SOURCE: The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom, The John Day Company, Inc., 1943, pp. 135-68.

In the following essay on Michels's Political Parties, Burnham examines the economic and sociological implications of Michels 's democratic theories.

When someone writes a book on democracy, we are accustomed to share with him the assumption, as a rule not even mentioned, that democracy is both desirable and possible. The book will sing the praises of democracy. Its ostensible problem will often be "how to make democracy work"—because even the most ardent democrats, when they get down to the concrete, discover that it has not been and is not working quite as well as democratic theory would lead us to expect. A similar approach is made to such goals as peace, employment, justice, and so on. It is assumed that these are desirable and possible. A writer then devotes his energy to stating his...