We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
View all Google Scholar citations for this article.
The role of elites within liberal democracy is a perennial issue. One reason why is an inappropriate theoretical conception of democracy. They are self-organizing systems rather than instrumental organizations. As such they have more in common systemically with science and the market than with democratic organizations or undemocratic states. Examining the role of elites within science and the market sheds light on how they work within democracies. Such an examination shows them to be both necessary and dangerous. Traditional “elitist” analyses of democracy suffer from confusions which the self-organizing model clears up. It also offers improvements on traditional “pluralist” conceptions.
1. Adams, John, The Political Writings of John Adams (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954), p. 139. Adams was far from the only writer of the time who struggled with the problem of how this type of inequality could be harmonized with the principle of popular sovereignty. See also Taylor, John, An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the united States (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), pp. 170, 47296; Adams's, response and the discussions of “A Federal Farmer” in Storing, Herbert, The Anti-Federalist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 75–79.
2. Adams, , Writings, p. 202.
3. Polsby, Nelson, Political Innovation in America New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984).
4. Hayek, F. A., The Political Order of a Free People (Chicago: University of Chicago University Press, 1979); Dobuzinskis, Laurent, The Self-Organizing Polity: An Epistemological Analysis of Political Life (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987).
5. Hayek, F. A., Rules and Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973) p. 38.
6. Kaufman, Herbert, The Forest Ranger (Washington, D. C.: Resources fo the Future, 1960), pp. 91–200.
7. Polanyi, Michael, The Logic of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 184.
8. Hayek, F. A., Individualism and Economic Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948).
9. Kirzner, Israel M., Competition and Entrepreneurship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973).
10. Schumpeter, Joseph, The Theory of Economic Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961).
11. Lachmann, Ludwig, The Market as an Economic Process (Oxford: Basil Black-well, 1986).
12. Ziman, John, Public Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968).
13. Dizerega, Gus, “Citizenship and Participation: A Reformulation of Democratic Theory” (Ph.D. diss, University of California, Berkeley, 1984).
14. Hayek, , Rules and Order, p. 3.
15. Crick, Bernard, In Defense of Politics (Baltimore: Penguin, 1964), p. 22.
16. Ibid., pp. 23, 146, respectively.
17. Hayek, , Rules and Order, p. 43.
18. Tocqueville, Alexis De, Democracy in America, 2 vols. (New York: Schocken Books, 1961), 2: 89–90.
19. Dahl, Robert A., A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956); Pateman, Carole, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); and Mansbrdige, Jane, Beyond Adversary Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
19. Dahl, Robert A., A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956); Pateman, Carole, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); and Mansbrdige, Jane, Beyond Adversary Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
20. For example, Dye, Thomas R., Who's Running America? Institutional Leadership in the United States (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976), p. 5.
21. Michels, Robert, Political Parties (New York: Free Press, 1961), p. 365.
22. Sartori, Giovanni, The Theory of Democracy Revisited, 2 vols. (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1987), p. 149.
23. Lipset, Seymour Martin, Trow, Martin A., and Coleman, James S.Union Democracy (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1965), p. 459.
24. Ibid., p. 464.
25. Ibid., p. 454.
26. Sartori, , Theory of Democracy Revisited, 1: 149.
27. Spretnak, Charlene and Capra, Frijof, Green Politics: The Global Picture (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1986).
28. Lipset, , Trow, and Coleman, , Union Democracy, p. 467.
29. Ibid., p. 347.
30. Heilbroner, Robert, “What Is Socialism?” Dissent (Winter 1978), p. 343.
31. Ibid., pp. 346–47. In fact the difference is not between morality and lack of morality, but between end-state morality where a specific result is moral or not, and procedural morality wherein morality is not found in the result, but in the means for getting there. A case for procedural morality exists when we cannot agree on specific outcomes because a situation is too complex to control, precisely the case with self-organizing social institutions. For an alternative to Heilbroner's view of bourgeois society and ethics, see Diamond, Martin, “Ethics and Politics: The American Way,” in The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, ed. Horowitz, Robert H., 3rd ed. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1986).
32. Although it is particularly appropriate to them. For an excellent case study of the incompatibility of central direction with democratic politics, see Steinmo, Sven, “Social Democracy vs. Socialism: Goal Adaptation in Social Democratic Sweden,” Politics and Society 16 (1988): 403–446. Recently Heilbroner has apparently repudiated his views for he has admitted capitalism's victory over socialism. We may all be grateful that he or like-minded souls did not attain political power in 1978! See Heilbroner, Robert, “Reflections: The Triumph of Capitalism,” The New Yorker 23 01 1989, pp. 98–109.
