The intelligence of democracy

363 Pages·1965·17.922 MB·English

by  Charles Lindblom

The
Intelligence
of
Democracy
Decision Making through Mutual Adjustment
CHARLES E. LINDBLOM
Hational or efficient government, it is widely
believed, requires some centralization of author
ity to coordinate otherwise disparate and con
flicting policies. Democratic government, on the
other hand, requires dispersion of power, some
decentralization of authority. This pioneer con
tribution to political theory shows that political
systems in fact rely on dispersion and fragmen
tation of power to achieve the very rationality
or efficiency ordinarily attributed to central
coordination.
Drawing on economists' insights into mutual
adjustment in the market system as a method of
coordination of economic decisions, the book
examines bargaining and other forms of mutual
adjustment in politics. They achieve feats of
coordination beyond the competence of central
coordinators.
The author first analyzes various types of mu
tual adjustment, with an entirely new discussion
of forms other than bargaining. He then com
pares decision making through central coordina
tion and through mutual adjustment, with spe
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The
Intelligence
of
Democracy

CHARLES E. LINDBLOM
T h e
o f
D e m o c r a
DECISION MAKING THROUGH MUTUAL ADJUSTMENT
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The Free Press, New York
Collier-Macmillan Limited, London
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To my wife
Copyright© 1965 by The Free Press
A DIVISION OF THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
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For information, address:
THE FREE PRESS
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DESIGNED BY SIDNEY SOLOMON
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-16269
Contents
Part 1
Introduction
PAGE
1. Rational Policy through Mutual Adjustment 3
Part 2
Elements of the Process
of Partisan Mutual Adjustment
2. The Participants and the Process 21
3. Adaptive Adjustments 35
4. Manipulated Adjustments: Preliminary Survey 54
5. Manipulated Adjustments: Specific Forms 66
Part 3
The Process in Government
6. The Governmental Process 87
7. Mixed Systems: Emphasis on Centrality 102
8. Mixed Systems: Mutual Adjustment Dominant 117
Part 4
Problem-Solving Strategy
and Mutual Adjustment
9. Strategy in Problem Solving 137
10. Coordination through a Multiplicity of
Strategic Problem Solvers 153
11
vi Contents
Part 5
Comparative Analysis
of Central Coordination and
Mutual Adjustment
11. Coordination by Overview 165
12. Reasoned Coordination 182
13. Consistency 192
14. Social Agreement 205
15. Conflicting Values 226
16. Equality as a Criterion 246
17. Inequality and Mutual Adjustment 265
18. Public Interest and Group Interests 274
Part 6
Policy Toward
Mutual Adjustment
19. Choice Among Policy-Making Methods 293
20. An Illustrative Application of the Analysis 311
Appendix: Summary of Analysis 330
Notes 336
Index 347
PREFACE
INSOFAR AS I CAN SORT THEM
out-and I do not wholly trust either my memory or perception on
this point-the origins of this study are threefold. First is the in
adequacy, relative to the rest of the book, of the section on bargain
ing in R. A. Dahl's and my Politics, Economics and Welfare (New
York: Harper, 1953). At the time we sent the book to press we
were both less satisfied with that section than with any other, and
I looked forward to investigating the subject further. Second, as a
consultant to the RAND Corporation in the summer of 1954, I was
involved in some problems of an appraisal of defense policy against
a background of rivalry among the military services. The stimu
lating environment of RAND greatly advanced my interests in mu
tual adjustment processes. Third, I am an economist whose stock in
trade is supposed to be competence on mutual adjustment processes
as they appear in markets; I thought I could perhaps apply that
competence to a study of political bargaining and other marketlike
mutual adjustment processes in government.
viii Preface
From these origins, this book-but only slowly. Along the way
I have worked out pieces of the analysis in journal articles; recently
David Braybrooke and I combined in A Strategy of Decision (New
York: Free Press, 1963) his philosophy and my social science in
an exposition of a kind of decision making that appears prominently
in the present study.
Central to this study is a comparison of coordination through
a central coordinator and through mutual adjustment. In making
this comparison I comment on various scholars whose writings in
dicate that they simply do not grasp the possibilities of coordina
tion by mutual adjustment. A reader of the manuscript has sug
gested to me that these scholars know more than they write. On
many topics, he says, there is a kind of professional wisdom that
social scientists draw on when they face practical problems even if
they lose it when they write their theoretical works. My critic is
correct. The works whose shortcomings I display for heuristic pur
poses are often written by men who smuggle into their less formal
thinking elements missed in their articles and books. I want, of
course, to get the missing elements into the literature of social
science; hence it is fair game to draw attention to what is presently
missing from that literature, even if what is missing is not wholly
unknown.
I have pursued this study at Yale and at the Center for Ad
vanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences with the assistance of the
Social Science Research Council and the Ford Foundation. To these
institutions my thanks, to which I append the customary assurance
that they are not responsible for anything I say.
One way or another, often without their knowing it, I have
tapped the intelligence and skills of several hundred colleagues
while working on this study. Although it would be foolish to list
them, I wish to thank them and acknowledge my very great obliga
tion to them.