The opponents of popular government were no more prescient than its supporters, although they showed more logical sense in following the assumed individualistic premise to its conclusion: the disintegration of society.
Dewey argues that both supporters and opponents of popular government fail to foresee societal disintegration.
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In other words, every officer of the public, whether he represents it as a voter or as a stated official, has a dual capacity.
In this distinction we find the germ of the distinction between the private and the public.
They are reflections into the singular human being of customs and institutions; they are not natural, that is, “native,” organic propensities.
Nor can the liberating and confirming results of public action be construed to yield a wholesale idealization of states in contrast with other associations.