manner. And it is the same with democracies, even in their "purest" and
simplest forms, as well as in their most complicated forms. We cannot
fairly talk of despotisms or of democracies as though they were
absolutely distinct types of government to be contrasted offhand with
each other or with other types. All depends for each despotism and each
democracy and each other form of government on the given interests,
their relations, and their methods of interaction. The interest groups
create the government and work through it; the government, as activity,
works "for" the groups; the government, from the viewpoint of certain of
the groups, may at times be their private tool; the government, from the
viewpoint of others of the groups, seems at times their deadly enemy;
but the process is all one, and the joint participation is always
present, however it may be phrased in public opinion or clamor.

It is convenient most of the time in studying government to talk of
these groups as interests. But I have already indicated with sufficient
clearness that the interest is nothing other than the group activity
itself. The words by which we name the interests often give the best
expression to the value of the group activities in terms of other group
activities: if I may be permitted that form of phrasing, they are more
qualitative than quantitative in their implications. But that is
sometimes a great evil as well as sometimes an advantage. We must always
remember that there is nothing in the interests purely because of
themselves and that we can depend on them only as they stand for groups
which are acting or tending toward activity or pressing themselves along
in their activity with other groups.

When we get the group activities on the lower planes worked out and show
them as represented in various forms of higher groups, culminating in
the political groups, then we make progress in our interpretations.
Always and everywhere our study must be a study of the interests that
work through government; otherwise we have not got down to facts. Nor
will it suffice to take a single interest group and base our
interpretation upon it, not even for a special time and a special place.
No interest group has meaning except with reference to other interest
groups; and those other interest groups are pressures; they count in the
government process. The lowest of despised castes, deprived of rights to
the protection of property and even life, will s