Close Reading an American Founding Document

Plato debates Madison’s Federalist No. 10

In the course of Plato’s Laws, the mysterious stranger from Athens instructs his fellow dialogue partners on the importance of starting well. Whether we are beginning a workout program or planting a religious community or writing the Constitution for a newly-founded nation, it is crucial that we start from the right principles while aiming at good goals.

“As the proverb says, ‘getting started is half the battle’, and a good beginning we all applaud. But in my view a good start is more than ‘half’, and no one has yet given it the praise it deserves. . . . So as we acknowledge the value of a good beginning, let’s not skip discussion of it in this case. (Laws 753e, 754a)

When the American colonies first declared independence from British rule, their goal seemed to be colonial autonomy, the freedom for each colony to function as a legally independent state. If they worked together as a confederacy, each state would be free to decide political principles and goals for themselves, and so overcome the problem of intractable political disagreement over fundamental questions such as the legality of slavery, whether or not to have an income tax, or what rights citizens have.

However, the Congress of the Confederation proved too weak, and state governments were able to easily ignore its enactments. A more powerful central government was needed to orient the various states to collaborate on paying national debts and providing for a proper national defense. The American Confederacy of the 1780's was like a wagon with horses pulling in all different directions; the nation needed a way to unify the several states to “pull and puff as one (as they say of a team of horses)” (Laws 708d).

These needs provoked the first and to-date only Constitutional Convention in American history, the Convention of 1787 held in Philadelphia, PA. The delegates to the convention had to decide on a system of laws, institutions, and rights that would provide a framework within which to ameliorate intransigent political disagreement. While originally intending to merely update the Articles of Confederation, it quickly became apparent to the delegates that a more transformative approach was needed. They sought a shared political philosophy capable of addressing the most fundamental of all political questions: why should we form a Union with the likes of them? Or as James Madison writes in The Federalist Papers, No. 10, the goal of any system of governance and laws is to overcome the tendency of society towards faction.

“Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our Governments are too unstable; that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties; and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

Politics was a battle between rival factions for control of the government, with the party in power using its position to disenfranchise their opposition, exploit citizens aligned with the other parties, and promote their own interests and those of their supporters rather than the common good (the good of everyone). The people in each faction didn’t really want to form a Union with the people in the other factions, making the contest for power mutually exclusive. Sound familiar?

So Madison makes a perceptive, though ultimately ill-fated, distinction between three different ways of addressing the problem of factional division. If a society is not to devolve into a patchwork of fiefdoms or warlord-governed territories, then it must pursue one of these three political philosophies for creating a Union.

I.

Madison divides the options into two classes: those that eliminate the causes of faction, and those that limit the negative effects of faction. Two options fall into the first category, while Madison’s preferred option (the liberal option), is the only one in the third.

The first way of addressing the causes of faction, which we can set aside fairly quickly, is totalitarianism. In a totalitarian society, the power of the State is absolute, and so the government has the power to enforce unity and uniformity through the use of brutal police violence, military checkpoints, nationalized industries, neighborhood curfews, mandatory re-education, and prison camps. In a totalitarian society, people are unified at the expense of losing their freedom and becoming slaves of the State. Madison says this solution is “worse than the disease,” and so is no solution at all. A totalitarian society overcomes factional conflict by giving one faction permanent power.

Hence the description by the Italian Duce Benito Mussolini of a fascist nation (fascism is a type of totalitarian government) as “an organized, centralized, authoritarian democracy,” a society where all of ‘the People’ are controlled by the same commanding will. James Madison rejects totalitarianism as the very thing the newly founded states sought liberation from in their war for independence from Great Britain.

It’s the second of the two methods of eliminating the causes of faction that will occupy us at some length, for the second option is none other than the political philosophy of Plato. As a map to our discussion, Madison sets up an opposition between goodness and freedom. Plato argues that a government exists to promote goodness in its citizens (a virtuous government), while Madison follows the Enlightenment tradition that contends a government exists to preserve freedom for its citizens (a liberal government). My conclusion is that, in counseling the American states to choose freedom over goodness, Madison set us up with a bad beginning, one that has bedeviled this country through civil wars, race riots, economic collapse, and climate crisis.

On the occasions that Federalist No. 10 appears in discussions, it is with an uncritical fondness. For example, New York Times opinion writer David French regularly invokes Federalist No. 10 as a favorite of the The Federalist Papers, viewing the essay as having foreclosed all questions as to the rightness of liberal democracy. In the spirit of Justice John Marshall Harlan, I want to offer my strident even if lonely dissent that, despite the many excellent qualities of the U.S. Constitution, prioritizing freedom over goodness has been a mistake. We should return to the fork in the road and try the path less traveled. We need a better beginning.

