Elmer Eric Schattschneider - Critique of Pluralism

Critique of Pluralism

Along with the political scientist Theodore J. Lowi, Schattschneider offered perhaps "the most devastating" critique of the American political theory of pluralism: Rather than an essentially democratic system in which the many, competing interests of citizens are amply represented, if not advanced, by equally many competing interest groups, Schattschneider argued the pressure system is biased in favor of "the most educated and highest-income members of society", and showed that "the difference between those who participate in interest group activity and those who stand at the sidelines is much greater that between voters and nonvoters."

In The Semisovereign People, Schattschneider argued the scope of the pressure system is really quite small: The "range of organized, identifiable, known groups is amazingly narrow; there is nothing remotely universal about it" and the "business or upper-class bias of the pressure system shows up everywhere." He says the "notion that the pressure system is automatically representative of the whole community is a myth" and, instead, the "system is skewed, loaded and unbalanced in favor of a fraction of a minority."