Interest Groups and Pluralism

In his Federalist 10, James Madison summarized his concept that factions, today's interest groups, were a necessary piece of democratic government. If all interests were represented, he argued, all people would be represented and compromise would be the ultimate result. This theory, commonly known as pluralism, is regarded as the argument for interest groups. It is theoretically true; it is realistically false.

The first problem that one might see with pluralism in today's politics is the pronounced and definite upper-class bias that interest groups have. It is the wealthy and middle-class people that have the time, energy, and resources to lobby government, not the poor and needy (who need the lobbying more than anyone else). This uneven distribution of funds distinctly correlates to an uneven distribution of interest groups. Pluralism relies on evenly distributed interest group representation; it falls apart when an upper-class bias is put into the equation.

Another downfall of the pluralist theory is the unbalanced influence among varying sectors of the population, when categorized by employment or education. Though frequently walking hand in hand with an upper class bias, business interests groups far outweigh their proportional representation. Business groups work in the economy that the government controls, to some extent, and so heavily invest themselves in interest groups. Professional groups and labor groups also play heavily in the interest group arena, also outpacing their proportional representation.

Pluralism is idealistic, it is optimistic, and it should theoretically work. Perhaps there is some way to make it work, though I fear that any such means to do so would be in severe violation of the constitution. It is clear that interest groups are a problem(?) in government today. Their influence is far too great, the limitations on their ability to influence far too lenient. The Constitution may stand in the way of limiting these interest groups, but the Constitution didn't allow for them anyway...the Constitution allowed for people to directly influence their representatives throught the processes of voting and petition. Perhaps we could simply declare interest groups unconstitutional? But, then again, that is about as unrealistic as pluralism.