ABSTRACT
The efforts of business and trade associations to avoid disintegration over controversial issues lead to a proliferation of organizations and particularly to the formation of specialized pressure groups designed to deal with specific issues. The failure to recognize the multiplicity and diversity of spending bodies, each with its individual goals, leads to a false image of pressure group processes. The total sums spent somehow leave the impression of plutocratic giants, able by their wealth to totally distort the public process. The reciprocal-trade controversy, like that over the Natural Gas Bill, was one on the outcome of which many people stood to gain or lose large sums of money. The lack of money and personnel is compounded by such other problems as inadequate information. A profession needs an ideology to justify itself. Without a proud self-image, it will not attract its full potential in personnel.
