A Group Basis of Politics: a New Name for an Ancient Myth

• DOI: 10.1177/106591295801100316
• Date: 01 September 1958
• Author: Peter H. Odegard
• Published date: 01 September 1958
• Subject Matter: Articles

SUMMARY OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE PACIFIC
NORTHWEST POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION*
A GROUP BASIS OF POLITICS: A NEW NAME FOR AN
ANCIENT MYTH
(Dinner Address, May 2, 1958)
PETER H. ODEGARD†
Perhaps the most familiar of all political aphorisms is that which says,
&dquo;man is a social animal.&dquo; This statement helped Aristotle, as it has helped
his successors, to demonstrate that political communities, like other forms
of social organization, have their roots in the inherent needs of human na-
ture. Only a beast or a god can live outside society.
As a social animal, man enters into social relations of almost infinite
variety. Whether as an infant &dquo;mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms,&dquo;
a schoolboy &dquo;creeping like snail unwillingly to school,&dquo; a lover &dquo;sighing
like furnace,&dquo; or as soldier, statesman, butcher, baker, candlestick maker -
men
seem forever and everywhere to be found in groups of one kind or an-
other.
So universal is this group phenomenon that one is tempted to say, with
McCall’s magazine, that life is &dquo;togetherness&dquo; and &dquo;togetherness is life.&dquo; So
deep indeed is the hunger of the individual to attach himself to others
-
i.e., to belong -
that it is surely one of the most powerful of all human
drives. There is a touching story that illustrates the point:
A
well-dressed lady riding the New York subway was annoyed by the
conduct of a grimy, ragged, boy of six who insisted on sitting as near to her
as he could. So long as the train was crowded, she endured his presence
by her side in painful silence, but when the crowd thinned out, she moved
to the upper end of the car away from the unwelcome ragamuffin. But he,
nothing loth, followed her, seating himself again as close to her as possible.
If she moved to another car he followed. Finally, her patience exhausted,
she turned to him and said, &dquo;What on earth are you doing, following me
this way?&dquo;
&dquo;I ain’t doin’ nuthin’, lady. I’m just pretendin’ I belong to you.&dquo;
This passion for belonging has posed no end of problems for students of
man and society. What are the actual and what are the desirable relations
between individual man and the myriad groups to which he belongs? What
are the actual potential and desirable relations of groups to each other and
to the political community? Are all groups free and equal? Is the political
* Eleventh Annual Meeting, held at Montana State University, May 2-3, 1958.
† University of California, Berkeley.
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community to be viewed simply as another group on the same level as the
family, church, corporation, and trade-union, or is it a superior kind of
association with rights and powers that transcend other inferior or sub-
ordinate groups? Has the individual human being any rights, powers or
privileges -
or indeed any meaning or existence apart from the groups to
which he belongs? What is the nature of the groups in general or in
particular? What are the dynamics or statics of group behavior?
Political and social philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to John Dewey
and Bertrand Russell have struggled with these and other related questions.
&dquo;The question is,&dquo; wrote Floyd Allport, in commenting on Dewey’s analysis
of this problem, &dquo;how to reconcile personality as an ethical end with the in-
evitable increase in the number of special publics that include mere seg-
ments of the personality and never the whole.&dquo; Endless quotations might be
cited to indicate the kinds of answers that have been suggested. A crude
scale might be contrived to classify them in terms of the relative importance
which they assign to the individual or to the group in the political process.
It is not my purpose here to construct such a scale or to examine the history
of group theory in Western culture. What I should like to do is examine
some of the statements made by fairly recent protagonists of what may be
called the Group Theory or the Group Basis of Politics. This theory has
been most clearly stated in summary form by Arthur Bentley, whose book,
the Process o f Government, appeared in 1908, and who has a considerable
following among political scientists in the United States.
According to Bentley, the raw materials for the study of politics are acts,
not legislative acts alone, but action itself, activity, &dquo;something doing.&dquo;
Government and politics invariably involve &dquo;the shunting by some men of
other men’s conduct along changed lines, the gathering of forces to over-
come resistance to such alterations, or the dispersal of one grouping of
forces by another grouping.&dquo; This action, this shunting of men’s conduct
is always and invariably a group process. &dquo;The raw material we study,&dquo;
he says, &dquo;is never found in one man himself, it cannot even be stated by
adding men to men. It must be taken as it comes in many men together.&dquo;
Ideas, thoughts, feelings, laws, proceedings of constitutional conventions,
essays, addresses, &dquo;diatribes on tyranny and democracy&dquo; are important only
when related to action. In this context they &dquo;seem to give the individual
man
his orientation in the social (or group) activity in which he is involved.
There
...
is no idea which is not a reflection of social activity. There is no
feeling which the individual can fix upon except in a social form.&dquo; Groups
of people pushing other groups and being pushed by them in turn - this
is the process of government -
this is the raw material of politics.
Bentley is an early exponent of quantitative methods in politics, although
he recognizes that political measurement is primitive at best. If one is to

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691
study politics scientifically rather than sentimentally, he argues, one should
look for significant measurable quantities in action. Ideas cannot be mea-
sured except when they are related to activity. Acts and acts alone produce
measurable results -
whether &dquo;purer food, safer insurance, better trans-
portation facilities, or whatever else.&dquo; Political power can be measured in
terms of force, as, &dquo;when one nation defeats another in war,&dquo; or by acts of
revolution. Force or potential force can also be measured by votes, provided
one goes behind the votes to &dquo;examine the quantities that have been in play
to produce the given results.&dquo; Indeed, says Bentley: &dquo;There is no political
process that is not a balancing of quantity against quantity. There is not a
law that is passed that is not the expression of force and force in tension.&dquo;
This force or &dquo;force in tension&dquo; is at all times exerted by masses of men,
i.e., by men in groups. The nation is properly to be conceived not as a mass of
individuals but as &dquo;groups of men, each group cutting across many others....&dquo;
In one context we see them as citizens of New York City; in another as
citizens or residents of New York State; or in another as directors of a cor-
poration, members of a trade-union, a church, trade Association or civic
league. But always we see them as groups. Individuals appear only as mem-
bers of groups. When a &dquo;man belongs to two groups ... which are clashing
with each other&dquo; that which represents his dominant interest will claim his
loyalty and allegiance. Nor is this an uncommon experience -
for multiple
group membership is virtually universal in modern society. Groups arrayed
against one another as North and South would be quite differently arrayed
when viewed as workers and employers, creditors and debtors, Catholics
and Protestants.
&dquo;If,&dquo; says Bentley, &dquo;we take all the men of one society, say, all citizens
of the United States, and look upon them as a spherical mass, we can pass
an unlimited number of planes through the center of the sphere, each plane
representing some principle of classification, say, race, various economic
interests, religion or language....&dquo; Various classifications will be useful in
various contexts depending upon the issues and the actual groups involved.
The important thing for the student of politics is &dquo;the analysis of these
groups. [For] when the groups are adequately stated everything is stated.
When
I say everything, I mean everything. The complete description will be
the complete science in the study of social phenomena, as in any other
field.&dquo;
To Bentley all legislation and indeed all politics and administration are
the products of group conflict. In the words of Earl Latham, &dquo;The legis-
lature referees the group struggle, ratifies the victories of the successful
coalitions, and records the terms of the surrenders, compromises, and con-
quests in the form of statutes.&dquo;
&dquo;The
...
legislative vote on any issue [repre-
sents]
the balance of
...
power among the contending groups at the time of

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692
voting. What may be called public policy is actually the...