ABSTRACT
The payoff of government is in its impact on the citizen. The payoff comes in two forms: declarations of public policy, and acts of administration. The citizen as taxpayer helps pay for governmental activities that he considers superfluous, luxurious, or reprehensible just as surely as he helps pay for the activities he favors. The basic design of American government creates a formidable obstacle to effective political control of public administration. The chapter suggests that some of the critics squeeze the available evidence pretty hard to show that group intervention in government results in serious disturbance of orderly relationships in administration, decrease of efficiency, and departure from equal protection of the law. Without exception, every nation that makes any pretense at having popular government depends on an elected assembly to restrain and guide if not to control the chief executive and the bureaucracy.
