfect citizen could be produced4 ,some say he will have to be born of the conjunction of the right germ plasms1 and1 in the pages of books written by ,madison ,grant1 ,lothrop ,stoddard and other revivalists1 ,i have seen prescriptions as to just who ought to marry whom to produce a great citizenry4 ,not being a biologist ,i keep an open but hopeful mind on this point1 tempered1 however1 with the knowledge that certainty about how to breed ability in human beings is on the whole in inverse proportion to the writer's scientific reputation4 ,it is then to education that logically one turns next1 for education has furnished the thesis of the last chapter of every optimistic book on democracy written for one hundred and fifty years4 ,even ,robert ,michels1 stern and unbending antisentimentalist that he is1 says in his 8final considerations0 that 8it is the great task of social education to raise the intellectual level of the masses1 so that they may be enabled1 within the limits of what is possible1 to counteract the oligarchical tendencies0 of all collective action4 ,so ,i have been reading some of the new standard textbooks used to teach citizenship in schools and colleges4 ,after reading them ,i do not see how any one can escape the conclusion that man must have the appetite of an encyclopdist and infinite time ahead of him4 ,to be sure he no longer is expected to remember the exact salary of the county clerk and the length of the coroner's term4 ,in the new civics he studies the problems of government1 and not the structural detail4 ,he is told1 in one textbook of five hundred concise1 contentious pages1 which ,i have been reading1 about city problems1 state problems1 national problems1 international problems1 trust problems1 labor problems1 transportation problems1 banking problems1 rural problems1 agricultural problems1 and so on ad infinitum4 ,in the eleven pages devoted to problems of the city there are described twelve sub-problems4 ,but nowhere in this well-meant book is the sovereign citizen of the future given a hint as to how1 while he is earning a living1 rearing children and enjoying his life1 he is to keep himself informed about the progress of this swarming confusion of problems4 ,he is exhorted to conserve the natural resources of the country because they are limited in quantity4 ,he is advised to watch public expenditures because the taxpayers cannot pay out indefinitely increasing amounts4 ,but he1 the voter1 the citizen1 the sovereign1 is apparently expected to yield an unlimited quantity of public spirit1 interest1 curiosity and effort4 ,the author of the textbook1 touching on everything1 as he thinks1 from city sewers to ,indian opium1 misses a decisive fact3 the citizen gives but a little of his time to public affairs1 has but a casual interest in facts and but a poor appetite for theory4 ,it never occurs to this preceptor of civic duty to provide the student with a rule by which he can know whether on ,thursday it is his duty to consider subways in ,brooklyn or the ,manchurian ,railway1 nor how1 if he determines on ,thursday to express his sovereign will on the subway question1 he is to repair those gaps in his knowledge of that question which are due to his having been preoccupied the day before in expressing his sovereign will about rural credits in ,montana and the rights of ,britain in the ,sudan4 ,yet he cannot know all about everything all the time1 and while he is watching one thing a thousand others undergo great changes4 ,unless he can discover some rational ground for fixing his attention where it will do the most good1 and in a way that suits his inherently amateurish equipment1 he will be as bewildered as a puppy trying to lick three bones at once4 ,i do not wish to say that it does the student no good to be taken on a sightseeing tour of the problems of the world4 ,it may teach him that the world is complicated1 even if he comes out of the adventure 8laden with germs1 breathing creeds and convictions on you whenever he opens his mouth40#h ,he may learn humility1 but most certainly his acquaintance with what a high-minded author thought were ,american problems in #aibe will not equip him to master ,american problems ten years later4 ,unless out of the study of transient issues he acquires an intellectual attitude no education has occurred4 ,that is why the usual appeal to education as the remedy for the incompetence of democracy is so barren4 ,it is1 in effect1 a proposal that school teachers shall by some magic of their own fit men to govern after the makers of laws and the preachers of civic ideals have had a free hand in writing the specifications4 ,the reformers do not ask what men can be taught4 ,they say they should be taught whatever may be necessary to fit them to govern the modern world4 ,the usual appeal to education can bring only disappointment4 ,for the problems of the modern world appear and change faster than any set of teachers can grasp them1 much faster than they can convey their substance to a population of children4 ,if the schools attempt to teach children how to solve the problems of the day1 they are bound always to be in arrears4 ,the most they can conceivably attempt is the teaching of a pattern of thought and feeling which will enable the citizen to approach a new problem in some useful fashion4 ,but that pattern cannot be invented by the pedagogue4 ,it is the political theorist's business to trace out that pattern4 ,in that task he must not assume that the mass has political genius1 but that men1 even if they had genius1 would give only a little time and attention to public affairs4 ,the moralist1 ,i am afraid1 will agree all too readily with the idea that social education must deal primarily not with the elements and solutions of particular phases of transient problems but with the principles that constitute an attitude toward all problems4 ,i warn him off4 ,it will require more than a good conscience to govern modern society1 for conscience is no guide in situations where the essence of the difficulty is to find a guide for the conscience4 ,when ,i am tempted to think that men can be fitted out to deal with the modern world simply by teaching morals1 manners and patriotism1 ,i try to remember the fable of the pensive professor walking in the woods at twilight4 ,he stumbled into a tree4 ,this experience compelled him to act4 ,being a man of honor and breeding1 he raised his hat1 bowed deeply to the tree1 and exclaimed with sincere regret3 8,excuse me1 sir1 ,i thought you were a tree40 ,is it fair1 ,i ask1 as a matter of morality1 to chide him for his conduct8 ,if he had encountered a tree1 can any one deny his right to collide with it8 ,if he had stumbled into a man1 was his apology not sufficient8 ,here was a moral code in perfect working order1 and the only questionable aspect of his conduct turned not on the goodness of his heart or the firmness of his principles but on a point of fact4 ,you may retort that he had a moral obligation to know the difference between a man and a tree4 ,perhaps so4 ,but suppose that instead of walking in the woods he had been casting a ballot2 suppose that instead of a tree he had encountered the ,fordney-,mc,cumber tariff4 ,how much more obligation to know the truth would you have imposed on him then8 ,after all1 this walker in the woods at twilight with his mind on other things was facing1 as all of us think we are1 the facts he imagined were there1 and was doing his duty as he had learned it4 ,in some degree the whole animate world seems to share the inexpertness of the thoughtful professor4 ,pawlow showed by his experiments on dogs that an animal with a false stomach can experience all the pleasures of eating1 and the number of mice and monkeys known to have been deceived in laboratories is surpassed only by the hopeful citizens of a democracy4 ,man's reflexes are1 as the psychologists say1 conditioned4 ,and1 therefore1 he responds quite readily to a glass egg1 a decoy duck1 a stuffed shirt or a political platform4 ,no moral code1 as such1 will enable him to know whether he is exercising his moral faculties on a real and an important event4 ,for effective virtue1 as ,socrates pointed out long ago1 is knowledge2 and a code of the right and the wrong must wait upon a perception of the true and the false4 ,but even the successful practice of a moral code would not emancipate democracy4 ,there are too many moral codes4 ,in our immediate lives1 within the boundaries of our own society1 there may be commonly accepted standards4 ,but a political theorist who asks that a local standard be universally applied is merely begging one of the questions he ought to be trying to solve4 ,for1 while possibly it may be an aim of political organization to arrive at a common standard of judgment1 one of the conditions which engenders politics and makes political organization necessary is the conflict of standards4 ,darwin's story of the cats and clover#i may be recommended to any one who finds it difficult to free his mind of the assumption that his notions of good and bad are universal4 ,the purple clover is cross-fertilized by the bumblebee1 and1 therefore1 the more bumblebees the better next year's crop of clover4 ,but the nests of bumblebees are rifled by field mice which are fond of the white grubs4 ,therefore1 the more field mice the fewer bumblebees and the poorer the crop4 ,but in the neighborhood of villages the cats hunt down the field mice4 ,and so the more cats the fewer mice1 the more bumblebees the better the crop4 ,and the more kindly old ladies there are in the village the more cats there will be4 ,if you happen not to be a ,hindu or a vegetarian and are a beef-eating ,occidental you will commend the old ladies who keep the cats who hunt the mice who destroy the bumblebees who make the pasture of clover for the cattle4 ,if you are a cat you also will be in favor of the old ladies4 ,but if you are a field mouse1 how different the rights and wrongs of that section of the universe6 ,the old ladies who keep cats will seem about as kindly as witches with pet tigers1 and the ,old ,lady ,peril will be debated hysterically by the ,field ,mouse ,security ,league4 ,for what could a patriotic mouse think of a world in which bumblebees did not exist for the sole purpose of producing white grubs for field mice8 ,there would seem to be no law and order in such a world2 and only a highly philosophical mouse would admit with ,bergson that 8the idea of disorder objectifies for the convenience of language1 the disappointment of a mind that finds before it an order different from what it wants40#aj ,for the order which we recognize as good is an order suited to our needs and hopes and habits4 ,there is nothing universal or eternal or unchangeable about our expectations4 ,for rhetorical effect we often say there is4 ,but in concrete cases it is not easy to explain why the thing we desire is so righteous4 ,if the farmers are able to buy less than their accustomed amount of manufactured foods there is disorder and a problem4 ,but what absolute standard is there which determines whether a bushel of wheat in #aibe should1 as compared with #aiac1 exchange for more1 as many1 or less manufactures8 ,can any one define a principle which shall say whether the standard of living of the farmers or of any other class should rise or fall1 and how fast and how much8 ,there may be more jobs than workingmen at the wage offered3 the employers will complain and will call it a problem1 but who knows any rule which tells how large a surplus of labor there ought to be and at what price8 ,there may be more workingmen than jobs of the kind and at the places and for the wages they will or can take4 ,but1 although the problem will be acute1 there is no principle which determines how many machinists1 clerks1 coal miners1 bankers1 or salesmen it is the duty of society to provide work for4 ,it requires intense partisanship and much self-deception to argue that some sort of peculiar righteousness adheres to the farmers' claims as against the manufacturers'1 the employers' against the wage-earners'1 the creditors' against the debtors'1 or the other way around4 ,these conflicts of interest are problems4 ,they require solution4 ,but there is no moral pattern available from which the precise nature of the solution can be deduced4 ,if then eugenics cannot produce the ideal democratic citizen1 omnicompetent and sovereign1 because biology knows neither how to breed political excellence nor what that excellence is2 if education cannot equip the citizen1 because the school teacher cannot anticipate the issues of the future2 if morality cannot direct him1 first1 because right or wrong in specific cases depends upon the perception of true or false1 and1 second1 on the assumption that there is a universal moral code1 which1 in fact1 does not exist1 where else shall we look for the method of making the competent citizen8 ,democratic theorists in the nineteenth century had several other prescriptions which still influence the thinking of many hopeful persons4 ,one school based their reforms on the aphorism that the cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy4 ,it was assumed that the popular will was wise and good if only you could get at it4 ,they proposed extensions of the suffrage1 and as much voting as possible by means of the initiative1 referendum and recall1 direct election of ,senators1 direct primaries1 an elected judiciary1 and the like4 ,they begged the question1 for it has never been proved that there exists the kind of public opinion which they presupposed4 ,since the ,bryan campaign of #ahif this school of thought has made great conquests in most of the states1 and has profoundly influenced the federal government4 ,the eligible vote has trebled since #ahif2 the direct action of the voter has been enormously extended4 ,yet that same period has seen a decline in the percentage of the popular vote cast at presidential elections from #hj4ge per cent in #ahif to #eb4cf per cent in #aibj4 ,apparently there is a fallacy in the first assumption of this school that 8the whole people0 desires to participate actively in government4 ,nor is there any evidence to show that the persons who do participate are in any real sense directing the course of affairs4 ,the party machines have survived every attack4 ,and why should they not8 ,if the voter cannot grasp the details of the problems of the day because he has not the time1 the interest or the knowledge1 he will not have a better public opinion because he is asked to express his opinion more often4 ,he will simply be more bewildered1 more bored and more ready to follow along4 ,another school1 calling themselves revolutionary1 have ascribed the disenchantment of democracy to the capitalistic system4 ,they have argued that property is power1 and that until there is as wide a distribution of economic power as there is of the right to vote the suffrage cannot be more effective4 ,no serious student1 ,i think1 would dispute that socialist premise which asserts that the weight of influence on society exercised by an individual is more nearly related to the character of his property than to his abstract legal citizenship4 ,but the socialist conclusion that economic power can be distributed by concentrating the ownership of great utilities in the state1 the conclusion that the pervasion of industrial life by voting and referenda will yield competent popular decisions1 seems to me again to beg the question4 ,for what reason is there to think that subjecting so many more affairs to the method of the vote will reveal hitherto undiscovered wisdom and technical competence and reservoirs of public interest in men8 ,the socialist scheme has at its root the mystical fallacy of democracy1 that the people1 all of them1 are competent2 at its top it suffers from the homeopathic fallacy that adding new tasks to a burden the people will not and cannot carry now will make the burden of citizenship easily borne4 ,the socialist theory presupposes an unceasing1 untiring round of civic duties1 an enormous complication of the political interests that are already much too complicated4 ,these various remedies1 eugenic1 educational1 ethical1 populist and socialist1 all assume that either the voters are inherently competent to direct the course of affairs or that they are making progress toward such an ideal4 ,i think it is a false ideal4 ,i do not mean an undesirable ideal4 ,i mean an unattainable ideal1 bad only in the sense that it is bad for a fat man to try to be a ballet dancer4 ,an ideal should express the true possibilities of its subject4 ,when it does not it perverts the true possibilities4 ,the ideal of the omnicompetent1 sovereign citizen is1 in my opinion1 such a false ideal4 ,it is unattainable4 ,the pursuit of it is misleading4 ,the failure to achieve it has produced the current disenchantment4 ,the individual man does not have opinions on all public affairs4 ,he does not know how to direct public affairs4 ,he does not know what is happening1 why it is happening1 what ought to happen4 ,i cannot imagine how he could know1 and there is not the least reason for thinking1 as mystical democrats have thought1 that the compounding of individual ignorances in masses of people can produce a continuous directing force in public affairs4 ,,footnotes3 #h ,logan ,pearsall ,smith4 #i ,as told by ,j4 ,arthur ,thomson1 ,the ,outline of ,science1 ,vol4 ,,iii1 p4 #fdf4 #aj ,creative ,evolution1 ,ch4 ,,iii4 ,chapter ,,iii ,,agents ,,and ,,bystanders #a ,when a citizen has qualified as a voter he finds himself one of the theoretical rulers of a great going concern4 ,he has not made the complicated machine with its five hundred thousand federal officers and its uncounted local offices4 ,he has not seen much of it4 ,he is bound by contracts1 by debts1 by treaties1 by laws1 made before he was aware of them4 ,he does not from day to day decide who shall do what in the business of government4 ,only some small fraction of it comes intermittently to his notice4 ,and in those episodic moments when he stands in the polling booth he is a highly intelligent and public-spirited voter indeed who can discover two real alternatives and enlist his influence for a party which promises something he can understand4 ,the actual governing is made up of a multitude of arrangements on specific questions by particular individuals4 ,these rarely become visible to the private citizen4 ,government1 in the long intervals between elections1 is carried on by politicians1 officeholders and influential men who make settlements with other politicians1 officeholders and influential men4 ,the mass of people see these settlements1 judge them1 and affect them only now and then4 ,they are altogether too numerous1 too complicated1 too obscure in their effects to become the subject of any continuing exercise of public opinion4 ,nor in any exact and literal sense are those who conduct the daily business of government accountable after the fact to the great mass of the voters4 ,they are accountable only1 except in spectacular cases1 to the other politicians1 officeholders and influential men directly interested in the particular act4 ,modern society is not visible to anybody1 nor intelligible continuously and as a whole4 ,one section is visible to another section1 one series of acts is intelligible to this group and another to that4 ,even this degree of responsible understanding is attainable only by the development of fact-finding agencies of great scope and complexity4#aa ,these agencies give only a remote and incidental assistance to the general public4 ,their findings are too intricate for the casual reader4 ,they are also almost always much too uninteresting4 ,indeed the popular boredom and contempt for the expert and for statistical measurement are such that the organization of intelligence to administer modern affairs would probably be entirely neglected were it not that departments of government1 corporations1 trade unions and trade associations are being compelled by their own internal necessities of administration1 and by compulsion of other corporate groups1 to record their own acts1 measure them1 publish them and stand accountable for them4 ,the need in the ,great ,society not only for publicity but for uninterrupted publicity is indisputable4 ,but we shall misunderstand the need seriously if we imagine that the purpose of the publication can possibly be the informing of every voter4 ,we live at the mere beginnings of public accounting4 ,yet the facts far exceed our curiosity4 ,the railroads1 for example1 make an accounting4 ,do we read the results8 ,hardly4 ,a few executives here and there1 some bankers1 some regulating officials1 some representatives of shippers and the like read them4 ,the rest of us ignore them for the good and sufficient reason that we have other things to do4 ,for the man does not live who can read all the reports that drift across his doorstep or all the dispatches in his newspaper4 ,and if by some development of the radio every man could see and hear all that was happening everywhere1 if publicity1 in other words1 became absolute1 how much time could or would