Balancing Self-Interest and Public Interest in American Politics

Introduction
The American political system was designed to foster cooperation¬¬¬¬ to achieve public interest – individuals’ goals for their community (Stone 2011, 24) – by subordinating individual self-interest to other interests (Stone 2011, 27). According to Federalist Paper 10, the main driving factor behind Madison’s idea of the republic was the desire to control the effects of factions, or the “tyranny of the majority”. Madison believed that a larger republic would lead to more factions that would have a difficult time uniting. Thus, the minority would have protection against the volition of the majority. However, the current American political system allows the opposite to occur ‒ interest groups are able to exert power over other groups

in society. Elite theory suggests this is because elites’ goals and values determine what is believed to be in the public’s interest (Schubert, Dye, and Ziegler 2014, 15). Once elites deem an issue legitimate, elites can appeal to the majority’s standard, granting power to the faction. This paper will demonstrate that despite there being a multitude of factions (or interest groups), factional interests can prevail by mobilizing resources to consolidate power, appealing to the majority sentiment to get the faction’s issues on the political agenda, and achieving political insulation, thereby undermining the intentions of the Founding Fathers.

Consolidation of Power
Plurality theory suggests that unlikely alliances may be made if there is mutual interest (Truman 1971, 37), allowing factions to consolidate power. Madison’s theory, on the other hand, relies on the assumption that human beings are so diverse it would be difficult for multiple factions to reach a majority consensus and exert power over other groups in society (Federalist No. 10). This assumption, however, is not valid because people belong to multiple, overlapping groups (Truman 1971, 35). Overlapping interests permit factional interests to ally, consolidate power, and appeal to the majority. For instance, the anti-war movement, largely led by students of no political standing, did not receive much attention until socially prominent people (such as businesspeople) joined the group (Cobb and Elder 1971, 910). Therefore, different factions with seemingly different goals can join to exert influence over other groups in society.

Once factions unite over a mutual interest, these groups can consolidate power by petitioning elected officials to champion their causes, solidifying the power that the group gained. Similarly, the reverse may occur – political candidates may reach out to interest groups to gain the group’s support. In either case, the group gains legitimacy by having an elected official fight for its cause. In the case of the anti-war movement, the elites would have been the businesspeople who had money and access to the political system. Given that factions can consolidate power within the American political system through elected officials, this does not reflect the Madisonian idea of government, which aims to make it difficult for interest groups to unite in order to get a single public concern addressed.

Engagement of the Majority Sentiment
Despite a plurality of factions within the American society, interest groups are able to get their issues on the political agenda by appealing to the majority’s sentiments.

Downs predicts that issues where the majority of people are not suffering from the problem, issues where suffering provides benefits to the majority and harm to the minority, and issues that have no intrinsically exciting qualities are more likely to go through the attention cycle (Downs 1972, 41). When the Founding Fathers designed the American system, they originally wanted to prevent political parties from developing. However, Stone notes that people group themselves to get cooperation between humans and to, eventually, accomplish public purposes (Stone 2011, 29). When interest groups are formed, this organization leads to seeking out elected representatives to get organizational activity for the group’s cause. This association with elected officials lends itself to the increased chance of an issue going through the issue attention cycle; additionally, it lends itself to party association, helping the interest group’s issue get on the political agenda by appealing to the standards of the majority (Wilson 1975,

51).

Furthermore, because the American political system has a multiplicity of access points, interest groups have several outlets that they can seek out to get their issues on the political agenda (Truman 1971, 34); this provides the interest group with various avenues to promote its message and to appeal to majority sentiment.

Agriculture, for example, is an industry with declining relative importance to the American economy with net income ranging from $3.6 billion to $1.9 billion between 1919 and 1932 (Lowi 1969, 105). Nevertheless, the agriculture industry, has managed to evolve into a largely self-governing system with ten separate, autonomous self-governing programs and has accomplished the successful redistribution of wealth towards the agriculture business (Lowi 1969, 105); this implies that a multiplicity of factions does not subdue the effects of factions. In Federalist Paper 10, Madison expressed the concern that the minority (the poor) would have proclivities to want to take from the majority (the wealthy); thus, his goal was to mitigate against the effects of factions. Yet, the agriculture industry demonstrates that it is possible for factions to prevail by appealing to the sentiments of the majority. Agriculture is revered in American society (Lowi 1969, 105); therefore, it can govern in a pluralistic way that disregards the original intent of the Founding

Fathers.

Realization of Organizational Activity
Moreover, the American political system allows public power to interest groups to go relatively unchallenged; thus, factional interests may rule (Wilson 1975, 50). The way that a bureaucracy is organized to address a faction’s issue can result in an interest group being politically insular – that is, not subject to public scrutiny. The Founding Fathers designed a bureaucracy by creating the executive, judicial, and legislative branches to allow for governance. Agencies were an extension of the legislative branch designed to implement the policies created (Wilson 1975, 38). A bureaucracy, such as an agency, can get large enough that it is immune from popular control, allowing authority discretion to be nonresponsive to the public (Wilson 1975, 40). This creates an environment conducive to generating political insulation that allows factional interests to prevail.

This political insulation can allow agencies to enjoy some protection against the three major sources of power in the United States: the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the legislative branch. The power of political insulation is seen in the failed attempts to consolidate the ten autonomous, self-governing agriculture agencies. Many of these attempts have failed because of a mutually beneficial iron triangle created between the agency, congress, and lobbyists (Lowi 1969, 110). In the agriculture example, the agriculture industry benefits from the insurance of a continued industry. Congress benefits because their agricultural constituents are satisfied, ensuring they are reelected. Finally, the agency benefits because its livelihood is sustained. Conversely, an agency such as the Department of Labor can be merged and reorganized relatively easily because it does not possess the same political power, namely the power to self-govern (Lowi 1969, 116). Therefore, political insulation allows factional interests, such as a small agricultural industry, to prevail unchallenged.

Conclusion
Although the Founding Fathers realized that people would organize themselves into groups to encourage cooperation and achieve public purposes, the current American system deviates from the Founding Fathers’ original intent of preventing factional interests from ruling unchallenged. The Founding Fathers attempted to design a political system that would subdue the effects of factions by creating a system that requires checks and balances, allowing for the public’s interests to prevail. Still, factional interest groups are able to consolidate power by forming mutually beneficial alliances, get their issues on the political agenda by appealing to the majority, and stimulate organization activity through political insulation to have their goals met.