My conclusion is that they ignore the difficulties, as completely as
did the original democrats, because they, too, assume, and in a much
more complicated civilization, that somehow mysteriously there exists
in the hearts of men a knowledge of the world beyond their reach.
I argue that representative government, either in what is ordinarily
called politics, or in industry, cannot be worked successfully, no
matter what the basis of election, unless there is an independent,
expert organization for making the unseen facts intelligible to those
who have to make the decisions. I attempt, therefore, to argue that
the serious acceptance of the principle that personal representation
must be supplemented by representation of the unseen facts would alone
permit a satisfactory decentralization, and allow us to escape from
the intolerable and unworkable fiction that each of us must acquire a
competent opinion about all public affairs. It is argued that the
problem of the press is confused because the critics and the
apologists expect the press to realize this fiction, expect it to make
up for all that was not foreseen in the theory of democracy, and that
the readers expect this miracle to be performed at no cost or trouble
to themselves. The newspapers are regarded by democrats as a panacea
for their own defects, whereas analysis of the nature of news and of
the economic basis of journalism seems to show that the newspapers
necessarily and inevitably reflect, and therefore, in greater or
lesser measure, intensify, the defective organization of public
opinion.
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