he spend watching the ,sinking ,fund ,commission and the ,geological ,survey8 ,he would probably tune in on the ,prince of ,wales1 or1 in desperation1 throw off the switch and seek peace in ignorance4 ,it is bad enough today--with morning newspapers published in the evening and evening newspapers in the morning1 with ,october magazines in ,september1 with the movies and the radio--to be condemned to live under a barrage of eclectic information1 to have one's mind made the receptacle for a hullabaloo of speeches1 arguments and unrelated episodes4 ,general information for the informing of public opinion is altogether too general for intellectual decency4 ,and life is too short for the pursuit of omniscience by the counting in a state of nervous excitement of all the leaves on all the trees4 #b ,if all men had to conceive the whole process of government all the time the world's work would obviously never be carried on4 ,men make no attempt to consider society as a whole4 ,the farmer decides whether to plant wheat or corn1 the mechanic whether to take the job offered at the ,pennsylvania or the ,erie shops1 whether to buy a ,ford or a piano1 and1 if a ,ford1 whether to buy it from the garage on ,elm ,street or from the dealer who sent him a circular4 ,these decisions are among fairly narrow choices offered to him2 he can no more choose among all the jobs in the world than he can consider marrying any woman in the world4 ,these choices in detail are in their cumulative mass the government of society4 ,they may rest on ignorant or enlightened opinions1 but1 whether he comes to them by accident or scientific instruction1 they are specific and particular among at best a few concrete alternatives and they lead to a definite1 visible result4 ,but men are supposed also to hold public opinions about the general conduct of society4 ,the mechanic is supposed not only to choose between working for the ,pennsylvania or the ,erie but to decide how in the interests of the nation all the railroads of the country shall be regulated4 ,the two kinds of opinion merge insensibly one into the other2 men have general notions which influence their individual decisions and their direct experiences unconsciously govern their general notions4 ,yet it is useful to distinguish between the two kinds of opinion1 the specific and direct1 the general and the indirect4 ,specific opinions give rise to immediate executive acts2 to take a job1 to do a particular piece of work1 to hire or fire1 to buy or sell1 to stay here or go there1 to accept or refuse1 to command or obey4 ,general opinions give rise to delegated1 indirect1 symbolic1 intangible results3 to a vote1 to a resolution1 to applause1 to criticism1 to praise or dispraise1 to audiences1 circulations1 followings1 contentment or discontent4 ,the specific opinion may lead to a decision to act within the area where a man has personal jurisdiction2 that is1 within the limits set by law and custom1 his personal power and his personal desire4 ,but general opinions lead only to some sort of expression1 such as voting1 and do not result in executive acts except in coperation with the general opinions of large numbers of other persons4 ,since the general opinions of large numbers of persons are almost certain to be a vague and confusing medley1 action cannot be taken until these opinions have been factored down1 canalized1 compressed and made uniform4 ,the making of one general will out of a multitude of general wishes is not an ,hegelian mystery1 as so many social philosophers have imagined1 but an art well known to leaders1 politicians and steering committees4#ab ,it consists essentially in the use of symbols which assemble emotions after they have been detached from their ideas4 ,because feelings are much less specific than ideas1 and yet more poignant1 the leader is able to make a homogeneous will out of a heterogeneous mass of desires4 ,the process1 therefore1 by which general opinions are brought to coperation consists of an intensification of feeling and a degradation of significance4 ,before a mass of general opinions can eventuate in executive action1 the choice is narrowed down to a few alternatives4 ,the victorious alternative is executed not by the mass but by individuals in control of its energy4 ,a private opinion may be quite complicated1 and may issue in quite complicated actions1 in a whole train of subsidiary opinions1 as when a man decides to build a house and then makes a hundred judgments as to how it shall be built4 ,but a public opinion has no such immediate responsibility or continuous result4 ,it leads in politics to the making of a pencil mark on a piece of paper1 and then to a period of waiting and watching as to whether one or two years hence the mark shall be made in the same column or in the adjoining one4 ,the decision to make the mark may be for reasons a#a1 a#b1 a#c 444 an3 the result1 whether an idiot or genius has voted1 is ,a4 ,for great masses of people1 though each of them may have more or less distinct views1 must when they act converge to an identical result4 ,and the more complex the collection of men the more ambiguous must be the unity and the simpler the common ideas4 #c ,in ,english-speaking countries during the last century the contrast between the action of men individually and in the mass has been much emphasized1 and yet greatly misunderstood4 ,macaulay1 for example1 speaking on the ,reform ,bill of #ahcb1 drew the conventional distinction between private enterprise and public action3 8,in all those things which depend on the intelligence1 the knowledge1 the industry1 the energy of individuals1 this country stands preminent among all countries of the world ancient and modern4 ,but in those things which it belongs to the state to direct we have no such claim to superiority 444 can there be a stronger contrast than that which exists between the beauty1 the completeness1 the speed1 the precision with which every process is performed in our factories1 and the awkwardness1 the crudeness1 the slowness1 the uncertainty of the apparatus by which offenses are punished and rights vindicated8444 ,surely we see the barbarism of the ,thirteenth ,century and the highest civilization of the ,nineteenth ,century side by side1 and we see that the barbarism belongs to the government1 and the civilization to the people40#ac ,macaulay was1 of course1 thinking of the contrast between factory production and government as it existed in ,england under ,queen ,victoria's uncles and the hard-drinking1 hard-riding squirearchy4 ,but the ,prussian bureaucracy amply demonstrated that there is no such necessary contrast between governmental and private action4 ,there is a contrast between action by and through great masses of people and action that moves without them4 ,the fundamental contrast is not between public and private enterprises1 between 8crowd0 psychology and individual1 but between men doing specific things and men attempting to command general results4 ,the work of the world is carried on by men in their executive capacity1 by an infinite number of concrete acts1 plowing and planting and reaping1 building and destroying1 fitting this to that1 going from here to there1 transforming ,a into ,b and moving ,b from ,x to ,y4 ,the relationships between the individuals doing these specific things are balanced by a most intricate mechanism of exchange1 of contract1 of custom and of implied promises4 ,where men are performing their work they must learn to understand the process and the substance of these obligations if they are to do it at all4 ,but in governing the work of other men by votes or by the expression of opinion they can only reward or punish a result1 accept or reject alternatives presented to them4 ,they can say yes or no to something which has been done1 yes or no to a proposal1 but they cannot create1 administer and actually perform the act they have in mind4 ,persons uttering public opinions may now and then be able to define the acts of men1 but their opinions do not execute these acts4 #d ,to the realm of executive acts1 each of us1 as a member of the public1 remains always external4 ,our public opinions are always and forever1 by their very nature1 an attempt to control the actions of others from the outside4 ,if we can grasp the full significance of that conclusion we shall1 ,i think1 have found a way of fixing the rle of public opinion in its true perspective2 we shall know how to account for the disenchantment of democracy1 and we shall begin to see the outline of an ideal of public opinion which1 unlike that accepted in the dogma of democracy1 may be really attainable4 ,,footnotes3 #aa ,cf4 my ,public ,opinion1 ,chapters ,,xxv and ,,xxvi4 #ab ,cf4 my ,public ,opinion1 ,chapters ,,xiii and ,,xiv4 #ac ,speech on the ,reform ,bill of #ahcb1 quoted in the ,times 7,london71 ,july #ab1 #aibc4 ,chapter ,,iv ,,what ,,the ,,public ,,does #a ,i do not mean to say that there is no other attainable ideal of public opinion but that severely practical one which this essay is meant to disclose4 ,one might aim to enrich the minds of men with charming fantasies1 animate nature and society with spirits1 set up an ,olympus in the skies and an ,atlantis at the end of the world4 ,and one might then assert that1 so the quality of ideas be fine or give peace1 it does not matter how or whether they eventuate in the government of affairs4 ,utopia and ,nirvana are by definition their own sufficient reason1 and it may be that to contemplate them is well worth the abandonment of feeble attempts to control the action of events4 ,renunciation1 however1 is a luxury in which all men cannot indulge4 ,they will somehow seek to control the behavior of others1 if not by positive law then at least by persuasion4 ,when men are in that posture toward events they are a public1 as ,i am here defining the term2 their opinions as to how others ought to behave are public opinions4 ,the more clearly it is understood what the public can do and what it cannot1 the more effectively it will do what lies within its power to do well and the less it will interfere with the liberties of men4 ,the rle of public opinion is determined by the fact that its relation to a problem is external4 ,the opinion affects an opinion1 but does not itself control the executive act4 ,a public opinion is expressed by a vote1 a demonstration of praise or blame1 a following or a boycotting4 ,but these manifestations are in themselves nothing4 ,they count only if they influence the course of affairs4 ,they influence it1 however1 only if they influence an actor in the affair4 ,and it is1 ,i believe1 precisely in this secondary1 indirect relationship between public opinion and public affairs that we have the clue to the limits and the possibilities of public opinion4 #b ,it may be objected at once that an election which turns one set of men out of office and installs another is an expression of public opinion which is neither secondary nor indirect4 ,but what in fact is an election8 ,we call it an expression of the popular will4 ,but is it8 ,we go into a polling booth and mark a cross on a piece of paper for one of two1 or perhaps three or four names4 ,have we expressed our thoughts on the public policy of the ,united ,states8 ,presumably we have a number of thoughts on this and that with many buts and ifs and ors4 ,surely the cross on a piece of paper does not express them4 ,it would take us hours to express our thoughts1 and calling a vote the expression of our mind is an empty fiction4 ,a vote is a promise of support4 ,it is a way of saying3 ,i am lined up with these men1 on this side4 ,i enlist with them4 ,i will follow4 ,i will buy4 ,i will boycott4 ,i will strike4 ,i applaud4 ,i jeer4 ,the force ,i can exert is placed here1 not there4 ,the public does not select the candidate1 write the platform1 outline the policy any more than it builds the automobile or acts the play4 ,it aligns itself for or against somebody who has offered himself1 has made a promise1 has produced a play1 is selling an automobile4 ,the action of a group as a group is the mobilization of the force it possesses4 ,the attempt has been made to ascribe some intrinsic moral and intellectual virtue to majority rule4 ,it was said often in the nineteenth century that there was a deep wisdom in majorities which was the voice of ,god4 ,sometimes this flattery was a sincere mysticism1 sometimes it was the self-deception which always accompanies the idealization of power4 ,in substance it was nothing but a transfer to the new sovereign of the divine attributes of kings4 ,yet the inherent absurdity of making virtue and wisdom dependent on #ea per cent of any collection of men has always been apparent4 ,the practical realization that the claim was absurd has resulted in a whole code of civil rights to protect minorities and in all sorts of elaborate methods of subsidizing the arts and sciences and other human interests so they might be independent of the operation of majority rule4 ,the justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority4 ,it is to be found in the sheer necessity of finding a place in civilized society for the force which resides in the weight of numbers4 ,i have called voting an act of enlistment1 an alignment for or against1 a mobilization4 ,these are military metaphors1 and rightly so1 ,i think1 for an election based on the principle of majority rule is historically and practically a sublimated and denatured civil war1 a paper mobilization without physical violence4 ,constitutional democrats1 in the intervals when they were not idealizing the majority1 have acknowledged that a ballot was a civilized substitute for a bullet4 8,the ,french ,revolution10 says ,bernard ,shaw1 8overthrew one set of rulers and substituted another with different interests and different views4 ,that is what a general election enables the people to do in ,england every seven years if they choose4 ,revolution is therefore a national institution in ,england2 and its advocacy by an ,englishman needs no apology40#ad ,it makes an enormous difference1 of course1 whether the people fight or vote1 but we shall understand the nature of voting better if we recognize it to be a substitute for fighting4 8,there grew up in the #agth and #ahth ,centuries in ,england10 says ,dwight ,morrow in his introduction to ,professor ,morse's book1 8and there has been carried from ,england to almost every civilized government in the world1 a procedure through which party government becomes in large measure a substitute for revolution40#ae ,hans ,delbrck puts the matter simply when he says that the principle of majority rule is 8a purely practical principle4 ,if one wants to avoid a civil war1 one lets those rule who in any case would obtain the upper hand if there should be a struggle2 and they are the superior numbers40#af ,but1 while an election is in essence sublimated warfare1 we must take care not to miss the importance of the sublimation4 ,there have been pedantic theorists who wished to disqualify all who could not bear arms1 and woman suffrage has been deplored as a falsification of the value of an election in uncovering the alignment of martial force in the community4 ,one can safely ignore such theorizing4 ,for1 while the institution of an election is in its historical origins an alignment of the physical force1 it has come to be an alignment of all kinds of force4 ,it remains an alignment1 though in advanced democracies it has lost most of its primitive association with military combat4 ,it has not lost it in the ,south where the ,negro population is disfranchised by force1 and not permitted to make its weight felt in an election4 ,it has not lost it in the unstable ,latin ,american republics where every election is in some measure still an armed revolution4 ,in fact1 the ,united ,states has officially recognized this truth by proclaiming that the substitution of election for revolution in ,central ,america is the test of political progress4 ,i do not wish to labor the argument any further than may be necessary to establish the theory that what the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal4 ,if that theory is accepted1 we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people4 ,we must abandon the notion that the people govern4 ,instead we must adopt the theory that1 by their occasional mobilizations as a majority1 people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern4 ,we must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally4 ,,footnotes3 #ad ,preface to ,the ,revolutionist's ,handbook1 p4 #agi4 #ae ,parties and ,party ,leaders1 p4 xvi4 #af ,h4 ,delbrck1 ,government and the ,will of the ,people1 p4 #ae4 ,translated by ,roy ,s4 ,mac,elwee4 ,chapter ,v ,,the ,,neutralization ,,of ,,arbitrary ,,force #a ,if this is the nature of public action1 what ideal can be formulated which shall conform to it8 ,we are bound1 ,i think1 to express the ideal in its lowest terms1 to state it not as an ideal which might conceivably be realized by exceptional groups now and then or in some distant future but as an ideal which normally might be taught and attained4 ,in estimating the burden which a public can carry1 a sound political theory must insist upon the largest factor of safety4 ,it must understate the possibilities of public action4 ,the action of a public1 we had concluded1 is principally confined to an occasional intervention in affairs by means of an alignment of the force which a dominant section of that public can wield4 ,we must assume1 then1 that the members of a public will not possess an insider's knowledge of events or share his point of view4 ,they cannot1 therefore1 construe intent1 or appraise the exact circumstances1 enter intimately into the minds of the actors or into the details of the argument4 ,they can watch only for coarse signs indicating where their sympathies ought to turn4 ,we must assume that the members of a public will not anticipate a problem much before its crisis has become obvious1 nor stay with the problem long after its crisis is past4 ,they will not know the antecedent events1 will not have seen the issue as it developed1 will not have thought out or willed a program1 and will not be able to predict the consequences of acting on that program4 ,we must assume as a theoretically fixed premise of popular government that normally men as members of a public will not be well informed1 continuously interested1 nonpartisan1 creative or executive4 ,we must assume that a public is inexpert in its curiosity1 intermittent1 that it discerns only gross distinctions1 is slow to be aroused and quickly diverted2 that1 since it acts by aligning itself1 it personalizes whatever it considers1 and is interested only when events have been melodramatized as a conflict4 ,the public will arrive in the middle of the third act and will leave before the last curtain1 having stayed just long enough perhaps to decide who is the hero and who the villain of the piece4 ,yet usually that judgment will necessarily be made apart from the intrinsic merits1 on the basis of a sample of behavior1 an aspect of a situation1 by very rough external evidence4 ,we cannot1 then1 think of public opinion as a conserving or creating force directing society to clearly conceived ends1 making deliberately toward socialism or away from it1 toward nationalism1 an empire1 a league of nations or any other doctrinal goal4 ,for men do not agree as to their aims1 and it is precisely the lack of agreement which creates the problems that excite public attention4 ,it is idle1 then1 to argue that though men evidently have conflicting purposes1 mankind has some all-embracing purpose of which you or ,i happen to be the authorized spokesman4 ,we merely should have moved in a circle were we to conclude that the public is in some deep way a messianic force4 #b ,the work of the world goes on continually without conscious direction from public opinion4 ,at certain junctures problems arise4 ,it is only with the crises of some of these problems that public opinion is concerned4 ,and its object in dealing with a crisis is to help allay that crisis4 ,i think this conclusion is unescapable4 ,for though we may prefer to believe that the aim of popular action should be to do justice or promote the true1 the beautiful and the good1 the belief will not maintain itself in the face of plain experience4 ,the public does not know in most crises what specifically is the truth or the justice of the case1 and men are not agreed on what is beautiful and good4 ,nor does the public rouse itself normally at the existence of evil4 ,it is aroused at evil made manifest by the interruption of a habitual process of life4 ,and finally1 a problem ceases to occupy attention not when justice1 as we happen to define it1 has been done but when a workable adjustment that overcomes the crisis has been made4 ,if all this were not the necessary manner of public opinion1 if it had seriously to crusade for justice in every issue it touches1 the public would have to be dealing with all situations all the time4 ,that is impossible4 ,it is also undesirable4 ,for did justice1 truth1 goodness and beauty depend on the spasmodic