The Evolution of Pluralism

English democracy evolved from a single principle, the right to private property. The English believed that the essential feature of state repression was the use of coercion to deprive people of their property. If this could be pre­vented, then the state could be brought under control. In particular, if the king could be prohibited from taking any person's property without that person's permission, then the king could not squeeze all the economic surplus out of the people to provide for his luxuries. Nor could the king afford to go to war unless he had the support of the people, for he would lack the needed funds. Thus, the English be­lieved that the state could be tamed if taxes could be im­posed or collected without the approval of those being taxed.

How could property right be protected from the state? The solution is not simply a law or a constitution, but a particular kind of social structure in which a number of powerful elites restrict one another's ability to use the state's coercive power. The state can be tamed only when political power is dispersed among groups with diverse interests. Such a situation is described as pluralism.

Pluralism developed in England partly by accident. In 1215 King John found himself unable to control the nobility. To remain on the throne, he was forced to sign the Magna Carta, a contract in which he agreed to impose no taxes on the nobility except when they freely agreed to be taxed. This led to the creation of the House of Lords, wherein the nobility gathered periodically to vote on tax requests from the king.

In time, the right to have one's property secure against seizure by the king was extended to property owners who were not members of the nobility. They began to send elected representatives to the House of Commons, where they also gave or withheld approval of the king's tax requests. The

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power to control the king's revenues proved to be the power to control the government. If the House of Lords or the House of Commons did not like a policy, it could withhold funds until it was changed.

Moreover, neither house of Parliament was dominated by a single group with identical interests. Policies favourable to some nobles often affected others adversely; policies good for merchants were often bad for shopowners or farmers. Thus, besides English kings having to depend on the two houses for their revenues, decisions within each house re­quired a coalition of groups and therefore a compromise of competing interests. Governmental decision-making processes involved increasingly diverse groups and interests.

Of course, English rulers occasionally attempted to destroy these limits on their power and restore the absolute power of the throne. However, these efforts were always thwarted because too many people had too much to lose, should the king regain control. Therefore, if one faction of nobles wanted to restore an unlimited monarchy, others combined to block them.

It has been noted that the existence of the English Channel also played an important role in weakening the powers of English monarchs. The channel prevented Euro­pean wars from extending into England. Thus, the king could not use external military threats as grounds to create and maintain a large, professional army that then could be used to repress anyone who opposed him. Indeed, England's defense was based on maintaining a powerful navy to con­trol the English Channel — and a navy cannot be used for internal repression.

II. ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

1. What has been the dominant question for more than

2,000 years?

2. What solution did the Greek philosopher Plato propose?

3. How did he characterize these philosopher-kings?

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4. Did it seem possible or impossible? Why not?

5. What did Lord Acton claim in this respect?

6. What two things did political thinkers start speaking about, necessary to tame the state?

7. Does their principle of taming the state work?

8. What did English democracy evolve?

9. How could the state be tamed, as the English be­ lieved?

10. What is understood by pluralism?

11. Pluralism developed in England by accident. What does it mean?

12. So the House of Lords was set up, wasn't it?

13. What did the English kings depend on in their deci­ sion-making?

14. Did the English rulers attempt to destroy the limits on their power?

15. What role did the English Channel play in weaken­ ing the powers of English monarchs?

16. What is your personal opinion of taming the state?

III. COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES:

1. How to limit the powers of the state was of particu­ lar interest in ... .

2. Plato invented the solution in creating a special class of ... .

3. A clear set of rules has to be established to define ....

4. The second requirement for taming the state was ....

5. No one group can pursue its interests without ....

6. Every group is checked by ... .

7. The solution of taming the state was found by the principle of .....

8. The English believed that the essential feature of state repression was ....

9. The state can be tamed only when ....

10. The creation of the House of Lords was accidental as ... .

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11. The power to control the king's revenues proved to

be

IV. MAKE UP DISJUNCTIVE QUESTIONS AND ASK YOUR FRIEND TO ANSWER THEM:

1. The state has always been able to use its powers to

repress its citizens.

