, the
canal interest, the Cuban interest, etc." He uses the term "interest"
essentially in the sociological sense but in a relatively concrete form,
and he has in mind little more than variations of the wealth interest.
He would explain the legislation of a given session as the final balance
between these conflicting pecuniary interests. He is right, in the main;
and every social action is, in the same way, an accommodation of the
various interests which are represented in the society concerned.

3. Social Pressures[162]

The phenomena of government are from start to finish phenomena of force.
But force is an objectionable word. I prefer to use the word pressure
instead of force, since it keeps the attention closely directed upon the
groups themselves, instead of upon any mystical "realities" assumed to
be underneath and supporting them, and since its connotation is not
limited to the narrowly "physical." We frequently talk of "bringing
pressure to bear" upon someone, and we can use the word here with but
slight extension beyond this common meaning.

Pressure, as we shall use it, is always a group phenomenon. It indicates
the push and resistance between groups. The balance of the group
pressures _is_ the existing state of society. Pressure is broad enough
to include all forms of the group influence upon group, from battle and
riot to abstract reasoning and sensitive morality. It takes up into
itself "moral energy" and the finest discriminations of conscience as
easily as bloodthirsty lust of power. It allows for humanitarian
movements as easily as for political corruption. The tendencies to
activity are pressures, as well as the more visible activities.

All phenomena of government are phenomena of groups pressing one
another, forming one another, and pushing out new groups and group
representatives (the organs or agencies of government) to mediate the
adjustments. It is only as we isolate these group activities, determine
their representative values, and get the whole process stated in terms
of them that we approach to a satisfactory knowledge of government.

When we take such an agency of government as a despotic ruler, we cannot
possibly advance to an understanding of him except in terms of the group
activities of his society which are most directly represented through
him, along with those which almost seem not to be represented through
him at all, or to be represented to a different degree or in a different