and crude interventions of public opinion there would be little hope for them in this world4 ,thus we strip public opinion of any implied duty to deal with the substance of a problem1 to make technical decisions1 to attempt justice or impose a moral precept4 ,and instead we say that the ideal of public opinion is to align men during the crisis of a problem in such a way as to favor the action of those individuals who may be able to compose the crisis4 ,the power to discern those individuals is the end of the effort to educate public opinion4 ,the aim of research designed to facilitate public action is the discovery of clear signs by which these individuals may be discerned4 ,the signs are relevant when they reveal by coarse1 simple and objective tests which side in a controversy upholds a workable social rule1 or which is attacking an unworkable rule1 or which proposes a promising new rule4 ,by following such signs the public might know where to align itself4 ,in such an alignment it does not1 let us remember1 pass judgment on the intrinsic merits4 ,it merely places its force at the disposal of the side which1 according to objective signs1 seems to be standing for human adjustments according to a clear rule of behavior and against the side which appears to stand for settlement in accordance with its own unaccountable will4 ,public opinion1 in this theory1 is a reserve of force brought into action during a crisis in public affairs4 ,though it is itself an irrational force1 under favorable institutions1 sound leadership and decent training the power of public opinion might be placed at the disposal of those who stood for workable law as against brute assertion4 ,in this theory1 public opinion does not make the law4 ,but by canceling lawless power it may establish the condition under which law can be made4 ,it does not reason1 investigate1 invent1 persuade1 bargain or settle4 ,but1 by holding the aggressive party in check1 it may liberate intelligence4 ,public opinion in its highest ideal will defend those who are prepared to act on their reason against the interrupting force of those who merely assert their will4 ,the action of public opinion at its best would not1 let it be noted1 be a continual crusade on behalf of reason4 ,when power1 however absolute and unaccountable1 reigns without provoking a crisis1 public opinion does not challenge it4 ,somebody must challenge arbitrary power first4 ,the public can only come to his assistance4 #c ,that1 ,i think1 is the utmost that public opinion can effectively do4 ,with the substance of the problem it can do nothing usually but meddle ignorantly or tyrannically4 ,it has no need to meddle with it4 ,men in their active relation to affairs have to deal with the substance1 but in that indirect relationship when they can act only through uttering praise or blame1 making black crosses on white paper1 they have done enough1 they have done all they can do if they help to make it possible for the reason of other men to assert itself4 ,for when public opinion attempts to govern directly it is either a failure or a tyranny4 ,it is not able to master the problem intellectually1 nor to deal with it except by wholesale impact4 ,the theory of democracy has not recognized this truth because it has identified the functioning of government with the will of the people4 ,this is a fiction4 ,the intricate business of framing laws and of administering them through several hundred thousand public officials is in no sense the act of the voters nor a translation of their will4 ,but although the acts of government are not a translation of public opinion1 the principal function of government is to do specifically1 in greater detail1 and more continually what public opinion does crudely1 by wholesale1 and spasmodically4 ,it enforces some of the working rules of society4 ,it interprets them4 ,it detects and punishes certain kinds of aggression4 ,it presides over the framing of new rules4 ,it has organized force which is used to counteract irregular force4 ,it is also subject to the same corruption as public opinion4 ,for when government attempts to impose the will of its officials1 instead of intervening so as to steady adjustments by consent among the parties directly interested1 it becomes heavy-handed1 stupid1 imperious1 even predatory4 ,for the public official1 though he is better placed to understand the problem than a reader of newspapers1 and though he is much better able to act1 is still fundamentally external to the real problems in which he intervenes4 ,being external1 his point of view is indirect1 and so his action is most appropriate when it is confined to rendering indirect assistance to those who are directly responsible4 ,therefore1 instead of describing government as an expression of the people's will1 it would seem better to say that government consists of a body of officials1 some elected1 some appointed1 who handle professionally1 and in the first instance1 problems which come to public opinion spasmodically and on appeal4 ,where the parties directly responsible do not work out an adjustment1 public officials intervene4 ,when the officials fail1 public opinion is brought to bear on the issue4 #d ,this1 then1 is the ideal of public action which our inquiry suggests4 ,those who happen in any question to constitute the public should attempt only to create an equilibrium in which settlements can be reached directly and by consent4 ,the burden of carrying on the work of the world1 of inventing1 creating1 executing1 of attempting justice1 formulating laws and moral codes1 of dealing with the technic and the substance1 lies not upon public opinion and not upon government but on those who are responsibly concerned as agents in the affair4 ,where problems arise1 the ideal is a settlement by the particular interests involved4 ,they alone know what the trouble really is4 ,no decision by public officials or by commuters reading headlines in the train can usually and in the long run be so good as settlement by consent among the parties at interest4 ,no moral code1 no political theory can usually and in the long run be imposed from the heights of public opinion1 which will fit a case so well as direct agreement reached where arbitrary power has been disarmed4 ,it is the function of public opinion to check the use of force in a crisis1 so that men1 driven to make terms1 may live and let live4 ,,part ,,ii ,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,question ,,aristotle ,,asked ,these conclusions are sharply at variance with the accepted theory of popular government4 ,that theory rests upon the belief that there is a public which directs the course of events4 ,i hold that this public is a mere phantom4 ,it is an abstraction4 ,the public in respect to a railroad strike may be the farmers whom the railroad serves2 the public in respect to an agricultural tariff may include the very railroad men who were on strike4 ,the public is not1 as ,i see it1 a fixed body of individuals4 ,it is merely those persons who are interested in an affair and can affect it only by supporting or opposing the actors4 ,since these random publics cannot be expected to deal with the merits of a controversy1 they can give their support with reasonable assurance that it will do good only if there are easily recognizable and yet pertinent signs which they can follow4 ,are there such signs8 ,can they be discovered8 ,can they be formulated so they might be learned and used8 ,the chapters of this second part are an attempt to answer these questions4 ,the signs must be of such a character that they can be recognized without any substantial insight into the substance of a problem4 ,yet they must be relevant to the solution of the problem4 ,they must be signs which will tell the members of a public where they can best align themselves so as to promote the solution4 ,in short1 they must be guides to reasonable action for the use of uninformed people4 ,the environment is complex4 ,man's political capacity is simple4 ,can a bridge be built between them8 ,the question has haunted political science ever since ,aristotle first formulated it in the great seventh book of his ,politics4 ,he answered it by saying that the community must be kept simple and small enough to suit the faculties of its citizens4 ,we who live in the ,great ,society are unable to follow his advice4 ,the orthodox democrats answered ,aristotle's question by assuming that a limitless political capacity resides in public opinion4 ,a century of experience compels us to deny this assumption4 ,for us1 then1 the old question is unanswered2 we can neither reject the ,great ,society as ,aristotle did1 nor exaggerate the political capacity of the citizen as the democrats did4 ,we are forced to ask whether it is possible for men to find a way of acting effectively upon highly complex affairs by very simple means4 ,i venture to think that this problem may be soluble1 that principles can be elucidated which might effect a successful junction between the intricacies of the environment and the simplicities of human faculty4 ,it goes without saying that what ,i shall present here is no final statement of these principles4 ,at most and at best it may be a clue1 with some illustrations1 that can be developed by research4 ,but even that much assurance seems to me rash in the light of the difficulties which the problem has always presented1 and so1 following ,descartes1 ,i add that 8after all1 it is possible ,i may be mistaken2 and it is but a little copper and glass ,i take for gold and diamonds40#ag ,,footnotes3 #ag ,discourse on ,method1 ,part ,i4 ,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,nature ,,of ,a ,,problem #a ,somewhat in the spirit of ,descartes1 let us begin by supposing that your whole experience were confined to one glimpse of the world4 ,there would be1 ,i think1 no better or worse in your sight1 neither good men nor bad1 patriots nor profiteers1 conservatives nor radicals4 ,you would be a perfect neutral4 ,from such an impression of things1 it would never occur to you that the crest of a mountain endured longer than the crest of a wave1 that people moved about and that trees did not1 or that the roar of an orator would pass sooner than the roar of ,niagara4 ,lengthen your experience1 and you would begin to notice differences in the constancy of things4 ,you would know day and night1 perhaps1 but not winter and summer1 movement in space1 but little of age in time4 ,and if you then formulated your social philosophy1 would you not almost certainly conclude that the things you saw people doing then it was ordained they should do always1 and that their characters as you had seen them that day would be thus and so forever8 ,and would not the resulting treatise pass almost unnoticed in any collection of contemporary disquisitions on the nations1 the races1 the classes or the sexes8 ,but the more you lengthened the span of your impression1 the more variability you would note1 until at last you would say with ,heraclitus that all things flow4 ,for when the very stars and the rocks were seen to have a history1 men and their institutions and customs1 habits and ideals1 theories and policies could seem only relatively permanent4 ,and you would have to conclude that what at first glance you had called a constant turns out after you had watched it longer merely to be changing a little more slowly than something else4 ,with sufficiently long experience you would indeed be bound to conclude that while the diverse elements that bear upon the life of men1 including the characters of men themselves1 were changing1 yet they were not changing at the same pace4 ,things multiply1 they grow1 they learn1 they age1 they wear out and they die at different rates4 ,an individual1 his companions1 his implements1 his institutions1 his creeds1 his needs1 his means of satisfaction1 evolve unevenly1 and endure unevenly4 ,events do not concur harmoniously in time4 ,some hurry1 some straggle1 some push and some drag4 ,the ranks have always to be reformed4 ,instead of that one grand system of evolution and progress1 which the nineteenth century found so reassuring1 there would appear to be innumerable systems of evolution1 variously affecting each other1 some linked1 some in collision1 but each in some fundamental aspect moving at its own pace and on its own terms4 ,the disharmonies of this uneven evolution are the problems of mankind4 #b ,suppose a man who knew nothing of the history of the nineteenth century were shown the tables compiled in the ,statistical ,abstract of the ,united ,states for the period from #ahjj to #aiah3 ,he would note that the population of the world had multiplied two and a half times2 its total commerce #db times2 its shipping tonnage more than #g times2 its railways #cffd times2 its telegraphs #cag times2 its cotton production #ag times2 its coal #aac times2 its pig iron #gg times4 ,could he doubt that in a century of such uneven changes men had faced revolutionary social problems8 ,could he not infer from these figures alone that there had been great movements of population1 vast changes in men's occupation1 in the character of their labor1 their wants1 their standards of living1 their ambitions8 ,would he not fairly infer that the political system which had existed in #ahjj must have altered vastly with these new relationships1 that customs1 manners and morals appropriate to the settled1 small and more or less self-contained communities of #ahjj had been subjected to new strains and had probably been thoroughly revised8 ,as he imagined the realities behind the tables1 would he not infer that as men lived through the changes which these cold figures summarize they had been in conflict with their old habits and ideals1 that the process of making new habits and adjustments must have gone on subject to trial and error with hopefulness over material progress and yet much disorder and confusion of soul8 #c ,for a more specific illustration of the nature of a problem we may examine the problem of population in its simplest form4 ,when ,malthus first stated it he assumed1 for the purposes of argument1 two elements evolving at different rates4 ,population1 he said1 doubled every twenty-five years2 the produce of land could be increased in the same time by an amount 8equal to what it at present produces40#ah ,he was writing about the year #ahjj4 ,the population of ,england he estimated at seven millions1 and the food supply as adequate to that number4 ,there was then1 in #ahjj1 no problem4 ,by #ahbe the population1 according to his estimate of its rate of increase1 would have doubled1 but the food supply would also have doubled4 ,there would be no problem of population4 ,but by #ahej the population would stand at twenty-eight millions2 the food supply would have increased only by an amount to support an additional seven millions4 ,the problem of excess population1 or1 if you like1 of food scarcity1 would have appeared4 ,for while in #ahjj and in #ahbe the food available for each person would be the same1 in #ahej1 owing to the uneven rate of growth1 there would be only a three-quarter ration for each person4 ,and this altered relationship ,malthus rightly called a problem4 ,suppose1 now1 we complicate ,malthus's argument a bit by assuming that in #ahej people had learned to eat less and felt more fit on the three-quarter ration4 ,there would then be no problem in #ahej1 for the adjustment of the two variables--food and people--would be satisfactory4 ,or1 on the contrary1 suppose that soon after #ahjj people had demanded a higher standard of living and expected more food1 though the necessary additional food was not produced4 ,these new demands would create a problem4 ,or suppose1 as was actually the case1#ai the food supply increased faster than ,malthus had assumed it could1 though population did not4 ,the problem of population would not arise at the date he predicted4 ,or suppose the increase of population was reduced by birth control4 ,the problem1 as ,malthus first stated it1 would not arise4#bj ,or suppose the food supply increased faster than the population could consume it4 ,there would then be a problem not of population but of agricultural surplus4 ,in an absolutely static society there would be no problems4 ,a problem is the result of change4 ,but not of the change in any self-contained element4 ,change would be unnoticeable unless we could measure it against some other element which did not change at the same pace4 ,if everything in the universe expanded at a mile a minute1 or shrank at the same rate1 we should never know it4 ,for all we can tell we may be the size of a mosquito one moment in the sight of ,god1 and of an elephant the next2 we cannot tell if mosquitoes and elephants and chairs and planets change in proportion4 ,change is significant only in relation to something else4 ,the change which constitutes a problem is an altered relationship between two dependent variables4#ba ,thus the automobile is a problem in the city not because there are so many automobiles but because there are too many for the width of the streets1 too many for the number of competent drivers1 because the too narrow streets are filled with too many cars driven too recklessly for the present ability of the police to control them4 ,because the automobile is manufactured faster than old city streets can be widened1 because some persons acquire cars faster than they acquire prudence and good manners1 because automobiles collect in cities faster than policemen can be recruited1 trained or paid for by slow-yielding taxpayers1 there is an automobile problem made evident by crowding1 obnoxious fumes and collisions4 ,but though these evils seem to arise from the automobile1 the fault lies not in the automobile but in the relation between the automobile and the city4 ,this may sound like splitting hairs1 but unless we insist upon it we never define a problem accurately nor lay it open successfully to solution4 ,the problem of national defense1 for example1 can never be stated by a general staff which draws upon its inner consciousness for an estimate of the necessary force4 ,the necessary force can be estimated only in relation to the probable enemy1 and the military problem whether of peace or of war lies always in the ratio of forces4 ,military force is a purely relative conception4 ,the ,british ,navy is helpless as a child against the unarmed mountaineers of ,tibet4 ,the ,french ,army has no force as against fishing smacks in the ,pacific ,ocean4 ,force has to be measured against its objective3 the tiger and the shark are incomparable one with the other4 ,now a settled and accepted ratio of forces that might collide is a state of military peace4 ,a competitive and1 therefore1 constantly unbalanced ratio is a prelude to war4 ,the ,canadian border presents no military problem1 not because ,canada's forces and our own are equal but because1 happily1 we do not compare them4 ,they are independent variables1 having no relation one with the other1 and a change in the one does not affect the other4 ,in capital ships we are confronted now with no naval problem in the ,atlantic or in the ,pacific1 because with ,britain and ,japan1 the only two comparable powers1 we are agreed on a ratio by treaty4#bb ,but for all types of ships not subject to the ratio there is a naval problem in both oceans1 and if the ,washington ,treaty should lapse the problem which it settled would recur4 ,it would recur because the synchronized progress of the three navies would be replaced by a relatively uneven progress of each as compared with the others4 #d ,the field of economic activity is the source of many problems4 ,for1 as ,cassel says1#bc we include within the meaning of the word economic those means of satisfying human wants which are 8usually available only in a limited quantity40 ,since 8the wants of civilized human beings as a whole are10 for all practical purposes1 8unlimited10 there is in all economic life the constant necessity of reaching 8an adjustment between the wants and the means of supplying the wants40 ,this disharmony of supply and demand is the source of an unending series of problems4 ,we may note at once that the economist does not claim as his province the whole range of adjustments between human wants and the means of satisfying them4 ,he usually omits1 for example1 the human need to breathe air4 ,for since the air is unlimited in quantity the human need of it is not frustrated1 and the surplus air not required by men in no way impinges upon their lives4 ,yet there may be a scarcity of air1 as1 for example1 in a congested tenement district4 ,then an economic problem is engendered which has to be met1 let us say1 by building laws requiring a certain number of cubic feet of air a person4 ,the economist1 in other words1 takes as his field of interest the maladjustment between human wants and those means of satisfying them which are available1 but only in limited quantities4 ,in a world where every want was satisfied there would be no problems for him2 nor any in a world where men had no wants2 nor any in a world where the only wants men had could be supplied by a change on