The New State by Mary Parker Follett — Read

Many of us are feeling strongly at the present moment the importance of neighborhood life, the importance of the development of a neighborhood consciousness, the paramount importance of neighborhood organization as the most effective means of solving our city and national problems. What our political life needs today is to get at the will of the people and to incorporate it in our government, to substitute a man-governed country for a machine-governed country. If politics are to be no longer mysterious and remote, but the warp and woof of our lives, if they are to be neither a game nor a business, far different methods must be adopted from any we have hitherto known.

Where do we show political vitality at present? In our government? In our party organization? In our local communities? We can see nowhere any clear stream of political life. The vitality of our community life is frittered away or unused. The muddy stream of party politics is choked with personal ambition, the desire for personal gain. Neighborhood organization is, I believe, to be the vital current of our political life. There is a widespread idea that we can do away with the evils of the party system by attacking the boss. Many think also that all would be well if we could separate politics and business. But far below the surface are the forces which have allied business and politics; far below the surface we must go, therefore, if we would divorce this badly mated couple.