Herbert Croly and Mary Parker Follett could have assented to much of this. The evils of competition; the need for a new ethic of cooperation; the priority of material improvement as the necessary precondition of attempts to address "problems of mind"—these were staple themes of progressive thought. There was a considerable difference, however—even if its implications were never explored very systematically—between Weyl's enthusiasm for the state and the much more cautious attitude toward central power expressed by Follett and Croly; between Weyl's emphasis on consumption and Croly's emphasis on production; and between Weyl's equation of democracy with an equitable distribution of goods and Croly's concern for participatory citizenship.

A democratic nation [Croly said] cannot provide the mass of the people with the needed opportunity of activity and life merely by distributing among them the wealth owned by the minority. Any such distribution would scatter among the poor the germs not of social activity, but of social lethargy. The masses need, of course, a larger share of material welfare, but they need most of all an increased opportunity of wholesome and stimulating social labor. Their work must be made interesting to them not merely because of its compensation, but because its performance calls for the development of more eager and more responsible human beings.

The distinction between a distributive view of democracy and a participatory view, though seldom stated so forcefully, was implicit in the wide-ranging debates about the democratization of culture that took place during the progressive era. Many people believed that democracy was simply incompatible with excellence and that the popularization of culture could lead only to its debasement. Those who rejected this view were left with two alternatives. The first envisioned the democratization of leisure and consumption; the second, the democratization of work. If

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