Politics & Power Quote by Herbert Croly

Croly’s line reads like a warning shot aimed at America’s favorite loophole: praising “democracy” while hollowing it out in practice. The phrasing is lawyerly on purpose. “May mean something more” concedes the elastic, aspirational side of democratic rhetoric - the idea that democracy can include protections, institutions, rights, and a civic culture that outlasts any election. But “it assuredly cannot mean anything less” draws a hard floor under all that loftiness. However refined or managerial you want the system to be, it still has to cash the check of popular rule.

The subtext is a Progressive Era anxiety: industrial capitalism, party machines, and concentrated wealth were turning “popular government” into branding. Croly, the architect of an energetic national state in The Promise of American Life, wasn’t arguing for a simplistic plebiscite politics. He believed in expertise and stronger federal power. That’s what gives the quote its bite. It’s a self-binding constraint from a thinker often caricatured as technocratic: reform cannot become a pretext for bypassing the people.

Rhetorically, the sentence works because it frames democracy as a minimum viable product rather than a vague ideal. “Theoretically absolute” nods to the fact that pure majority rule is impossible and maybe undesirable; still, theory sets a baseline. If “democracy” becomes compatible with minority entrenchment, voter suppression, or rule by economic oligarchy, Croly suggests we’re no longer debating improvements - we’re renegotiating the label to excuse the exit.