Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

Persuading the Masses 223fenses of elites—clearly questions about fundamentals—dothey challenge each other. The failure of a competition ofideas on fundamental institutions is a particularly Americanproblem. Ideological homogeneity puts a touch of improprietyon questions about the “American Way,” the Constitution,the private enterprise system, the corporation, andequality.Compared to those of the elites, the voices, say, of consumerand environmental groups are infrequent and weak.The voice of labor unions, though strong in some nations,rarely speaks so frequently and loudly as the voices of entrepreneurialand governmental elites. The two elites overwhelmall other contributors to what consequently fails tobecome an illuminating competition of ideas.If elite assaults on the mind go so far as to make ostensiblepolitical democracy actually circular, their success mayowe a great deal to a long history of elite manipulation ofmass. Elite attempts to control mass of course antedate therise of the market system and the rise of democracy. In fact,much of earliest recorded history is a story of tyrannical exploitationof mass—Plato’s Republic is a blueprint for ostensiblybenevolent elite control of mass. Medieval Europeis a picture of collaboration between the secular and the religiousfor control of mass, always seen as threatening toelites. A historian writes of the Renaissance: “Fear of insurrectionwas a steadily nagging irritant within the lives ofthose with power or property to lose.” And on state-churchcooperation to control mass, “from the mid-sixteenth centurythis co-operation became closer than ever.” Even thefounders of the American democracy—that elite, too—struggled with fears of mass and found ways to curb the influenceof masses in the new constitutional order.The larger picture of elite control becomes a picture of