Group Representation in Britain and the United States

Abstract

Certain changes in the modern economy stand in marked contrast with the individualist, laissez-faire model. This new "collectivism" can be summarized under four head ings. The tendency to concentrate economic power among a few big buyers or sellers in a particular industry or complex of industries; the changes in internal structure resulting from this increase in the size of units which we term bureaucracy and managerialism; the method of dealing with one another of these units by bargaining or "collective bargaining"; and the ability of the units when dealing with consumers to shape and even create the very wants which the units supposedly came into existence to satisfy. Parallel changes in the polity provide us with a "collectivist" model that we can use to compare the dis tribution of power on the plane of pressure groups and parties in Britain and United States. It appears that the British polity comes closer to this model than the American.