After labeling the totalitarian option “unwise,” given that it enslaves the people, Madison calls the virtue option “impracticable”—a contrast that acknowledges its wisdom while dismissing it as utopian and not fitted to human nature as we find it. For the virtue option aims to solve faction “by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.” Or in Plato’s words,

“[T]he proper object of true political skill is not the interest of private individuals but the common good. This is what knits a state together, whereas private interests make it disintegrate. If the public interest is well served, rather than the private, then the individual and the community alike are benefited.” (Laws 875ab)

The goal of the virtuous society is to make people good and the society just, not to make people free to do what they want. For the freedom to do whatever you want is ambiguous—do you want to promote the happiness of everyone or only yourself and those you like? Too often the freedom to do what we want results in promoting our well-being at the expense of others. Against such competitive and exploitative freedom, Plato proposes that

“it isn’t the law’s concern to make any one class in the city outstandingly happy but to contrive to spread happiness throughout the city by bringing the citizens into harmony with each other through persuasion or compulsion and by making them share with each other the benefits that each class can confer on the community. The law produces such people in the city, not in order to allow them to turn in whatever direction they want [freedom], but to make use of them to bind the city together [for the common good].” (Republic 519e, emphasis added)

Plato is describing a society without faction, where the flourishing of each part of society works to the flourishing of the whole. Yet Madison views the virtuous society as a practical impossibility. We cannot form a society where all its citizens rally around a common understanding of what is true and good. He points to two fatal flaws in human nature that he thinks will always bedevil attempts by the State to produce a virtuous society.

The first flaw is that we humans make mistakes in our judgments about what is true and what is good. These mistakes cause us to disagree with each other over what the common understanding should be. Madison writes, “As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”

The great 20th century defender of liberal democracy John Rawls calls this phenomenon “the fact of reasonable pluralism”:

“[A] basic feature of democracy is . . . the fact that a plurality of conflicting reasonable comprehensive doctrines, religious, philosophical, and moral, is the normal result of its culture of free institutions. Citizens realize that they cannot reach agreement or even approach mutual understanding on the basis of their irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines.” (“The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” introduction)

A diversity of opinions get expressed wherever fallible humans are given the freedom to speak. Imperfect judgments lead to disagreement because at least one and often all of us are confused or mistaken. Inevitably, we divide into factions over which views and values we believe to be correct and then try to impose them on the practice of government.

The second flaw in human nature that Madison identifies as producing division in society is our need to acquire property. Following John Locke’s notion that the basic right of every human is self-preservation, Madison contends that the first responsibility of government is to protect the right of each person to use their innate and learned talents to preserve their life. Our lives are difficult to preserve without transforming natural resources into goods we can use—food, materials, shelter. These acquired goods become our property. However, Madison argues, because humans are born with diverse talents and potentials, we will accumulate property of differing types and quantities, and these inequalities produce “a division of the society into different interests and parties.”

Confronted by the fact of reasonable pluralism and the inequality of property acquisition, Madison concludes that “the latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man,” unavoidable and ineradicable. He even suggests that where a group of people have nothing to divide over, we’ll invent divisions (for fans of the Twilight films, perhaps Team Edward and Team Jacob?).

II.

However, the soft underbelly of Madison’s argument shows itself when he confesses that wealth inequality is uniquely divisive,

“But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold, and those who are without property, have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. . . . The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern Legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the Government.”

Recall the shape of the argument: He’s presenting reasons as to why the causes of faction cannot be eliminated (his position is that only their effects can be managed). Read that last excerpt again—why are the causes of wealth inequality ineradicable? Because he presupposes a society where the unequal distribution of property already exists, and then makes the State subject to their competing interests, rather than to the Form of Justice.

Let’s focus on the creditors and debtors example. Madison is imagining that government is riven by factional struggle because creditors and debtors in a society have competing interests—the creditors want debts paid or collateral seized, and debtors want their debts paused, reduced, or forgiven. The State becomes the arena for their competing interests, as each tries to control the State to intervene on their behalf.

The advocate for a virtuous society should dispute this whole setup. They should ask, “What is the just distribution of property, regardless of the interests of those currently in society?” If property distribution is determined solely by the ‘luck of the draw’ for strength, intelligence, charisma, and mechanical instinct, so that the stronger, more clever, more persuasive people have more and everyone else has less or not enough, then property distribution is simply a function of ‘might makes right.’ The one who has the power to acquire gets to keep as much as they can use, and everyone else has to make do with the scraps left over.

