Tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) refers to an inherent weakness of majority rule in which the majority of an electorate can and does place its own interests above, and at the expense of, those in the minority. This results in oppression of minority groups comparable to that of a tyrant or despot, argued John Stuart Mill in his famous 1859 book On Liberty.
Potentially, through tyranny of the majority, a disliked or unfavored ethnic, religious, political, social, or racial group may be deliberately targeted for oppression by the majority element acting through the democratic process.
American founding father Alexander Hamilton, writing to Thomas Jefferson from the Constitutional Convention, argued the same fears regarding the use of pure direct democracy by the majority to elect a demagogue who, rather than work for the benefit of all citizens, set out to either harm those in the minority or work only for those of the upper echelon. The Electoral College mechanism present in the indirect United States presidential election system, and the phenomenon of faithless electors allowed for within it, was, in part, deliberately created as a safety measure not only to prevent such a scenario, but also to prevent the use of democracy to overthrow democracy for an authoritarian, dictatorial or other system of oppressive government.[3] As articulated by Hamilton, one reason the Electoral College was created was so "that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications".
The scenarios in which tyranny perception occurs are very specific, involving a sort of distortion of democracy preconditions:
- Centralization excess: when the centralized power of a federation make a decision that should be local, breaking with the commitment to the subsidiarity principle. Typical solutions, in this condition, are concurrent majority and supermajority rules.
- Abandonment of rationality: when, as Tocqueville remembered, a decision "which bases its claim to rule upon numbers, not upon rightness or excellence". The use of public consultation, technical consulting bodies, and other similar mechanisms help to improve rationality of decisions before voting on them. Judicial review (e.g. declaration of nullity of the decision) is the typical way after the vote.
Term
While James Madison referred to the same idea as "the violence of majority faction" in The Federalist Papers, for example Federalist 10, the phrase "tyranny of the majority" was used by John Adams in 1788. It was also used by Edmund Burke in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), where he said that "The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny." It was further popularised by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty (1859). The Federalist Papers and the phrase (in translation) is used at least once in the first sequel to Human, All Too Human (1879). Ayn Rand wrote that individual rights are not subject to a public vote, and that the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities and "the smallest minority on earth is the individual".
In Herbert Marcuse's 1965 essay "Repressive Tolerance", he said "tolerance is extended to policies, conditions, and modes of behavior which should not be tolerated because they are impeding, if not destroying, the chances of creating an existence without fear and misery" and that "this sort of tolerance strengthens the tyranny of the majority against which authentic liberals protested".
In 1994, legal scholar Lani Guinier used the phrase as the title for a collection of law review articles.[12]
Viewpoints
Trampling the rights of minorities
Regarding recent American politics (specifically initiatives), Donovan et al. argue that:One of the original concerns about direct democracy is the potential it has to allow a majority of voters to trample the rights of minorities. Many still worry that the process can be used to harm gays and lesbians as well as ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities. ... Recent scholarly research shows that the initiative process is sometimes prone to produce laws that disadvantage relatively powerless minorities ... State and local ballot initiatives have been used to undo policies – such as school desegregation, protections against job and housing discrimination, and affirmative action – that minorities have secured from legislatures.
Public choice theory
The notion that, in a democracy, the greatest concern is that the majority will tyrannise and exploit diverse smaller interests, has been criticised by Mancur Olson in The Logic of Collective Action, who argues instead that narrow and well organised minorities are more likely to assert their interests over those of the majority. Olson argues that when the benefits 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.Vote trading
Anti-federalists of public choice theory point out that vote trading can protect minority interests from majorities in representative democratic bodies such as legislatures. They continue that direct democracy, such as statewide propositions on ballots, does not offer such protections.Illustrating scenarios
A collective decision of 13 voters in a deliberative assembly. Result: 8 votes for X (blue) and 5 votes for Y (red). X option wins, because it has a majority (more than half).
The "no tyranny" and "tyranny" situations can be characterizated in any simple democratic decision-making context, as a deliberative assembly.
Abandonment of rationality
Herbert Spencer, in "The Right to Ignore the State" (1851), pointed the problem with the following example:Suppose, for the sake of argument, that, struck by some Malthusian panic, a legislature duly representing public opinion were to enact that all children born during the next ten years should be drowned. Does anyone think such an enactment would be warrantable? If not, there is evidently a limit to the power of a majority.
Usual no-tyranny scenario
Suppose a deliberative assembly of a building condominium with 13 voters, deciding, with majority rule, about "X or Y",Suppose that the final result is "8 votes for X and 5 votes for Y", so 8, as a majority, blue wins. As collectively (13 voters) the decision is legitimate.
It is a centralized decision about all common use rooms, "one color for all rooms", and it is also legitimate. Voters have some arguments against "each room with its color", rationalizing the centralization: some say that common rooms need uniform decisions; some prefer the homogeneous color style, and all other voters have no style preference; an economic analysis demonstrates (and all agree) that a wholesale purchase of one color paint for all rooms is better.
Federated centralization excess
Centralization excess is the most usual case. Suppose that each floor has some kind of local governance, so in some aspects the condominium is a "federation of floors". Suppose that only on the third floor the majority of residents manifested some preference to "each floor with different color" style, and all of the third floor residents likes the red color. The cost difference, to purchase another color for one floor, is not significant when compared with the condominium contributions.In this conditions some tyranny perception arrives, and the subsidiarity principle can be used to contest the central decision.
Tyranny emerging
Minority and tyranny characterized: a coherent subset of voters with some collective action; a central decision; the subsidiarity principle can be used by minority group decision.
In the above no-tyranny scenario, suppose no floor federation, but (only) a room with some local governance. Suppose that the gym room is not used by all, but there is a "community" of regulars, there is a grouping of voters by its activity as speed-cyclists (illustrated as spiked hair), that have the gym room key for some activities on Sundays. They are acting collectively to preserve the gym room for a local cyclists group.
In this situation the following facts hold:
- There is a subset of voters and some collective action, uniting them, making them a cohesive group.
- There is some centralization (a general assembly) and some central decision (over local decision): there is no choice of "each room decision" or "each regulars' community decision". So it is a central decision.
- The subsidiarity principle can be applied: there is an "embryonic local governance" connecting the cyclists, and the other people (voters) of the condominium recognise the group, transferring some (little) responsibility to them (the keys of the gym room and right to advocate their cycling activities to other residents).
- there is a little "global gain" in a global decision (where X wins), and a good "local gain" in local decision (local Y preference);
- there is relevant voting for a local decision: 6 voters (46%) are gym room regulars, 5 that voted Y. The majority of them (83%) voted Y.
Concurrent majority
Secession of the Confederate States of America from the United States was anchored by a version of subsidiarity, found within the doctrines of John C. Calhoun. Antebellum South Carolina utilized Calhoun's doctrines in the Old South as public policy, adopted from his theory of concurrent majority. This "localism" strategy was presented as a mechanism to circumvent Calhoun's perceived tyranny of the majority in the United States. Each state presumptively held the Sovereign power to block federal laws that infringed upon states' rights, autonomously. Calhoun's policies directly influenced Southern public policy regarding slavery, and undermined the Supremacy Clause power granted to the federal government. The subsequent creation of the Confederate States of America catalyzed the American Civil War.19th century concurrent majority theories held logical counterbalances to standard tyranny of the majority harms originating from Antiquity and onward. Essentially, illegitimate or temporary coalitions that held majority volume could disproportionately outweigh and hurt any significant minority, by nature and sheer volume. Calhoun's contemporary doctrine was presented as one of limitation within American democracy to prevent traditional tyranny, whether actual or imagined.
