Unpopular government in the United StatesKales, Albert Martin
History
Unpopular government in the United States
Kales, Albert Martin
United States -- Politics and government
One or the other, however, is the more
generally successful, or both by agreement divide the privilege of
advising the politically ignorant voter how to vote--each helping the
other in its exclusive territory. Those who direct the politically
ignorant majority how to vote have filled the state and municipal
offices with those who are loyal to them first and to the governed
afterward. The leaders of the successful organization of advisers
and directors to the politically ignorant electorate have become an
extra-legal but none the less real government. A decentralized legal
government has been replaced by a centralized extra-legal government.
Thus the power of government has again drifted into the hands of the
few. These, pursuant to well-known human characteristics, use that
power selfishly. The decentralized character of the legal governmental
power, the fact that only part of the offices are filled at any
time, and the enormous advantage which comes from having a standing
army of advisers and directors to guide the mass of politically
ignorant voters, make it difficult to replace at the polls with real
representatives of the electorate the appointees of this extra-legal
government. We have, therefore, come finally to a well-defined
extra-legal but none the less real government of the few, by the few,
and for the few, at the expense and against the wish of the many. We
have, in a word, achieved the establishment of a substantial unpopular
government.
In form the politically ignorant voter is aided by the altruistic
advice of those who know who should be elected. In form the voter
can take the advice or not as he pleases. In reality, however, and
in actual practice, the power of the electorate to fill the state
and municipal offices has been confided by the politically ignorant
majority to the leaders in the successful hierarchy of professional
advisers and directors to the politically ignorant voter. The elector,
by being required to vote too much, has been compelled to surrender to
a large extent his right to vote at all, and to permit others to cast
his ballot as they see fit. Formerly people were disfranchised when
they were given no opportunity to vote. Today they are disfranchised
by being required to vote too much. Formerly the legal rulers of
the disfranchised masses were selected for them by the few without
equivocation. Today our legal rulers are selected for us by the few
through the subterfuge of the masses casting their ballots according
to the directions of the few. In other forms of unpopular government
the central figure has been the monarch, the autocrat, the oligarch, or
the aristocrat. In ours it is the politocrat. We have avoided monarchy,
autocracy, oligarchy, and aristocracy, only to find ourselves tightly
in the grasp of a politocracy.
So startling a conclusion with respect to our governmental condition
invites a detailed consideration of each step upon which that
conclusion is founded.
Section 2
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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