Tyranny of the majority

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The phrase tyranny of the majority, used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule, is a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority under that system would place that majority's interests so far above a minority's interest as to be comparable to tyrannical despots.^[1]

Term

Limits on the decisions that can be made by such majorities, such as constitutional limits on the powers of parliament and use of a bill of rights in a parliamentary democracy, are commonly meant to reduce the problem.^[2]

The idea goes back at least as far as Plato's Republic, while the phrase itself originated with Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America (1835, 1840) and was further popularized by John Stuart Mill, who cites de Tocqueville, in On Liberty (1859); the Federalist Papers frequently refer to the concept, though usually under the name of "the violence of majority faction," particularly in Federalist 10.

The concept itself was popular with Friedrich Nietzsche and the phrase (in translation) is used at least once in the first sequel to Human, All Too Human (1879).^[3]

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's doctrine of the general will culminates in a kind of tyranny of the majority. By proposing that individuals alienate their rights to the general will, they are thereby 'forced to be free'.

In 1994, legal scholar Lani Guinier used the phrase as the title for a collection of law review articles.

Public Choice Theory

The notion that, in a democracy, the greatest concern is that the majority will tyrannize and exploit diverse smaller interests, has been criticized by Mancur Olson in The Logic of Collective Action, who argues instead that narrow and well organized minorities are more likely to assert their interests over those of the majority. Olson argues that when the benefit of political action (e.g. lobbying) are spread over fewer agents, there is a stronger individual incentive to contribute to that political activity. Narrow groups, especially those who can reward active participation to their group goals, might therefore be able to dominate or distort political process, a process studied in public choice theory.

Objectivist view

Ayn Rand, developer of the philosophy of Objectivism asserted that a group, as such, has no rights. A man can neither acquire new rights by joining a group nor lose the rights which he does possess. The principle of individual rights is the only moral base of all groups or associations. She maintained that since only an individual man can possess rights, the expression "individual rights" is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes of clarification in today’s intellectual chaos), but the expression "collective rights" is a contradiction in terms. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).^[4]

See also

• Argumentum ad populum
• Consensus
• Dictatorship of the proletariat
• Elective dictatorship
• General Will
• Individual anarchism
• Majoritarianism
• Minority rights
• Ochlocracy (mob rule)
• Social anarchism
• Consociationalism
• Minoritarianism

References

• Lani Guinier, The Tyranny of the Majority (Free Press: 1994)
• Mancur Olson, The Logic Of Collective Action