In Federalist 10 James Madison argues for the acceptance of the system established by the new Constitution as it establishes a government capable of controlling and mitigating the effects of factions. Madison defines factions as groups of people who gather together to protect and promote their special economic interests and political opinions and because of their interest bases they necessarily work against the good of the whole in favor of the good of the few. Factions, Madison concludes, are an inevitable part of political life as long as there is inequality among men.
For Madison there are two ways to control factions: the first is to remove its causes and the second is to control its effects. To remove the causes of factions one must either destroy liberty or to force all citizens to share the same opinions. The second is impossible and the first is greater folly than unbridled factionalism. To that end the only reasonable possibility is to control the effects of factionalism to preserve liberty.
In the new union the Framers established a representative government that can by its nature quell the effect of factionalism. Madison asserts that direct democracies are prone factionalism because there is no way to protect weak factions. In the new union theoretically those who represent the people will be more concerned with the public good. The likelihood that public office will be held by qualified men is greater in large countries because there will be more representatives chosen by a greater number of citizens. This makes it more difficult for the candidates to deceive the people. Representative government is needed in large countries, not to protect the people from the tyranny of the few, but to guard against the rule of the mob.
Also in large republics, we can anticipate that factions will be numerous but the multitude of groups and interests will prevent any one from becoming tyrannical. The disparate interests of the 13 states would prevent any one interest group or state from gaining too much power in government as the reach of interest groups must be much wider than that of a small directly democratic government.
Federalist 10 argues that the large Republic is an excellent guard against factions. Clearly this has not been the case as groups of citizen with interests contrary to the rights of others or the interests of the community as a whole have proliferated in the form of extreme right wings of the Republican Party as evidenced in the Republican primaries of 2012. Attacks on women, immigrants and the LGBT community as well as Muslims and even Mormons have proliferated the process with rarely a rebuke from the leaders of the GOP. As a comparativist, I have studied to some degree the freedom-eroding effect the extreme right can have (the extreme left can have the same effect, but we’ve never had a strong socialist movement in America, despite what you might here on talk radio). I am recalled to Ackerman’s diagnosis of the chief threats to liberty and specifically the politicization of the American military (along conservative lines) and am left to wonder if the Tea Party and other extreme right groups aren’t exactly what Madison had in mind when he spoke of factions?
ReplyDeleteAgain, do not mistake these comments as partisan, extreme left parties are certainly every bit as much of a threat to liberty as extreme right parties, but Graber, Balkin, Ackerman and others have been correct in pointing out that the most conservative elements of American society have had a history of advocating a set of interests which were narrowly self-serving and at odds with the interests of the community as a whole. Extreme leftists would have done the same thing if given a chance, but again there has never been an extremist left movement with anywhere the success of the Tea Party or, for that matter, the Evangelical Right of the culture wars.
If this analysis is correct, the Madison’s assumption that the republic would be a defense against such groups is clearly incorrect. One then wonders if a sense of civic duty, a la Sunstein et al, is what’s really missing and could be the crucial element in the defense against factions. If so, how might the Republic best encourage the deliberative climate that civic duty creates? Perhaps the Founders would have done well to bear in mind that such a crucial social condition would need to be encouraged, even engineered along Aristotelian lines, in order for the Republic to withstand the thrall of faction. But how?
Federalist 10 argues that the large Republic is an excellent guard against factions. I think Madision is correct. Clearly, there are many groups with different opinions in this country, but rarely are there violent outbursts from these groups. In addition, none of these groups a serious threat to the state of the union. Howeveer, if we were to move from a Representative government to a government of direct democracy, like we talked about in class, I truly believe the union would be in danger from factions. The general public can be easily swayed and most don't want to take the time to research the truth. These conditions increae the possibility that legislation will be passed that doesn't benefit the general welfare of the country, but a select group. As the system is set up now deliberation is important if legislation gets passed, which reduces the chance that factions will be favored. For this reason, I think it is essential that our current form of representative government stay in place rather than moving towards a system of more direct democracy.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the federal system has "mostly" guarded" against factions in the United States as it pertains to incorporating themselves into the government structure. While inflamed passions can show themselves in electoral outcomes (i.e. New Deal elections of '32 and '36, the wave elections of 1994, 2006, and 2010, the filtering process ensures that this does not turn violent, and if the faction becomes to extreme or unfocused, it is replaced by the electorate or weakened, hence the mid-term Congressional election of 1998 in which Speaker Newt Gingrich resigned as Speaker after severe Republican losses in the House.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the largest stability test came during the disputed Presidential election of 2000 when the Supreme Court decided the method of the Florida recount and there were throngs of people outside the Vice President's home chanting "get out of Cheney's house!"