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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
In The End of Liberalism, T. Lowi argues that interest-group liberalism, the public philosophy of the United States since the New Deal, is the result of the pluralist theory of political science. Lowi is against the new liberalism, which, according to him, is a system of “legalized privilege,” “shuts out the public,” and “impairs legitimacy.” In his efforts to eliminate this “neo-liberalism,” he has severely attacked the theory itself with a view to discredit it. But this article points out that some ideology which (a) glorifies organized groups while ignoring the unorganized ones, (b) believes in a natural harmony of their claims, and (c) invokes the public interest, has very little in common with the group theory of politics.
Lowi's anathema also ignores the fact that the New Deal, in “parceling out” political power to minorities, has just followed an old pattern of American politics. Coming from a liberal, his suggestions of restoring the sovereignty of the majority, a moralistic rule of law, and the abstractions of citizenship are politically naïve today.
1 Lowi, Theodore J., The End of Liberalism: Ideology, Policy, and the Crisis of Public Authority (New York, 1969), xiv, 322Google Scholar pp.
2 Bentley, A. F., The Process of Government: A Study of Social Pressures (Evanston, Ill., 1908Google Scholar).
3 Truman, D., The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion (New York, 1951Google Scholar).
4 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1964).
5 Bentley, The Process of Government, 306.
6 Voir, par exemple, Stouffer, S., Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties (Garden City, NY, 1955Google Scholar).
7 Hacker, A., The End of the American Era (New York, 1970Google Scholar).
8 The Process of Government, 305.
9 Truman, The Governmental Process, 535.