their part of their own states of consciousness4 ,to create a problem there must be at least two dependent but separated variables3 wants and the means of satisfaction2 and these two variables must have a disposition to alter so that an antecedent equilibrium is disturbed4 ,in the measure1 says ,cassel1 in which the economic system succeeds in securing an adjustment between the wants and the means of supplying the wants we speak of it as a sound economy4 8,this task may be accomplished in three different ways3 first1 by eliminating the less important wants and so restricting the total wants2 secondly1 by making the best possible use of the means available for the purposes in question2 and1 thirdly1 by increased personal exertions40#bd ,since the problem arises out of the disharmony of supply and demand1 its solution is to be found by increasing the supply or restricting the demand4 ,the choice of method depends first of all on which it is possible in specific cases to follow1 and1 second1 granting the possibility1 on which is the easier or the preferred4 ,either method will give what we acknowledge as a solution4 ,for when two variables are in an adjustment which does not frustrate the expectations of either there is no problem1 and none will be felt to exist4 ,,footnotes3 #ah ,t4 ,r4 ,malthus1 ,an ,essay on the ,principle of ,population1 ,chapter ,,ii4 #ai ,a4 ,m4 ,carr-,saunders1 ,the ,population ,problem1 p4 #bh4 #bj ,malthus himself recognised this in a later edition of his book4 #ba ,cf4 in this connection ,w4 ,f4 ,ogburn1 ,social ,change1 passim1 but particularly ,part ,,iv1 ,i1 on 8,the ,hypothesis of ,cultural ,lag40 #bb ,however1 the controversy over gun elevation demonstrates how difficult it is to maintain an equilibrium of force where so many factors are variable4 #bc ,gustav ,cassel1 ,a ,theory of ,social ,economy1 ,chapter ,i4 #bd ,ibid41 p4 #g4 ,chapter ,,viii ,,social ,,contracts #a ,it is impossible to imagine in the universe a harmony of all things1 each with all the others4 ,the only harmonies we know or can conceive1 outside of what ,mr4 ,santayana calls the realm of essences1 are partial adjustments which sacrifice to some one end all purposes which conflict with it4 ,that the tree may bear fruit for us1 we readily kill the insects that eat the fruit4 ,so the fruit will ripen for us1 we take no account of the disharmony we create for innumerable flies4 ,in the light of eternity it may be wholly unimportant whether the harmonies on this earth are suited to men or to insects4 ,for in the light of eternity and from the point of view of the universe as a whole nothing can be what we call good or bad1 better or worse4 ,all ideas of value are measurements of some part of this universe with some other part1 and it is no more possible to value the universe as a whole than it is to weigh it as a whole4 ,for all scales of value and of weight are contained within it4 ,to judge the whole universe you must1 like a god1 be outside of it1 a point of view no mortal mind can adopt4 ,unfortunately for the fly1 therefore1 we are bound to judge him by human values4 ,in so far as we have power over him1 he must submit to the harmonies we seek to establish4 ,we may as a sporting matter admit his theoretical right to establish his own harmonies against us if he can1 and to call them better if he likes1 but for us that only is good which is good for man4 ,our universe consists of all that it contains1 not as such1 not as the fly knows it1 but in its relation to us4 ,from any other point of view but man's1 his conception of the universe is askew4 ,it has an emphasis and a perspective1 it is shaped to a design which is altogether human4 ,the very forms1 colors1 odors and sound of things are dependent for their quality upon our sense organs4 ,their relations are seen and understood against the background of our necessities4 ,in the realm of man's interests and purposes and desires1 the perspectives are even narrower4 ,there is no human point of view here1 but only the points of view of men4 ,none is valid for all human beings1 none for all of human history1 none for all corners of the globe4 ,an opinion of the right and the wrong1 the good and the bad1 the pleasant and the unpleasant1 is dated1 is localized1 is relative4 ,it applies only to some men at some time in some place under some circumstances4 #b ,against this deep pluralism thinkers have argued in vain4 ,they have invented social organisms and national souls1 and oversouls1 and collective souls2 they have gone for hopeful analogies to the beehive and the anthill1 to the solar system1 to the human body2 they have gone to ,hegel for higher unities and to ,rousseau for a general will in an effort to find some basis of union4 ,for though men do not think alike1 nor want the same things1 though their private interests are so distinct that they do not merge easily in any common interest1 yet men cannot live by themselves1 nor realize even their private purposes without taking into account the behavior of other people4 ,we1 however1 no longer expect to find a unity which absorbs diversity4 ,for us the conflicts and differences are so real that we cannot deny them and instead of looking for identity of purpose we look simply for an accommodation of purposes4 ,when we speak1 then1 about the solution of a problem in the ,great ,society1 we may mean little more than that two conflicting interests have found a modus vivendi4 ,it may be1 of course1 that they have really removed all their differences1 that one interest has yielded to the other1 or both to a third4 ,but the solutions of most social problems are not so neat as this2 everything does not fit perfectly as in the solution of a puzzle4 ,the conflicting interests merely find a way of giving a little and taking a little1 and of existing together without too much bad blood4 ,they still remain separate interests4 ,the men involved still think differently4 ,they have no union of mind or purpose4 ,but they travel their own ways without collision1 and even with some reliance at times upon the others' help4 ,they know their rights and their duties1 what to expect and what will be expected4 ,their rights are usually less than they claim1 and their duties heavier than they like1 yet1 because they are in some degree enforced1 conduct is rendered intelligible and predictable1 and coperation exists in spite of the conflicting interests of men4 ,the modus vivendi of any particular historical period1 the system of rights and duties1 has generally acquired some high religious or ideal sanction4 ,the thinkers laureate of the age will generally manage to show that the institutions1 the laws1 the morality and the custom of that age are divinely inspired4 ,these are tiresome illusions which have been exploded a thousand times4 ,the prevailing system of rights and duties at any time is at bottom a slightly antiquated formulation of the balance of power among the active interests in the community4 ,there is always a certain lag1 as ,mr4 ,ogburn calls it1 so that the system of rights and duties men are taught is generally a little less contemporary than the system they would find most convenient4 ,but1 whether the system is obsolete or not1 in its naked origin1 a right is a claim somebody was able to assert1 and a duty is an obligation somebody was able to impose4 #c ,the prevailing system of rights and duties is designed to regulate the conflicting purposes of men4 ,an established right is a promise that a certain kind of behavior will be backed by the organized force of the state or at least by the sentiment of the community2 a duty is a promise that failure to respect the rights of others in a certain way will be punished4 ,the punishment may be death1 imprisonment1 loss of property1 the nullification of a right1 the expression of disapproval4 ,in short1 the system of rights and duties is the whole system of promises which the courts and public sentiment will support4 ,it is not a fixed system4 ,it varies from place to place1 and from time to time1 and with the character of the tribunals and the community4 ,but none the less it makes the conduct of men somewhat rational1 and establishes a kind of union in diversity by limiting and defining the freedom with which conflicting purposes can be pursued4 ,sometimes the promises are embodied in coercive law3 ,thou shalt1 on penalty of this1 do that2 thou shalt not do so and so4 ,sometimes the promise is based on a contract between two parties3 there is no obligation to make the contract1 but1 once made1 it must be executed or a certain penalty paid4 ,sometimes the promise is based on an ecclesiastical code3 it must be followed or the wages of sin will be visited either in fact or in anticipation upon the sinner4 ,sometimes the promise is based on custom3 it must be respected or the price of nonconformity1 whatever it may happen to be1 must be paid4 ,sometimes the promise is based on habit3 it must be executed or the disturbance faced which men feel when they break with their habits4 ,the question of whether any particular right or duty shall be enforced1 the question of how it shall be enforced1 whether by the police1 by public criticism or private conscience1 will not be answered by reasoning a priori4 ,it will be answered by the dominant interests in society1 each imposing to the limit of its powers the system of rights and duties which most nearly approximates the kind of social harmony it finds convenient and desirable4 ,the system will be a reflection of the power that each interest is able to exert4 ,the interests which find the rule good will defend it2 the interests which find it bad will attack it4 ,their arguments will be weapons of defense and offense2 even the most objective appeal to reason will turn out to be an appeal to desert one cause and enlist in another4 #d ,in the controversies between interests the question will be raised as to the merits of a particular rule2 the argument will turn on whether the rule is good1 on whether it should be enforced with this penalty or that4 ,and out of those arguments1 by persuasion or coercion1 the specific rules of society are made1 enforced and revised4 ,it is the thesis of this book that the members of the public1 who are the spectators of action1 cannot successfully intervene in a controversy on the merits of the case4 ,they must judge externally1 and they can act only by supporting one of the interests directly involved4 ,it follows that the public interest in a controversy cannot turn upon the specific issue4 ,on what1 then1 does it turn8 ,in what phase of the controversy can the public successfully interest itself8 ,only when somebody objects does the public know there is a problem2 when nobody any longer objects there is a solution4 ,for the public1 then1 any rule is right which is agreeable to all concerned4 ,it follows that the public interest in a problem is limited to this3 that there shall be rules1 which means that the rules which prevail shall be enforced1 and that the unenforceable rules shall be changed according to a settled rule4 ,the public's opinion that ,john ,smith should or should not do this or that is immaterial2 the public does not know ,john ,smith's motives and needs1 and is not concerned with them4 ,but that ,john ,smith shall do what he has promised to do is a matter of public concern1 for unless the social contracts of men are made1 enforced and revised according to a settled rule1 social organization is impossible4 ,their conflicting purposes will engender unending problems unless they are regulated by some system of rights and duties4 ,the interest of the public is not in the rules and contracts and customs themselves but in the maintenance of a rgime of rule1 contract and custom4 ,the public is interested in law1 not in the laws2 in the method of law1 not in the substance2 in the sanctity of contract1 not in a particular contract2 in understanding based on custom1 not in this custom or that4 ,it is concerned in these things to the end that men in their active affairs shall find a modus vivendi2 its interest is in the workable rule which will define and predict the behavior of men so that they can make their adjustments4 ,the pressure which the public is able to apply through praise and blame1 through votes1 strikes1 boycotts or support can yield results only if it reinforces the men who enforce an old rule or sponsor a new one that is needed4 ,the public in this theory is not the dispenser of law or morals1 but1 at best1 a reserve force that may be mobilized on behalf of the method and spirit of law and morals4 ,in denying that the public can lay down the rules ,i have not said that it should abandon any function which the public now exercises4 ,i have merely said that it should abandon a pretense4 ,when the public attempts to deal with the substance it merely becomes the dupe or unconscious ally of a special interest4 ,for there is only one common interest3 that all special interests shall act according to settled rule4 ,the moment you ask what rule you invade the realm of competing interests of special points of view1 of personal1 and class1 and sectional1 and national bias4 ,the public should not ask what rule because it cannot answer the question4 ,it will contribute its part to the solution of social problems if it recognizes that some system of rights and duties is necessary1 but that no particular system is peculiarly sacred4 ,chapter ,,ix ,,the ,,two ,,questions ,,before ,,the ,,public ,the multitude of untroubled rules that men live by are of no concern to the public4 ,it has to deal only with the failures4 ,customs that are accepted by all who are expected to follow them1 contracts that are carried out peaceably1 promises that are kept1 expectations fulfilled1 raise no issue4 ,even when there has been a breach of the rule1 there is no public question if the breach is clearly established1 the aggression clearly identified1 the penalty determined and imposed4 ,the aggressor may be identified because he pleads guilty4 ,he may be identified by some due process though he denies his guilt4 ,the rule1 a term under which ,i mean to include the method of detection1 interpretation and enforcement1 as well as the precept1 is in either case intact4 ,the force of the public can be aligned without hesitation on behalf of the authorities who administer the rule4 ,there is no question for the public unless there is doubt as to the validity of the rule1--doubt1 that is to say1 about its meaning1 its soundness or the method of its application4 ,when there is doubt the public requires simple1 objective tests to help it decide where it will enlist4 ,these tests must1 therefore1 answer two questions3 ,first1 ,is the rule defective8 ,second1 ,how shall the agency be recognized which is most likely to mend it8 ,these are1 ,i should maintain1 the only two questions which the public needs to answer in order to exert the greatest influence it is capable of exerting toward the solution of public problems4 ,they are not1 please note1 the only questions which anybody has to answer to solve a problem4 ,they are the only questions which a member of the public can usefully concern himself with if he wishes to avoid ignorant meddling4 ,how then shall he know the rule is defective8 ,how shall he recognize the reformer8 ,if he is to answer those questions at all1 he must be able to answer them quickly and without real understanding of the problem4 ,is it possible for him to do that8 ,can he act intelligently but in ignorance8 ,i think this apparently paradoxical thing can be done in some such way as the next four chapters describe4 ,chapter ,x ,,the ,,main ,,value ,,of ,,public ,,debate ,the individual whose action is governed by a rule is interested in its substance4 ,but in those rules which do not control his own action his chief interest is that there should be workable rules4 ,it follows that the membership of the public is not fixed4 ,it changes with the issue3 the actors in one affair are the spectators of another1 and men are continually passing back and forth between the field where they are executives and the field where they are members of a public4 ,the distinction between the two is not1 as ,i said in ,chapter ,,iii1 an absolute one3 there is a twilight zone where it is hard to say whether a man is acting executively on his opinions or merely acting to influence the opinion of some one else who is acting executively4 ,there is often a mixture of the two types of behavior4 ,and it is this mixture1 as well as the lack of a clear line of distinction in all cases1 which permits a very large confusion in affairs between a public and a private attitude toward them4 ,the public point of view on a question is muddied by the presence in the public of spurious members1 persons who are really acting to bend the rule in their favor while pretending or imagining that they are moved only by the common public need that there shall be an acceptable rule4 ,at the outset it is important1 therefore1 to detect and to discount the self-interested group4 ,in saying this ,i do not mean to cast even the slightest reflection on a union of men to promote their self-interest4 ,it would be futile to do so1 because we may take it as certain that men will act to benefit themselves whenever they think they conveniently can4 ,a political theory based on the expectation of self-denial and sacrifice by the run of men in any community would not be worth considering4 ,nor is it at all evident that the work of the world could be done unless men followed their private interest and contributed to affairs that direct inner knowledge which they thus obtain4 ,moreover1 the adjustments are likely to be much more real if they are made from fully conscious and thoroughly explored special points of view4 ,thus the genius of any illuminating public discussion is not to obscure and censor private interest but to help it to sail and to make it sail under its own colors4 ,the true public1 in my definition of that term1 has to purge itself of the self-interested groups who become confused with it4 ,it must purge itself not because private interests are bad but because private interests cannot successfully be adjusted to each other if any one of them acquires a counterfeit strength4 ,if the true public1 concerned only in the fact of adjustment1 becomes mobilized behind a private interest seeking to prevail1 the adjustment is false2 it does not represent the real balance of forces in the affair and the solution will break down4 ,it will break down because the true public will not stay mobilized very long for anything1 and when it demobilizes the private interest which was falsely exalted will find its privileges unmanageable4 ,it will be like a man placed on ,jack ,dempsey's chest by six policemen1 and then left there after the policemen have gone home to dinner4 ,it will be like ,france placed by the ,allies upon a prostrate ,germany and then left there after the ,allies have departed from ,europe4 ,the separation of the public from the self-interested group will not be assisted by the self-interested group4 ,we may be sure that any body of farmers1 business men1 trade unionists will always call themselves the public if they can4 ,how then is their self-interest to be detected8 ,no ordinary bystander is equipped to analyze the propaganda by which a private interest seeks to associate itself with the disinterested public4 ,it is a perplexing matter1 perhaps the most perplexing in popular government1 and the bystander's only recourse is to insist upon debate4 ,he will not be able1 we may assume1 to judge the merits of the arguments4 ,but if he does insist upon full freedom of discussion1 the advocates are very likely to expose one another4 ,open debate may lead to no conclusion and throw no light whatever on the problem or its answer1 but it will tend to betray the partisan and the advocate4 ,and if it has identified them for the true public1 debate will have served its main purpose4 ,the individual not directly concerned may still choose to join the self-interested group and support its cause4 ,but at least he will know that he has made himself a partisan1 and thus perhaps he may be somewhat less likely to mistake a party's purpose for the aim of mankind4 ,chapter ,,xi ,,the ,,defective ,,rule #a ,a man violates a rule and then publicly justifies his action4 ,here in the simplest form is an attack upon the validity of the rule4 ,it is an appeal for a public judgment4 ,for he claims to have acted under a new rule which is better than the old one4 ,how shall the public decide as between the two8 ,it cannot1 we are assuming1 enter into the intrinsic merits of the question4 ,it follows that the public must ask the aggressor why he did not first seek the assent of those concerned before he violated the rule4 ,he may say that he did not have time1 that he acted in a crisis4 ,in that event1 there is no serious question for the public1 and his associates will either thank him or call him a fool4 ,but since the circumstances were admittedly exceptional they do not really establish a new rule1 and the public may be satisfied if the parties at interest peaceably make