ABSTRACT
Walter Dean Burnham describes a conflicted political culture: a liberal tradition valuing individualism and property rights shaped the new United States constitutionally and continues to dominate the culture; a countervailing but weaker cultural theme has been and is mass democratic participation through a collectivising party system that has prevailed only after disastrous events affecting multitudes. As the slicing of the nation’s economic pie counts the lower classes out, Burnham believes, more and more of them count themselves out of the political system. Burnham calls the United States a political capitalist state because the political economy is managed in support of a capitalist version of democracy. Short-term concentration on candidates and issues must be transformed into long-term stability by re-introducing party into the equation; political leaders and the media might help by treating the parties more fairly.