33. Anonymous, The Suppressed Book About Slavery, Carleton, , reprinted (New York: Arno Press and New York Times, 1968), p. 21.
34. Dahl, Robert A., Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy (Berkeley: University of California, 1982), pp. 119–20.
35. For an extended critique of egalitarian theories of democracy, see Dizerega, Gus, “Equality, Self-Government and Democracy: A Critique of Robert Dahl's Conception of Political Equality,” Western Political Quarterly (1988): 447–68.
36. Toulmin, Stephen, Human Understanding (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 168.
37. In science, democracy, and the market the underlying moral principles are based upon respect for others and the need to obtain their free agreement. Respect is a procedural moral principle quite different from Heilbroner's “endstate” conception of morality. On the distinction between procedural and end-state morality, see Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
38. Sartori, , Theory of Democracy Revisited, p. 93.
39. Deutsch, Karl, The Analysis of International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), pp. 101–110.
40. Sartori, , Theory of Democracy Revisited, p. 99.
41. Derthick, Martha and Quirk, Paul, The Politics of Deregulation (Washington D. C: Brookings Institution, 1985), pp. 237–58; Polsby, Political Innovation; and Page, Benjamin I., Shapiro, Robert Y., and Dempsey, Glenn R., “What Moves Public Opinion?” APSR 81 (1987).
42. Sartori, , Theory of Democracy Revisited, p. 99.
43. Buell, Emmett H., “Locals' and ‘Cosmopolitans’: National, Regional and State Newspaper Coverage of the New Hampshire Primary,” in Media and Momentum: The New Hampshire Primary and Nomination Politics, ed. Orren, Gary R. and Polsby, Nelson (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1987).
44. Huckfeldt, Robert and Sprague, John, “Networks in Context: Thee Social Flow of Political Information,” APSR 18 (1987): 1197–1216; Mills, C. Wright, Power, Politics and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills, ed. Horowitz, Irving Louis (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 577–98.
45. DiZerega, “Equality, Self-Government and Democracy.”
46. Polsby, Nelson, Community Power and Political Theory, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 154.
47. Domhoff, G. W., Who Rules America Now? A View from the 80s (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 42.
48. Ibid., p. 36.
49. Lebergott, Stanley, Wealth and Want (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp. 161–75.
50. For an example of his organizational thinking, see Domhoff, , Who Rules America Now?, p. 77.
51. Ibid., p. 60.
52. White, Shelby, “Cradle to Grave: Family Offices Manage Money for the Very Rich,” Barron's (20 03 1978), p. 9.
53. Domhoff, , Who Rules America Now?, p. 72.
54. Olson, Mancur, The Rise and Decline of Nations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).
55. Much of this analysis rests on the work of Ziman, John: Public Knowledge (1968); and Reliable Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).
56. Feyerabend, Paul, Against Method (New York: Schocken, 1975).
57. Polsby, Nelson, “Moving Towards Equality in Campaign Finance? Another Equivocal Encounter Between Theory and Practice,” Power, Inequality and Democratic Politics, ed. Shapiro, Ian and Reeher, Grant (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 268–69.
58. Walker, Jack L., “The Origin and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America,” APSR 77(1983): 390–406.
59. Domhoff, , Who Rules America Now?, p. 104.
60. Steinmo, “Social Democracy vs. Socialism.”
61. Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton, “Two Faces of Power,” APSR 56 (1962): 947–52.
62. For an extended discussion of this point, see Dizerega, Gus, “Democracy as a Spontaneous Order,” Critical Review (Winter 1989).
63. Domhoff, , Who Rules America Now?, p. 2.
64. Ibid., p. 161.
65. G. W., Domhoff, The Higher Circles (New York: Random House, 1970), p. 158.
66. Domhoff, , Who Rules America Now?, p. 84.
67. Ibid., p. 85.
68. Fox, Stephen, The American Conservation Movement: John Muir and His Legacy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), pp. 292–99.
69. Polsby, , Community Power and Political Theory, p. 154.
70. But see Hough, Jerry who uses Robert Dahl's definition of pluralism to argue that it exists within pre-Gorbachev USSR! The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970).
71. See diZerega, “Equality, Self-Government and Democracy.”
72. Lowi, Theodore, The End of Liberalism (NewYork: W. W. Norton, 1969); Reisner, Marc, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (New York: Penguin, 1987).
73. DiZerega, “Citizenship and Participation.”
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection.
Full text views reflects the number of PDF downloads, PDFs sent to Google Drive, Dropbox and Kindle and HTML full text views.
Loading metrics...
Abstract views reflect the number of visits to the article landing page.
Loading metrics...
* Views captured on Cambridge Core between September 2016 - 12th June 2018. This data will be updated every 24 hours.