Lessons to Remember about Political Power Over People
We begin this paper with ancient thoughts about power in a free society. We add thoughts about power from Enlightenment-era thinkers, including several American Founders. This essay also looks at the systems for organizing authority and the assumptions about human nature that each of those systems makes. Truth and narrative impact how power is perceived, used, and shared. We stress the importance of property ownership and healthy middle-class status for balancing democratic power.
Ancient Thoughts on Power
Plato and Aristotle offer some of the earliest thoughts on handling power and living in a state of freedom. They both feared extremism due to the history of the Peloponnesian War, specifically the civil war of Corcyra. Corcyra was torn between competing parties—the commoners fighting the oligarchs. It was bloody. Plato and Aristotle saw that language began to change as a signal of degeneration of character. Revenge became more attractive than self-preservation. Love of power operating through greed and personal ambition was partly the cause of these evils, at least according to Thucydides.
Greeks had a distrust of certain passions and thus placed value on moderation.
Then, with the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colors, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice, the enemy to anything superior to itself; for, if it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice. Indeed, it is true that in these acts of revenge on others men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress, instead of leaving those laws in existence, remembering that there may come a time when they, too, will be in danger and will need their protection. (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War).1
Whether speaking of passion, envy, revenge, or profit-seeking, a key political concern noted by Thucydides was the willingness of people to move the laws to accommodate the self-interest of the few at the expense of the weak or to the detriment of the whole.
Plato became a champion of a theoretical “right system of education” that would be trusted to nurture human nature. The philosophers of the time had some disagreement on human nature managing power. Who can wield power wisely? This question remains as relevant to us today as it was to those practitioners of early democracy. Here are a couple of possible answers.
Only the person who wants to empower humanity to live peacefully and free, inspired by virtuous motives and embracing lawful conduct.
Only the person who can resist using unlawful force for any reason.
Aristotle liked moderation so much that he extended the idea to property ownership—not too much and not too little property seemed best. Looking at basic motivations, we can assume that caring for self, family, property, and money (purchasing power) should be widely found in society. For the majority of people in society, excellence is too high, so don’t build a culture around that. We should make our concern for civil society based on what most people and states can enjoy as the common good. A truly happy life is a life of goodness. Given that it seems society will always have class distinctions—the rich, the poor, and the middle—a good society should measure the performance of the middle class. Those who belong to extremes—the rich and the poor—find it hard to follow reason for the general welfare. Power is best vested in the middle class. Good government is most likely to be attained in those states where there is a large middle class. It is a great advantage to a state that all its members possess a sufficient amount of property. Where some have great possessions and others have very few, the result can be either extreme democracy or a distinct oligarchy. Eventually, it may break down into tyranny. Where the middle class is large, there is the least likelihood of faction and dissension among citizens. What more reasonable conclusion can there be than that? Regarding a capitalist system—we should want to give more people a stake in the system in which their economic interests will be served. Restore a citizenship that is good and true to maintain a healthy order.
Enlightenment Thoughts on Power
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the most influential thinkers during the Enlightenment period, redefines the concept of freedom (the power of choice) with some qualification—it is not merely the ability to act as we wish. Man must conceive of freedom in a moral sense—moral or civil liberty, which incorporates into the value of freedom a sense of responsibility. As such, freedom becomes the freedom to act as we should act. What does that mean? We liberate ourselves from the illusions of separateness, from the ignorance that engulfs us. It implies that the domino effects of our actions matter. We emancipate individuals to enter into a true sense of connectedness and wholeness.
Freedom from fear is obtained through the power to help another in need. Freedom as a basis for a caring society is only possible with moral virtue. Who is in need? The answer comes by defining the basic requirements for life. When fears about survival are assuaged, the potential surge for uplifting society in manifold ways is present. In a corrupt society, public opinion cannot be defined through majority rule any more than it can be defined in an expression of unanimous opinion. The dominant culture of public opinion needs a transcendent moral standard of values for regular reference, some set of virtues that identify a society at its best.
