In writing the American constitution, our Founding Fathers could not say openly they were founding a "polity" or oligarchy/democracy hybrid. Why?

On the one hand, an open acknowledgement of an oligarchic component would have alienated a large portion of the American people who had just won a war for independence.

On the other hand, the Founding Fathers could not declare they were founding a democracy. That admission would have antagonized the oligarchy, members of which were sitting in the constitutional convention as well as in state legislatures that were preparing to vote on accepting or rejecting the proposed constitution.

Madison performed a masterpiece of political positioning in his naming and explanation of the form of government he and his colleagues were constructing: a "republic." In words certain to please the oligarchy, Madison attacked any republic/democracy "confusion of names" -- the

"confounding of a republic with a democracy, and applying to the former reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The true distinction between these forms . . . is that in a democracy the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents."(1)

In rejecting an oligarchy(2) and a democracy, Madison gave the general impression that a republic was neither one nor the other.

Nevertheless, the Founding Fathers could not stop there, because Madison's definition of a republic cited above closely resembles Aristotle's definition of oligarchy, i.e., "that some of the citizens should deliberate on all matters. This is characteristic of oligarchy."(3) Once again, in the 1780s, an outright stamp of approval on an American oligarchy was politically inadmissible. Consequently, Madison had to swing the pendulum the other way.

To give legitimacy to the constitution they were proposing, the Founding Fathers were obliged to resort to what Madison had criticized: a confusion of names. That confusion was performed by . . . Madison. He erased his own distinction between democracy and republic this way:

"In the most pure democracies of Greece, many of the executive functions were performed, not by the people themselves, but by officers elected by the people, and representing the people in their executive capacity."(4)

The "most pure democracies" governed by representatives: this confusion, this oxymoron, was it made deliberately? The confusion of polity with democracy, as well as of polity with oligarchy, existed in Aristotle's time. He thought those confusions were good, that

"it is a good criterion of a proper mixture of democracy and oligarchy that a mixed constitution should be able to be described indifferently as either. When this can be said, it must obviously be due to the excellence of the mixture. It is a thing which can generally be said of the mean between two extremes: both of the extremes can be traced in the mean, [and it can thus be described by the name of either] . . .

A properly mixed 'polity' should look as if it contained both democratic and oligarchic elements -- and as if it contained neither." (5)

"Democracy," "oligarchy," "both," "neither" -- all simultaneously. Now you see it; now you don't. By leaving it to you to string the beads, Madison left something for everybody.

The equation, Republic = Democracy, was in reality the cover version of another equation: Polity = Democracy. The latter is The Great American Illusion that has never been said aloud. It is behind Madison's mental slight-of-hand trick that made the difference between democracy and republic disappear. Today, the Illusion is both an unexpressed official dogma and a cultural given. It is taboo to call a polity a polity; nobody does it. One is compelled to call a polity a democracy.

The real life consequence was that the polity has become an imitation of democracy, an "as-if" democracy. The confusion of polity with democracy has been converted into an illusion. Given its unquestioning acceptance around the world, The Great American Illusion is among the greatest political maneuvers of all times.

Once Polity = Democracy is identified for what it is, the Illusion starts to fade, and the real issue before us becomes clear: more democracy or less democracy within the polity? There is no "Third Way." The polity never mentioned but insinuated to be a democracy: that was the third way.

That way is on its way to extinction. Drop by drop, the bottle is being emptied until the day comes when even the most optimistic of optimists will no longer say the bottle is half full. At that point, to support a polity will be in actuality to support an oligarchy (Aristotle observed that a polity is inclined "more toward democracy.")(6)

At bottom, any combination of oligarchy and democracy is difficult. Montesquieu said why: "He who has the money is always the master of the other . . ."(7) The ability of the American oligarchy to step out from the shadows, to demand and receive billions of public dollars from Washington in 2008-2009, is a turning point in American political history.

Can the American polity be saved?

In Western civilization, power expands only to the extent it is shared. Recognition of that fact is the essential foundation for what we need -- not another renaissance, but a "re-evolution" of the previous Renaissance that gave birth to, among other things, the American Revolution and Constitution.

Tocqueville stated in straightforward terms what is required to save the polity: strengthen the democratic element. "The remedy is above all else, outside constitutions. In order for democracy to govern, there must be citizens, i.e., people who are interested in public affairs, who have the capacity and the desire to participate in them. One must always return to this fundamental point."(8)

An increase in the populace's capacity and desire to participate: may any political candidate, office holder, government, or policy be judged accordingly.

The art of creating new institutions and customs to share and expand power would be to the present what the American Revolution was to its era. The urgency for that art is visible not only in (i) inappropriate behavior displayed recently at public forums on healthcare, which clearly showed the lack of those institutions and customs, but also in (ii) the poor quality of stewardship of human and natural resources by governments and private enterprises around the world.

In reality, (i) and (ii) are inseparable. Each chaperons the other.

If the present degradation of the polity, the middle class, and natural resources continues, "Live Free Or Die" will prove to be more than a state motto.

FOOTNOTES

(1) "Federalist Paper 14."
(2) See Part I, this series.
(3) Aristotle, "The Politics of Aristotle," translated and edited by Ernest Barker, Oxford University Press, New York, 1962, p. 191. (Book IV, Chapter XIV).
(4) "Federalist Paper 63." Same for legislative capacity (same paper).
(5) Aristotle, op.cit., pp. 177-8. (Book IV, Chapter IX). Translator's brackets.
(6) Ibid., p. 174. (Book IV, Chapter VIII).
(7) Charles de Montesquieu, "De L'Esprit des lois," in "Oeuvres completes II," Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, Gallimard, Paris, 1994., p. 472. (Book XIII, Chapter XIX).
(8) Alexis de Tocqueville, "Notes et variantes," in Alexis de Tocqueville, "Oeuvres," Volume II, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, Gallimard, Paris, 1992, p. 1,019.