ABSTRACT
As the nineteenth century ebbed away, so too did some of the interest in the idea of democracy defined in terms of values, or seen in a wider framework than the purely political. In America, a writer such as E. L. Godkin could suggest that ‘“Ideal government”, as it is called, such as is described in Plato’s “Republic”, or More’s “Utopia” or Bellamy’s “Looking Backward”, is interesting to read about, as the play of an individual mind, but no one considers any of these books very helpful to those who are actually contending with the problems of today’ (Godkin, 1966, pp. 281–2). He had a point. What was the use of arguing over what democracy ought to be when the ‘real world’ demanded solutions to problems of a less speculative nature? Progressivism, with its underlying philosophy of pragmatism, cast a cold eye on idealistic democracy.