2. The philosopher-kings were trained to be fair.

2. To tame the state a clear set of rules had to be estab­ lished.

4. Power should be dispersed among many powerful

groups.

5. English democracy evolved from the right to private

property.

6. Pluralism developed in England at the very begin­ ning of the 13^th century.

7. Now Great Britain is a parliamentary monarchy.

V. MAKE UP AN OUTLINE OF THE TEXT AND SPEAK ON THE CONTENTS OF THE TEXT.

VI. READ THE SECOND PART OF THE TEXT:

Once free of English rule, the Americans had to create their own system of government. By this time, however, political philosophers, especially the Scottish rationalists, had analyzed why and how the English system worked. Thus, the men who wrote the US Constitution did so with conside­rable understanding of the essential issues.

James Madison, the principal designer of the US Con­stitution, believed that democracy always faces two threats. The first is a tyranny of the minority: the historical danger that a privileged few would capture the state and use its coercive powers to repress and exploit the many. This classic

problem of taming the state had given rise to the English

form of democracy.

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-

But Madison was also concerned about a tyranny of the majority: the danger that a majority of citizens would use the machinery of representative government to exploit and abuse minorities. Here, Madison was mindful that even the English democracy persecuted religious dissenters and that coalitions of interest groups sometimes exploited weaker groups. Indeed, Madison was concerned that people who achieved great wealth be as secure in their property rights as anyone else, and he feared that the mass of citizens might use their superior numbers to impose discriminatory taxes on the rich and thereby escape paying taxes themselves. Put another way, Madison believed the poor could be as selfish as the rich.

To block both kinds of tyranny, Madison developed a system of government in which powers were widely distri­buted and procedures made somewhat cumbersome. Each of the three branches of the federal government — executive, legislative, and judicial — has the power to nullify actions taken by the other two. This is called the system of checks and balances in government. Madison hoped to make it possible for minorities to block actions against them, at least for a long period, and for substantial majorities to be required to take any action, thereby blocking minorities from controlling the government.

The system of checks and balances has dominated the American political process for more than 200 years. It has not always produced ideal results, and sometimes the United States has been less democratic than Madison had hoped. Despite these defects, the state has remained relatively tame. Moreover, many of the worst violations of individual liber­ty have been corrected within the system.

The important point, however, is that the US Constitu­tion, like all constitutions, is meaningless without support

from political institutions and? indeed? without a general

willingness to play by the rules. Some of the most repressive

regimes on earth have magnificent written constitutions

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that solemnly guarantee all sorts of freedom, while the British have provided a model of democracy without ever having written down most of their constitution.

And Canada has sustained democracy both with and with­out an extensive written constitution. For a long time, aside from various acts of the British Parliament defining some aspects of Canadian governing principles. Canada primarily relied on the «unwritten» British constitution. In 1981 the Canadian government secured the right to frame and amend its own constitution without the approval of the British Par­liament — a process referred to as «patriation». That same year, the Canadian Supreme Court noted a number of docu­ments and acts as parts of the constitution, and then in April 1982 Queen Elizabeth II came to Ottawa to sign the new Constitution Act, which begins with a very detailed list of rights and freedoms guaranteed to all Canadians.

Thus far we have seen how the dispersal of power plays a fundamental role in taming the state through the process wherein one powerful faction is played off against another.

VII. ANSWER THE QUESTIONS:

1. Who was the principal designer of the US Constitu­ tion?

2. What two threats does democracy face, according to

Madison?

3. What does a tyranny of the minority mean?

4. What did Madison understand by a tyranny of the

majority!

5. Was Madison concerned with the security in proper­ ty rights for everybody independent of their incomes?

6. What system of government did Madison develop?

7. What name does his system of government bear? Do you think it to be democratic?

8. What is the weak point of the US Constitution?

9. Is there a written constitution in Great Britain? And what about Canada?

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10. When was the Constitution Act signed in Canada?

11. What does it contain?

VIII. GIVE THE DEFINITION OF THE TERM «PATRI­ ATION».

IX. SPEAK ON:

1. Madison's speculation of creating a legal constitution.

2. The key points of the US Constitution.

3. The British model of democracy.

4. The Constitution Act of Canada.