Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

constitution. Pressure groups distinguish themselves through their confinement to the particular
interests of their association from political parties which - at least in principle - are supposed
to represent the interest of the entire nation.
The spread of pressure groups is something that is happening in all industrial states of the
Western world. The Federal Republic of Germany, in which employers’ associations, labor
unions, and the Grüne Front are prominent as interest groups, has been called a ‘federation of
united associations, churches, and local and municipal republics’, a ‘group market’ with political
‘group trade’ and with ‘associated dukedoms’, some of which claim the „electorate“ for
themselves. 73 There is talk of the ‘decay of public life’,“ of the „re-establishment of the indirect
powers,“ of the „perversion of the true principles and institutions of the free democratic
state“, and so on.
Political parties, it is said, are especially exposed to the manifold attacks of interest groups.
Pressure groups seek to elect delegates from the political parties, which easily succeeds, since,
on the one hand, the block votes of the associations stand behind these election candidates
and, on the other hand, these delegates are valuable to their parties because of their expertise.
The result is a many-sided intertwinement of the associations with the political parties, so that
one can speak of the „motley coloring“ of parties by associations. Donations, election funds,
services, and real contributions accorded to the parties by the interest groups also play a great
role here.
It is further explained that pressure groups seek to prevail upon parliament, the government,
and the administration also. At the seat of parliament and the government, numerous lobby
offices of pressure groups are to be found which have usurped preliminary legislative proceedings
and deprived parliament of power to a large extent. Modern laws are armistice
agreements between interest groups.
Furthermore, it is complained, pressure groups have succeeded in placing their people in decisive
positions in the ministries and administration. They have even won influence upon the
judiciary by fostering and financing the publication of legal commentaries favorable to them.
2. The Moral Responsibility of Interest Groups
Christian social teaching places the common good of the state above the special interests of
associations and appeals to the consciousness of moral responsibility on the part of association
officials. In doing so, it proceeds from three considerations:
a) The formation of interest groups is in a certain respect an expression of modern man’s need
for protection against the ever expanding power of the state. „How helplessly we should be
delivered up to the state if there did not exist the numerous forces of religion, the economy,
social groups, and the political parties more or less borne along by them, all fighting against
one another within it and alongside it.“ 74 Nor is advance and formation of political and economic
tendencies and demands which the associations undertake to be judged in entirely
negative terms. It is further to be recognized that in some pressure groups welcome forms of
self-administration have developed. It appears, for example, that employers’ associations and
trade unions not only come to agreements about contractual wages, but that more and more
the regulation of working time is passing from the competence of the state to that of the parties
to the wage agreement. In this way, sensible adaptations, transitional solutions, and, if
need be, even experiments are easier than under rigid legal regulations.
b) The so-called economic councils represent attempts by public law to bring interest groups
into regular contact with parliament and government such as have been created in France,
Belgium, Luxemburg, Italy, and the Netherlands. An integration of associations has, however,
not yet succeeded anywhere, so that Goetz Briefs rightly remarks that the pluralistic era pos-
73 Th. Eschenburg, Herrschaft der Verbände ? (Stuttgart, 1955), 49, 64f, 87.
74 Hans Peters Die Gewaltentrennung in moderner Sicht (Cologne-Opladen, 1954), 32f
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