the best of the result4 ,but suppose there was no emergency4 ,suppose the innovator had time to seek assent1 but did not on the ground that he knew what was best4 ,he may be fairly condemned2 the objections of the other parties may be fairly sustained4 ,for the right of innovation by fiat cannot be defended as a working principle2 a new rule1 however excellent in intention1 cannot be expected to work unless in some degree it has been first understood and approved by all who must live according to it4 ,the innovator may reply1 of course1 that he is being condemned by a dogma which is not wholly proved4 ,that may be admitted4 ,against the principle that a new rule requires assent historic experience can be cited4 ,there have been many instances where a rgime has been imposed on an unwilling people and admired later by them for its results4 ,the dogma that assent is necessary is imperfect1 as are most principles4 ,but1 nevertheless1 it is a necessary assumption in society4 ,for if no new rule required assent every one could make his own rule1 and there would be no rules4 ,the dogma therefore must be maintained1 softened by the knowledge that exceptional times and exceptional men of their own force will make way with any dogma4 ,since the rules of society cannot be based on exceptions the exceptions must justify themselves4 ,the test1 therefore1 of whether a rule has been justifiably broken is the test of assent4 ,the question1 then1 is how in applying the test of assent a member of the public is to determine whether sufficient assent has been given4 ,how is he to know whether the rgime has been imposed by arbitrary force or in substance agreed to8 #b ,we wish to know if assent is lacking4 ,we know it is lacking because there is open protest4 ,or we know it because there is a widespread refusal to conform4 ,a workable rule1 which has assent1 will not evoke protest or much disobedience4 ,how shall we1 as members of the public1 measure the significance of the protest or the extent of the disobedience8 #c ,where very few persons are directly involved in the controversy the public does best not to intervene at all4 ,one party may protest1 but unless he protests against the public tribunals set up to adjudicate such disputes1 his protest may be ignored4 ,the public cannot expect to take part in the minuti of human adjustments however tragic or important they may be to the individuals concerned4 ,the protest of one individual against another cannot be treated as a public matter4 ,only if the public tribunal is impugned does it become a public matter1 and then only because the case may require investigation by some other tribunal4 ,in such disputes the public must trust the agencies of adjustment acting as checks upon each other4 ,when we remember that the public consists of busy men reading newspapers for half an hour or so a day1 it is not heartless but merely prudent to deny that it can do detailed justice4 ,but where many persons are involved in the controversy there is necessarily a public matter4 ,for when many persons are embroiled the effects not only are likely to be wide but there may be need of all the force the public can exert in order to compel a peaceable adjustment4 ,the public must take account of a protest voiced on behalf of a relatively large number of persons4 ,but how shall the public know that such a protest has been made8 ,it must look to see whether the spokesman is authorized4 ,how shall it tell if he is authorized8 ,how can it tell1 that is to say1 whether the representative is able to give assent by committing his constituency to a course of action8 ,whether the apparent leader is the real leader is a question which the members of a public cannot usually answer directly on the merits4 ,yet they must answer in some fashion and with some assurance by some rule of thumb4 ,the rule of thumb is to throw the burden of proof on those who deny that the apparent leader1 vested with the external signs of office1 is the real leader4 ,as between one nation and another1 no matter how obnoxious the other's government may be1 if there is no open rebellion1 public opinion cannot go behind the returns4 ,for1 unless a people is to engage in the hopeless task of playing politics inside another's frontiers1 there is no course but to hold that a nation is committed by the officials it fails to discharge4 ,if there is open rebellion1 or that milder substitute1 an impending election1 it may be wise to postpone long term settlements until a firm government has been seated4 ,but settlements1 if they are made at all1 must be made with the government in office at the other nation's capital4 ,the same theory holds1 with modifications1 for large bodies of men within a state4 ,if the officials of the miners' union1 for instance1 take a position1 it is perfectly idle for an employer to deny that they speak for the union miners4 ,he should deny that they speak for the nonunion miners1 but if the question at issue requires the assent of the union1 then1 unless the union itself impeaches the leaders1 the public must accept them as authorized4 ,but suppose the leaders are challenged within the union4 ,how shall the importance of the challenge be estimated by the public8 ,recall that the object is to find out not whether the objectors are right but simply whether the spokesmen can in fact commit their constituents4 ,in weighing the challenge the public's concern is to know how far the opposition can by virtue of its numbers1 or of its strategic importance1 or its determination1 impair the value of an assent4 ,but if we expected the public to make judgments of this sort we should be asking too much of it4 ,the importance of an opposition can be weighed1 if at all1 only by rough1 external criteria4 ,with an opposition that does not challenge the credentials of the spokesmen1 which criticizes but is not in rebellion1 the public has no concern4 ,that is an internal affair4 ,it is only an opposition which threatens not to conform that has to be considered4 ,in such a case1 if the spokesmen are elected1 they can be held competent to give a reliable assent only until a new election has been held4 ,if the spokesmen are not elective1 and a rebellious opposition is evident1 their assent can only be taken as tentative4 ,these criteria do not1 to be sure1 weigh the importance of an opposition1 but1 by limiting the kind of settlement which can reasonably be made in face of an opposition1 they allow for its effect4 ,they introduce the necessary modification to make workable the general principle that the test of assent by large bodies of men is simply that their spokesmen have agreed4 #d ,the test of conformity is closely related to the test of assent4 ,for it can be assumed that open criticism of a rule1 a custom1 a law1 an institution1 is already accompanied by or will soon be followed by evasion of that rule4 ,it is a fairly safe hypothesis that the run of men wish to conform2 that any body of men aroused to the point where they will pay the price of open heresy probably has an arguable case2 more certainly that that body will include a considerable number who have passed over the line of criticism into the practice of nonconformity4 ,their argument may be wrong1 the remedy may be foolish1 but the fact that they openly criticize at some personal risk is a sign that the rule is not working well4 ,widespread criticism1 therefore1 has a significance beyond its intellectual value4 ,it is almost always a symptom on the surface that the rule is unstable4 ,when a rule is broken not occasionally but very often the rule is defective4 ,it simply does not define the conduct which normally may be expected of men who live under it4 ,it may sound noble4 ,but it does not work4 ,it does not adjust relations4 ,it does not actually organize society4 ,in what way the rule is defective the public cannot specifically determine4 ,by the two tests ,i have suggested1 of assent and of conformity1 the public can determine the presence of a defect in the rule4 ,but whether that defect is due to a false measure of the changing balance of forces involved1 or to neglect of an important interest or some relevant circumstance1 or to a bad technic of adjustment1 or to contradictions in the rule1 or to obscurity1 or to lack of machinery for its interpretation or for the deduction of specific rules from general ones1 the public cannot judge4 ,it will have gone1 ,i believe1 to the limits of its normal powers if it judges the rule to be defective1 and turns then to identify the agency most likely to remedy it4 ,chapter ,,xii ,,the ,,criteria ,,of ,,reform #a ,the random collections of bystanders who constitute a public could not1 even if they had a mind to1 intervene in all the problems of the day4 ,they can and must play a part occasionally1 ,i believe1 but they cannot take an interest in1 they cannot make even the coarsest judgments about1 and they will not act even in the most grossly partisan way on1 all the questions arising daily in a complex and changing society4 ,normally they leave their proxies to a kind of professional public consisting of more or less eminent persons4 ,most issues are never carried beyond this ruling group2 the lay publics catch only echoes of the debate4 ,if1 by the push and pull of interested parties and public personages1 settlements are made more or less continually the party in power has the confidence of the country4 ,in effect1 the outsiders are arrayed behind the dominant insiders4 ,but if the interested parties cannot be made to agree1 if1 as a result1 there is disturbance and chronic crisis1 then the opposition among the insiders may come to be considered the hope of the country1 and be able to entice the bystanders to its side4 ,to support the ,ins when things are going well2 to support the ,outs when they seem to be going badly1 this1 in spite of all that has been said about tweedledum and tweedledee1 is the essence of popular government4 ,even the most intelligent large public of which we have any experience must determine finally who shall wield the organized power of the state1 its army and its police1 by a choice between the ,ins and ,outs4 ,a community where there is no choice does not have popular government4 ,it is subject to some form of dictatorship or it is ruled by the intrigues of the politicians in the lobbies4 ,although it is the custom of partisans to speak as if there were radical differences between the ,ins and the ,outs1 it could be demonstrated1 ,i believe1 that in stable and mature societies the differences are necessarily not profound4 ,if they were profound1 the defeated minority would be constantly on the verge of rebellion4 ,an election would be catastrophic1 whereas the assumption in every election is that the victors will do nothing to make life intolerable to the vanquished and that the vanquished will endure with good humor policies which they do not approve4 ,in the ,united ,states1 ,great ,britain1 ,canada1 ,australia and in certain of the ,continental countries an election rarely means even a fraction of what the campaigners said it would mean4 ,it means some new faces and perhaps a slightly different general tendency in the management of affairs4 ,the ,ins may have had a bias toward collectivism2 the ,outs will lean toward individualism4 ,the ,ins may have been suspicious and non-coperative in foreign affairs2 the ,outs will perhaps be more trusting or entertain another set of suspicions4 ,the ,ins may have favored certain manufacturing interests2 the ,outs may favor agricultural interests4 ,but even these differing tendencies are very small as compared with the immense area of agreement1 established habit and unavoidable necessity4 ,in fact1 one might say that a nation is politically stable when nothing of radical consequence is determined by its elections4 ,there is1 therefore1 a certain mock seriousness about the campaigning for votes in well-established communities4 ,much of the excitement is not about the fate of the nation but simply about the outcome of the game4 ,some of the excitement is sincere1 like any fervor of intoxication4 ,and much of it is deliberately stoked up by the expenditure of money to overcome the inertia of the mass of the voters4 ,for the most part the real difference between the ,ins and the ,outs is no more than this3 the ,ins1 after a term of power1 become so committed to policies and so entangled with particular interests that they lose their neutral freedom of decision4 ,they cannot then intervene to check the arbitrary movement of the interests with which they have become aligned4 ,then it is time for the ,outs to take power and restore a balance4 ,the virtue of the ,outs in this transaction is that they are not committed to those particular policies and those particular interests which have become overweighted4 ,the test of whether the ,ins are handling affairs effectively is the presence or absence of disturbing problems4 ,the need of reform is recognizable1 as ,i pointed out in the chapter before this one1 by the test of assent and the test of conformity4 ,but it is my opinion that for the most part the general public cannot back each reformer on each issue4 ,it must choose between the ,ins and ,outs on the basis of a cumulative judgment as to whether problems are being solved or aggravated4 ,the particular reformers must look for their support normally to the ruling insiders4 ,if1 however1 there is to be any refinement of public opinion it must come from the breaking up of these wholesale judgments into somewhat more retail judgments on the major spectacular issues of the day4 ,not all of the issues which interest the public are within the scope of politics and reachable through the party system4 ,it seems worth while1 therefore1 to see whether any canons of judgment can be formulated which could guide the bystanders in particular controversies4 ,the problem is to locate by clear and coarse objective tests the actor in a controversy who is most worthy of public support4 #b ,when the rule is plain1 its validity unchallenged1 the breach clear and the aggressor plainly located1 the question does not arise4 ,the public supports the agents of the law1 though when the law is working well the support of the public is like the gold reserve of a good bank3 it is known to be there and need not be drawn upon4 ,but in many fields of controversy the rule is not plain1 or its validity is challenged2 each party calls the other aggressor1 each claims to be acting for the highest ideals of mankind4 ,in disputes between nations1 between sectional interests1 between classes1 between town and country1 between churches1 the rules of adjustment are lacking and the argument about them is lost in a fog of propaganda4 ,yet it is controversies of this kind1 the hardest controversies to disentangle1 that the public is called in to judge4 ,where the facts are most obscure1 where precedents are lacking1 where novelty and confusion pervade everything1 the public in all its unfitness is compelled to make its most important decisions4 ,the hardest problems are those which institutions cannot handle4 ,they are the public's problems4 ,the one test which the members of a public can apply in these circumstances is to note which party to the dispute is least willing to submit its whole claim to inquiry and to abide by the result4 ,this does not mean that experts are always expert or impartial tribunals really impartial4 ,it means simply that where the public is forced to intervene in a strange and complex affair1 the test of public inquiry is the surest clue to the sincerity of the claimant1 to his confidence in his ability to stand the ordeal of examination1 to his willingness to accept risks for the sake of his faith in the possibility of rational human adjustments4 ,he may impugn a particular tribunal4 ,but he must at least propose another4 ,the test is whether1 in the absence of an established rule1 he is willing to act according to the forms of law and by a process through which law may be made4 ,of all the tests which public opinion can employ1 the test of inquiry is the most generally useful4 ,if the parties are willing to accept it1 there is at once an atmosphere of reason4 ,there is prospect of a settlement4 ,failing that there is at least a delay of summary action and an opportunity for the clarification of issues4 ,and failing that there is a high probability that the most arbitrary of the disputants will be isolated and clearly identified4 ,it is no wonder that this is the principle invoked for the so-called nonjusticiable questions in all the recent experiments under the covenant of the ,league of ,nations#be and the ,protocol for the ,pacific ,settlement of ,international ,disputes4#bf ,for in applying this test of inquiry1 what we affirm is this3 ,that there is a dispute4 ,that the merits are not clear4 ,that the policy which ought to be applied is not established4 ,that1 nevertheless1 we of the public outside say that those who are quarreling must act as if there were law to cover the case4 ,that1 even if the material for a reasoned conclusion is lacking1 we demand the method and spirit of reason4 ,that we demand any sacrifice that may be necessary1 the postponement of satisfaction of their just needs1 the risk that one of them will be defeated and that an injustice will be done4 ,these things we affirm because we are maintaining a society based on the principle that all controversies are soluble by peaceable agreement4 ,they may not be4 ,but on that dogma our society is founded4 ,and that dogma we are compelled to defend4 ,we can defend it1 too1 with a good enough conscience1 however disconcerting some of its immediate consequences may be4 ,for1 by insisting in all disputes upon the spirit of reason1 we shall tend in the long run to confirm the habit of reason4 ,and where that habit prevails no point of view can seem absolute to him who holds it1 and no problem between men so difficult that there is not at least a modus vivendi4 ,the test of inquiry is the master test by which the public can use its force to extend the frontiers of reason4 #c ,but while the test of inquiry may distinguish the party which is entitled to initial support1 it is of value only where one party refuses inquiry4 ,if all submit to inquiry1 it reveals nothing4 ,and in any event it reveals nothing about the prospects of the solution proposed4 ,the party seeking publicity may have less to conceal1 and may mean well1 but sincerity unfortunately is no index of intelligence4 ,by what criteria are the public then to judge the new rule which is proposed as a solution8 ,the public cannot tell whether the new rule will1 in fact1 work4 ,it may assume1 however1 that in a changing world no rule will always work4 ,a rule1 therefore1 should be organized so that experience will clearly reveal its defects4 ,the rule should be so clear that a violation is apparent4 ,but since no generality can cover all cases1 this means simply that the rule must contain a settled procedure by which it can be interpreted4 ,thus a treaty which says that a certain territory shall be evacuated when certain conditions are fulfilled is quite defective1 and should be condemned1 if it does not provide a way of defining exactly what those conditions are and when they have been fulfilled4 ,a rule1 in other words1 must include the means of its own clarification1 so that a breach shall be undeniably overt4 ,then only does it take account of experience which no human intelligence can foresee4 ,it follows from this that a rule must be organized so that it can be amended without revolution4 ,revision must be possible by consent4 ,but assent is not always given1 even when the arguments in favor of a change are overwhelming4 ,men will stand on what they call their rights4 ,therefore1 in order that deadlock should be dissoluble1 a rule should provide that subject to a certain formal procedure the controversy over revision shall be public4 ,this will often break up the obstruction4 ,where it does not1 the community is pretty certain to become engaged on behalf of one of the partisans4 ,this is likely to be inconvenient to all concerned1 and the inconvenience due to meddling in the substance of a controversy by a crude1 violent and badly aimed public opinion at least may teach those directly concerned not to invoke interference the next time4 ,but although amendment should be possible1 it should not be continual or unforeseen4 ,there should be time for habit and custom to form4 ,the pot should not be made to boil all the time1 or be stirred up for some comparatively insignificant reason1 whenever an orator sees a chance to make himself important4 ,since the habits and expectations of many different persons are involved in an institution1 some way must be found of giving it stability without freezing it in statu quo4 ,this can be done by requiring that amendment shall be in order only after due notice4 ,what due notice may be in each particular case1 the public cannot say4 ,only the parties at interest are likely to know where the rhythm of their affairs can be interrupted most conveniently4 ,due notice will be one period of time for men operating on long