In 2301 we are covering Federalist #10 and its consequences. In it Madison argues that the way to break up majority factions -- and thus prevent the violence of factions that undermines popular governments -- is to design the governing system so that a great number of issues will be brought into the political sphere which makes it impossible for permanent majorities to form. Every interest is a minority interest.
But this causes problems too because these interests can "clog the administration" meaning that they can make it difficult for government to respond to public needs. The current term for this is "demosclerosis." In a conversation about a recent rash of rude behavior (or at least a recent tendency of the media to pay attention to rude behavior), David Brooks touches on the terms and puts it in context. It should be useful for my 2301 students:
. . . there is a broad consensus on what we need to do to solve many of our major problems, but no political way to get there. Most experts of left and right believe we need a gas tax in order to address our energy problems. No political way to get there. Most believe that we need a flatter, fairer tax code, probably based on a consumption tax. No political way to get there. Most agree that the fee-for-service system drives up health care costs and the employer based insurance system is unsustainable. There is apparently no political way to change these things. Most experts agree that teacher quality is crucial to the schools and that bad teachers need to be fired. Again, no political way to do this.
I could go on. It all reminds me of a thesis that Mancur Olson came up with many years ago, which was nicely explained in Jonathan Rauch’s book, “Demosclerosis.” The thesis was that as nations age they develop entrenched relationships that close off certain avenues of change. This leads to the decline of nations. Germany and Japan, on the other hand, were able to grow so quickly after World War II because those entrenched arrangements had been swept away amid the national cataclysms.
