One of our Founding Fathers was among the first Americans to articulate the "crisis of democracy," as contemporary establishment eggheads term it.
What's the crisis? In the 1787 debates over the federal Constitution, James Madison pointed out how "In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place."
To fend off such a crisis, "our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation," putting in place checks and balances in order to "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority," Madison explained.
This stuff is never taught in history class, although the material is well known to celebrated historians
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Madison feared that a growing part of the population, suffering from the serious inequities of the society, would "secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of
blessings." If they had democratic power, there'd be a danger they'd do something more than sigh. He discussed this quite explicitly at the Constitutional Convention, expressing his concern that the poor majority would use its power to bring about what we would now call land reform.
So he designed a system that made sure democracy couldn't function. He placed power in the hands of the "more capable set of men," those who hold "the wealth of the nation." Other citizens were to be marginalized and factionalized in various ways, which have taken a variety of forms over the years: fractured political constituencies, barriers against unified working-class action and cooperation, exploitation of ethnic and racial conflicts, etc.
(To be fair, Madison was precapitalist and his "more capable set of men" were supposed to be "enlightened statesmen" and "benevolent philosophers," not investors and corporate executives trying to maximize their own wealth regardless of the effect that has on other people. When Alexander Hamilton and his followers began to turn the US into a capitalist state, Madison was pretty appalled. In my opinion, he'd be an anticapitalist if he were alive today -- as would Jefferson and Adam Smith.)2
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"Your people, sir, is nothing but a great beast"
"I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value"
-Alexander Hamilton
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So this is an old story, but no less an important one.