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The development of rationality in economic life, according to Werner Sombart and Max Weber, is one of the most important aspects of modern economic history. Gradually, religious and ethical considerations lose dieir influence in commercial behavior; finally, in the nineteenth century, economic judgment proceeds on the basis of its own logic. Business is liberated from noneconomic sanctions.

Theorists analyse how a democratic electorate is supposed to behave, public opinion research claims to know how it actually behaves. A four part course is outlined enabling both to contribute to each other by bringing democratic practice into greater harmony with requirements and assumptions of democratic theory. (1) Prerequisites of Electorate Decision - includes personality attributes, interests, participation, data on the amount of political interest, its fluctuations, and incidence among pop groups. 3 types of interest are cited: spectator (regarding the campaign as a dramatic spectacle), citizen (deciding how to vote), and partisan (securing the election of one's, candidate). Those most interested are found to be most partisan and least changeable. (2) Components of Electorate Decisions -includes possession of adequate knowledge in order to make decisions (the public is not well informed) and ways in which information is used by electorate in making decisions. (3) Process of Electorate Decision-includes processes of perception, communication and discussion using data on who talks to whom and what they say, hear and talk about. The ambiguity of the term `rationality' is cited, and research suggested that will relate the demand of rationality to the analysis of decision decision making. (4) Outcome of Electorate Decision. The voter is supposed to arrive at political decisions on the basis of considering the common good. How can a distinction between honest conclusions and forced rationalizations be made by researchers? It is concluded that public opinion studies have done mucn to illuminate what actually happens in democratic decision making by: (a) documenting theoretical assumptions with facts on actual political behavior, (b) clarifying the concepts and assumptions of democratic theory by insisting on researchable formulations, and (c) differentiating and reformulating general theoretical propositions into more exact terms. R. S. Halpern.

A Feature of Western ideology, particularly its American variant, is consciousness of tension between ideals and reality. One source of this tension is a propensity to seek social goals by way of adventitious motives. Education seeks marks not knowledge; business seeks profits not products; politics seeks power not the good life. To protest this lack of what Max Weber called substantive rationality, and to demand that first things be put first is labelled "idealism," while acceptance of the immediate incentive and disregard for the final end is labelled "realism."Thus in political science the name "realistic" has been largely applied to that tradition which concentrates on power relations and assumes that its subjects behave as "political men," that is, that they strive to maximize power. The "realist" assumes that all men in politics share the same drive. So deeply ingrained is this identification of politics and power that it appears even in the unconscious where the state is a father symbol. It appears also in everyday idioms where to be in the government is "to be in power" and to go into politics means not to pave streets but to enter a game of hierarchical advancement. It appears also in scholarly thought. Unlike Aristotle, who defined the polis as that association formed for the highest good and which comprehends the rest, most modern scholars find in a monopoly of coercion the distinctive attribute of the state.