The new state : $b Group organization the solution of popular governmentFollett, Mary Parker
Science
The new state : $b Group organization the solution of popular government
Follett, Mary Parker
Democracy; Political participation; Social psychology; State, The
When the desire to prevail is once keenly upon us, we behave very
differently than when our object is the seeking of truth. Suppose I am
the representative in Congress of a group or a party. A bill is under
consideration. I see a weakness in that bill; if I point it out some one
else may see a remedy for it and the bill may be immensely improved. But
do I do this? Certainly not. I am so afraid of the bill being lost if I
show any weakness in it that I keep this insight to myself and my
country loses just so much. I cannot believe that occupational
representation will foster truth seeking or truth speaking. It seems to
me quite a case of the frying pan into the fire. Compromise and swapping
will be the order in Parliaments based solely on the vocational
principle. The different interests must fight it out in Parliament. This
is fundamentally against democracy because it is against the
psychological foundation of democracy, the fundamental law of
association. Democracy depends on the blending, not the balancing, of
interests and thoughts and wills. Occupational representation assumes
that you secure the interests of the whole by securing the interests of
every class, the old particularist fallacy transferred to the group.
Moreover, it is often assumed that because the occupational group is
composed of men of similar interests we shall have agreement in the
occupational group; it is taken for granted that in these economic
groups the agreement of opinion necessary for voting will be automatic.
But do poets or carpenters or photographers think alike on more than a
very few questions? What we must do is to get behind these electoral
methods to some fundamental method which shall _produce_ agreement.
Moreover, if the Cabinet were made up of these warring elements,
administration would be almost impossible. Lloyd-George’s Cabinet at
present is hampered by too much “difference.” I have throughout, to be
sure, been advocating the compounding of difference as the secret of
politics, but the compounding must begin further back in our life than
Parliaments or Cabinets.
And if you had group representation in England would not the Cabinet be
made up of the most powerful of the groups, and would not a fear of
defeat at any particular time mean overtures to enough of the other
groups to make success in the Cabinet? And would not an entirely
improper amount of power drift to the Premier under these circumstances?
Have we any leaders who would, could any one trust himself to, guide the
British Cabinet for the best interests of Great Britain under such
conditions as these?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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