The best student of the federation of English trade unions says that their majority decisions are justifiable and practicable only insofar as the interests of the various confederates are homogeneous. As soon as differences of opinion between majority and minority result from real differences in interests, any compulsion produced by outvoting inevitably leads to a separation of the members. In other words, a vote makes sense only if the existing interests can fuse into a unity.

Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simm…, loc. 6251