Unpopular government in the United States — Story, Setting & Ideas

The Inverted Pyramid and Voter Disfranchisement

Kales grounds his diagnosis in a concrete example: a map showing the election districts in which a voter from Winnetka, Illinois, must vote. This map, included in the book, illustrates what Kales calls the "inverted pyramid"—a system where a single citizen is simultaneously part of a precinct, ward, city, township, county, state, and federal district, each with its own set of elective offices. The result is a ballot so long and complex that the average voter cannot possibly know all the candidates or issues.

Kales argues that this burden effectively disfranchises the electorate. The voter, overwhelmed by the number of choices and the lack of accessible information, becomes politically ignorant. This ignorance is not a personal failing but a systemic outcome. The voter’s power then passes to those who can exploit this ignorance—the "politocrats"—who direct the vote through organization, money, and influence. Kales emphasizes that this transfer of power is not illegal but extra-legal, forming a real but unofficial government that operates alongside the official one.

The Machinery of Politocracy

Having identified the problem, Kales dissects how the extra-legal government maintains itself. In a series of tightly argued sections, he shows that the politocrats use their power selfishly, both to perpetuate their own control and to benefit the interests that support them. They can withstand popular disapproval because the same structural ignorance that created them also shields them from accountability.

Kales catalogs the tools of this machine: the party circle and party column on ballots, which encourage straight-ticket voting; the primary system, which can be captured by insiders; and the sheer expense of running for office in large districts, which limits candidates to those with money or backing. He notes that even well-intentioned reforms, such as the Australian ballot and civil-service acts, have been insufficient to break the politocrats' grip. The book’s tone is analytical rather than polemical, but its evidence is damning: the system is rigged not by conspiracy but by design.

Reforms and Their Limits

In the second half of the work, Kales evaluates proposed remedies. He examines the initiative, referendum, and recall, as well as independent movements and new parties. His assessment is cautious: these tools can help, but they are not panaceas. The most promising reform, he suggests, is the commission form of government for smaller cities, but only if it is accompanied by a concentration of governmental power and the election of commissioners from small, "wieldy" districts where candidates can be known personally.

Kales is particularly skeptical of electing commissioners at large from large districts. He argues that this method does not produce the "best men" but instead forces candidates to rely on money and machine backing. The leading citizens, he observes, are usually unavailable for municipal office. Instead, the system tends to relapse into the same pattern of district-based representation it was meant to replace. Kales also addresses the problem of overlapping special districts—like the Sanitary District of Cook County—and proposes that their commissioners be appointed by the constituent municipal governments rather than elected at large.

Kales’s book is a lawyer’s brief against the structural flaws in American governance, written with precision and a clear eye for how institutions actually function. Readers should approach it as a period piece that illuminates Progressive-era concerns about democracy and efficiency, but also as a work whose analysis of voter ignorance, district design, and extra-legal power remains relevant. The excerpts do not reveal whether Kales’s proposed reforms were ever adopted or proved effective, but his diagnosis of the problem is detailed enough to stand on its own.

I finished Kales’s account of machine politics and felt that odd ache of recognition—how systems drift from their own ideals. It reminded me of sitting with A Short History of English Liberalism — Inside the Classic, watching a similar hope quietly fray. Neither one shouts; they just leave you holding the question a little longer. That stayed with me.