“Why not Party Democracy?” may seem like a flippant question to raise in our current society, but not when our country was founded. The short answer that the founding fathers themselves gave was that political parties would sacrifice the public interest for self-interest and lead to corruption. Smart folks, our founding fathers. The short answer from The Middle Class Forum is that party democracy, necessarily dependent on merging power, wealth and special interests, never pursues wisdom. For a slightly longer answer I have put together the following excerpts from “Essay 13 – Party Democracy” in Systems out of Balance.
Nothing in our Constitution calls for the creation of political parties. This omission reflects the sentiments of our founding fathers. The person who best encapsulated-or perhaps successfully influenced-middle class attitudes in colonial times was our favorite pamphleteer, Thomas Paine. He wrote:
“It is the nature and intention of a constitution to prevent governing by party, by establishing a common principle that shall limit and control the power and impulse of party, and that says to all parties, thus far shalt thou go and no further. But in the absence of a constitution, men look entirely to party; and instead of principle governing party, party governs principle.”[1]
Even the aristocracy most responsible for forming and leading our early government disdained the notion of parties. Alexander Hamilton, who favored a strong national government, stated: ”Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has at all times characterized political parties.”[2] Others like Hamilton that favored a strong national government thought that parties, through power struggles of self-interest, would only fracture a consensual approach to establishing the national interest. Alexander Hamilton eventually would form and lead the political party known as the Federalists.
Thomas Jefferson, who championed states rights, agrarian virtue and individuals as independent moral agents, had this to say about parties: “If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”[3] Others like Jefferson feared the power that would be wielded by a strong national government, and thought that wise governance arose directly from the liberty of citizens, not parties, to have a direct impact on more localized government. Thomas Jefferson became the figurehead for the party created by James Madison, first known as the Democrat-Republicans.
…..
The Constitution granted more power to the national government than did the Articles of Confederation, but to make sure the states rights faction approved, nine out of thirteen states had to ratify the Constitution to make the document the law of the land. The promise had to be made to include a Bill of Rights that would protect citizens against centralized power. The factions that resolved this issue could now dissolve with good will, though involved colonialists like Hans would be ready to support different factions with different alliances of people over the next important issue to arise.
The factions formed for the sake of one issue never fully dissolved. The resulting government was dominated by the people from the faction that had supported a strong national government. In retrospect this was a natural development; a government designed to be stronger attracted in disproportionate numbers public servants who wanted stronger government. Colonialists like Hans started to feel disenfranchised. He was OK with the compromise reached through the crafting and ratification of the Constitution, but what started as an issue to be resolved now appeared to be an ideology that was entrenched, as were the people running his government. Hans joined an organized special interest group called the Democrat-Republicans as a means of providing a stronger voice to his concerns.
Over time the voice of the group grew stronger. The people that favored a strong national government organized their own special interest group in response. To counterbalance the influence of each other both groups grew in strength and longevity. From factions formed to work out the solution to a single issue they became parties devoted to promoting a comprehensive ideology over time. Each party formed as a negative reaction to neutralize the power of the other, more than to positively promote their own agenda. Negative campaigning was once the impetus, and now the lifeblood, of political parties.
…..
There are significant differences between the sides of an issue that leads to factions and the comprehensive ideologies that become the foundations of parties. Factions dissolve once an issue has been addressed. Different groups of people form new factions to influence the next important issue. The faction that supports a new educational funding plan has both some of the proponents and opponents of a former state income tax resolution.
In contrast, adherents to party ideologies do not coalesce with new groups of people as specific issues and their conscience dictates. The multiple fracturing of a party over different interests would prevent the party from presenting a united front over their core interests, or to even agree on what those core interests should be. Instead, party members adhere to a package of beliefs, with the faith that supporting the total package provides the best chance of success for their important issues embedded within that package. This may lead them to support some issues that they might view differently from an independent angle, but that is the price to be paid for promoting the party’s special interests.
The founding fathers were concerned about special interests replacing the public interest of republican government. They feared that the politics of government would involve partisan battles rather than a nonpartisan commitment to what worked best for all. Such battles would sacrifice virtue as a goal of governance (or campaigning). In the absence of a monarchy for establishing order, the colonialists anticipated that party politics in a republic would lead to corruption.[4]
…..
With interests and members united a political party gains greater power to influence policy. The power to influence becomes an increasingly important end apart from the ideology. In fact, ideologies may be adjusted in order to maintain or enhance the power to influence policy. Party members adapt to these adjustments of beliefs, just as they adapted to the original package that might have compromised some of their beliefs over specific issues. Parties that show they can adapt to maintain power prove themselves worthy of investment by wealthy interests that want a piece of that influence. A political party thus embodies a synergy of special interests, power and wealth that occurs over time.
…..
Political parties, in effect, shun all the ingredients needed for wisdom. They strive for a unity of beliefs, centralization of power and dependence on the wealth needed to achieve both power and interests. The aggregation that occurs through a political party does not collect the localized experiences of members in a grassroots movement, but imposes doctrines based on what seems to work best for synthesizing beliefs, power and wealth at the national level. These attributes that demonstrate the incongruity of party and wisdom are the very same attributes that guarantee the eventual corruption of parties.
[1] From First Principles of Government (1795)[2] Federalist #1 paper (October 27, 1787).
[3] In a letter written to Francis Hopkinson Paris (March 13, 1789).
[4] This assessment of early attitudes towards political parties is from The History of the United States, 2nd Edition .(2003), a course on CD by Allen C. Guelzo, available from The Teaching Company.
Tags: Federated Wisdom, Interest Groups, Middle Class Politics
