A look into the strength of democratic majority rule in the current United States, using the historical essays of those to have studied it in the past compared with modern evidence.
This paper examines the observations made by Vilfredo Pareto, who feared the rule of an oligarchy, and Alexis de Tocqueville, who felt that there would be a tyrannical rule of the majority. Background is given for both theories, followed by evidence from today that is meant to show how Pareto’s theory has stood through time to be the one that holds true.
The United States is referred to as the great governmental experiment and was the first democracy to be put into practice. For this reason many scholars have studied it and written about what they have observed. Two such scholars are Alexis de Tocqueville who wrote Democracy in America which was published in 1835 and Vilfredo Pareto who was the author of Mind and Society in 1917. These two men described opposing views in their works. De Tocqueville’s worry about democracy was that, by definition, the majority would tyrannize the minority Politically speaking, the people have a right to do anything; and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. The members of the majority could pass any laws they want and that could suppress all the others living in the democracy. Pareto’s observation of democracy was quite different and not a worry of the minority being oppressed but rather a worry of an oligarchy being in charge and the peopled being governed by the ideals of the few In fact, whether universal suffrage prevails or not, it is always oligarchy that governs. So who’s theory has stood up to the test of time? From my standpoint, Pareto is closer to the United States of present.