 Democracy is more than merely a means to check on political leaders and administrators or call them to account. Dewey thinks that this misses out the importance of democracy for a much wider range of social institutions than this narrow view captures, including the workplace. It is “superficial” to think that “government is located in Washington and Albany. There is government in the family, in business, in the church, in every social group” which regulates the behaviour of its members (“Democracy and Educational Administration”, LW11, 221). The scope of democracy, in the sense of the range of institutions to which it applies, should not be construed narrowly. If our individuality is shaped by the wide range of institutions that make up our social habitat, as Dewey thinks, then the rules and norms governing these institutions are too important to us to be left to chance, dogma, tradition or inherited hierarchy. So restricting democratic scrutiny and control to a single sphere of social life would be a mistake.