Abstract

Pluralism, or the existence of independent organizations, is desirable, and unavoidable in a large scale democracy. Such organizations are also potentially harmful, and require control. How much autonomy should they have, and how much should they be controlled? This is the basic dilemma of pluralist democracy, and Robert Dahl examines the major alternative solutions. He argues for a decentralized democratic socialism. He also makes clear how such a society would face many of the dilemmas of pluralist democracy, such as rights to organizational autonomy vs. social utility, equality in voting for individuals vs. equality for organizations, and others.