commitments and another for men operating on short ones4 ,but the public can watch to see whether the principle of due notice is embodied in the proposed settlement4 ,to judge a new rule1 then1 the tests proposed here are three3 ,does it provide for its own clarification8 for its own amendment by consent8 for due notice that amendment will be proposed8 ,the tests are designed for use in judging the prospects of a settlement not by its substance but by its procedure4 ,a reform which satisfies these tests is normally entitled to public support4 #d ,this is as far as ,i know how at present to work out an answer to the question which we inherit from ,aristotle3 can simple criteria be formulated which will show the bystander where to align himself in complex affairs8 ,i have suggested that the main value of debate is not that it reveals the truth about the controversy to the audience but that it may identify the partisans4 ,i have suggested further that a problem exists where a rule of action is defective1 and that its defectiveness can best be judged by the public through the test of assent and the test of conformity4 ,for remedies ,i have assumed that normally the public must turn to the ,outs as against the ,ins1 although these wholesale judgments may be refined by more analytical tests for specific issues4 ,as samples of these more analytical tests ,i have suggested the test of inquiry for confused controversies1 and for reforms the test of interpretation1 of amendment and of due notice4 ,these criteria are neither exhaustive nor definitive4 ,yet1 however much tests of this character are improved by practice and reflection1 it seems to me there always must remain many public affairs to which they cannot be applied4 ,i do not believe that the public can intervene successfully in all public questions4 ,many problems cannot be advanced by that obtuse partisanship which is fundamentally all that the public can bring to bear upon them4 ,there is no reason to be surprised1 therefore1 if the tests ,i have outlined1 or any others that are a vast improvement upon them1 are not readily applicable to all questions that are raised in the discussions of the day4 ,i should simply maintain that where the members of a public cannot use tests of this sort as a guide to action1 the wisest course for them is not to act at all4 ,they had better be neutral1 if they can restrain themselves1 than blindly partisan4 ,for where events are so confused or so subtly balanced or so hard to understand that they do not yield to judgments of the kind ,i have been outlining here1 the probabilities are very great that the public can produce only muddle if it meddles4 ,for not all problems are soluble in the present state of human knowledge4 ,many which may be soluble are not soluble with any force the public can exert4 ,some time alone will cure1 and some are the fate of man4 ,it is not essential1 therefore1 always to do something4 ,it follows that the proper limits of intervention by the public in affairs are determined by its capacity to make judgments4 ,these limits may be extended as new and better criteria are formulated1 or as men become more expert through practice4 ,but where there are no tests1 where such tests as these cannot be used1 where1 in other words1 only an opinion on the actual merits of the dispute itself would be of any use1 any positive action the bystanders are likely to take is almost certain to be more of a nuisance than a benefit4 ,their duty is to keep an open mind and wait to see4 ,the existence of a usable test is itself the test of whether the public ought to intervene4 ,,footnotes3 #be ,articles ,,xiii1 ,,xv4 #bf ,articles #d1 #e1 #f1 #g1 #h1 #aj4 ,chapter ,,xiii ,,the ,,principles ,,of ,,public ,,opinion #a ,the tests outlined in the preceding chapters have certain common characteristics4 ,they all select a few samples of behavior or a few aspects of a proposal4 ,they measure these samples by rough but objective1 by highly generalized but definite standards4 ,and they yield a judgment which is to justify the public in aligning itself for or against certain actors in the matter at issue4 ,i do not1 of course1 set great store upon my formulation of these tests4 ,that is wholly tentative1 being put out merely as a basis of discussion and to demonstrate that the formulation of tests suited to the nature of public opinion is not impracticable4 ,but ,i do attach great importance to the character of these tests4 ,the principles underlying them are these3 #a4 ,executive action is not for the public4 ,the public acts only by aligning itself as the partisan of some one in a position to act executively4 #b4 ,the intrinsic merits of a question are not for the public4 ,the public intervenes from the outside upon the work of the insiders4 #c4 ,the anticipation1 the analysis and the solution of a question are not for the public4 ,the public's judgment rests on a small sample of the facts at issue4 #d4 ,the specific1 technical1 intimate criteria required in the handling of a question are not for the public4 ,the public's criteria are generalized for many problems2 they turn essentially on procedure and the overt1 external forms of behavior4 #e4 ,what is left for the public is a judgment as to whether the actors in the controversy are following a settled rule of behavior or their own arbitrary desires4 ,this judgment must be made by sampling an external aspect of the behavior of the insiders4 #f4 ,in order that this sampling shall be pertinent1 it is necessary to discover criteria1 suitable to the nature of public opinion1 which can be relied upon to distinguish between reasonable and arbitrary behavior4 #g4 ,for the purposes of social action1 reasonable behavior is conduct which follows a settled course whether in making a rule1 in enforcing it or in amending it4 ,it is the task of the political scientist to devise the methods of sampling and to define the criteria of judgment4 ,it is the task of civic education in a democracy to train the public in the use of these methods4 ,it is the task of those who build institutions to take them into account4 #b ,these principles differ radically from those on which democratic reformers have proceeded4 ,at the root of the effort to educate a people for self-government there has1 ,i believe1 always been the assumption that the voter should aim to approximate as nearly as he can the knowledge and the point of view of the responsible man4 ,he did not1 of course1 in the mass1 ever approximate it very nearly4 ,but he was supposed to4 ,it was believed that if only he could be taught more facts1 if only he would take more interest1 if only he would read more and better newspapers1 if only he would listen to more lectures and read more reports1 he would gradually be trained to direct public affairs4 ,the whole assumption is false4 ,it rests upon a false conception of public opinion and a false conception of the way the public acts4 ,no sound scheme of civic education can come of it4 ,no progress can be made toward this unattainable ideal4 ,this democratic conception is false because it fails to note the radical difference between the experience of the insider and the outsider2 it is fundamentally askew because it asks the outsider to deal as successfully with the substance of a question as the insider4 ,he cannot do it4 ,no scheme of education can equip him in advance for all the problems of mankind2 no device of publicity1 no machinery of enlightenment1 can endow him during a crisis with the antecedent detailed and technical knowledge which is required for executive action4 ,the democratic ideal has never defined the function of the public4 ,it has treated the public as an immature1 shadowy executive of all things4 ,the confusion is deep-seated in a mystical notion of society4 8,the people0 were regarded as a person2 their wills as a will2 their ideas as a mind2 their mass as an organism with an organic unity of which the individual was a cell4 ,thus the voter identified himself with the officials4 ,he tried to think that their thoughts were his thoughts1 that their deeds were his deeds1 and even that in some mysterious way they were a part of him4 ,all this confusion of identities led naturally to the theory that everybody was doing everything4 ,it prevented democracy from arriving at a clear idea of its own limits and attainable ends4 ,it obscured for the purposes of government and social education the separation of function and the specialization in training which have gradually been established in most human activities4 ,democracy1 therefore1 has never developed an education for the public4 ,it has merely given it a smattering of the kind of knowledge which the responsible man requires4 ,it has1 in fact1 aimed not at making good citizens but at making a mass of amateur executives4 ,it has not taught the child how to act as a member of the public4 ,it has merely given him a hasty1 incomplete taste of what he might have to know if he meddled in everything4 ,the result is a bewildered public and a mass of insufficiently trained officials4 ,the responsible men have obtained their training not from the courses in 8civics0 but in the law schools and law offices and in business4 ,the public at large1 which includes everybody outside the field of his own responsible knowledge1 has had no coherent political training of any kind4 ,our civic education does not even begin to tell the voter how he can reduce the maze of public affairs to some intelligible form4 ,critics have not been lacking1 of course1 who pointed out what a hash democracy was making of its pretensions to government4 ,these critics have seen that the important decisions were taken by individuals1 and that public opinion was uninformed1 irrelevant and meddlesome4 ,they have usually concluded that there was a congenital difference between the masterful few and the ignorant many4 ,they are the victims of a superficial analysis of the evils they see so clearly4 ,the fundamental difference which matters is that between insiders and outsiders4 ,their relations to a problem are radically different4 ,only the insider can make decisions1 not because he is inherently a better man but because he is so placed that he can understand and can act4 ,the outsider is necessarily ignorant1 usually irrelevant and often meddlesome1 because he is trying to navigate the ship from dry land4 ,that is why excellent automobile manufacturers1 literary critics and scientists often talk such nonsense about politics4 ,their congenital excellence1 if it exists1 reveals itself only in their own activity4 ,the aristocratic theorists work from the fallacy of supposing that a sufficiently excellent square peg will also fit a round hole4 ,in short1 like the democratic theorists1 they miss the essence of the matter1 which is1 that competence exists only in relation to function2 that men are not good1 but good for something2 that men cannot be educated1 but only educated for something4 ,education for citizenship1 for membership in the public1 ought1 therefore1 to be distinct from education for public office4 ,citizenship involves a radically different relation to affairs1 requires different intellectual habits and different methods of action4 ,the force of public opinion is partisan1 spasmodic1 simple-minded and external4 ,it needs for its direction1 as ,i have tried to show in these chapters1 a new intellectual method which shall provide it with its own usable canons of judgment4 ,,part ,,iii ,chapter ,,xiv ,,society ,,in ,,its ,,place #a ,a false ideal of democracy can lead only to disillusionment and to meddlesome tyranny4 ,if democracy cannot direct affairs1 then a philosophy which expects it to direct them will encourage the people to attempt the impossible2 they will fail1 but that will interfere outrageously with the productive liberties of the individual4 ,the public must be put in its place1 so that it may exercise its own powers1 but no less and perhaps even more1 so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd4 #b ,the source of that bewilderment lies1 ,i think1 in the attempt to ascribe organic unity and purpose to society4 ,we have been taught to think of society as a body1 with a mind1 a soul and a purpose1 not as a collection of men1 women and children whose minds1 souls and purposes are variously related4 ,instead of being allowed to think realistically of a complex of social relations1 we have had foisted upon us by various great propagative movements the notion of a mythical entity1 called ,society1 the ,nation1 the ,community4 ,in the course of the nineteenth century society was personified under the influence largely of the nationalist and the socialist movements4 ,each of these doctrinal influences in its own way insisted upon treating the public as the agent of an overmastering social purpose4 ,in point of fact1 the real agents were the nationalist leaders and their lieutenants1 the social reformers and their lieutenants4 ,but they moved behind a veil of imagery4 ,and the public was habituated to think that any one conforming to the stereotype of nationalism or of social welfare was entitled to support4 ,what the nationalist rulers thought and did was the nation's purpose1 and the touchstone for all patriots2 what the reformers proposed was the benevolent consciousness of the human race moving mysteriously but progressively toward perfection4 ,the deception was so generally practised that it was often practised sincerely4 ,but to maintain the fiction that their purposes were the spirit of mankind1 public men had to accustom themselves to telling the public only a part of what they told themselves4 ,and1 incidentally1 they confessed to themselves only a part of the truth on which they were acting4 ,candor in public life became a question of policy and not a rule of life4 8,he may judge rightly10 ,mr4 ,keynes once said of ,mr4 ,lloyd ,george1#bg 8that this is the best of which a democracy is capable1--to be jockeyed1 humbugged1 cajoled along the right road4 ,a prejudice for truth or for sincerity as a method may be a prejudice based on some sthetic or personal standard inconsistent1 in politics1 with practical good4 ,we cannot yet tell40 ,we do know1 as a matter of experience1 that all the cards are not laid face up upon the table4 ,for however deep the personal prejudice of the statesman in favor of truth as a method1 he is almost certainly forced to treat truth as an element of policy4 ,the evidence on this point is overwhelming4 ,no statesman risks the safety of an army out of sheer devotion to truth4 ,he does not endanger a diplomatic negotiation in order to enlighten everybody4 ,he does not usually forfeit his advantages in an election in order to speak plainly4 ,he does not admit his own mistakes because confession is so good for the soul4 ,in so far as he has power to control the publication of truth1 he manipulates it to what he considers the necessities of action1 of bargaining1 morale and prestige4 ,he may misjudge the necessities4 ,he may exaggerate the goodness of his aims4 ,but where there is a purpose in public affairs there are also apparent necessities which weigh in the balance against the indiscreet expression of belief4 ,the public man does not and cannot act on the fiction that his mind is also the public mind4 ,you cannot account for this1 as angry democrats have done by dismissing all public men as dishonest4 ,it is not a question of personal morals4 ,the business man1 the trade-union leader1 the college president1 the minister of religion1 the editor1 the critic and the prophet1 all feel as ,jefferson did when he wrote that 8although we often wished to go faster we slackened our pace that our less ardent colleagues might keep pace with us 444 and by this harmony of the bold with the cautious1 we advanced with our constituents in undivided mass40#bh ,the necessity for an 8undivided mass0 makes men put truth in the second place4 ,i do not wish to argue that the necessity is not often a real one4 ,when a statesman tells me that it is not safe for him to disclose all the facts1 ,i am content to trust him in this if ,i trust him at all4 ,there is nothing misleading in a frank refusal to tell4 ,the mischief comes in the pretense that all is being told1 that the public is entirely in the confidence of the public man4 ,and that mischief has its source in the sophistry that the public and all the individuals composing it are one mind1 one soul1 one purpose4 ,it is seen to be an absurd sophistry1 once we look it straight in the face4 ,it is an unnecessary sophistry4 ,for we do well enough with doctors1 though we are ignorant of medicine1 and with engine drivers1 though we cannot drive a locomotive2 why not1 then1 with a ,senator1 though we cannot pass an examination on the merits of an agricultural bill8 ,yet we are so deeply indoctrinated with the notion of union based upon identity1 that we are most reluctant to admit that there is room in the world for different and more or less separate purposes4 ,the monistic theory has an air of great stability about it2 we are afraid if we do not hang together we shall all hang separately4 ,the pluralistic theory1 as its leading advocate1 ,mr4 ,laski1 has pointed out1 seems to carry with it 8a hint of anarchy40#bi ,yet the suggestion is grossly exaggerated4 ,there is least anarchy precisely in those areas of society where separate functions are most clearly defined and brought into orderly adjustment2 there is most anarchy in those twilight zones between nations1 between employers and employees1 between sections and classes and races1 where nothing is clearly defined1 where separateness of purpose is covered up and confused1 where false unities are worshiped1 and each special interest is forever proclaiming itself the voice of the people and attempting to impose its purpose upon everybody as the purpose of all mankind4 #c ,to this confusion liberalism has with the kindest intentions contributed greatly4 ,its main insight was into the prejudices of the individual2 the liberal discovered a method of proving that men are finite1 that they cannot escape from the flesh4 ,from the so-called age of enlightenment down to our day the heavy guns of criticism have been used to make men realize that they submit1 as ,bacon said1 the shadows of things to the desires of the mind4 ,once the resistance was broken by proof that man belonged to the natural world1 his pretensions to absolute certainty were attacked from every quarter4 ,he was shown the history of his ideas and of his customs1 and he was driven to acknowledge that they were bounded by time and space and circumstance4 ,he was shown that there is a bias in all opinion1 even in opinion purged of desire1 for the man who holds the opinion must stand at some point in space and time and can see not the whole world but only the world as seen from that point4 ,so men learned that they saw a little through their own eyes1 and much more through reports of what other men thought they had seen4 ,they were made to understand that all human eyes have habits of vision1 which are often stereotyped1 which always throw facts into a perspective2 and that the whole of experience is more sophisticated than the nave mind suspects4 ,for its pictures of the world are drawn from things half heard and of things half seen2 they deal with the shadows of things unsteadily1 and submit unconsciously to the desires of the mind4 ,it was an amazing and unsettling revelation1 and liberalism never quite knew what to do with it4 ,in a theater in ,moscow a certain ,m4 ,yevreynoff carried the revelation to one of its logical conclusions4 ,he produced the monodrama4#cj ,this is a play in which the action1 the setting and all the characters are seen by the audience through the eyes of one character only1 as the hero sees them1 and they take on the quality which his mind imagines they possess4 ,thus in the old theater1 if the hero drank too much1 he reeled in the midst of a sober environment4 ,but in ,m4 ,yevreynoff's supremely liberal theater1 if ,i understand ,mr4 ,macgowan's account of it correctly1 the drunkard will not reel about the lamppost2 two lampposts will reel about him1 and he will be dressed1 because that is the way he feels1 like ,napoleon ,bonaparte4 ,m4 ,yevreynoff has troubled me a good deal1 for he seemed to have finished off the liberal with a fool's cap1 and left him sitting in a world that does not exist1 except as so many crazy mirrors reflecting his own follies one upon the other4 ,but then ,i recalled that ,m4 ,yevreynoff's logic was defective and make-believe4 ,he had all the time stood soberly outside his own drunken hero1 and so had his audience2 the universe had not after all gone up in the smoke of one fantasy2 the drunken hero had his point of view1 but1 after all1 there were others1 just as authentic1 with which in the course of his career he might collide4 ,there might be a policeman1 for example1 with fantasies to be sure1 but his own1 who would break in upon the monodrama and remind the hero1 and us1 that when we submit the shadows of things to the desires of the mind we do not submit the things themselves4 ,but while all this does vindicate the sanity