SOURCE: A review of Political Parties, in The International Journal of Ethics, by Robert Michels, Vol. XXVII, No. 2, January, 1917, pp. 259-60.

In the following review of Michels's Political Parties, Burns defends democracy from Michels's declarations that it is ultimately destructive.

The central idea of [Political Parties] is that every group of men tends to produce a smaller "aristocratic" clique of leaders or governors. This is shown to be the case in the most modern political parties, in which the admitted principles are such as are usually called democratic. Evidence is given most fully, and the details are often of the greatest interest. The writer appears to be in closer touch with the German democratic movement than with any other; and in that movement the tendency to segregate "leaders" seems to be most obvious. Interesting and important discussions follow of the contest between old and new leaders and of...