he U.S. system to attain the equality that the system promises shows how difficult it can be to move an entire system from point A to point B even when that system has been designed to make such changes in response to the petition of the people. The American democratic system promises equality before the law and equality of opportunity, and yet achieving these goals is still a struggle for many Americans. Looked at over time, however, the American democratic system can be seen to be evolving in a positive direction toward fulfilling its promise, and this is why this is probably the best system of government yet devised.
E.M. Forster's novella "The Machine Stops" is a prophetic work that extrapolates from the world of 1909 to a future marked by a growing sense of alienation as people are faced with a choice between their humanity or a surrender to the machine. This is an issue that would be much discussed in the literature of the twentieth century and that continues to be a vital subject of controversy today. Forster was writing from an age where
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