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Monday, March 16, 2009
Happy birthday, Madison!
Timothy Sandefur's always excellent blog reminded me that today is the 258th birthday of James Madison.
Madison is my favourite of the U.S. founding fathers. Federalist 10 and Federalist 51 retain their ingenuity and brilliance every time I take a look at them.
Especially in these times.
I believe Madison would have much to say about Mike Brock's excellent post on the rise of "Harper populism." In Federalist 10, he argues that a "factious spirit" tainted previously republican governments, leading to violence and the violation of individual rights. A faction is a group of citizens, "whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."
Factions, as Madison wisely saw, are anathema to classical liberalism.
The problem with factionalism is not (or not only) the problem of what we would now call "special interest groups" overriding the will of the majority. Even more dangerous, according to Madison, is when one faction makes up the majority.
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.
Populism, whether on the left or the right, involves a politician giving the majority what it wants, regardless of the long term advantages, and without consideration of the rights of the citizens in the minority who will be sacrificed to the demands of the mob.
(Insert your favorite sacrificial minority here: gun owners, smokers, religious minorities, gay people, property-owners, the wealthy, it does not really matter.)
Populism is to factions what heroin is to the heroin addict. Of course, the majority wants X, Y, and Z. The question is, or should be, is it just for them to have X, Y, and Z? A statesman who refuses to even ask the question is no statesman at all.
Factionalism is dangerous. To the extent populist rhetoric plays on -- and even increases -- factionalism, it should be denounced. Politicians who make use of this rhetoric, who use crises to inflame the passions of the majority against the minority -- against the smallest minority of all, the individual -- ought to be shunned.
It is time for libertarians to admit that Stephen Harper has abandoned them, if he ever saw them as allies in the first place.
Posted by Terrence Watson on March 16, 2009 | Permalink
Comments
Factions, as Madison wisely saw, are anathema to classical liberalism.
Posted by Terrence Watson on March 16, 2009
Would you consider the actions of Madison when he created a war faction and then invaded a foreign country "anathema to classical liberalism"?
Posted by: The Stig | 2009-03-16 8:15:27 PM
Excellent post Terrence. This quote comes to mind when I think of the people who do not see what you are talking about:
"If you love wealth more than liberty, and if you prefer the tranquility of servitude rather than the animated contest of freedom, then go home in peace. We seek neither your counsel nor your arms. But bend down and lick the hands that feed you; and may your chains rest lightly upon you. And may posterity forget that you were our countryman. " Samuel Adams
Posted by: TM | 2009-03-16 9:36:56 PM
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