Warnings about Oligarchy Not New

Jose-Antonio Orosco

(1/23) In his last speech to the nation, President Joe Biden warned of a growing oligarchy in American politics, pointing the finger particularly at the "tech industrial complex." It was hard to ignore that the wealthy are sharing a more prominent place in American government when President Trump’s inauguration ceremony showcased some of the richest people in the world as guests.

Biden’s warning about oligarchs is certainly not new and not just an attack by liberal elites. The worry about the influence of the rich in US politics goes all the way back to the start of the nation and was at the forefront of one of the most important Founding Father’s thoughts on the make-up of American government institutions.

James Madison, in his contributions to the Federalist Papers—the set of arguments put forth to the voters of New York to support the ratification of the US Constitution in 1789—warned that one of the greatest threats to a democratic republic was the power of "factions." He defined a faction as a group of people in society who are united by some common interest with one another, but "adverse to the rights of other citizens."

Two of the most entrenched factions, he pointed out, are the haves and the have nots, those with a lot of property and those without it. In Madison’s view, it was not a good thing to have a faction be in control of government because then it would use those institutions to promote its own interests at the expense of others. The answer to the problem, he suggested, was not to try to eliminate different factions but to build a system of checks and balances that would prevent any faction from getting enough power to dominate others.

Part of the reason that Madison was worried about the power of factions is because he was a student of history and political philosophy. In particular, he knew the work of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. In his book on politics, Aristotle also argued that a government controlled by the rich or the poor was not a good one. Instead, he thought the best form of government would be one ruled by the middle class.

Aristotle reasoned that a government by the rich or poor would be unstable because the rich are only used to giving orders, while the poor are only used to being told what to do by others. Neither are as capable at being able to listen to others and take charge when they need to as are the middle class. The middle class are not so well off to have all their needs taken care of by others, nor are they so poor that they are at the mercy of other’s decisions. They are best situated to engage in the kinds of thinking and acting for the common good that a well-ordered society requires. Madison agreed with this analysis.

When we observe pundits talk positively about the GOP take-over of all three branches of government at the federal level and of a "mandate" to rule, we should realize that this kind of talk was not necessarily something Madison would have celebrated. He would have taken it as a signal to be more vigilant about threats to liberty.

Measures such as the Stargate proposal that President Trump announced on his second day in office, that augment the billion-dollar industries of Silicon Valley and the "tech industrial complex," but that do nothing to alleviate the high cost of living, improve access to health care, and bolster the pocketbooks of the middle class are not ones that Madison or Aristotle would have thought preserve the best of a democratic republic.

Both of them advised that the failure to ignore the growth of oligarchy meant the likelihood of instability, civil unrest, and loss of freedom for generations.

Jose-Antonio Orosco, Ph.D., is the author of several books
and a professor at Oregon State University.

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