In the Tenth Federalist Paper … James Madison … argued that … “the various and unequal distribution of property” gave rise to factions. “The regulation of these various and interfering interests” — creditors, debtors, landlords, manufacturers, financers — “forms the principle task of modern legislation.” — Michael Harrington, “Socialism, Past and Future” (1989)

Factional war is socially destabilizing and the greatest of all dangers, Madison wrote, if the majority of people create their own faction. At that point, he writes, “the form of popular government … enables it [the majority!] to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest, both the public goods and the rights of other citizens.”

Rule by the people, democracy, therefore, is the overwhelming factional danger to society. Fortunately, in a republic, by contrast, “the delegation of the government to a small number of citizens elected by the rest,” can avert the grave dangers of democracy.

“Madison went on,” Harrington notes, “to point out that the separation of powers, a senate not based on democratic representation, indirect elections, and other features of the new constitution all made it possible to forestall the great danger … that the majority would … act in its own interest.”

As to the dangers of a minority faction, we wonder why, by this “logic,” there should then be less danger that “a small number of citizens” in control of government power, and financed by the likes of the Koch brothers, should not also be enabled to “sacrifice the public goods” to their own “ruling passion,” even if “elected by the rest” (which, in recent decades, has barely topped 50 percent of “registered” voters).

The role of “passion” in all of this, we set aside, momentarily, to take note of Prof. John Connolly’s remark in Daily Hampshire Gazette commentary last fall that the Constitution’s formal division of powers has indeed led, by design, to the factional stability desired by the Founding Fathers (otherwise known as “gridlock”) and even to domestic peace (save for the Civil War, cold and hot wars of international adventurism, economic depressions, race and other urban riots and labor union direct actions). He is absolutely right when he says: “In a system like ours the best we can hope for in normal times is incremental change.”

We are fortunate, therefore, to be in abnormal times. In these times, even the word “socialism” has been uttered unsarcastically, a sure sign that something might be done now, not later.

Steve Connor reported in the Independent ub 2014 on our fortunate abnormality: “Time is running out if the world wants to avoid potentially catastrophic climate change according to the most definitive report to date by the UN body charged with formulating expert advice for governments around the globe.”

According to NASA scientist James Hansen’s recent study, climate warming is now even accelerating in the fast lane, leaving New York City — and every other coastal city on the planet — only a few more decades of habitability. If we are lucky, times are getting abnormal ever more quickly than before.

Unfortunately, we drive in our system by constitutional design in the slow lane. As Seth Ackerman notes in Jacobin (Issue 2): “Whereas France can change its constitution anytime with a three-fifths vote of its Congress and Britain could recently mandate a referendum on instant runoff voting by a simple parliamentary majority, an amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the consent of no less than 39 different legislatures comprising roughly 78 separately elected chambers.”

Business as usual is assisted greatly by the blockade-designed Senate in which 84 percent of the population can be outvoted by the 16 percent living in small states. Legislation can only pass with the simultaneous assent of three separate branches of government — the presidency, House, and Senate, and then yet be overturned when nine Supreme Court judges, undemocratically appointed for life, disapprove.

In these parts, turbo drive is not an option, except for the 1 percent who can afford it — and this fact might explain why there is so much fascination with bad-mouth billionaires like Donald Trump.

Let us return to the passions. As John Steinbeck once famously said: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as … exploited … but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” The passion for putting self-interest before the general interest makes every person (rich and poor) unreasonable and corrupt. As Madison would have it (Federalist 51): “But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

The idea here, now even justified by the “sciences” of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, is that humans are by nature unable to realize that it is mathematically impossible for the 99 percent to be part of the 1 percent.

We are too stupid to preserve humankind because our oil stocks might decline. If you think we are smarter than that, let us demand change.

Steve Randall is an editor of the Pioneer Valley Relocalization Project (http://pvrp.weebly.com/). His views are not necessarily those of the editors or PVRP members.