Landslides can turn one machine out and put another in; revolutions
sometimes abolish a particular machine altogether. The democratic
revolution set up two alternating machines, each of which in the
course of a few years reaps the advantage from the mistakes of the
other. But nowhere does the machine disappear. Nowhere is the idyllic
theory of democracy realized. Certainly not in trades unions, nor in
socialist parties, nor in communist governments. There is an inner
circle, surrounded by concentric circles which fade out gradually into
the disinterested or uninterested rank and file.
Democrats have never come to terms with this commonplace of group
life. They have invariably regarded it as perverse. For there are two
visions of democracy: one presupposes the self-sufficient individual;
the other an Oversoul regulating everything.
Of the two the Oversoul has some advantage because it does at least
recognize that the mass makes decisions that are not spontaneously
born in the breast of every member. But the Oversoul as presiding
genius in corporate behavior is a superfluous mystery if we fix our
attention upon the machine. The machine is a quite prosaic reality. It
consists of human beings who wear clothes and live in houses, who can
be named and described. They perform all the duties usually assigned
to the Oversoul.
5
The reason for the machine is not the perversity of human nature.
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