Instead, advocates of virtue like Plato believe that property exists to assist us in having a good life. A good life is one where each person has a bit more than enough to meet their needs, but not so much that they become greedy and entitled. Against Madison’s conception of government as being beholden to the competing interests of rich and poor, Plato writes, “[The State] must guard against in every way . . . both wealth and poverty [in society]. The former makes for luxury, idleness, and revolution; the latter for slavishness, bad work, and revolution as well” (Republic 421e-422a). Wealth makes it possible for some people to not have to contribute to the common good, while poverty forces people to work to survive. The resultant animosity between them provokes revolution, either the rich enslaving the poor, or the poor rising up to take wealth from the rich.

A Platonic response to Madison might suggest that since wealth inequality leads to faction and social instability, strife can be eradicated by eliminating wealth inequality. Instead of leaving the government to the mercy of the competing interests of those who have and those who do not (which nearly always tilts in favor of those who have), the State should not favor either interest but instead introduce policies that approximate justice. The aim should be that no citizen is rich or poor. For Plato, one policy approach might be to impose a 92% progressive tax on the top wealth bracket and a guaranteed basic income for all citizens.

If the State is beholden to competing interests and not guided by a transcendent Ideal of Justice, then of course the causes of faction cannot be eradicated! Justice, not the struggle for power, should determine government policy. Madison misunderstands what justice is. Concerning how to determine legislation for debt-collection, Madison writes, “It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them.” For him, justice is the creditors getting some of what they want and the debtors getting some of what they want. And Madison admits that a perfect compromise is rarely ever achieved, as whoever has the bigger coalition (or the bigger bank account) can weigh the scales more in their favor.

No! Justice is not getting what we want. Justice is each of us doing what will allow all of us in society to develop into a virtuous, good people. It is our goodness that matters more than our money or our power or our freedom. As Plato puts it,

“Shouldn’t we then attempt to care for the city and its citizens with the aim of making the citizens themselves as good as possible? For without this . . . it does no good to provide any other service if the intentions of those who are likely to make a great deal of money or take a position of rule over people or some other position of power aren’t admirable and good.” (Gorgias 513e-514a)

Madison’s mistake was to allow people to believe whatever they want and accumulate as much wealth and influence as they can without any expectation that they first be good. People with vicious motives should not have their ‘interests’ represented and debated in government. The government is an instrument of making the citizens as good as possible and of promoting justice in the society as far as possible.

Plato’s solution is to restrict who can serve in government. Instead of allowing the faction of creditors fight with the faction of debtors for control, Plato argued that only the best people in society should serve in government, people with the highest virtue (integrity and goodness) and the most skilled competence in the relevant fields. Before I explain how this could be possible, let’s register Madison’s skepticism for why he thinks it is not a viable solution:

“It is in vain to say, that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm: Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all, without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another, or the good of the whole.”

I find this the weakest of Madison’s arguments. There won’t always be virtuous leaders in government, and even if there were, reconciling competing interests often requires policies that take a long time to unfold, too long for those seeking vindication now. Madison does not really give Plato’s alternative a fair hearing, because all of this is couched in the context of “clashing interests,” not one where government aims at the transcendental Form of Justice. Enlightened leaders can only succeed if they serve the common good in accordance with justice, not try to keep competing factions happy.

To achieve this, Plato proposed some simple constraints on who can serve in government and how to cultivate a society ripe with good people.

First, you can only serve in government if you (a) do not want power over your fellow citizens, (b) are not wealthy or poor, (c) have a public record of manifesting virtues like honesty, curiosity, moderation, courage, wisdom, and love, and (d) live a philosophical life, where you care more about contemplating what is True, Good, and Beautiful than accumulating wealth and power.

Second, to ensure that good folk actually are selected for office, Plato proposes two policies. The first policy is that education in virtue must be provided from the earliest age, so that children are raised to be good, not merely free. Those who display the highest aptitude in virtue and competence become eligible for public office. In this way, selection for leadership is based on one’s training and success in goodness, not in one’s popularity or wealth. The second policy is that once in office, “enlightened statesmen” can accrue no personal benefit to themselves through public office. They can own no significant private property, they must live in public housing, and they cannot accumulate any benefits during or after leaving office. They will have to live on state welfare the rest of their lives. No expensive book deals or speaking tours, nor can they join the board of directors at an investment firm.

The only people who would tolerate such conditions would be those who, because of their love for transcendent ideals, do not care about ‘earthly’ temptations like wealth or power or factional loyalty. They serve out of duty, not desire.