of the liberal criticism1 it does not answer the question3 since every action has to be taken by somebody1 since everybody is in some degree a drunken hero with two lampposts teetering about him1 how can any common good be furthered by this creature who is dominated by his special purposes8 ,the answer was that it could be furthered by taming his purposes1 enlightening them and fitting them into each other as the violin and the drum are fitted together into the orchestra4 ,the answer was not acceptable in the nineteenth century1 when men1 in spite of all their iconoclasm1 were still haunted by the phantom of identity4 ,so liberals refused to write harmonious but separate parts for the violinist and the drummer4 ,they made1 instead1 a noble appeal to their highest instincts4 ,they spoke over the heads of men to man4 ,these general appeals were as vague as they were broad4 ,they gave particular men no clue as to how to behave sincerely1 but they furnished them with an excellent masquerade when they behaved arbitrarily4 ,thus the trappings of liberalism came into the service of commercial exploiters1 of profiteers and prohibitionists and jingoes1 of charlatans and the makers of buncombe4 ,for liberalism had burned down the barn to roast the pig4 ,the discovery of prejudice in all particular men gave the liberal a shock from which he never recovered4 ,he was so utterly disconcerted by his own discovery of a necessary but perfectly obvious truth1 that he took flight into generalities4 ,the appeal to everybody's conscience gave nobody a clue how to act2 the voter1 the politician1 the laborer1 the capitalist had to construct their own codes ad hoc1 accompanied perhaps by an expansive liberal sentiment1 but without intellectual guidance from liberal thought4 ,in time1 when liberalism had lost its accidental association with free trade and laissez faire1 through their abandonment in practice1 it sadly justified itself as a necessary and useful spirit1 as a kind of genial spook worth having around the place4 ,for when individual men1 guided by no philosophy but their own temporary rationalizations1 got themselves embroiled1 the spook would appear and in a peroration straighten out the more arbitrary biases they displayed4 ,yet even in this disembodied state liberalism is important4 ,it tends to awaken a milder spirit2 it softens the hardness of action4 ,but it does not dominate action1 because it has eliminated the actor from its scheme of things4 ,it cannot say3 ,you do this and you do that1 as all ruling philosophies must4 ,it can only say3 ,that isn't fair1 that's selfish1 that's tyrannical4 ,liberalism has been1 therefore1 a defender of the under dog1 and his liberator1 but not his guide1 when he is free4 ,top dog himself1 he easily leaves his liberalism aside1 and to liberals the sour reflection that they have forged a weapon of release but not a way of life4 ,the liberals have misunderstood the nature of the public to which they appealed4 ,the public in any situation is1 in fact1 merely those persons1 indirectly concerned1 who might align themselves in support of one of the actors4 ,but the liberal took no such uninflated view of the public4 ,he assumed that all mankind was within hearing1 that all mankind when it heard would respond homogeneously because it had a single soul4 ,his appeal to this cosmopolitan1 universal1 disinterested intuition in everybody was equivalent to an appeal to nobody4 ,no such fallacy is to be found in the political philosophies which active men have lived by4 ,they have all assumed1 as a matter of course1 that in the struggle against evil it was necessary to call upon some specific agent to do the work4 ,even when the thinker was out of temper with the human race1 he had always hitherto made somebody the hero of his campaign4 ,it was the peculiarity of liberalism among theories which have played a great part in the world that it attempted to eliminate the hero entirely4 ,plato would certainly have thought this strange3 his ,republic is a tract on the proper education of a ruling class4 ,dante1 in the turmoil of thirteenth century ,florence1 seeking order and stability1 addressed himself not to the conscience of ,christendom but to the ,imperial ,party4 ,the great state builders of modern times1 ,hamilton1 ,cavour1 ,bismarck1 ,lenin1 each had in mind somebody1 some group of real people1 who were to realize his program4 ,the agents in the theory have varied1 of course2 here they are the landlords1 then the peasants1 or the unions1 or the military class1 or the manufacturers2 there are theories addressed to a church1 to the ruling classes in particular nations1 to some nation or race4 ,the theories are always1 except in the liberal philosophy1 addressed to somebody4 ,by comparison the liberal philosophy has an air of vague unworldiness4 ,yet the regard of men for it has been persistent2 somehow or other with all the lapses in its logic and with all its practical weaknesses it touches a human need4 ,these appeals from men to man3 are they not a way of saying that men desire peace1 that there is a harmony attainable in which all men can live and let live8 ,it seems so to me4 ,the attempt to escape from particular purposes into some universal purpose1 from personality into something impersonal1 is1 to be sure1 a flight from the human problem1 but it is at the same time a demonstration of how we wish to see that problem solved4 ,we seek an adjustment1 as perfect as possible1 as untroubled as it was before we were born4 ,even if man were a fighting animal1 as some say he is1 he would wish for a world in which he could fight perfectly1 with enemies fleet enough to extend him and not too fleet to elude him4 ,all men desire their own perfect adjustment1 but they desire it1 being finite men1 on their own terms4 ,because liberalism could not accommodate the universal need of adjustment to the permanence and the reality of individual purpose1 it remained an incomplete1 a disembodied philosophy4 ,it was frustrated over the ancient problem of the ,one and the ,many4 ,yet the problem is not so insoluble once we cease to personify society4 ,it is only when we are compelled to personify society that we are puzzled as to how many separate organic individuals can be united in one homogeneous organic individual4 ,this logical underbrush is cleared away if we think of society not as the name of a thing but as the name of all the adjustments between individuals and their things4 ,then1 we can say without theoretical qualms what common sense plainly tells us is so3 it is the individuals who act1 not society2 it is the individuals who think1 not the collective mind2 it is the painters who paint1 not the artistic spirit of the age2 it is the soldiers who fight and are killed1 not the nation2 it is the merchant who exports1 not the country4 ,it is their relations with each other that constitute a society4 ,and it is about the ordering of those relations that the individuals not executively concerned in a specific disorder may have public opinions and may intervene as a public4 ,,footnotes3 #bg ,john ,maynard ,keynes1 ,a ,revision of the ,treaty1 p4 #d4 #bh ,in a letter to ,william ,wirt1 cited by ,john ,sharp ,williams1 ,thomas ,jefferson1 p4 #g4 #bi ,harold ,j4 ,laski1 ,studies in the ,problem of ,sovereignty1 p4 #bd4 #cj ,kenneth ,macgowan1 ,the ,theatre of ,tomorrow1 pp4 #bdi-ej4 ,chapter ,,xv ,,absentee ,,rulers #a ,the practical effect of the monistic theories of society has been to rationalize that vast concentrating of political and economic power in the midst of which we live4 ,since society was supposed to have organic purposes of its own1 it came to seem quite reasonable that these purposes should be made manifest to a people by laws and decisions from a central point4 ,somebody had to have a purpose revealed to him which could be treated as the common purpose2 if it was to be accepted it had to be enforced by command2 if it was really to look like the national purpose1 it had to be handed down as a rule binding upon all4 ,thus men could say with ,goethe3 8,and then a mighty work completed stands1 ,one mind suffices for a thousand hands40#ca ,in this fashion the eulogies of the ,great ,society have been made4 ,two thousand years ago it was possible for whole civilizations as mature as the ,chinese and the ,greco-,roman to coexist in total indifference to one another4 ,today the food supplies1 the raw materials1 the manufactures1 the communications and the peace of the world constitute one great system which cannot be thrown severely out of balance in any part without disturbing the whole4 ,looked at from the top1 the system in its far-flung and intricate adjustments has a certain grandeur4 ,it might1 as some hopeful persons think1 even ultimately mean the brotherhood of man since all men living in advanced communities are now in quite obvious fashion dependent upon one another4 ,but the individual man cannot look at the system steadily from the top or see it in its ultimate speculative possibilities4 ,for him it means in practice1 along with the rise in certain of his material standards of life1 a nerve-wracking increase of the incalculable forces that bear upon his fate4 ,my neighbor in the country who borrowed money to raise potatoes which he cannot sell for cash looks at the bills from the village store asking for immediate cash payments1 and does not share the philosophic hopeful view of the interdependence of the world4 ,when unseen commission merchants in ,new ,york ,city refuse his potatoes1 the calamity is as dumfounding as a drought or a plague of locusts4 ,the harvest in ,september of the planting in ,may is now determined not only by wind and weather1 which his religion has from time immemorial justified1 but by a tangle of distant human arrangements of which only loose threads are in his hands4 ,he may live more richly than his ancestors2 he may be wealthier and healthier and1 for all he knows1 even happier4 ,but he gambles with the behavior of unseen men in a bewildering way4 ,his relations with invisibly managed markets are decisively important for him2 his own foresight is not dependable4 ,he is a link in a chain that stretches beyond his horizon4 ,the rle that salesmanship and speculation play is a measure of the spread between the work men do and the results4 ,to market the output of ,lancashire1 says ,dibblee1#cb 8the merchants and warehousemen of ,manchester and ,liverpool1 not to mention the marketing organizations in other ,lancashire towns1 have a greater capital employed than that required in all the manufacturing industries of the cotton trade40 ,and1 according to ,anderson's calculations1#cc the grain received at ,chicago in #aiae was sold sixty-two times in futures1 as well as an unknown number of times in spot transactions4 ,where men produce for invisible and uncertain markets 8the initial plans of enterprisers0#cd cannot be adequate4 ,the adjustments1 often very crude and costly1 are effected by salesmanship and speculation4 ,under these conditions neither the discipline of the craftsman who controls his process from beginning to end nor the virtues of thrift1 economy and work are a complete guide to a successful career4 ,defoe in his ,complete ,english ,tradesman#ce could say that 8trade is not a ball where people appear in masque and act a part to make sport 444 but is a plain1 visible scene of honest life 444 supported by prudence and frugality0 444 and so 8prudent management and frugality will increase any fortune to any degree40 ,benjamin ,franklin might opine that 8he that gets all he can honestly1 and saves all he gets 7necessary expenses excepted7 will certainly become rich1 if that ,being who governs the world1 to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavors1 doth not in ,his wise providence1 otherwise determine40 ,young men were until quite recently exhorted in the very words of ,defoe and ,franklin1 though ,franklin's rather canny allowance for the whims of the ,almighty was not always included4 ,but of late the gospel of success contains less about frugality and more about visions and the message of business4 ,this new gospel1 beneath all its highfalutin cant1 points dimly though excitedly to the truth that for business success a man must project his mind over an invisible environment4 ,this need has bred an imperious tendency to organization on a large scale4 ,to defend themselves against the economic powers of darkness1 against great monopolies or a devastating competition1 the farmers set up great centralized selling agencies4 ,business men form great trade associations4 ,everybody organizes1 until the number of committees and their paid secretaries cannot be computed4 ,the tendency is pervasive4 ,we have had1 if ,i remember correctly1 ,national ,smile ,week4 ,at any rate we have had ,nebraska which discovered that if you wish to prohibit liquor in ,nebraska you must prohibit it everywhere4 ,nebraska cannot live by itself alone1 being too weak to control an international traffic4 ,we have had the socialist who was convinced that socialism can maintain itself only on a socialist planet4 ,we have had ,secretary ,hughes who was convinced that capitalism could exist only on a capitalist planet4 ,we have had all the imperialists who could not live unless they advanced the backward races4 ,and we have had the ,ku ,klux ,klansmen who were persuaded that if you organized and sold hate on a country-wide scale there would be lots more hate than there was before4 ,we have had the ,germans before #aiad who were told they had to choose between 8world power or downfall10 and the ,french for some years after #aiai who could not be 8secure0 in ,europe unless every one else was insecure4 ,we have had all conceivable manifestations of the impulse to seek stability in an incalculable environment by standardizing for one's own apparent convenience all those who form the context of one's activity4 ,it has entailed perpetual effort to bring more and more men under the same law and custom1 and then1 of course1 to assume control of the lawmaking and law-enforcing machinery in this larger area4 ,the effect has been to concentrate decision in central governments1 in distant executive offices1 in caucuses and in steering committees4 ,whether this concentration of power is good or bad1 permanent or passing1 this at least is certain4 ,the men who make the decisions at these central points are remote from the men they govern and the facts with which they deal4 ,even if they conscientiously regard themselves as agents or trustees1 it is a pure fiction to say that they are carrying out the will of the people4 ,they may govern the people wisely4 ,they are not governing with the active consultation of the people4 ,they can at best lay down policy wholesale in response to electorates which judge and act upon only a detail of the result4 ,for the governors see a kind of whole which obscures the infinite varieties of particular interests2 their vices are abstraction and generalization which appear in politics as legalism and bureaucracy4 ,the governed1 on the contrary1 see vivid aspects of a whole which they can rarely imagine1 and their prevailing vice is to mistake a local prejudice for a universal truth4 ,the widening distance between the centers where decisions are taken and the places where the main work of the world is done has undermined the discipline of public opinion upon which all the earlier theorists relied4#cf ,a century ago the model of popular government was the self-sufficing township in which the voters' opinions were formed and corrected by talk with their neighbors4 ,they might entertain queer opinions about witches and spirits and foreign peoples and other worlds4 ,but about the village itself the facts were not radically in dispute1 and nothing was likely to happen that the elders could not with a little ingenuity bring under a well-known precedent of their common law4 ,but under absentee government these checks upon opinion are lacking4 ,the consequences are often so remote and long delayed that error is not promptly disclosed4 ,the conditioning factors are distant2 they do not count vividly in our judgments4 ,the reality is inaccessible2 the bounds of subjective opinion are wide4 ,in the interdependent world1 desire1 rather than custom or objective law1 tends to become the criterion of men's conduct4 ,they formulate their demands at large for 8security0 at the expense of every one else's safety1 for 8morality0 at the expense of other men's tastes and comfort1 for the fulfillment of a national destiny that consists in taking what you want when you want it4 ,the lengthening of the interval between conduct and experience1 between cause and effect1 has nurtured a cult of self-expression in which each thinker thinks about his own thoughts and has subtle feelings about his feelings4 ,that he does not in consequence deeply affect the course of affairs is not surprising4 #b ,the centralizing tendencies of the ,great ,society have not been accepted without protest1 and the case against them has been stated again and again4#cg ,without local institutions1 said de ,tocqueville1 a nation may give itself a free government1 but it does not possess the spirit of liberty4 ,to concentrate power at one point is to facilitate the seizure of power4 8,what are you going to do80 ,arthur ,young asked some provincials at the time of the ,french ,revolution4 8,we do not know10 they replied2 8we must see what ,paris is going to do40 ,local interests handled from a distant central point are roughly handled by busy and inattentive men4 ,and in the meantime the local training and the local winnowing of political talent are neglected4 ,the overburdened central authority expands into a vast hierarchy of bureaucrats and clerks manipulating immense stacks of paper1 always dealing with symbols on paper1 rarely with things or with people4 ,the genius of centralization reached its climax in the famous boast of a ,french minister of education1 who said3 ,it is three o'clock2 all the pupils in the third grade throughout ,france are now composing a ,latin verse4 ,there is no need to labor the point4 ,the more centralization the less can the people concerned be consulted and give conscious assent4 ,the more extensive the rule laid down the less account it can take of fact and special circumstance4 ,the more it conflicts with local experience1 the more distant its source and wholesale its character1 the less easily enforceable it is4 ,general rules will tend to violate particular needs4 ,distantly imposed rules usually lack the sanction of consent4 ,being less suited to the needs of men1 and more external to their minds1 they rest on force rather than on custom and on reason4 ,a centralized society dominated by the fiction that the governors are the spokesmen of a common will tends not only to degrade initiative in the individual but to reduce to insignificance the play of public opinion4 ,for when the action of a whole people is concentrated1 the public is so vast that even the crude objective judgments it might make on specific issues cease to be practicable4 ,the tests indicated in preceding chapters by which a public might judge the workability of a rule or the soundness of a new proposal have little value when the public runs into millions and the issues are hopelessly entangled with each other4 ,it is idle under such circumstances to talk about democracy1 or about the refinement of public opinion4 ,with such monstrous complications the public can do little more than at intervals to align itself heavily for or against the rgime in power1 and for the rest to bear with its works1 obeying meekly or evading1 as seems most convenient4 ,for1 in practice1 the organic theory of society means a concentration of power2 that is1 the way the notion of one purpose is actually embodied in affairs4 ,and this in turn means that men must either accept frustration of their own purposes or contrive somehow to frustrate that declared purpose of that central power which pretends it is the purpose of all4 ,,footnotes3 #ca ,faust1 ,part ,,ii1 ,act v1 scene #c4 #cb ,dibblee1 ,the ,laws of ,supply and ,demand1 cited by ,b4 ,m4 ,anderson1 ,jr41 ,the ,value of ,money1 p4 #bei4 #cc ,b4 ,m4 ,anderson1 ,jr41 ,the ,value of ,money1 p4 #bea4 #cd ,ibid4 #ce ,cf4 ,werner ,lombart1 ,the ,quintessence of ,capitalism1 ,chapter ,,vii4 #cf ,cf4 my ,public ,opinion1 ,chapters ,,xvi and ,,xvii4 #cg ,in a convenient form by ,j4 ,charles ,brun1 ,le ,rgionalisme1 pp4 #ac et seq4 ,cf4 also ,walter ,thompson1 ,federal ,centralization1 ,chapter ,,xix4 ,chapter ,,xvi ,,the ,,realms ,,of ,,disorder #a ,yet the practice of centralization and the philosophy which personifies society have acquired a great hold upon men4 ,the dangers are well known4 ,if1 nevertheless1 the practice and the theory persist1 it cannot be merely because men have been led astray by false doctrine4 ,if you examine the difficulties enumerated by the sponsors of great centralizing measures1 such as national prohibition1 the national child labor amendment1 federal control of education or the nationalization of railroads1 they are reducible1 ,i think1 to one dominating