The
reactionary mentality of lesser-evilism is one of the primary ideological supports of the two-party state and the duopoly system of government. During the Bush administration liberals and progressives rallied behind Democrats not primarily because of what the Democratic Party stands for, but rather because of what the Democratic Party supposedly stands against. Today, the very same fixed idea grips
conservatives and libertarians who support the Republican Party not because Republicans are particularly conservative or libertarian, but rather because they are not Democrats. Ironically, however, while Democrats and Republicans grandstand against one another, fundamentally they stand in support of the same ideal: the maintenance of the Democratic-Republican political duopoly and the reproduction of the global warfare and corporate welfare state. The result of this dynamic is indistinguishable from tyranny. But don't take my word for it. From
George Washington's oft-quoted Farewell Address:
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
There is but one way to arrest the cycle of duopolist despotism: extend the sphere of representation. As Madison wrote in
The Federalist No. 10:
The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. [Emphasis added.]
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4 comments:
If you think about it, Madison is making the case for those dreaded "special interests" that practically everyone denounces these days. He was arguing against Montesquieu's contention that republics could only flourish on a small territorial scale, and in Fed 10 he means extending the sphere in a territorial sense to incorporate more diverse interests. Unfortunately, Madison didn't anticipate the power of ideology to subsume local or "special" interests, or the tendency of ideology to stigmatize "special" interests. He succumbed to ideology himself to an extent and exploited it to unite diverse regions against Federalism. It may be hard for ideologues to acknowledge, but one way to break the Bipolarchy may be to reassert the legitimacy of "special" interests, or to insist that no American has a right to call another a "special interest." That may be the easiest way to get citizens to speak for themselves instead of their ideological gurus and their interests.
That's an interesting parallel. I'd be interested to read your take on the way "special interest groups" are treated in the APSA's 1950 report "Toward a More Responsible Two Party System." I've referenced the text here before. It devotes an entire section to "pressure groups", arguing that that a responsible two party system will be able to resist such pressures, and avoid "surrendering to narrow interest groups."
If you're game, here's a link to the report and some related materials. The sections on interest groups are in the summary p. 2 and in Part I, pp. 5 and 6.
d., I gave it a quick read. It looks like a brief for the usurpation by parties of the role intended for representative government itself. The author says that parties are the proper vehicle for the reconciliation of diverse interests, when Madison in Fed 10, at least, presumed no such thing. Knowing nothing about the authors, I can't help wondering whether they saw the Communist and Fascist states of Europe as models for an American party state, albeit a more democratic one, in which parties are designed more for governing than electioneering. In any event, the prediction that a nationalized bipolarchy would not become an ideological battleground failed miserably.
Thanks Sam. From the articles that I've read, the document has been fairly influential in the US poli-sci community, and has been referred to again and again in numerous papers over the last 60 years. Though it seems that criticism of it has really only amassed over the last 10 or 20. And, yes, that last prediction is pretty funny in hindsight.
In any case, back to Madison, though he is comparing the virtues of democracies with republics as well as those of small vs. large republics, and opting for the latter in both cases, I do think his point about "extending the sphere to include a greater variety of parties and interests" holds just as well in senses other than those which were immediately intended (i.e. territorial extent). Many folks continue to maintain, however, that such extensions can only be accomplished within the duopolist political framework, while I would argue that this is virtually impossible within that framework.
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