III.

Of course, Madison rejects the virtue option and instead advocates the liberal option. He proposes that, if the causes of faction cannot be eradicated, the best we can do is mitigate their influence and effects. And representative democracy seems to serve this purpose, where local populations are represented by legislators determined by popular vote, and constrained by a system of rights and separated powers. Madison gives two arguments on how representative democracy constrains factions.

Madison’s first argument is that a legislative body that is big enough to represent the diversity of their constituents but small enough to actually deliberate will be less prone to capture by a faction, being too big to easily grab a majority, while remaining small enough to be capable of reasoned debate.

His second argument is that representative government scales to large territories, allowing more diverse people and interests to be represented. Wide diversity makes it harder for a faction to form a majority. Madison writes in a justly famous passage,

“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.”

While acknowledging that the liberal option has an allure to it, we’ve now had more than 200 years to test his theory out. And I gotta say, his predictions have not proven true. Today, in a country of nearly 350 million residents, we have two political parties who have been able to gain majorities not only in every part of the federal government, but even in every state legislature for all 50 states! Thanks to the inertia of their entrenchment, no other factions have even been able to gain traction to challenge their duopoly.

In light of the total domination of the Republican-Democrat factions, it’s laughable to read Madison’s rose-colored expectation that “the influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. . . .” Turns out they spread just fine!

IV.

To conclude, Madison offered three solutions to addressing the problem of factions dividing a nation. We all agree that the totalitarian option does not accord with freedom or goodness. Regarding the liberal option, the predictions Madison made for why the liberal option would be so much superior to the virtue option have all been resoundingly falsified. Within 70 years of ratifying the U.S. Constitution, the whole nation fell into a bloody and brutal civil war, the very thing that liberal democracy was supposed to prevent. We are still living in the legacy of that civil war. We’re still trapped with the two political parties at the heart of that conflict. We’re still beset with racial division and inequalities as a result of failed promises made in the wake of the South’s surrender. When it comes to property distribution, the United States has the highest wealth inequality in human history, with many descendants of slaves kidnapped from Africa still struggling to find an economic future for their families.

At our nation’s founding, Madison’s well-meant guidance set us on a path that has led to a dead-end. Most of us didn’t even realize that a choice was made on our behalf. Madison’s other option still remains untried! We can still attempt a virtuous government as a remedy to faction. Let us seek a good beginning, another founding, by choosing a society that aims primarily at goodness, not freedom. Freedom will still have a place, just in the service of the Good.

Winston Churchill is often misquoted as having said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.” That’s not actually what he said.

The accurate quote, spoken by Churchill in the House of Commons in November, 1946, reads, “Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. . .” (emphasis added). It’s the best of those that have been tried. By close reading James Madison’s essay, we realize there still remain forms of government which have not yet been tried.

In a world of perpetual war, widening poverty, increasingly segregated neighborhoods, unredeemed racial injustices, and an immanent climate crisis, isn’t it time to try something new? To prioritize goodness and justice over our freedom to do what we want? I believe the time has come. There is more to life than feeling free and powerful and in control. Indeed, the higher life is one of giving our lives in service for the good of the whole community, even the whole global society. Will we have the courage to live such a life?

Coda

Madison and his fellow authors of The Federalist Papers wrote them in the style of letters to the citizens of New York. I want to close with a paragraph from one of Plato’s letters, probably the only authentic letter of his we have. In it Plato calls on those factions who win power to lay down their power in service to the whole community for the sake of a higher standard. It is a vision of a society no longer governed by the struggle of mutually exclusive interests, but of one ruled by virtue and unity, knowing that even when we disagree our opponents are more committed to justice than they are to winning power over us.

“But if these projects I have mentioned must be deferred, because you are now hard pressed by the many and diverse factions daily sprouting in your midst, then anyone to whom the gods have given a modicum of right opinion must know that there can be no end to the evils of faction until the party that has gained the victory in these battles and in the exiling and slaughtering of fellow citizens forgets its wrongs and ceases trying to wreak vengeance upon its enemies. If it controls itself and enacts laws for the common good, considering its own interests no more than those of the vanquished, the defeated party will be doubly constrained, by respect and by fear, to follow the laws—by fear because the other party has demonstrated its superior force, and by respect because it has shown that it is able and willing to conquer its desires and serve the law instead. In no other way can a city that is rent by factions bring its disorders to an end, but it will continue to be divided within itself by strife and enmity, hatred and distrust.” (Plato, Letter VII, 336e-337b, emphasis added)