Since human beings are finite, Niebuhr reasoned that we can never do anything apart from our interests, especially when we act collectively. According to Niebuhr, democracy—“a method of finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems”—was the political system best adapted to the strengths and limitations of human nature. As he put it famously in The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”[9]
