Representation

The question of who pays the taxes leads naturally to the question, whom does the government represent. The theory of democracy is that the people own the government, but practice does not always follow theory. The provisions for representation were worked out long ago when distances were great and there were marked variations by locality and region. Now localities are marked rather by differences among their many groups and distances are short. Occupations are extremely varied; wealth is very unequally distributed; during all these changes the pattern of representation has remained the same. This lag has been partly compensated by the development of quick means of determining public opinion and by the propaganda activities of these highly organized groups. The slight decline in the percentages voting and the apparent increase in activities of pressure groups suggests a changing nature of representation. The problem of representation is the question of special interests in relation to general control–the very difficulty which gave birth to the modern representative government. This problem of representation of interests is seen in extreme form in the monarchies of the past and in the communistic state of today. It will also be a problem in the approaching closer relationships of business and government.

Source: Recent Social Trends in the United States, an examination of the social state of the United States at the end of the 1920s undertaken at the direction of President Herbert Hoover.