ABSTRACT
Both society and polity in developed non-communist countries have become pluralist – each in a new and unprecedented way and each also in a different way. Theory still postulates that there is only one organized power centre – the government. But both society and polity in developed countries are now full of power centres which are outside, and separate from, government. The new pluralism in society focuses on function and performance. It is a pluralism of single-purpose organizations each concerned with one social task: wealth creation or schooling or health care or forming the values and habits of the young. This new pluralism of society is totally apolitical. The new pluralism of the polity by contrast focuses on power. It is a pluralism of single-cause, single-interest groups – the ‘mass movements’ of small but highly disciplined minorities. Each of them tries to obtain through power what it could not obtain through numbers or through persuasion. Each is exclusively political.
