Ive been rereading the Federalist Papers; among other things theyre available online as a part of the Gutenberg Project.
The most relevant is #10: Heres a long quote:
FEDERALIST No. 10
The Same Subject Continued
(The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection)
From the New York Packet.
Friday, November 23, 1787.
To the People of the State of New York:
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. 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. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
By a faction, I understand a number 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.
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.
There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.
Read the whole thing and get reminded of what geniuses the Founders were.
Im also rereading Thucydides, and the important point Im taking from there is that it is not only the mechanics of governance, but the personalities, moment in history, and social structures that keep democracy alive as well.
Democracy in Athens collapsed shortly after the death of Pericles; somehow Turkey’s democracy survived Ataturk. Why?
Again, I don’t think that this is the case.
Athenian demokrateia (which was not the same thing as our modern idea of “democracy”) survived Pericles’ death by a quarter of a century, with one brief interruption (the oligarchies of the Four Hundred and the Five Thousand). It was briefly suppressed after Athens lost the Peloponnesian Wars (the usual consequence of having your country occupying by a victorious army), but was soon revived, and wasn’t eliminated until the Diadochi occupied the city more permanently and effectively.
Pericles and Atatürk were both the very real rulers of their respective countries, who were pleased to let a nominal democracy function — so long as it gave the results that they wanted. We might also include Augustus and Cosimo de’ Medici in this category.
Well, in my mind twenty-five years is a ‘short’ time in historical terms; I probably should have been more exact.
I’m in agreement that Ataturk and Pericles were leaders, I think they were both a different kind of leader, and I’m actively engaged in trying to figure out what that entailed.
I note a tone toward both that could be perceived as dismissive…why so?? Both Athens and Turkey were vastly better off with them than with any feasible alternative; and in Ataturk’s case, he left a civil society where one had really not existed before.
A.L.
When did Athenian democracy begin? I thought it went back to far before the “golden age”, as we call the few decades between the Greek defeat of Persia and the self-destructive Pelopenisian war. (Darn, how’s that spelled?) But democracy and domination by foreigners are pretty incompatible. A dictatorship is so much better at keeping it’s promises to the foreigners that put it in power. (This explains a lot about American foreign policy, too…)
What brought Athenian democracy down was a string of military defeats, which they brought upon themselves with sheer arrogance. Rising from a military victory (Marathon) achieved only by an immense self-sacrifice by the Spartans (Thermopylae), Athens appointed itself head of a league of Greek cities. Then it forced smaller cities to join and to pay tribute – allegedly taxes to buy arms for the common defense, but used also to build temples in Athens rather. This continued until the other Greeks began to think that Athens only rival, the straightforwardly militaristic Sparta, wasn’t so bad after all… And then Athens attempted to conquer a foreign land (Sicily) and lost much of it’s navy.
I hope the modern American arrogance is better founded in reality.
By contrast, Ataturk rose in a nation that was the rump of a defeated empire. (IIRC, Ataturk was the only Turkish military hero to arise from WWI – he defended the Gallipoli peninsula, just a few miles from Istanbul.) It was very, very clear that absolute monarchy had been responsible for putting Turkey into such a mess that centuries would be required to catch up with the Western democracies. So most Turks could see that sliding back from democracy was a very poor idea.
Another thing is that modern democratic republics, including Turkey, are a far different thing than Athens’ 400,000-man town meetings. Statesmen actually did learn a few things between the fall of Athens and the writing of the US Constitution. Turkey has a rather peculiar system of checks and balances (military coups to guarantee the continuance of the republic), but it seems to work for them. I wish I understood what is guaranteeing the integrity of their military…
Speaking of factions …
Read Washington’s Farwell Address, and you’ll then understand why I belong to no political party.
I didn’t mean to be dismissive of Atatürk. Pericles…well, I didn’t mean to be dismissive of him, either, although to my mind he’s not of the same stature.
Thucydides wrote that, during Pericles’ ascendancy, the nominal demokrateia of Athens was in fact rule by its first citizen, i.e., Pericles — a de facto tyranny (remember that to the Greeks, this word didn’t describe the quality of rule, but how one achieved power). Much the same could be said of Atatürk’s domination of Turkey, Augustus’ domination of Rome, and the de’ Medicis’ domination of Florence.
It can certainly be argued that Atatürk was the most benign type of the Machiavellian prince, the man who goes outside of the accepted forms to achieve power and, hopefully, revitalize society and the state. But that doesn’t make him a democrat. A great man, yes, but not a democrat.
Mmmm…Athenian democracy was subject to dominance by “leading citizens” before Pericles…Kimon, Miltiades and Themistocles leap to mind, and the citizen body eventually turned on the latter two, with Miltiades dying in prison and Themistocles exiled…one could make a case that the same might have happened to Pericles, had he not died in the plague early in the war…
In any case, the pricipal lesson I took from Thucydides is that the nature of human folly hasn’t changed a lot in the last 2500 years…
I believe that the Athenians were brought down by the following problems:
1. Immigrants could not become citizens. (A law that I believe Pericles sponsored). Because Athens attracted many people to come and live there, it became a defacto non-democracy as the proportion of people who could vote shrank. This also limited the power of the Athenian state when compared to the Macadonian monarchy, or the Roman Republic.
2. Athough Athens was fighting Sparta, I understand that Sparta was backed by the financial might of Persia. This meant that Athens was fighting far above it’s natural weight (20-1 odds?).
3. Bad luck — much of the population of Athens died in a plague.
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As regarding arrogance — I don’t think that Athens was more arrogant than Sparta, or that the USA was/is more arrogant than the USSR, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Taliban, Iraq, Iran, or even France.
Jim, arrogance comes naturally. Having the power to really throw your weight around, offend everyone, and handle the backlash, is rarer. I’m no expert in the history of that century, but it seems like Athens had that power for at least two decades – but forgot that eventually a new generation of Spartans would grow up to replace their army lost at Thermopylae.
Cxan Any one tel me soon how Pericles Address to Athens and our Constitution is connected?