THE MASSES AND REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

In Rationalism in Politics, the essay The Masses in Representative Democracy occupies a few pages. But size is deceiving, and very much so: in a cramped space, with truly remarkable strength and lucidity, Oakeshott condenses a history of the individual and his enemies from the late Middle Ages to the twentieth century, and peppered it with illuminating detail. Now, such a rich essay can be approached in many ways. One could trace its intellectual ancestry, for example. One could situate it in the debate of its time, given that in those years many people, and not the least brilliant, were dealing with those themes. Or one could define its place and role in the author's production. I won't do any of this here, both because Giorgini has already done it in the introduction to the volume, and - and above all - because I don't have the competence. Instead, I will focus on the central core of the essay's argumentation and on the remarkable value it may still have today, sixty years after its first publication.