Interest Groups and the Consent to Govern: Getting the People Out, for What?

The original Western liberal approach to govern ment was that as long as there were multitudes of interests with no possibility of any interest becoming a permanent majority, the free interaction of these interests would provide a public good. Very probably, the most important feature of this early liberal approach to government by the consent of organized interests was the coupling of consent with regulation. In the process of aging and spreading, however, the original liberal view underwent drastic transformation. Under the new theory consent is to come from a genuine accommodation of government to the real interests of society; all twentieth century democracies seem to espouse this theory of consent in one way or another. Leaving aside the important issue of the morality of such a view, there is still the question of whether such an accommodation is possible; the closer one looks at this proposition, the more distant appears the possibility of consent by accommodation. One must question the point of view that the group is simply a way of looking at the individual and ask whether individuals are represented accurately or, heavily distorted. Three common distortions in group politics are discussed: (1) organization as distortion; (2) the artificial majority; (3) the illogic of collective action. Suggestions for the adop tion of a view from the perspective of distortion and a return to the posture of regulation round out the analysis.