POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND DEMOCRACY 5 degeneration. They are hedonistic and work only when whipped. LeBon5 feels that crowds are powerful for destruction and not for creating a civilization. Shakespeare has also shown how Roman mobs behave after the speeches of Brutus as well as of Antony. Sometimes masses can be utilised by the ruling elites for totalitarian dictatorships or to establish 'garrison states' according to Laswell.6 They are the fertile ground for breeding bureaucracy and over centralisation. The masses when viewed as consisting of classes by analysing the social distinctions between the classes and the reasons for these social distinctions, will be found to be not those amorphous groups of heterogeneous men who have no interest in any institution and are, therefore, available for any destructive act. Perhaps, it is relevant here to recapitulate even by way of a parenthesis that the classical economists like Adam Smith and Ricardo held that the society is composed of classes and their income determined their classes. Only, they honestly felt that these social inequalities were necessary and legitimate.7 The distinction between the social scientists of the classical type and those of the modern is that while the former had something to say, the latter have a lot to conceal. There is a great deal of 'pluralist' writing, which while ostensibly criticising the elitist theory, puts forth the counter theory that there can be no concentration of power in any one homogeneous group but that it is shared by different groups and these groups representing different interests practise the arts of conciliation and coalition-formation an A deeper examination of this ^dispersal of powej:' theory would reveal that the different interest groups which come to the bargaining table and evolve a consensus are not mutually opposed groups with mutually exclusive interests but groups whose interests are mutually complementary. In many cases the same persons play 'multiple roles9 championing different interests: the same caste groups with a plight 'make up5 become the farmers' lobby, the trade unions' representatives, business interests and so on. Like a set of ventriloquists the same group speaks with different voices. There is a close linkage between the political elites, the bureaucratic elites, the rural gentry and the business communities which share the cake without conflic t while the majority of the people just 'stand and star (v) e5 not even conscious of how the whole process is