It may be, in fact for most men it must be, that in each of these associations he follows a leader. In any considerable number of people it is certain that they will group themselves in hierarchical form. In every club, in every social circle, in every trade union, in every stockholders’ meeting there are leaders and their lieutenants and the led. But these allegiances are partial. Because a man has so many loyalties each loyalty commands only a segment of himself. They are not, therefore, whole-hearted loyalties like that of a good soldier to his captain. They are qualified, calculated, debatable, and they are sanctioned not by inherent authority but by expediency or inertia. [p269] The outward manifestation of these complex loyalties of the modern man is the multitude of institutions through which the affairs of mankind are directed. Now since each of these corporate entities represents only a part of any man’s interest, except perhaps in the case of the paid executive secretary, none of these institutions can count to the bitter end upon the undivided loyalty of all its members. The conflicts between institutions are in considerable measure conflicts of interest within the same individuals. There is a point where the activity of a man’s trade union may so seriously affect the value of the securities he owns that he does not know which way his interest lies. The criss-crossing of loyalties is so great in an advanced community that no grouping is self-contained. No grouping, therefore, can maintain a military discipline or a military character. For when men strive too fiercely as members of any one group they soon find that they are at war with themselves as members of another group. The statement that modern society is pluralistic cannot, then, be dismissed as a newfangled notion invented by theorists. It is a sober description of the actual facts. Each man has countless interests through which he is attached to a very complex social situation. The complexity of his allegiance cannot fail to be reflected in his political conduct. 4. _Live and Let Live_