The Crisis
certain store of power and benefits in the possession
of privileged groups; and other groups were organ-
ized to compel the privileged to yield a share. In the
end, it was believed that a balance of interest or the
pressures of conflicting groups led to that equilibrium
which was the social order. Thus even the trade unions
were conceived by their members to be claiming a
share in rights which already existed, and not to be
forming an entkely new body of powers or rights.
The "interests" in politics were, so far as conscious
theory was concerned, in conflict. Anyone who was
not "represented" would not have a pkce in the
general scramble and would not obtain a share of
what was to be divided. Similarly, each individual
was supposed to aim chiefly at his own "interest";
and the common good was believed to be the accidental
or providential result of the balance of conflicting
egoisms. Practice followed theory as far as each man
or group dared to carry it. No one was supposed to
consider the arguments against his view; for lawyers
dominated politics, and the lawyer, like the theologian,
aims at making a case for the side he adopts, not at
considering all sides of a question. Public policy was
supposed to be discovered by a balancing of the
arguments of opponents; and each side in politics
did as much for its supporters as it could while it
was in power. Such a practice and theory, however,
make it all the more astonishing that the improvement
of the general situation for the advantage of this or
the other conflicting interest did not lead to the