The history of power over people would warn us of failing to strive for an inclusive democracy. And as political economy is an interconnected system of government structure and means of production, we should make room for capitalism with guardrails to avoid extreme impact on the rich and the poor. Capitalism with guardrails must consider the distortions of concentration on market competition and the twisted incentives that restrict survival goods for profit. Thoughtfully managed inequality becomes necessary to protect the middle class.
John Adams commented on the views of the early American colonists regarding government. He indicated:
They knew that government was a plain, simple, intelligible thing founded in nature and reason and quite comprehensible by common sense. They detested all the base services and servile dependencies of the feudal system…. They saw clearly that popular powers must be placed as a guard, a control, a balance, to the powers of the monarch and the priest in every government, or else it would soon become a great and detestable system of fraud, violence, and usurpation. Their greatest concern seems to have been to establish…a government of the state more agreeable to the dignity of human nature, than any they had seen in Europe—and to transmit such a government down to their posterity, with the means of securing and preserving it, forever.2
Democracy is a form of power and participation. The power of people over other people. Thomas Jefferson warned: “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”3 Benjamin Franklin is sometimes attributed as the source (perhaps wrongfully) for bringing the same idea to life with a more descriptive example: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”4
A Lesson on Sharing Power
Congress appointed a Committee of Five on June 11, 1776, to explain why the American colonies decided to become independent states and wanted separation from the British crown. The Committee consisted of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. John Adams knew plenty about power. In the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, he was voted second behind the younger Thomas Jefferson. Adams presented Jefferson with reasons why he should draft the document:
Reason first—You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second—I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third—You can write ten times better than I can.5
Out of respect for their individual judgment, Jefferson submitted his draft to Adams and Franklin in advance of the others. Each of the two men suggested alterations in the document, which was then submitted to the full Committee. The deference of Adams to Jefferson showed a great deal about wielding power and influence wisely.
John Adams had this to say about power:
Any man—the best, the wisest, the brightest you can find—after he should be entrusted with sufficient power, would soon be brought to think, by the strong effervescence of his selfish passions against the weaker efforts of his social refinements in opposition to them, would soon come to believe that he was more important, more deserving, knowing and necessary than he is; that he deserved more respect, wealth, and power than he has; and that he will punish with great cruelty those who should esteem him no higher and show him no more reverence and give him no more money or power than he deserved.6
Truth and Narrative
Truth often poses a threat to power. If the government murders the truth, the people will suffer. Erosion of truth leads to erosion of trust. When trust has weakened, systemic forces add friction, which reduces quality of life. The truth is the most important value that we have because if the truth is distorted or disregarded, the ability to reason for good is lost. Julian Zelizer, professor of political science at Princeton University, put it this way: “Democracies can survive bitter division. I think democracies can survive really robust debate. But now… a lot of people are fundamentally disagreeing over the basic facts. That makes democracy hard because you have no common foundation.”7
From Professor Zelizer, we pick up the articulated thesis of Hannah Arendt, whose writings on totalitarianism are highly applicable to our day. Regarding truth and myth: events occur and become recorded as history, but the truth of these events may be distorted to… 1) justify a particular political action, 2) ensure the release of facts at a more convenient time, 3) secure a desired response at critical times (elections, war), 4) rewrite history to favor certain people or prioritize certain facts. Thus, every known and established fact can be denied. What is at stake is “common and factual reality itself.” The great ruling parties of our day can read how this works—anyone with access to these theories can use the authoritarian playbook to grab power and take advantage of circumstance—that is if the people listening fall for the old tricks of distortion, timing control, and narrative revision, etc.
Systems for Organizing Power & Authority
Political and economic organizing principles deserve a brief discussion in connection with wielding power over people wisely. We will briefly cover Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Anarchism, and Capitalism.
Communism: A political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. Thus a classless society emerges which is intended to promote economic equality and fairness. Challenges—The removal of incentives lowers any reward for excellence or achievement and the state is always subject to corruption and inefficiency in administering the system which lacks market signals for individual preferences.
Socialism: A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates for having the means of production, distribution, and exchange owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Social ownership can be state/public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism, social ownership is the one common element. Challenges—The difficulty in blending market and non-market activity within the economic sphere, plus many of the same challenges pertaining to communism.
