This is not a contradiction of what is said in chapter XV, that law according to its most progressive exponents is to serve not individuals, but the community; that modern law thinks of men not as separate individuals, but in their relation to one another. Modern law synthesizes the idea of individual and community through its view of the social individual as the community-unit. Law used to be for the particularist individual; now it serves the community, but the community-unit is the social individual. In our most recent books we see the expression “the new individualism.” The meaning of this phrase, although never used by him, is clearly implied in the writings of Mr. Roscoe Pound. He says “As a social institution the interests with which law is concerned are social interests, but the chiefest of these social interests is one in the full human life of the individual.” Here is expressed the essential meaning of the new individualism—that it is a synthesis of individual and society. That the social individual, the community-unit, is becoming “the individual” for law is the most promising sign for the future of political method. When Mr. Pound says that the line between public law and private law in jurisprudence is nothing more than a convenient mode of expression, he shows us the old controversy in regard to the state and the individual simply fading away. Social legislation, direct government, concentration of administrative responsibility, are then indications of the growth of democracy? Yes, but only indications. They can mean an actual increase of democracy only if they are accompanied by the development of those methods which shall make every man and his daily needs the basis and the substance of politics. ----- Footnote 74: With the executive and legislative limited in their powers, the decisions of the courts gradually came, especially as they developed constructive powers, to be a body of law which guided the American people. Footnote 75: For ways of doing this see Part III. Footnote 76: We used to think frequent elections democratic. Now we know that they mean simply an increase of party influence and a decrease of official responsibility. Footnote 77: See ch. XXX, “Political Pluralism and Functionalism.” Footnote 78: _Laissez-faire_ was popular when there were great numbers of individual producers. When the large-scale business system made wage-earners of these, there was the beginning of the break-down of _laissez-faire_. Footnote 79: Besides the more obvious one of “universal suffrage.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PART III GROUP ORGANIZATION DEMOCRACY’S METHOD 1. THE NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP 2. THE OCCUPATIONAL GROUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE NEIGHBORHOOD GROUP