The American Democracy Problem

The United States has long had a democracy problem. America was not founded to be a democracy. Jamie Raskin has argued against America not having been founded as a democracy and states that a republic is merely a representative democracy. Madison would have objected to that idea. He writes in the Federalist 10 that:

“From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

“A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.

“The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.

“The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether small or extensive republics are more favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter by two obvious considerations.”

Certainly, Madison thought that the United States, even in 1788 was too vast and too populous for a democracy to be practical in any sense. Even then he, and George Washington in one of his few reported comments during the convention, thought that even under a republican principle the seats of representation had to be limited to the amount of persons they represented.

I imagine, were they alive, they would be the first to argue that one representative of nearly 900,000 people could not even effectively be representative of people within a republican government.

And while Madison was effectively afraid of black freedom and citizenship because he thought it would inevitably end the envisioned republican government because of the factions that he thought to be a natural outgrowth of human liberty (he didn’t write much about freedom, his idea of liberty however, was the expression of different conceptions. And the republican form of government could not succeed by majority but only by a collection of factions who had no majority and would therefore need to find common ground.

“So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.”

And of course that has been the downfall of the “American experiment in government” from its beginning congresses. All of the interests, or factions in Madison’s terminology, were not represented, and people were pitted against each other in attempts to form majorities. The American “democracy” became about winning elections for “parties” whose scope was all of these factional interests, way too broad, and unsatisfactory to all.

And where are the interests of the debtors in the representatives to congress? It was always about the interests of the creditor and the debtors were nearly always eliminated from becoming part of the government. The parties, when the debtors could vote, sought allegiances of the debtors to opposing ideologies of the creditors who vied to promise gifts to the debtors but seldom complied.

The modern “welfare system” is not bringing action for debtors, but primarily reinforces debtors and prevents admission into the governing system.

“Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.”

And so we think (have learned via our educational system) that two factions that, frankly, are unrepresentative of any factional interest, but a unification of several factions, that to succeed, have to promise they will aid all the factions within the party. They then decide elections by a majority vote—the very thing Madison argued would bring down the government.

So only three classes have ever been represented and they fight to “win” the day for themselves. They judge their interest to be manifestly the prime interest and eventually the clash of interests has to never provide for the interests of the other, unrepresented factions. It ends then in its first promise–democracy, not even providing representative liberty to every faction of thought–primarily the economic interests of the various sectors of the society.

I have hope however that the Trump movement will fail rapidly, that the protests will become so massive it fails.

If such happens, and then we go back to “our democracy”, god help us all because this “Democracy” that was established was never representative of the interests of the Americans, but more a less became a ballgame who earned ‘points’ by amassing votes.

The democracy (and its elections) were stolen because it never existed as enclaves of representing its own factions that consisted with the populace.

So I hope we are able to learn how to create a republic of all factions, and make every faction a winner by redesigning elections without losers, so that everyone has a voice in its representation.

The Federalist Papers : No. 10; https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp