The question of democracy

[Belsnickel]

I am currently reading a book which has caused me to think about something it presented. We all know that the framers of our government saw pure democracy as something that would not be advisable. For this reason we have a representative democracy. What we often think about is that the idea of our system of government is to be democratic but protect the minority from suffering injustices at the hands of the majority. A noble goal when taken at face value.

It should be noted, though that this is a bit of a perversion of how the founding was really done. Rules regarding who could vote and hold office meant that the people with power were more landed. Also, the most well off needed to be protected from the rabble and so as James Madison stated during the 1787 convention: "They [the landholders] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." This was the basis of the creation of the Senate, or the upper chamber with considerably more power. Madison and other framers were concerned about the common rabble rising up against them, it would seem, and so they attempted to concentrate power. They reduced democracy.

Now, this isn't a new problem that had been discovered. Aristotle wrote about this same dilemma in Politics. What was fun was that in reading this book, my copy of Politics was on the shelf right in front of me, so I pulled it down to look this stuff up. Really fascinating. Aristotle, in Book VI, chapter 5, says that "poverty is the cause of the defects of democracy." He goes on to argue that the way to even out this power dynamic, to help a democratic society thrive, is to reduce the inequality among the people. That if the system is set up to reduce the differences (not eliminate them) then it will protect that opulent minority from the majority.

So here we have two competing ideas on how to protect the minority from the majority. Madison and the other framers opted for reducing democracy, and Aristotle's argument was that we should reduce inequality. My questions for discussion on here are: Which do you prefer? Is this a false dichotomy and there are other ways? If so, how? Should there be a mixture and where do you think that mixture should lie?

I know this is all getting a bit more philosophical than a lot of threads, but I'd like you to keep that in mind if you post in here. These are opinions people are expressing and opinions are subjective. There really is no right or wrong on this, only your opinions on what right and wrong are.

[GMDino]

(03-13-2018, 01:14 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I am currently reading a book which has caused me to think about something it presented. We all know that the framers of our government saw pure democracy as something that would not be advisable. For this reason we have a representative democracy. What we often think about is that the idea of our system of government is to be democratic but protect the minority from suffering injustices at the hands of the majority. A noble goal when taken at face value.

It should be noted, though that this is a bit of a perversion of how the founding was really done. Rules regarding who could vote and hold office meant that the people with power were more landed. Also, the most well off needed to be protected from the rabble and so as James Madison stated during the 1787 convention: "They [the landholders] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." This was the basis of the creation of the Senate, or the upper chamber with considerably more power. Madison and other framers were concerned about the common rabble rising up against them, it would seem, and so they attempted to concentrate power. They reduced democracy.

Now, this isn't a new problem that had been discovered. Aristotle wrote about this same dilemma in Politics. What was fun was that in reading this book, my copy of Politics was on the shelf right in front of me, so I pulled it down to look this stuff up. Really fascinating. Aristotle, in Book VI, chapter 5, says that "poverty is the cause of the defects of democracy." He goes on to argue that the way to even out this power dynamic, to help a democratic society thrive, is to reduce the inequality among the people. That if the system is set up to reduce the differences (not eliminate them) then it will protect that opulent minority from the majority.

So here we have two competing ideas on how to protect the minority from the majority. Madison and the other framers opted for reducing democracy, and Aristotle's argument was that we should reduce inequality. My questions for discussion on here are: Which do you prefer? Is this a false dichotomy and there are other ways? If so, how? Should there be a mixture and where do you think that mixture should lie?

I know this is all getting a bit more philosophical than a lot of threads, but I'd like you to keep that in mind if you post in here. These are opinions people are expressing and opinions are subjective. There really is no right or wrong on this, only your opinions on what right and wrong are.

Reducing inequality, obviously.

Raising the lower class is the best way to help the economy, lower crime, make the country better.

Less stress and less division.

[fredtoast]

We have to have a capitalist economic system. Competition is the key to innovation and efficiency. But we can't have the system weighted to heavily in favor of the elite because that will result in a tiny fraction of the population seizing all of the power and wealth.

Exploitation and oppression at the hands of the wealthy is just as bad as exploitation and oppression at the hands of a tyrannical government.

