On democracy and factions

After January 6 this year, when a crowd of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol – the seat of the U.S. federal government – and wanted to change the outcome of the presidential election, it became clear that tribalism and polarization in U.S. politics had reached dangerous levels; a level that threatens the strength and stability of the federal union and the functioning of its democratic processes. This, of course, is not the first time this has happened: the United States had already split into two parts in the mid-19th century over the issue of slavery, and political disagreement was followed by bloody internal conflict.

Sectarianism, or the formation of factions, has been recognized since ancient times as a flaw in the rule of the people; an almost inevitable consequence of the fact that the democratic political process involves a multitude of citizens, among whom there are supposedly multitude of interests and desires, and all these interests do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the community. Thus, it is not uncommon for American founding fathers to warn of the dangers of factions even before American democracy was formally established. In the Federalist Papers, a collection of essays in which three American statesmen sought to persuade the public to ratify the new US Constitution, James Madison devoted the tenth essay to the problem of factions and the explanation of why the newly written constitution establishing a federal union of former colonies provides the best cure for this problem.

As a faction, Madison understands “a number of citizens, either a minority or a majority of the entire population, united and activated by some common interest or desire that is contrary to the rights of other citizens or the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. (Madison 200)”. Thus, factions – insofar as we do not regulate them – can lead to particular interests prevailing over common ones, and citizens at whose expense these interests come, feeling unrepresented in the political process. Madison first offers us a choice of two methods for dealing with the factions: “eliminating their causes or controlling their consequences(ibid.).” But it also soon explains why the first method is not sustainable. One of the reasons for factions is the freedom of decision granted to an individual citizen by a democratic system, and the only solution would be to limit or abolish that freedom, which Madison considers “a cure worse than the disease itself (ibid.)”. Another reason for the formation of factions is the previously mentioned diversity of opinions, desires and interests among individuals, which inevitably lead to the division of society on the basis of all kinds of variables, as well as the diversity of natural endowments and abilities among individuals, protection of which is for Madison “first priority of the government(ibid.)”. This cause could be neutralized by giving all citizens the same interests, thoughts and desires, which is again an encroachment on the freedom of the individual, but at the same time an unrealistic scenario.

At this point, it is interesting that of all the possible social variables that can give rise to diverse interests, Madison immediately emphasizes the right to accumulate property or its uneven distribution. For him, unequal distribution of wealth is a direct consequence of unequal ability to acquire property, and political institutions must defend this inequality. “The protection of diverse and unequal property / property acquisition opportunities immediately follows the possession of different levels and types of property; and the impact of these on the sentiments and views of landlords follows the division of society into different interests and parties (Madison 201)”. This shows why the founding fathers, who were mostly wealthy landowners, were really concerned about the problem of factions in a democratic system: what if many more people without land and notable property came together and voted in their own (majority) interest for some redistributive measure to the detriment of (minority) landowners? Madison himself recognizes that unequal distribution of property was “the most common and sustainable cause of factions (ibid.)”. So care must be taken to lay the foundations of the newly formed state so that the common interest is met, which in this case coincides with the interests of a small group of landowners whose privileges are supposedly a matter of natural endowments. “The latent causes of faction formation are thus woven into human nature (ibid.)”. A stable and robust democracy therefore needs certain constraints that will allow the interests of landlords to always remain in the public interest, while the interests of less privileged citizens represent a faction whose intention is therefore to destabilize the political community.

Consequently, Madison concludes that the causes of the formation of the factions cannot be eliminated — at least not in a way that would preserve the right to an endless accumulation of capital; “Solutions must thus be sought in the means of regulating fractions (Madison, 202).” According to him, pure or direct democracy is not the best in the fight against factions, while the republic or representative democracy offers the right institutional levers for regulating factions. Madison points out two differences between democracy and the republic: “first, the latter is ruled by a smaller number of citizens elected by the rest; and second, a larger number of citizens and a larger sphere of territory is under the auspices of the government (Madison, 203).” In smaller political communities, it is easier for a group to assert its interests at the expense of the whole community. In larger communities, this is more difficult, but even more difficult if political decisions are made by representatives of the people who, according to Madison, use their wisdom to filter the passions of the people’s will and use their reason and ethical compass to go beyond their own interests, as people would not do it themselves. Let history be the arbiter of this thesis. Of course, Madison allows for the possibility of people with partial interests occupying representative seats in such an arrangement and plunging the community into factional struggles, which he finds more likely in a smaller republic than in a larger one. As a result, Madison advocates that individual states or former colonies merge into a federal republic. So: a republic is better than a democracy; a larger republic (or a federal association of several republics) is better than a smaller republic. At least as far as controlling the negative influences of factions is concerned.

In the light of today’s political divisions, Federalist paper no. 10 can be read as a clairvoyant warning by one of the founders of American democracy about the danger that the rule of the people will not necessarily yield results that are in the interest of the entire community. At the same time, the founding fathers, who were clearly aware of the dangers, seemed to have designed the American constitution and political system to protect the community from sectarian interests as effectively as possible, and a return to constitutional principles sounds like a good remedy for instability caused by the period of the Trump presidency. What’s more, newly elected President Biden, as a candidate for the status quo with his “America is back” stance, offers himself precisely as a sort of defender of the constitutional order and common interests that will unite and normalize the country.

However, the paper can be read differently in the modern context, namely that the restriction of factions, as well as the consequent choice of the republic as the best political system, is more about maintaining property relations by partially restricting political participation, rather than maintaining the political order itself. It is not uncommon for Madison, as a wealthy landowner, to advocate the creation of the United States, where it is less likely than in a single member state to “crave money, advocate debt relief, equal property sharing, and other inappropriate and vicious projects (Madison, 205), ”dominated the political body of the state. All the cases that really worry Madison are issues of economic justice. Thus, the founding fathers established a republic instead of democracy, and elected representatives – mostly wealthy landowners – made sure that maintaining unequal ownership relations (through a specific understanding of private property as the right to accumulate property and capital) remained in the common interest. So how should we look at today’s populist wave that has destabilized American politics over the last four years: as a dangerous faction that is an unfortunate byproduct of democratic freedom, or as a result of social injustices, especially economic ones that have plagued American society for the past couple of decades (extreme economic inequality in neoliberalism) and which are woven into the very constitutional order of the state?

If the former, then we can calmly expect that the election of Biden will stabilize the political space. If the latter is the case, we are dealing with the wrong problem: instead of dealing with factions, we should be dealing with a democratic deficit in political institutions; a deficit which was deliberately designed. Perhaps these republican levers prevent sectarianism to some extent, but one wonders much like Madison asked: isn’t there a cure here worse than disease? The disease is property relationships that most would probably find unjust, and the cure for the founding fathers is to limit political participation and empower enlightened representatives of the people. Madison again clairvoyantly announced that “enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm (Madison, 202).” Have they ever been?

Source:

Madison, James. 2008. Federalist 10. V American Political Thought: A Norton Anthology, eds. Krammnick, Isaac and Theodore J. Lowi. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

The text was made for the project “American political thought”, sponsored by the US Embassy in Slovenia.