[2] Cf. J. A. Hobson, "The Evolution of Modern Capitalism."


III

The problem of the distribution of power is a more difficult one than
the problem of the distribution of wealth. The machinery of
representative government has concentrated on _ultimate_ power as the
only important matter, and has ignored immediate executive power.
Almost nothing has been done to democratize administration.
Government officials, in virtue of their income, security, and social
position, are likely to be on the side of the rich, who have been
their daily associates ever since the time of school and college. And
whether or not they are on the side of the rich, they are not likely,
for the reasons we have been considering, to be genuinely in favor of
progress. What applies to government officials applies also to
members of Parliament, with the sole difference that they have had to
recommend themselves to a constituency. This, however, only adds
hypocrisy to the other qualities of a ruling caste. Whoever has stood
in the lobby of the House of Commons watching members emerge with
wandering eye and hypothetical smile, until the constituent is espied,
his arm taken, "my dear fellow" whispered in his ear, and his steps
guided toward the inner precincts--whoever, observing this, has
realized that these are the arts by which men become and remain
legislators, can hardly fail to feel that democracy as it exists is
not an absolutely perfect instrument of government. It is a painful
fact that the ordinary voter, at any rate in England, is quite blind
to insincerity. The man who does not care about any definite
political measures can generally be won by corruption or flattery,
open or concealed; the man who is set on securing reforms will