idea3 that it is necessary to extend the area of control over all the factors in a problem or the problem will be insoluble anywhere4 ,it was to this idea that ,mr4 ,lloyd ,george appealed when he faced his critics at the end of his administration4 ,while his words are the words of a skilful debater1 the idea behind them might almost be called the supreme motive of all the imperial and centralizing tendencies of the ,great ,society3 8,lord ,grey sought to make peace in the ,balkans4 ,he made peace4 ,that peace did not stand the jolting of the train that carried it from ,london to the ,balkans4 ,it fell to pieces before it ever reached ,sofia4 ,that was not his fault4 ,the plan was good4 ,the intentions were excellent4 ,but there were factors there which he could not control4 ,he tried to prevent the ,turks from entering the war against us1 a most important matter4 ,german diplomacy was too strong for him4 ,he tried to prevent ,bulgaria from entering the war against us4 ,there again ,german diplomacy defeated us4 ,well1 now ,i have never taunted ,lord ,grey with that4 ,i do not taunt him now1 but what ,i say is that when you get into the realm of foreign affairs there are things ,i will not say you cannot visualize1 because you do1 but there are factors you cannot influence40#ch ,mr4 ,lloyd ,george might have said the same of domestic affairs4 ,there1 too1 factors abound which you cannot influence4 ,and as empires expand to protect their frontiers1 and then expand further to protect the protections to their frontiers1 so central governments have been led step by step to take one interest after another under their control4 #b ,for the democracies are haunted by this dilemma3 they are frustrated unless in the laying down of rules there is a large measure of assent2 yet they seem unable to find solutions of their greatest problems except through centralized governing by means of extensive rules which necessarily ignore the principle of assent4 ,the problems that vex democracy seem to be unmanageable by democratic methods4 ,in supreme crises the dilemma is presented absolutely4 ,possibly a war can be fought for democracy2 it cannot be fought democratically4 ,possibly a sudden revolution may be made to advance democracy2 but the revolution itself will be conducted by a dictatorship4 ,democracy may be defended against its enemies but it will be defended by a committee of safety4 ,the history of the wars and revolutions since #aiad is ample evidence on this point4 ,in the presence of danger1 where swift and concerted action is required1 the methods of democracy cannot be employed4 ,that is understandable enough4 ,but how is it that the democratic method should be abandoned so commonly in more leisurely and less catastrophic times8 ,why in time of peace should people provoke that centralization of power which deprives them of control over the use of that power8 ,is it not a probable answer to say that in the presence of certain issues1 even in time of peace1 the dangers have seemed sufficiently menacing to cause people to seek remedies1 regardless of method1 by the shortest and easiest way at hand8 ,it could be demonstrated1 ,i think1 that the issues which have seemed so overwhelming were of two kinds3 those which turned on the national defense or the public safety and those which turned on the power of modern capitalism4 ,where the relations of a people to armed enemies are in question or where the relations of employee1 customer or farmer to large industry are in question the need for solutions has outweighed all interest in the democratic method4 ,in the issues engendered by the rise of the national state and the development of large scale industries are to be found the essentially new problems of the modern world4 ,for the solution of these problems there are few precedents4 ,there is no established body of custom and law4 ,the field of international affairs and the field of industrial relations are the two great centers of anarchy in society4 ,it is a pervasive anarchy4 ,out of the national state with its terrifying military force1 and out of great industry with all its elaborate economic compulsion1 the threat against personal security always rises4 ,to offset it somehow1 to check it and thwart it1 seemed more important than any finical regard for the principle of assent4 ,and so to meet the menace of the national state1 its neighbors sought to form themselves into more powerful national states2 to tame the power of capitalism they supported the growth of vast bureaucracies4 ,against powers that were dangerous and uncontrolled they set up powers1 nominally their own1 which were just as vast and just as uncontrolled4 #c ,but only for precarious intervals has security been attained by these vast balances of power4 ,from #ahgj to #aiad the world was held in equilibrium4 ,it was upset1 and the world has not yet found a new order4 ,the balances of power within the nations are no less unsteady4 ,for neither in industry nor in international affairs has it yet been possible to hold any balance long enough to fix it by rule and give it an institutional form4 ,power has been checked by power here and there and now and then but power has not been adjusted to power and the terms of the adjustment settled and accepted4 ,the attempt to bring power under control by offsetting it with power was sound enough in intention4 ,the conflicting purposes of men cannot be held under pacific control unless the tendency of all power to become arbitrary is checked by other force4 ,all the machinery of conference1 of peaceful negotiation1 of law and the rule of reason is workable in large affairs only where the power of the negotiators is neutralized one against the other4 ,it may be neutralized because the parties are in fact equally powerful4 ,it may be neutralized because the weaker has invisible allies among the other powers of the world1 or in domestic affairs among other interests in society4 ,but before there can be law there must be order1 and an order is an arrangement of power4 ,the worst that can be said of the nationalists and collectivists is that they attempted to establish balances of power which could not endure4 ,the pluralist at least would say that the end they sought must be attained differently1 that in place of vast wholesale balances of power it is necessary to create many detailed balances of power4 ,the people as a whole supporting a centralized government cannot tame capitalism as a whole4 ,for the powers which are summed up in the term capitalism are many4 ,they bear separately upon different groups of people4 ,the nation as a unit does not encounter them all1 and cannot deal with them all4 ,it is to the different groups of people concerned that we must look for the power which shall offset the arbitrary power that bears upon them4 ,the reduction of capitalism to workable law is no matter of striking at it wholesale by general enactments4 ,it is a matter of defeating its arbitrary power in detail1 in every factory1 in every office1 in every market1 and of turning the whole network of relations under which industry operates from the dominion of arbitrary forces into those of settled rules4 ,and so it is in the anarchy among nations4 ,if all the acts of a citizen are to be treated as organically the actions of that nation1 a stable balance of power is impossible4 ,here also it is necessary to break down the fiction of identity1 to insist that the quarrel of one business man with another is their quarrel1 and not the nation's1 a quarrel in which each is entitled to a vindication of his right to fair adjudication but not to patriotic advocacy of his cause4 ,it is only by this dissociation of private interests that the mass of disputes across frontiers can gradually be brought under an orderly process4 ,for a large part1 perhaps the greatest part1 of the disputes between nations is an accumulated mass of undetermined disputes between their nationals4 ,if these essentially private disputes could be handled1 without patriotic fervor and without confusing an oil prospector with the nation as a whole1 with governments acting as friends of the court and not as advocates for a client1 the balance of power between governments would be easier to maintain4 ,it would not be subject to constant assault from within each nation by an everlasting propaganda of suspicion by private interests seeking national support4 ,and if only the balance of power between governments could be stabilized long enough to establish a line of precedents for international conference1 a longer peace might result4 #d ,these in roughest outline are some of the conclusions1 as they appear to me1 of the attempt to bring the theory of democracy into somewhat truer alignment with the nature of public opinion4 ,i have conceived public opinion to be1 not the voice of ,god1 nor the voice of society1 but the voice of the interested spectators of action4 ,i have1 therefore1 supposed that the opinions of the spectators must be essentially different from those of the actors1 and that the kind of action they were capable of taking was essentially different too4 ,it has seemed to me that the public had a function and must have methods of its own in controversies1 qualitatively different from those of the executive men2 that it was a dangerous confusion to believe that private purposes were a mere emanation of some common purpose4 ,this conception of society seems to me truer and more workable than that which endows public opinion with pantheistic powers4 ,it does not assume that men in action have universal purposes2 they are denied the fraudulent support of the fiction that they are the agents of a common purpose4 ,they are regarded as the agents of special purposes1 without pretense and without embarrassment4 ,they must live in a world with men who have other special purposes4 ,the adjustments which must be made are society1 and the best society is the one in which men have purposes which they can realize with the least frustration4 ,when men take a position in respect to the purposes of others they are acting as a public4 ,and the end of their acting in this rle is to promote the conditions under which special purposes can be composed4 ,it is a theory which puts its trust chiefly in the individuals directly concerned4 ,they initiate1 they administer1 they settle4 ,it would subject them to the least possible interference from ignorant and meddlesome outsiders1 for in this theory the public intervenes only when there is a crisis of maladjustment1 and then not to deal with the substance of the problem but to neutralize the arbitrary force which prevents adjustment4 ,it is a theory which economizes the attention of men as members of the public1 and asks them to do as little as possible in matters where they can do nothing very well4 ,it confines the effort of men1 when they are a public1 to a part they might fulfill1 to a part which corresponds to their own greatest interest in any social disturbance2 that is1 to an intervention which may help to allay the disturbance1 and thus allow them to return to their own affairs4 ,for it is the pursuit of their special affairs that they are most interested in4 ,it is by the private labors of individuals that life is enhanced4 ,i set no great store on what can be done by public opinion and the action of masses4 #e ,i have no legislative program to offer1 no new institutions to propose4 ,there are1 ,i believe1 immense confusions in the current theory of democracy which frustrate and pervert its action4 ,i have attacked certain of the confusions with no conviction except that a false philosophy tends to stereotype thought against the lessons of experience4 ,i do not know what the lessons will be when we have learned to think of public opinion as it is1 and not as the fictitious power we have assumed it to be4 ,it is enough if with ,bentham we know that 8the perplexity of ambiguous discourse 444 distracts and eludes the apprehension1 stimulates and inflames the passions40 ,,footnotes3 #ch ,speech at ,manchester1 ,october #ad1 #aibb4 ,,index ,absentee rulers defined1 #agc-ahf ,action1 public1 defined1 #gc-gd ,agencies defined1 #abe-adb2 fact-finding1 #de ,agent1 public not1 #afi ,agents and bystanders defined1 #dj-ec ,anarchy1 #afa ,anderson1 ,jr41 ,b4 ,m41 #agf ,arbitrary force1 neutralization of1 #fc-gd ,aristotle1 #gg-hj ,assent1 defined1 #aag-abc1 #abi1 #ahi ,bacon1 ,francis1 #afb ,balkans1 #ahh ,behavior1 #ee1 #fh-fi2 reasonable1 defined1 #ade ,bentham1 ,jeremy1 #bjj ,bergson1 ,henri1 #cb-cc ,birth control1 its relation to food supply1 #hg-hh ,bismarck1 ,prince von1 #ad1 #afi ,brun1 ,j4 ,charles1 #ahc ,bryan1 ,william ,jennings1 #cf ,bryce1 ,james1 #ah-ai ,bulgaria1 #ahh ,business1 new gospel of1 #agh ,bystanders and agents defined1 #dj-ec ,capitalism1 #cg1 #agi1 #aia1 #aib1 #aid1 #aie ,carr-,saunders1 ,a4 ,m41 #hg ,cassel1 ,gustav1 #ib1 #id ,cats1 mice and clover1 #ca-cb ,cavour1 ,count di1 #afi ,centralization of government4 ,see ,government ,change1 unnoticeable1 #hh ,chanticleer1 #ae ,chicago mayoral election1 #ag ,chinese and ,greco-,roman civilizations1 #agd ,citizen1 #ac1 #ad1 #ae1 #af1 #ah1 #bj1 #ba1 #bb1 #bd1 #be1 #bf1 #bg1 #ch1 #ci1 #dj1 #de1 #df1 #eb1 #adh1 #aie ,citizenship1 #aea ,civic duty1 derision for1 #ae1 #adf1 #aea ,civil rights1 #eh ,civilization1 #agd ,clover1 cats and mice1 #ca-cb ,competence1 #aej ,conduct1 #ahb ,conformity1 test of1 defined1 #abc-abd ,conscience1 #bh ,contracts1 social1 #dj1 #ie-ajf2 defined1 #aja-ajb1 #ajd-aje ,control1 #ee ,controversy1 #gg ,coperation1 #ii ,corruption1 #ga1 #gb ,criteria of reform defined1 #abe-adb ,criticism1 #abc ,crises1 #fg ,crisis1 public opinion reserve force in1 #fi ,dante1 #afi ,darwin1 ,charles1 #ca1 #cb ,debate1 public value of1 defined1 #aaj-aad ,defective rule defined1 #aae-abd ,defoe1 ,daniel1 #agg ,delbrck1 ,hans1 #fj ,democracy1 #bd1 #ce-cg1 #ga1 #adf-aea1 #aee1 #ahi1 #aij1 #aig-bjj ,democratic theory1 #ad1 #fa1 #adg ,democrats1 #ei ,derision of citizens1 #ae ,descartes1 #ha ,dibblee1 ,g4 ,b41 #agf ,dictatorship1 #aij ,disenchanted man defined1 #bj 8,disorder1 idea of10 #cb-cc2 realms of1 defined1 #ahg-bjj ,dogma of assent1 #aag ,duties and rights4 ,see ,rights and duties4 ,economic problem defined1 #ib-id4 ,education1 #bb-bc1 #bd1 #bg2 public1 defined1 #adf-adg1 #adh-aea1 #afi ,election1 defined1 #ef1 #fj1 #fa ,elections1 defined1 #abg-acj ,england1 #ei1 #hf ,enterprise1 ,macaulay on1 #di-ej ,enterprisers1 #agf ,environment1 #ad1 #gh1 #gi1 #agi ,erickson1 ,e4 ,m41 #af ,eugenics1 #cd-ce ,evasion of law1 #abc ,evils of democracy1 #ce-cf1 #cg1 #agc-ahf ,evolution1 #ha-hd ,executive action1 #add ,expectations1 #cc ,exploiters1 #aff ,fable of professor1 #bh ,food supply1 #hf-hg ,franklin1 ,benjamin1 #agg-agh ,french security1 #agi ,french ,revolution1 #ei1 #ahc ,frugality1 #agg ,function1 government1 defined1 #gj-gc2 relation to competency1 #aej ,german diplomacy1 #ahh ,germans1 #agi ,goethe1 #agc ,gosnell1 ,harvey ,foote1 #ag ,government1 vii1 #ad1 #da1 #ej1 #fa1 #fb1 #gj1 #ga1 #gb1 #gc1 #abf1 #agc-ahf1 #aid2 defined1 #gg1 #abf2 function defined1 #gj-gc ,grant1 ,madison1 #bb ,great ,society1 #dc1 #gi1 #ih1 #agd1 #ahc1 #ahh-ahi ,greco-,roman and ,chinese civilizations1 #agd ,grey1 ,lord1 vii1 #ahh ,guedalla1 ,philip1 #ad ,gun elevation1 #ia ,hamilton1 ,alexander1 vii1 #afi ,hegel1 #ih ,hegelian mystery1 #dg ,hertzen1 ,alexander1 #bj ,hughes1 ,charles ,evans1 #agi ,human values defined1 #ie-ig 8,idea of disorder10 #cb-cc ,ideal1 #bj1 #bb1 #ci1 #fc1 #fh1 #aee ,idealization1 #eg ,ideals1 #ad ,ideas1 #dg1 #dh ,imperial ,party1 #afi ,initiative and referendum1 #ai ,innovation1 #aaf ,inquiry1 test of1 defined1 #acj-ace ,intelligence1 #fi1 #ace ,jefferson1 ,thomas1 #aei ,justice1 #fg ,keynes1 ,j4 ,m41 #aeg-aeh ,knowledge1 #cj ,ku ,klux ,klan1 #agi ,lancashire goods1 #agf ,laski1 ,harold ,j41 #afa ,latin ,america1 #fa ,latin verse1 #ahd ,law1 #fi1 #ajj1 #ajh1 #aae1 #aaf1 #abc1 #abd1 #aia-aib1 #aic ,laws1 #fi1 #ga2 assent to1 defined1 #aag-abb1 #abc1 #abd2 defective1 defined1 #abe-adb1 #acf2 test of1 defined1 #ach ,leaders1 #ai ,league of ,nations1 #acc ,lenin1 #afi ,liberal defined1 #afb ,liberalism defined1 #afb-agb ,liberals1 #afb1 #aff ,liberties of men defined1 #ee ,liberty1 spirit of1 #ahg ,lloyd ,george1 ,david1 #aeg-aeh1 #ahh-ahi ,lombart1 ,werner1 #agg ,lowell1 ,lawrence ,a41 #ai ,macaulay1 ,lord1 #di-ej ,macgowan1 ,kenneth1 #afc ,majority1 #ai2 rule defined1 #eg-eh1 #fj ,malthus1 ,t4 ,r41 #he-hg ,man1 disenchanted1 #ac-ba ,manchester1 ,lloyd ,george at1 #ahh-ahi ,mayoral election in ,chicago1 #ag ,merriam1 ,charles ,edward1 #ag-ah ,methods of public men1 #aei ,mice1 cats and clover1 #ca-cb ,michelet1 ,simon1 #af ,michels1 ,robert1 #ai1 #bb-bc ,minorities1 #eh ,monistic theory1 #afa1 #agc ,monodrama1 #afc-afe ,moral code1 #bi-cj1 #ce1 #gd ,moral codes1 #cj ,moralists1 #bh ,morality1 #ajj ,morrow1 ,dwight1 #ei-fj ,morse1 ,prof41 #ei-fj ,napoleon ,,iii41 #ad ,national defense1 problem defined1 #ij-ia ,nationals1 #aif ,nationalism1 #fe ,neutralization of arbitrary force1 #fg-gd ,neutralized power1 #aic ,newspapers1 #ac ,nonvoting1 #ag-ah ,officials1 government1 #gb ,ogburn1 ,w4 ,f41 #hi1 #ajj ,omnicompetency of citizens1 #ba1 #ci ,one and ,many problem1 #aga ,opinion1 #dh1 #eb1 #ef1 #fa ,opinion1 public4 ,see ,public opinion ,opinions defined1 #dd-di1 #afb1 #aig ,opposition parties1 #bj ,party government1 #ei-fj ,party in power1 #abf ,party system1 #acj ,parties1 political1 #abg ,partisanship1 #cd ,pawlow1 ,ivan ,petrovich1 #cj ,people1 #ai1 #cf1 #da2 ,macaulay on1 #ej1 #fa1 #fb1 #fh1 #fi1 #ga1 #ahj1 #aha1 #aia1 #aid ,people's will defined1 #gb ,physical force in ,south1 #fa ,plato1 #afi ,pluralistic theory defined1 #aea1 #afa1 #aid ,political capacity1 #gh ,political evils1 agents against1 #afi ,political leaders1 #ai1 #bb ,political system changes1 #hd-he ,political talent neglected1 #ahd ,political theories defined1 #bb-ci ,politicians1 #da ,politics1 truth in1 #aeg-aeh ,policy1 public1 #eg ,population1 problem of1 defined1 #he-hg ,power1 arbitrary1 #gd2 balance of1 defined1 #aib-aif2 of public opinion1 #gj ,principles of public opinion1 #adc ,problem1 nature of1 #ha-id1 #acj2 of ,one and ,many1 #aga ,problems of citizen defined1 #ac-af1 #be1 #bf1 #cd1 #fd1 #gb1 #ha-id1 #abe1 #abi1 #aca1 #adj1 #ada1 #ahg ,professor1 fable of1 #bh ,protocol for the ,pacific ,settlement of ,international ,disputes1 #acc ,public1 #db2 powers defined1 #di-eb1 #ed-fb2 relation to public affairs defined1 #fc-ff1 #fg1 #fh1 #gg1 #ajc1 #aje1 #ajf1 #ajg1 #ajh2 debate1 value of1 defined1 #aaj-aad1 #aae1 #aah1 #aai1 #abj1 #aba1 #abb1 #abd1 #abe1 #abi1 #aca1 #acc1 #acd1 #adj1 #ada1 #adc1 #add1 #ade2 education defined1 #adf-aea1 #aee1 #aef1 #aeg1 #aei2 in any situation defined1 #afh1 #afi2 dangers to1 defined1 #ahi-aia1 #aic1 #aig1 #aih ,public affairs1 #ac-ba1 #bd1 #be1 #bg1 #bh1 #cf1 #ch1 #ci1 #da1 #dd1 #ee1 #ef1 #fd1 #fi1 #ahi ,public judgment1 #aae ,public life1 candor in1 #aeg ,public men1 methods of1 #aei ,public office1 education for1 #aea ,public opinion1 #dd1 #dh1 #eb1 #ec1 #ee2 and public affairs1 #ee-ef1 #fe2 defined #fe-gj1 #ga1 #gb1 #gc1 #gd2 function of1 defined1 #gd1 #gi2 principles of1 #adc2 tests of1 defined1 #add-ade1 #adg1 #aea1 #aha1 #aig-bjj ,publicity1 #dc ,publics1 random1 #gi ,question ,aristotle asked1 #gg-hj ,questions1 two1 #ajg ,realms of disorder1 #ahg-bjj ,reason1 #fi ,reform ,bill1 #ej ,reform1 criteria of1 #abe-adb ,reform1 #abi2 test of1 defined1 #ace-ach ,reformer1 #abi1 #acj ,registered voters1 #ai ,revivalists1 #bb ,revolution1 #ei1 #fa1 #acf1 #aij ,revolution1 ,french1 #ei1 #ahc ,rights1 #ajj ,rights and duties defined1 #ajj-ajg ,rousseau1 ,j4 ,j41 #ih ,rule1 #fh-fi2 defective1 defined1 #aae-abd ,rules4 ,see ,laws ,rules of society1 #aag ,rulers1 absentee1 defined1 #agc-ahf ,santayana1 ,george1 #ie ,schlesinger1 ,a4 ,m41 #af ,school1 #ad ,self-government1 #ai ,settlements1 #abj ,shaw1 ,g4 ,bernard1 #ei ,smith1 ,logan ,pearsall1 #ae-af1 #bf ,social contracts defined1 #ie-ajf ,socialism1 theory of1 defined1 #cg-ch1 #ci1 #fe ,socialists1 #aef ,society1 #bh1 #cj1 #ca1 #cb1 #db1 #de1 #ga1 #gc1 #gi1 #hh1 #ih1 #ajc1 #ajf1 #acd2 functions defined1 #aee-afa2 defined1 #aee-agb1 #agf1 #ahc ,socrates1 #cj ,sovereign people1 #ah-ai ,sovereignty1 #ad ,standards1 #cj1 #adc ,statesmanship defined1 #aee-afa ,steffen1 ,gustaf ,f41 #ai ,stoddard1 ,lothrop1 #bb ,submission1 #afb ,supply and demand1 #ib ,system1 economic1 #id2 prevailing1 #ajj2 of rights and duties1 #ajj ,teachers1 #bg ,theory1 citizen reigns in1 #ad ,thomson1 ,j4 ,arthur1 #ca ,times 7,london71 #ej ,tocqueville1 de1 #ahc ,trade1 #agg ,truth1 #fg ,turks1 #ahh ,tyranny1 #gj-ga ,unattainable ideal1 #bb-ci ,united ,states government1 #fa ,validity of laws1 #ajh ,value is measurement1 #if ,value of public debate defined1 #aaj-aad ,values1 human1 defined1 #ie-ig ,virtue1 #cj1 #eg ,voice of public opinion defined1 #aig ,vote1 #cf1 #ee1 #ef ,voter1 #ai1 #cf1 #adf ,voters1 #af-ag1 #ah-ai1 #da ,voting1 #eb1 #ee1 #ef1 #eh1 #ei ,war1 #ij1 #aij ,williams1 ,john ,sharp1 #aei ,wirt1 ,william1 #aei ,woman suffrage1 #fj ,work1 #agc ,world1 #bi 8,world power or downfall10 #agi ,yevreynoff1 #afc-afd ,young1 ,arthur1 #ahc