Hyperdemocracy

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Technologies ranging from the telegraph to the telephone, from typewriter to carbon paper have all made mass organization easier and cheaper. And since the 1960s, the technologies have unfolded relentlessly: computerized mass mailing, the personal computer and printer, the fax, the modem and increasingly supple software for keeping tabs on members or prospective members. The number of associations, both political and apolitical, has grown in lockstep with these advances. One bellwether -- the size of the American Society of Association Executives -- went from 2,000 in 1965 to 20,000 in 1990. As for sheerly political organizations: no one knows exactly how many lobbyists there are in Washington, but the Congressional Quarterly estimates that between 1975 and 1985 alone the number more than doubled and may even have quadrupled.

There was a second impetus to interest-group growth: in the 1960s, just as the technology of computerized direct mail was emerging, a proliferation of government programs created fresh issues to get interested in. Combined, the two factors were explosive. The American Association of Retired Persons, founded in 1958, did its first lobbying in 1965 with the arrival of Medicare. Over the next 25 years, its membership grew from a million to more than 30 million. Today it sends out 50 million pieces of mail a year. And when its members talk -- especially about Medicare or Social Security -- Congress listens.

Information technology has also revolutionized the form such talk can take. Meet Jack Bonner, voice for hire. On behalf of an interest group, Bonner and Associates can spew 10,000 faxes a night. But Bonner is better known for applying a more personal touch. When he works on a piece of legislation, he first isolates the likely swing votes, then has his software scan a database of the corresponding congressional districts, seeking residents whose profiles suggest sympathy with his cause. When influence is in order -- after, say, a sudden and threatening development at a committee hearing -- his people call these sympathizers, describe the looming peril and offer to "patch" them directly through to a congressional office to voice their protest. "But only in their own words," stresses Bonner, mindful that congressional staffs are getting better at spotting pseudo-grass-roots ("Astroturf") lobbying. Bonner charges $350 to $500 per call generated.

The striking thing about many modern special interests is how unspecial they are. Whereas a century ago lobbying was done on behalf of titans of industry, the members of, for example, AARP are no one in particular -- just a bunch of people with an average income of $28,000 who happen to have gray hair. Indeed, they're so common that they account for one in six American adults -- maybe you, maybe your mother, certainly someone you know. And if you're not in AARP, perhaps you are in the National Taxpayers' Union, the National Rifle Association or, less probably, the Possum Growers and Breeders Association. Or the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists. Or the Beer Drinkers of America -- 190,000 members strong and devoted to low beer taxes. "Almost every American who reads these words is a member of a lobby," writes Jonathan Rauch in his recent book Demosclerosis. "We have met the special interests, and they are us."