Political conflict is not like a football game, played on a measured field by a fixed number of players in the presence of an audience scrupulously e… - Elmer Eric Schattschneider

It is the losers in intrabusiness conflict who seek redress from public authority. The dominant business interests resist appeals to the government. The role of the government as the patron of the defeated private interest sheds light on its function as the critic of private power relations.

The vice of the groupist theory is that it conceals the most significant aspects of the system. The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upperclass accent. Probably about 90 per cent of the people cannot get into the pressure system.

The distinction between public and special interests is an indispensable tool for the study of politics. To abolish the distinction is to make a shambles of political science by treating things that are different as if they were alike.