what is pluralism

Pluralism is a political philosophy that assumes diversity is beneficial to society and that autonomy should be enjoyed by disparate functional or cultural groups within a society, including religious groups, trade unions, professional organizations, and ethnic minorities. Pluralism holds that people of different beliefs, backgrounds, and lifestyles can coexist in the same society and that power should be dispersed among a variety of economic and ideological pressure groups and not held by a single elite or group of elites. Pluralism emphasizes that power is not a physical entity that individuals either have or do not have, but flows from a variety of different sources. Pluralists judge society not by its actual equality but by its equality of political opportunity, and they contend that Americans have a comparatively equal chance to participate in government. Pluralism is not mere tolerance or relativism, but the real encounter of commitments. Pluralism can also refer to a theory that there are more than one or more than two kinds of ultimate reality or that reality is composed of a plurality of entities.