[fredtoast]

BTW the United States is one of the highest rated countries in intergenerational income elasticity. That means that in the United States your parents income level has much more influence on your income level than in other countries.

The income inequality problem in the US gets worse with each generation.

[Belsnickel]

(03-13-2018, 01:39 PM)fredtoast Wrote: We have to have a capitalist economic system. Competition is the key to innovation and efficiency. But we can't have the system weighted to heavily in favor of the elite because that will result in a tiny fraction of the population seizing all of the power and wealth.

Exploitation and oppression at the hands of the wealthy is just as bad as exploitation and oppression at the hands of a tyrannical government.

I don't disagree that a competitive market is the key to many things, and most sensible folks would be in the same position. However, the degree to which government is involved with certain things is the big debate. How much should the government work to make the scales less uneven? Universal basic income? Social programs like the Nordic system? Or should regulatory attempts like what we do in the United States be the only thing?

[*michaelsean*]

Madison may have meant it one way, but it still protects any minority from the majority. Plus I can't even guess at the logistics of a direct vote for everything.

I don't know that the Nordic system translates to a diverse population of 350 million people.

[Belsnickel]

(03-13-2018, 03:05 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Madison may have meant it one way, but it still protects any minority from the majority. Plus I can't even guess at the logistics of a direct vote for everything.

I don't disagree that it still protects any minority, but the use of this to justify the Senate and making it the more powerful of the two chambers is troubling. The idea was not direct vote vs. representative. Instead, the debate was over the House or Senate having the larger role in government. The chamber of aristocracy was granted more power than the chamber intended to be more representative of the people.

(03-13-2018, 03:05 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I don't know that the Nordic system translates to a diverse population of 350 million people.

This is where I get a little Burkean and advocate for state systems.

[fredtoast]

(03-13-2018, 03:16 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Instead, the debate was over the House or Senate having the larger role in government. The chamber of aristocracy was granted more power than the chamber intended to be more representative of the people.

Most people do not realize that Senators were not elected by citizens until sometime after the Civil War.  Before that they were selected by state legislators.  The Senate was considered more of a "rich mans club" than the popular elected House of Representatives.

The Senate also had the power to ratify treaties and approve presidential appointments (along with some other exclusive powers I can't remember rigth now)

[Dill]

(03-13-2018, 01:14 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Now, this isn't a new problem that had been discovered. Aristotle wrote about this same dilemma in Politics. What was fun was that in reading this book, my copy of Politics was on the shelf right in front of me, so I pulled it down to look this stuff up. Really fascinating. Aristotle, in Book VI, chapter 5, says that "poverty is the cause of the defects of democracy." He goes on to argue that the way to even out this power dynamic, to help a democratic society thrive, is to reduce the inequality among the people. That if the system is set up to reduce the differences (not eliminate them) then it will protect that opulent minority from the majority.

If I remember correctly, for Aristotle, "democracy" is the degenerate form of what is translated to English as "constitutional government."  Democracies go bad because the masses are able to use the law to extract wealth and property from the rich, which undermines the economy and polity, leading to anarchy and tyranny.  Constitutional governments balance out the power differential between rich and poor by progressive fines and sharing of state offices. But they are the most unstable of the three "good" forms of government, the other two being Kingship and Aristocracy.  Critical in all forms of government is the role of "virtue," which includes the ability to look beyond private interests to see the common good and act for it. For purposes of this discussion, I add that none of these forms of government is based upon a capitalist economy, and all of them use laws to promote good, virtue, justice and happiness.

(03-13-2018, 01:14 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: So here we have two competing ideas on how to protect the minority from the majority. Madison and the other framers opted for reducing democracy, and Aristotle's argument was that we should reduce inequality. My questions for discussion on here are: Which do you prefer? Is this a false dichotomy and there are other ways? If so, how? Should there be a mixture and where do you think that mixture should lie?

I hesitate to say they were "reducing" democracy, given voting requirements already prevalent in the original states. 

To answer your question, reducing democracy is the most impractical of your options, with its echoes of previous gender- and race-based limitations on voting. Left liberals, centrists and some right wingers in this forum will not go for it. In any case, a "rabble" legally extracting wealth from the rich is not the problem with U.S. democracy.

