Why did political parties form in the US - Essay Example

HAMILTON AND JEFFERSON Early America was divided over whether poltical parties were truly necessary. In the beginning there were no real parties. Then a great debate began about whether poltical parties served the common good. Some people such as Alexander Hamilton believed the United States should model itself after the United Kingdom in creating political parties and having a spirited public debate between them. These were the federalisits. Others, such as Thomas Jefferson, believed a strong central government was bad and political parties should be limited.

As time went on it is clear that Hamiltons idea of a federalist United States has triumphed. As Hamilton once said, “Its not tyranny we desire; its a just, limited, federal government.” The idea had support, but also had a lot of opposition. Many Americans felt that the creation of federal parties would make the U.S. like the U.K. which the hated. It is part of a question that has troubled billions of people since the dawn of time: how should a society construct itself to maximize justice and opportunity?

Is a strong central government necessary to do so? There are as many theories as there are grains of sand on the beach, but some ideas over the years have been more popular than others. Some people believe in socialism and that everyone must be made equal by a very powerful central government, the tall cut down and the short pulled up; others believe in a meritocracy where those people who have talent and work hard are rewarded for their labours. These people believe the government should get out of the way.

Considering how developed the U.S. is today, the latter view should prevail. Thomas Hobbes is most famous for his book Leviathan. In it he argued that a “war of all against all” existed in nature and that people were mostly motivated by fear and distrust and that peoples’ motivations all conflicted with each other. The only way for order to prevail, Hobbes argued, would be through an absolute sovereign or strong central government. While there is certainly some truth to what Hobbes says regarding human beings, other political thinkers have questioned elements of his vision.

Indeed there are several flaws in this theory, but it shows us that it is not possible for people to effectively work as a commune. That does not mean we need a dictator to control things, but it does mean we need a strong rule of law to protect individual freedoms. The rule of law is effectively the latter-day sovereign. It serves the same purpose: it protects contracts and business and prevents the seizure of power by socialist radicals. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

” He did not want federal parties taking power and using it to create a strong central government. Sadly, federal parties came to pass and with them a strong federal government of the sort that Jefferson warned about. We can already see the negative effects in the United States under President Obama who is rapidly increasing the American national debt and indebting future generations to come. It is very hard to balance social opportunity with the reduction of hierarchical structures. The truth is that some people rise to the top, and some people fail.

That is the nature of the world, as unfair as it may sound. A few minor steps can be made to alleviate this unfairness—especially in cases where accidents or acts of a predatory nature have taken place—but wholescale efforts to redistribute wealth or reengineer society are bound to fail. We do not need a strong central government and we never needed political parties.