Thomas Birch
ENGL 120H
Dr. Robert E. Fox
October 6, 2015
The Fight for Democracy Is a “Tyranny of the Majority” happening right now in America, the way that John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville described it? Has our system of supposed equality turned against us to a point where the voice of the minority has been drowned out by that of the majority? Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman seems to disagree in his article, “Knowledge Isn’t Power”[1], in which he talks about how the argument for improving education is just a cover-up for talking about the real, underlying issue: that most of the power in the United States is being controlled by a small group of people with most of the money, and that this group is actively trying to keep all of the money to themselves through monopoly. This idea seems to go against that of Mill and Tocqueville’s; the power lies in the 1% of Americans, an extremely small minority. Furthermore, although most of the majority is able to freely speak their mind in various mediums, such as social media, online newsletters, and blogs, they are largely powerless to make much change in the political and economic sphere. Yet another example that a small group holds all of the power! The point to note here is that the current system of oppression of the poor by the rich was allowed to happen under the same circumstances that Mill and Tocqueville feared would lead to the tyranny of the masses. Although we as a nation had cast away the oppressive monarchy, we created a country in which ordinary people could rise to power, and become the new kings of our time. However, this is not to say that tyranny of the masses does not exist. In fact, as Krugman implies, the minority that holds power over the masses does so through a form of tyranny of the masses to keep said power. One of the main concerns that Tocqueville had about the American democratic system was that a nation based on sovereignty of the people would lead to a tyranny in its own aspect. What he described was, since the people rule over themselves, and the laws and conventions of the country would be determined by the needs of the people, those laws would always be determined by the majority of the people, since the majority represents the will of most of the people. However, this provides a disadvantage to minority groups, including ethnic, political, and socioeconomic minorities, in which their voices and opinions, however valid, are not accepted by the majority, and therefore are never considered in the lawmaking process. This creates issues not just for the voiceless minority, but for the nation as a whole. The most obvious problem is that, a tyranny of the majority does not allow for the free exchange of ideas, and in fact it hastily discourages ideas that go against the status quo. This system effectively creates an “echo chamber” of opinions and ideas among the majority, in that an individual will only express ideas that agree with the majority, and feel important when his own ideas are agreed upon and repeated back by his peers. We see this happening today on both sides of the two-party system in the United States. There are many individuals, both left-wing and right-wing, who merely state and listen to the opinions of the majority of their party, without giving any critical thought to those opinions, or listening to opinions that the majority does not agree with. This is an issue that continues to divide our nation politically. Tyranny of the majority in the United States has shown time and again to create systems and laws that underserve minority groups, most notably the Jim Crow Laws of post-Civil War America. As members of the majority to continue to shout down the echo chambers, one can only wonder how many revolutionary ideas are drowned out in the noise, because they were spoken by a small voice.

While we have had problems with tyranny of the majority in the past, that does not seem to reflect the current state of affairs, according to Paul Krugman’s article [1]. Krugman starts off his piece by talking about how politicians have a tendency to cover up deep-rooted social issues by blaming them on institutions and groups that aren’t causing the problem, but are involved as one part in the whole issue. The example he provides as the focus of his editorial is the phenomenon of blaming the school system for the current state of inequality in America. He noted that we hear a constant barrage of “Fix the School System!” or some derivation of it on the news when politics is brought up. Krugman points out that this shows an underlying false assumption: that education is all it takes to gain power and wealth in the United States. While it is true that education is an important part of balancing out socioeconomic inequality, this argument tends to cover up some of the larger issues that are holding minority groups back from being equal in this country. One such issue is the ability for the 1% wealthiest Americans to determine laws that keep them rich and the rest of America poor.[1] It should come as a surprise to no one that members of Congress are often given generous donations and bribes by the wealthy elite to keep them in power. This creates a system of economic power that creates a modern-day aristocracy, something that the founders of the United States tried adamantly to avoid when they created a nation with sovereignty of the people. This is obviously not an example of tyranny of the majority, like Tocqueville feared would happen. This is more like a classic system of power, in which a small group of people hold all of the power. The irony of this situation is that the systems put in place to discourage the creation of an aristocratic class was used by individuals to create that class, i.e. Congress and freedom to pursue economic prosperity. Even though we live in a world that is controlled by a wealthy minority, it is interesting to see that the concept of tyranny of the majority is still at play, and is in fact an instrument used by the powerful wealthy. The elite derive their power from the combined labor of those beneath from them, so in order to stay in power in a country with rights and freedom of the individual, they need the consent of the majority to support institutions that keep the elite in power. Usually, they achieve this through the illusion of majority approval of an idea. In advertising, this is known as the “bandwagon” technique. Once an idea is actually accepted by the majority, minorities who do not agree with it are drowned out by the majority. A classic example of this is an advertisement campaign by the DeBeers Mining Company, which in the 1920’s created the tradition of diamond engagement rings, a practice still entrenched in our culture today [2]. Before the 1920’s, giving your partner an engagement ring was a rare practice, and those that did practice it usually made rings out of cheaper materials, certainly not diamonds. However, when DeBeers took control over the diamond mines in South Africa, they regulated the market and made diamonds very expensive, even though they were plentiful. Then in an effort to boost diamond sales, DeBeers launched an ad campaign that told consumers that buying their partner an expensive ring was a surefire way to show your love. People bought into it, and the custom grew into what it is today: a social rule that says that every proposal requires a ring worth two month’s salary, and that those who do not buy expensive rings are seen as cheap and unloving. Consumers are essentially shamed by the rest of society into buying more diamond engagement rings, and those who disagree are still ignored by those who have bought into the idea. This has been widely regarded as the most successful ad campaign in history, and it placed DeBeers in a seat of extreme power, which they still hold to this day[2]. This is a prime example of how the wealthy minority use the power of the majority to glean their power. In the United States today, we do not solely have a tyranny of either the majority or the minority. Instead, we have a system that incorporates both; a complicated system that keeps the economic classes where they are. It is difficult to say if we can ever achieve equality as a society, but being informed and being able to freely discuss ideas are certainly steps in the right direction. If we can critically dissect ideas that are imposed on us, we can better do away with those that hold us back.

Citations
1. Krugman, P. (2015, February 23). Knowledge Isn't Power. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/23/opinion/paul-krugman-knowledge-isnt-power.html

2. Friedman, U. (2015, February 13). How an Ad Campaign Invented the Diamond Engagement Ring. The Atlantic. Retrieved October 3, 2015.