So I am for reducing inequality. Aristotle's simple solutions (e.g. progressive fines) won't work for a democracy the size of ours and based upon a capitalist economy which generates a wealth gap far in excess of anything experienced in ancient Athens. Three points, off the top of my head: We need first of all progressive taxation, with these monies then plowed back into the nation to enhance equality of opportunity, with job-training adapted to the economy and education which is not simply job training, among other things. Further, restrictions on money in politics, and finally, a more equitable and dignified election process, which would enable voters to assess competing political programs and their results. Perhaps the latter would set up virtue as a standard, in a limited American capitalist version.

[Dill]

(03-13-2018, 03:16 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I don't disagree that it still protects any minority, but the use of this to justify the Senate and making it the more powerful of the two chambers is troubling. The idea was not direct vote vs. representative. Instead, the debate was over the House or Senate having the larger role in government. The chamber of aristocracy was granted more power than the chamber intended to be more representative of the people.

This is where I get a little Burkean and advocate for state systems.

Many of the Framers appear to have leaned more toward's Aristotle's aristocracy than constitutional government. They did read Plato and Thucydides too, for whom there were not many good examples of democracy.

Though a leftist, I understood their worry in turning over the government to EVERYONE in a time before public education.

In our current world, that education is an even more critical requirement for a functioning democracy.

[fredtoast]

Maybe giving more powers to the senators was just an indication that they valued states rights.

The biggest difference between the House and the Senate is not how the members were selected. It is the value given to each state. In the Senate the smallest state has the same power as the biggest state.

[Dill]

(03-14-2018, 02:44 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Maybe giving more powers to the senators was just an indication that they valued states rights.

The biggest difference between the House and the Senate is not how the members were selected.  It is the value given to each state.  In the Senate the smallest state has the same power as the biggest state.

That was my understanding. Otherwise how could you get Rhode Island on board with big VA, PA and NY? When you read the Federalist Papers (e.g. 10 and 51), sounds like its all about checking and balancing. The legislature, being the most powerful branch of government, needs an internal check too, chamber vs chamber.

But Bels has apparently been reading about the actual debates in a book which may also include excerpts from letters and diary entries. Maybe we can coax him to say more about that.

[*PhilHos*]

(03-13-2018, 01:24 PM)GMDino Wrote: Reducing inequality, obviously.

Raising the lower class is the best way to help the economy, lower crime, make the country better.

Less stress and less division.

While I don't disagree (I know, it's a shock to me, too), the problem comes in HOW. It seems to me that much of the way to reduce economic inequality only results in a lowering of the middle class not a raising of the lower class.

[GMDino]

(03-14-2018, 05:40 PM)PhilHos Wrote: While I don't disagree (I know, it's a shock to me, too), the problem comes in HOW. It seems to me that much of the way to reduce economic inequality only results in a lowering of the middle class not a raising of the lower class.

That's always been the problem:  how.

Until the early 80's we did OK.  Then things changed and where we always had people who didn't work simply because they didn't want to work the focus seemed to change that ALL workers were lazy.  Unions were bad for protecting these lazy workers.  The "risk takers" (owners/managers) needed to make more and more and workers better prove their worth!

Now we have a situation were workers wages aren't rising and the wage gap is getting bigger and bigger.

I don't know that we have the political cajones to change anything in the workers favor again.

But that's not the only problem so it's not the only solution either.

[Dill]

(03-14-2018, 05:40 PM)PhilHos Wrote: While I don't disagree (I know, it's a shock to me, too), the problem comes in HOW. It seems to me that much of the way to reduce economic inequality only results in a lowering of the middle class not a raising of the lower class.

Don't follow you here. You haven't specified what you mean by "way."

When Henry Ford decided to raise the wages of all his labors to five dollars a day, that didn't lower the middle class. It expanded it. When the US collected high corporate taxes in the early 40s and plowed them back into production, it pulled the US out of a depression and tremendously boosted the middle class.

Using tax money to create schools also expanded the middle class. And using it to help students pay college tuition did the same.

Countries without public education have virtually no middle class. Countries with a little public education have a little middle class. Countries with strong, mandatory education have large and larger middle classes.

[*PhilHos*]

(03-14-2018, 05:47 PM)GMDino Wrote: But that's not the only problem so it's not the only solution either.

