ABSTRACT
Party government has interfered with genuine popular government both by a mischievous, artificial and irresponsible method of representation, and by an enfeeblement of the administration in the interest of partisan subsistence. Whenever individuals, classes or local groups cannot or will not bring to the work of social formation an effective spirit and measure of cooperation, the ultimate alternative is not coercive regulation by administrative agents. In order to understand the function which the administration ought to perform in a social democracy a sharp distinction must be drawn between the administration and the executive. The most doubtful and difficult question connected with the administrative organization of a progressive democracy concerns its ability to obtain and to keep popular confidence. An administration which is to be representative without being elective must be kept articulate with the democracy, not by voting expedients, but by its own essential nature.
