Dewey rejects a then-popular notion of political technocracy as an alternative system of governing an increasingly complex society, but rather sees democracy as the most viable and sustainable means to achieving the public interest, albeit a flawed and routinely subverted one.

"[2] Dewey was moved to write in defence of democracy in the wake of two widely read and influential works written by journalist Walter Lippmann in the 1920s which echoed a rising intellectual trend both in the United States and Europe that was critical of the potential for self-governing democratic societies.

Dewey opens with a critique of abstract accounts of the state’s origins — be it the Aristotelian idea that man is a political animal or social contract theories – which, he argues, devolve into "mythology" and "story-telling.

In this sense, the state as an organization “is equivalent to the equipment of the public with official representatives to care for the interests of the public.”[17] Dewey accepts that the public-private distinction has evolved over time.

No matter where the line between public and private is drawn, however, Dewey concludes that “the only constant is the function of caring for and regulating the interests which accrue as the result of the complex indirect expansion and radiation of conjoint behaviour.

"[18] In other words, the increasing scale and complexity of human associations creates a need to coordinate widely distributed indirect consequences, a need that the state is to address.

By organizing itself to regulate the indirect consequences of human behaviour, the state relies upon a set of institutions, formal and informal, that are reluctant to accept fundamental change.

[21] Most rulers in history obtained their power ipso facto, by accident or conquest, on the basis of largely arbitrary factors such as military ability, age, or lineage.

Dewey argues that the origins of democracy have little to do with democratic ideals and theories, and much to do with a series of “religious, scientific and economic changes” that reshaped politics.

[23] The development of science accompanied the decline of ecclesiastical authority as the rise of mercantilism externalized the power of the nobility to an ascending class of bourgeois merchants.

Dewey argues that while ideals such as freedom presented themselves as ends to be attained for their own sake, early-democratic theories rationalized a strictly negative desire to do away with crumbling institutions.

"[25] This individualist ethos also served the rising world of commerce that Adam Smith defends in his Wealth of Nations, which places the individual and its desires at the centre of all economic transactions.

But as modern life becomes more and more impersonal, the disappearance of a properly organized public and the artifice of individualism will continue to be on full display.

[29] While some expected the market to liberate people from oppression, Dewey argues, market-structures have created their own problems – as he puts it, "the same forces which have brought about the forms of democratic government, general suffrage, executives and legislators chosen by majority vote, have also brought about conditions which halt the social and humane ideals that demand the utilization of government as the genuine instrumentality of an inclusive and fraternally associated public.

As Dewey puts it, "the machine age has so enormously expanded, multiplied, intensified and complicated the scope of the indirect consequences, have formed such immense and consolidated unions in action, on an impersonal rather than a community basis, that the resultant public cannot identify and distinguish itself.

Rejecting conventional forms of large-scale representative democracy, Dewey advocates smaller-scale, participatory models in which citizens and communities shape every political process.

For him, true democracies must convert organic and disorganized forms of associative behaviour into real communities of action united by common symbols, concerns, interests, and problems.

[36] Where Walter Lippmann dismissed the idea of the “omnicompetent individual” as a fiction perpetuated by naïve theorists, Dewey argues that it is both possible and necessary to cultivate faculties of effectual observation and reflection in everyone.

Dewey does not neglect the role of expertise and science; nor does he claim that ordinary citizens will ever be able to understand complex scientific questions as well as experts.

But he does claim that the public can be educated enough to understand the indirect consequences that scientists are trying to address — to an extent that is sufficient for expertise not to become a barrier to true democracy.

Dewey claims that censorship and conformism tend to be weaponized by those in power, which makes intellectual innovation necessary for democratic equality to persist.

[38] He then argues that the eclipse of interdisciplinary work in academia, as well as the centralization of information-gathering in journalism, have both negatively impacted democratic norms — Dewey proposes to reverse both these trends.

As Melvin L. Rogers puts it, "Dewey is critical of the extent to which classical liberalism, with its atomistic psychology, narrow understanding of individuality, and limited role for the state, undermines the communal dimension of democracy.

On the one hand, Dewey belongs to a pluralist tradition that views the individual as the intersecting fusion of diverse social groups and overlapping associations – including the state itself.

[42] On the other hand, by arguing that proper democracy requires the cultivation of certain personal qualities in all spheres of life, Dewey departs from the kind of liberal neutrality that some associate with John Rawls.

Joshua Forstenzer has replied to Talisse's objection by holding that Deweyan democracy relies upon only a "thin" definition of the good – as opposed to a robust, comprehensive doctrine.

[45] For Forstenzer, no political system can ever be neutral vis-à-vis substantive definitions of the good; on his view, Deweyan democracy may invite the cultivation of certain democratic virtues, but it remains sufficiently broad for people of diverse backgrounds, faiths, and cultural traditions to live according to their own principles — to a large extent at least.

[46] More specifically, Ralston claims that Dewey offers a set of pluralist procedures that allow democracy as a way of life to include a robust respect of value-diversity, illustrating her argument with a real-life case studies.

[49] Lastly, Naoko Saito has put Dewey in dialogue with Henry David Thoreau and Stanley Cavell to compare their competing conceptions of democracy as a way of life.