I think that's the key. Blame politicians and the media mainly, but far too often problems are stated in simple terms and the solution(s) to said problems even simpler. Most problems (if not all) in our country - at the societal level, at least - are complex and the solutions moreso. It's too bad most politicians only care about getting elected and most media members only care about getting hits or views or whatever.

I'm only 42 years old and I'm already about as cynical as your average sexagenarian.

[Belsnickel]

(03-14-2018, 05:36 PM)Dill Wrote: That was my understanding. Otherwise how could you get Rhode Island on board with big VA, PA and NY? When you read the Federalist Papers (e.g. 10 and 51), sounds like its all about checking and balancing. The legislature, being the most powerful branch of government, needs an internal check too, chamber vs chamber.

But Bels has apparently been reading about the actual debates in a book which may also include excerpts from letters and diary entries. Maybe we can coax him to say more about that.

The Madisonian quote comes from this publication: http://books.google.com/books?id=RUcGAAAAMAAJ&oe=UTF-8

It has a lot of enlightening information on the thoughts of the framers. The Federalist Papers were propaganda, so while they can help us to get some understanding we need to take them in that context.

[Dill]

(03-14-2018, 05:53 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: The Madisonian quote comes from this publication: http://books.google.com/books?id=RUcGAAAAMAAJ&oe=UTF-8

It has a lot of enlightening information on the thoughts of the framers. The Federalist Papers were propaganda, so while they can help us to get some understanding we need to take them in that context.

LOL "Secret Proceedings"! Just skimmed over Hamilton's proposals for the Constitution. Very interesting to see what our branches of government looked like in formation--the executive vested in a "governor" and Congress called an "Assembly."  I'll find the elitist stuff. Thanks for that link.

I guess you could call the Federalist Papers propaganda since they were meant to persuade, but unlike what we usually call propaganda, I find a lot of the arguments world class as stand alone arguments about how power is to be managed. Madison really wrestled well with the problem of sovereignty, how to make political power internal to government (as opposed to the external, monarchical model), but checked and balanced.

[Belsnickel]

(03-15-2018, 02:27 AM)Dill Wrote: LOL "Secret Proceedings"! Just skimmed over Hamilton's proposals for the Constitution. Very interesting to see what our branches of government looked like in formation--the executive vested in a "governor" and Congress called an "Assembly."  I'll find the elitist stuff. Thanks for that link.

The title definitely seems sketchy, but I was directed to this by a Madison scholar and I know some others in poli sci that have copies of this for research. It's a very interesting read.

(03-15-2018, 02:27 AM)Dill Wrote: I guess you could call the Federalist Papers propaganda since they were meant to persuade, but unlike what we usually call propaganda, I find a lot of the arguments world class as stand alone arguments about how power is to be managed. Madison really wrestled well with the problem of sovereignty, how to make political power internal to government (as opposed to the external, monarchical model), but checked and balanced.

I don't apply the negative connotations to the term propaganda that a lot of people do. Propaganda has a place, it just needs to be recognized for what it is. When we read propaganda it just means that we have to take into account the purpose of the writing and take that point of view in context.

Madison is an interesting one because it did not take him long to see that his intentions in the crafting of the Constitution, which established something more aristocratic than we would like to think, were highly subject to corruption. It really is interesting to see he and Jefferson at odds on the aristocratic/democratic front, but Madison eventually swayed more towards Jefferson's view later on.

I live in an area with a lot of scholars on Jefferson and Madison, so I have a lot of opportunities to go to lectures on these sorts of things. Which if you are a political science nerd is a lot of fun.

[Dill]

(03-15-2018, 08:48 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: The title definitely seems sketchy, but I was directed to this by a Madison scholar and I know some others in poli sci that have copies of this for research. It's a very interesting read.

Thanks for the thoughtful post. I didn't mean to imply the work itself was sketchy. The letters and other documents are definitely primary historical materials, and it is fun to read their debates "unprocessed" by secondary authors.

The Constitution did not drop out of the sky fully formed. I think we get deeper insight into the Framer's intent when we look at these early debates which brought them from the Articles of Confederation to document eventually ratified, and which we still live with. Wish I had read those proceedings back in my 20s.

Hey I'll be down your way in couple of weeks, in Roanoke anyway.