When the US was in its seminal political stage, it had to deal with the idea of the two party system. George Washington famously warned against partisan politics forming after he left office. Yet, Washington was basically a Federalist on the side of Hamilton and Adams who believed in a strong central government to help the nation grow through the promotion of the banking and merchant class. Thomas Jefferson was the leader in opposition and thereby became the champion of the Democrat-Republican party. Many founding fathers, especially on the Federalist side worried about the idea of political parties because it would divide and stagnate the country. Jefferson and the Anti-Federalists were initially opposed to political factions as well, but they saw no other way to gain political power than to organize as a cohesive party and attack the staunch federalists. In a letter to Henry Lee in 1824 Jefferson wrote:
"Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, liberals and serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, whigs and tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last appellation of aristocrats and democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all."
Although Jefferson may have struggled with his own aristocratic desire for power and moral inconsistencies, what he wrote to Henry Lee is inspiring to those who wish to oppose the consolidation of power by the few. In modern American politics nearly all tend to agree that authority in the hands of the few is the antithesis to democracy and liberty, but the questions that arise next is where the schism occurs. To be clear, I do not mean the schism between modern American politicians, which is mostly just a distraction. Nearly every member of our federal and state governments are in one political party, the business and corporate party. The menial arguments over the "role of government" taken up by these people is merely a facade to gather more political power and wealth for their own benefit. The issues they debate are of little consequence to those who fund their campaigns and actually write legislation. These are mostly social issues and the "culture war" that has the mainstream media in a frenzy.
There is a real divide among the people without power. In modern American politics, the working class American appears to be in two ideological camps, one that thinks government has too much control and should allow free enterprise to guide the economy, and the other camp blames corporate power which funds our elected officials causing them to represent corporate interests above the people's interests. These camps are referred to as right and left respectively in American political semantics. I think most people on the right will concede that corporations have too much power over politicians, but the divide comes when the ideology of the right says that government should absolutely leave businesses alone. They should not support business nor limit business. Sounds like a reasonable argument up front. The issue I take is that the nature of capitalism in a democratic society in an ostensible fashion inevitably leads to monopoly, consolidation of power, and money thrown into the political system in such an obscene way that it becomes virtual Fascism. That is where we are now. Our system was designed with checks and balances that mean absolutely nothing when a small amount of very wealthy people lobby and throw money at every check and balance. Corporations send lobbyists to write the laws for legislatures, they contribute money to elect judges to benefit corporate interests, and they offer regulators jobs with huge salaries at their companies after they deregulate for them. (see Meredith Attwell Baker joining the Comcast lobbying team after she led the approval of the Comcast/NBC merger as FCC commissioner. http://
Once deconstructed, the divide in American political thought among the masses is only symptomatic. The true divide is between the people who on large think they live in a democracy with mild corruption, and the people who actually have a voice who are the corporate leaders of GE, Exxon-Mobile, Haliburton, Bank of America, Walmart, Lockheed and Martin, etc. The working class may get scraps from the table on issues that no corporation has an interest in, but on policies that would favor the American public that come into conflict with corporate interests you can be certain that the policies will either be counter to the public's interests and desires, or an extremely diluted version of what the public wants (i.e last year's federal healthcare reform). Thomas Jefferson was absolutely right. To use his words to reiterate my point there are really two parties that matter in America right now, "1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests." Most politicians today, Democrat and Republican, are in the former party. Whereas the public is overwhelmingly in the latter, but with very little power/wealth. Whether Jefferson knew it or not, he was talking about a bourgeois and a proletariat party. anti-federalist southerners at the time were surprisingly egalitarian in their economic theories (equality for white men at least). The capitalist ventures of merchants and bankers were despised as perverting liberty by consolidating political power by means of economic dominance.
It doesn't matter if it is a government holding all political and economic power like that of the anxious Middle Eastern dictators, or if a select few corporations control all power, the results are devastating for the people.
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