Our Oligarchs Can Thank James Madison - Ryan McMaken - Mises Daily

Our Oligarchs Can Thank James Madison - Ryan McMaken - Mises Daily: "In the essay, Madison’s position is that large expansive republics are superior to small limited republics because they balance a variety of “factions” (by which he meant interest groups and voting blocs) against each other and prevent any single group from unduly influencing the government. In a small republic, Madison argued, small factions are able to easily take control of the state’s resources or the state itself. Included among these factions is any large voting bloc with similar interests. The majority and its alleged penchant for the oppression of the minority can be controlled by cancelling out the interests of local majorities at the national level with majorities from other states, thus leading to a balanced population in which no particular faction can gain an upper hand.

Madison’s purpose was to demonstrate that if the American states were allowed to remain largely independent, as they indeed were in 1787, they would degenerate into despotism, but if the states were all consolidated into one federal system, the different factions within the many states would be balanced out and no group or alliance could ever take control of the new government."