And yet, as has just been said, it is the making of a choice of this kind that is regarded as being, in the domain of politics, typically, if not exclusively, the exercise of {246} the power of the many. The result is that, whilst the many do in reality exert, through their spontaneously similar demand for certain social results, an influence on legislation which in certain respects is paramount, the political theorist, neglecting this fact altogether, confines himself to asserting their power in the demand for political means—the kind of demand in respect of which they are most influenced by others. Now what, let us ask, is the explanation of this fact? How does it come that in government a power is attributed to the many which is, even by recent socialists, not attributed to them in economic production? The reason is that over the processes of economic production the many can exercise no control at all, but that over the devising of governmental measures they can exercise some, which, though absolutely small, is yet, by comparison, large. Thus, for instance, though the structure and manufacture of watches is in one sense determined by the many, because the manufacture of those watches only can be continued permanently which satisfy the many, and which the many will consent to buy, it would be impossible for any watchmaker to produce good watches at all if his workmen were constantly required to be altering or readjusting the escapements in order to introduce some “dodge” devised by any man in the street. But in politics this is not the case. The influence of the men in the street, though it can exert itself through {247} exceptional men only, and is consequently not wholly their own, does continually make itself felt in law-making as it does not make itself felt in watchmaking; and yet the conduct of government is not rendered impossible, whereas the making of the watches would be. Indeed, in very many cases it is not even rendered unsatisfactory.