Power in modern democratic society is progressively being diffused, moving away from central government to interest groups, even to single individuals. Society and the body politic in democratic countries is consistently becoming pluralist in new and unprecedented ways.

The phenomenon was analysed by the management guru and social science professor Peter Drucker in his seminal book The New Realities. A clear understanding of this ongoing situation in developing countries like Malta would help political and social leaders cope with the challenges ahead of them.

The dispersal of central power takes two forms: in the social sphere, it depends on the growth of independent apolitical institutions. In the realm of politics, pluralism has a tendency to give rise to pressure groups committed to single purposes.

The new pluralism

In the words of Drucker: “Theory still postulates that there is only one organised power centre – the government. But both society and the body politic are now full of power centres that are outside the government. The new pluralism in society is a pluralism of single-purpose organisations each concerned with one social task: wealth creating, or schools and education, or health care, or forming the values and habits of the young.

“The new pluralism within the body politic, by contrast, focuses on power. It is the pluralism of single-cause, single-interest groups – the “mass movements”. Each of them tries to obtain through power that which it could not obtain through numbers or persuasion, each is exclusively political.”

A hundred years ago, social tasks, whether bringing up or educating the young, or looking after the sick and the old, were done in the family. Now social tasks are increasingly carried out by organised institutions or by the State. But business enterprises, trade unions, schools and hospitals are coming into their own and want to take separate initiatives.

Up to a few decades ago, babies were born at home. Now the vast majority of births take place in hospitals.

Although farm production is improving in quality and quantity, the farming population is shrinking. The introduction of new technologies, ranging from electronics to robotics, and from computerisation to fibre optics, is creating a demand for “knowledge workers” who, in total, are catching up on the traditional class of manufacturing workers.

Single-task role

The new institutions are dedicated to a single task: producing economic goods and services, curing the sick, creating knowledge or disseminating it. None of these institutions is a “government”, neither are they political. Yet each has a governing organ, a management, and sufficient autonomy to produce results. It makes little difference if an institution is government-controlled or a private enterprise.

The great strength of these institutions is their narrow focus or specialisation. These institutions are not based on “power” but on function. Although not political in aim, each institution must have power over people – power to hire and fire, to assign jobs, set standards and enforce discipline.

This has led to a situation where people in developing economies work for an organisation. And the centre of gravity is shifting to “knowledge workers” whose qualifications entitle them to authority at the workplace, where the growing demand for their services has given them mobility.

Equally new is the position of the individual in a pluralist society. Today’s “knowledge workers” do not belong to

the mass of exploited and impoverished proletarians whom Karl Marx would have classified as “the working class”.

Productivity, inventiveness, quality, and much else depends on this new category, which is highly located and often in control of the nerve centre of each separate institution.

What is more, the new pluralism often transcends traditional geographic boundaries. The globalisation of finance, and business in general, is leading to the appearance of more multinational organisations and trans-national business.

Dispersal of power

Operating as they do within the community, pluralist institutions have to take stock of their social responsibilities and must keep an eye on the common good. But their main role is to function in terms of their mission statement with an enlightened self-interest as their compass.

Whether or not power is dispersed to local government, to broadcasting, to computer networks, the individual and his institutions are becoming more autonomous and capable of flowering in a pluralist environment.

Politicians would do well to give institutions and individuals more power to their elbow – or else they are likely to be carried away by the rising tide of democratic aspirations.

Increasingly, sensitive issues relating to education, health and so on are being considered too important to be left to politicians alone. The modern trend is that governments are held accountable for policy-making and responsible for regulation.

The people hold the government to account for the performance of sensitive institutions like schools and hospitals. But although the government is burdened with responsibility, its authority has to be devolved to interested parties. In a pluralist society, according to Drucker, the government’s uncontested role is to set standards.

Just as pluralist institutions in society focus on one single task, new pluralist groups in the body politic are often concerned with a single issue. Single-cause groups often derive their power from being a minority, no matter how small.

Moral force

Their job is to lobby. Their strength lies in their singleness of purpose rather than in their number. Not all of

them operate with positive designs. Some focus on

preventing something from being done and they are

most effective when they try

to stop, to prevent, to immobilise. Their tactic is to

deploy the minimum effort needed to achieve maximum results. They seek to dominate because they are active, organised, and committed to a single cause or to a narrow range of objectives.

Often they aim to paralyse political life by activities in defiance of law and order conventions. Unlike totalitarian activists, single-purpose groups have a penchant for blocking whatever action they do not approve of – and they do so not necessarily to seize power. Often they perceive their aims as moral rather than political.

Single-cause movements cannot be smothered in a society that is basically pluralist. But they can be contained. The answer is to broaden the base of direct democracy and have the electorate decide directly by referenda on issues that should be sorted out by the people rather than by political tug-of-war exercises manipulated by lobbies.

In a democratic environment, pluralism is meant to empower the citizen, not the lobbyist. On no account should pluralism be considered as an instrument with which to highjack the people’s right to choose.

[email protected]