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and politics becomes indistinguishable from economics, a matter of busi–
ness management and capital investment
(Betrieb,
as Weber put it after his
trip to America). Spengler noted, " Intellect reaches the throne only when
money puts it there. Democracy is the completed equating of money
with political power." Democracy rests on unanimity of the moment, and
thus to " leave a decision to the majority is like leaving it to chance"
(Santayana). Democracy without leadership drifts, flounders, muddles
through (Lippmann), suspects the wisest and the worthiest (Bryce), and
leaves America vulnerable
to
the worst: "The true theatre of a demagogue
is a democracy" Oames F. Cooper).
To raise doubts about democracy by no means implies that other po–
litical regimes are more desirable. One can be a democrat and be skeptical
of democracy, particularly if some of the political ideals one most values
cannot be regarded as products of American democracy. Such staunch
democratics as Whitman and Dewey would have us believe that freedom
and justice arise as the masses enter history to replace authority and hier–
archy. In America, the democratic masses entered history by moving into
the West and staking claim to land as theirs by rights that made a mockery
of the customs of others. Perhaps schoolchildren ought not to be told
what Andrew Jackson did
to
the Indians . But political philosophers
should recognize that it was the Democratic party, and not the Whigs,
which prevented the slavery issue from being brought up in Congress. If
we are to " read" democracy the way many literary critics advise us to
read texts, we may have to face what the wonderful masses were willing
to leave out of their own lives. Democracy is supposed to be inclusive
and all-embracing. But in the nineteenth century American workers, with
the exception of the Knights of Labor, deliberately excluded blacks,
Asians, and other immigrant groups. In our time, women, ethnic groups,
and preferential minorities find both protection and opportunity through
a judicial system in a rights-based political culture that often stands against
the sentiments of democratic majorities. One is tempted to say that the
thesis of strong democracy is a "text" that constructed itself by its exclu–
SIons.
For all their preoccupation with the subjection of power in contem–
porary America to "hegemonic domination," sixties theorists treat
democracy as though power disappears when people see themselves as
citizens and act accordingly. But politics cannot escape the reality of
power in a democratic culture where there no longer remains any appeal
to authority. The framers, realizing that sovereign authority had been
destroyed by being dispersed in the Constitution, knew that future poli–
tics meant conflict and struggle, and thus they looked to leaders who
would bear responsibility rather than delegate it. In democratic politics,
