Democratic Political Theory

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Democratic Political Theory

• Eco Ag Eco Design
• October 30, 2003
• Chad Kruger

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Kemmis Community and the Politics of Place

• The great, hidden debate behind the Constitution
  was not about how to balance the interests of
  slave and free states, or of large and small
  states, but about the role of virtue, and of
  vice, as elements of citizenship. p. 13

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Kemmis Community and the Politics of Place

• Republicans believed that public life was
  essentially a matter of the common choosing and
  willing of a common world . . . p. 15
• The federalists believed individuals would
  pursue their private ends, and the structure of
  government would balance those pursuits so
  cleverly that the highest good would emerge.
  p. 15

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Plato How do we create a just state?

• To know the good is to do the good
• Virtue can be learned
• Bad action comes from ignorance
• Takes too long for people to learn
• Therefore Guardianship
• Bronze Souls Artisans, farmers
• Silver Souls Soldiers
• Gold Souls Philosopher-Kings

The Phaedo and The Republic
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Aristotle A friend is a mirror unto thyself.

• . . . everyone always acts in order to obtain
  that which they think good. . . all communities
  aim at some good, the state or political
  community, . . . aims at . . .the highest good .
  . . Hence, it is evident that the state is a
  creation of nature, and that man is by nature a
  political animal.
• The polis is the functional scale

The Ethics and The Politics
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St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Aristotle

• Key contribution to democratic political theory
  is that law is the mechanism that the state uses
  to encourage virtuous citizens.

Summa Theologica
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Machiavelli Is it better to be feared or to be
loved?

• The people are like cattle. . .
• The craft of governing is more important than the
  nature of the governance. Public success and
  private morality are entirely separate. The
  question is not what makes a good human being,
  but what makes a good prince.

The Prince written to gain the favor of the
ruling Medici family.
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Thomas Hobbes The Leviathon

• And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty,
  brutish, and short. sic
• Hobbes lived through a variety of violent wars,
  and studied the Peloponnesian War at length.
• Without a strong, effective state (central
  government), the state of nature of human beings
  would take over society

The Leviathon
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John Jacques Rousseau Noble Savage

• Man was born free, but everywhere he is in
  chains. . . How may the restraints on man become
  legitimate? . . . At a point in the state of
  nature when the obstacles to human preservation
  have become greater than each individual with his
  own strength can cope with . . . an adequate
  combination of forces must be the result of men
  coming together.

The Social Contract
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Thomas Jefferson Life, Liberty and the Pursuit
of Happiness

• "The main body of our citizens... remain true to
  their republican principles the whole landed
  interest is republican. . . Against us are... all
  timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the
  boisterous sea of liberty... We are likely to
  preserve the liberty we have obtained only by
  unremitting labors and perils. But we shall
  preserve it, and our mass of weight and wealth on
  the good side is so great as to leave no danger
  that force will ever be attempted against us."
  --Thomas Jefferson to Philip Mazzei, 1796.

The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of
Rights
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The Federalists Alexander Hamilton, John Jay
James Madison

• The entire purpose of The Federalist Papers was
  to gain popular support for the then-proposed
  Constitution
• Hamilton would serve in the Presidents cabinet
• Jay became the first Chief Justice
• Madison became President Important to note
  that Madison rode the fence on the issue of
  democratic theory He agreed in principle with
  Jefferson that the people should rule, but feared
  that the people lacked the discipline to gain the
  necessary competencies to rule justly.

The Federalist Papers
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Alexis de Tocqueville Why American democracy
works!

• "The electors see their representative not only
  as a legislator for the state but also as the
  natural protector of local interests in the
  legislature. . .
• "Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and
  all types of disposition are forever forming
  associations...In democratic countries knowledge
  of how to combine is the mother of all other
  forms of knowledge. . ."
• "In towns it is impossible to prevent men from
  assembling, getting excited together and forming
  sudden passionate resolves. . . In them the
  people wield immense influence over their
  magistrates and often carry their desires into
  execution without intermediaries."

French Aristocrat who toured the US in the 1830s
and wrote Democracy in America
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Concluding Questions

• So are people inherently good or bad? And, more
  importantly, can they be changed?
• What factors need to be considered in terms of
  developing the processes that make civic
  democracy possible?
• Ex. Role of scale, civic associations, etc.

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• There once was a dream that was Rome.