Fascism: An authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Challenges—Loss of liberties and human rights along with possible severe persecution of marginalized segments of society.
Anarchism: A name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government—harmony in such a society being obtained, not by the submission to law or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. Challenges—The difficulty in dealing with fallen human nature (malign) where conduct is harmful to society, and the inability to secure power or motive sufficient to protect society from outside forces, which might also be malign.
Capitalism: An economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets. Challenges—Market failures due to certain common goods, concentration resulting in monopoly, inequality of economic profit accumulation, exploitation of labor, destabilization due to financial shocks, and dehumanizing people for concentrated economic objectives.
Liberal democracy (see Part II of The Common Sense Papers) with capitalism remains the current and future structure of the United States. We would do well to adjust our thinking as we talk about inclusive democracy, capitalism with guardrails, and managed inequality toward liberty with dignity.
The basic assumptions about human nature for each system listed above become important for our understanding: communism assumes humans are infinitely malleable, socialism assumes humans are malleable but malign (evil in nature), fascism assumes humans are infinitely gullible, anarchism assumes human nature is dynamic and benign (gentle and kindly), and capitalism assumes humans are creative and deeply self-interested, as well as corruptible.
As anarchism is clearly the system that promotes the greatest freedom in theory, it seems worth noting the five principles that were essential to a prominent anarchist, Emma Goldman. These principles are: 1) human nature is good and dynamic, 2) cooperation rather than competition, 3) the state is repressive (the tyranny of the majority is not good), 4) liberty cannot exist without social and economic equality, and 5) the means must be identical in spirit and tendency with the ends sought.
To juxtapose the five principles against the political challenges of our current day, we have three key issues. We have moved from a coordination game into an unhealthy competition game via a two-party political divide (strike on point #2). Second, we have great economic inequality and difficult social divisions (strike on point #4). Third, we are starting to see increasingly toxic means being justified in the threat to defeat the politics of the other major rival party—toxic means lead to toxic outcomes on the continuing downward spiral of “do anything to keep the other party out of majority control of federal offices” (strike on point #5).
Thomas Paine was a strong proponent of republicanism. He was an excise tax collector in his early career, and like Aristotle, he was concerned with ownership of property as this determined the right to vote in his day. He noticed how owners of property could abuse their position of privilege to run society for their own benefit. This would breed resentment among the poor, who would rise up against the rich whenever their needs were neglected. Rights dependent on property are the most precarious, so he felt that rights should be granted without property qualification. Paine made a clear, unequivocal call for a democratic republic. His Common Sense pamphlet, published in 1776, is believed to have gained 5% penetration of the colonial population—about 100,000 copies among 2 million people. Later, in his 1792 pamphlet, which was less popular, he argued for a major program of social welfare. He believed that every generation had the right to remake its political and social institutions. We will discuss this in a later section of The Common Sense Papers. Paine said, “When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” And here is one last insight about power among the people as joint sovereigns in a free society, “It will always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the rich.”
Final thought: Political power over people has been a universal source of suffering throughout human history. Passion and extremism lead to corrupt uses of power, while moderation, morality, simple common sense, prudent use of reason that embraces truth, right means, and reciprocal protections can sustain systems that support democratic rule.
Rex Warner, trans., Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War (London and New York: Penguin Books, 1972 [translation copyright, 1954]), pp. 242-45.
Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis (Atlanta: Liberty For All Publishers, 2020), pp. 49-50.
Ibid., 74.
Ibid., 74.
Digital History, "Declaring Independence," Digital History, https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/revolution/revolution_declaringindependence.cfm (accessed August 31, 2023).
Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis, pp. 74-75.
Gideon Resnick, "What’s at stake in the midterm elections?," Apple News Today, October 4, 2022, (accessed October 4, 2022).
These quotes:
“Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine” and “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.”
They feel true.
And yet I’m unconvinced that there’s something better, except to better it! Your continued support for a “liberal democracy with guardrails” does seem to be our best option, and I love the idea of “arming the lamb” so it has even footing in the vote!