244 ARISTOCRAC Y AND E VOL UT1ON 



Book in is single ; political demand is double ; and whilst 



one part of political demand namely, the demand 



NO one makes for social results corresponds with economic de- 



this latter . 



demand. mand, or the demand of the consumer for com- 



modities, the other part of political demand 

 is namely, the demand for particular measures does 



double. not correspond with economic demand at all, but 

 is, on the contrary, in contrast to it. For when 

 workmen's wives buy some particular make of 

 calico for their husband's shirts, or when cyclists 

 buy some particular kind of tyre for their bicycles, 

 they do so because they approve of the qualities 

 which those goods manifest when in use ; 

 not because they approve of the machinery by 



Political demo- which the goods were made. But in politics, 

 ntified although there is likewise a demand for political 

 1 goods, as such, for social security, personal pro- 



bu C t i for 8 0dSl s P er ity an d so forth, of which each man is natur- 

 a u v hi s own judge, just as those who use them are 

 of the tyres or calico, and although statesmen and 

 governments are frequently supported by the nation, 

 not because they have carried this measure or that, 

 but because the political goods supplied by them are 

 on the whole satisfactory, yet the political demand 

 which is supposed to be the special characteristic 

 of democracies is not a demand for the completed 

 goods, but a demand that this or that patent shall 

 be used in the hope of producing them. 



Now political patents are most of them highly 

 complicated devices ; the action of all of them is de- 

 pendent on a complication of circumstances; and they 



