POLSCI 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Eviction, Pledge Drive, Class Conflict
Document Summary
Unless the number of individual in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individual act in their common interest - mancur olsen. It"s easier to join an organization than to build one. Big numbers don"t alway add up to big power. How to sustain free government in a socially unequal society without having the poor unite to dispossess the rich. The federalists want to make sure daniel shays doesn"t organize the debtors together. The federalists are worried about majority tyranny. They"re worried about the smaller number of elites in society are at a political disadvantage because they are small in number. Elites in a free government, an experiment in republicanism, are at a disadvantage because they"re small in number. The poor are at an advantage in free society because they"re large in number. They can use the power of the vote to defeat the elite.
