Tyranny of The Majority - Term

Term

A term used in Classical and Hellenistic Greece for oppressive popular rule was ochlocracy ("mob rule"). Tyranny meant absolute monarchy of an undesirable kind.

The phrase "tyranny of the majority" was used by John Adams in 1788. The phrase gained prominence after its appearance in 1835 in Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville, where it is the title of a section. It was further popularised by John Stuart Mill, who cites de Tocqueville, in On Liberty (1859). The Federalist Papers refer to the broad concept, as in Federalist 10, first published in 1787, which speaks of "the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."

Lord Acton also used this term, saying:

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections. —The History of Freedom in Antiquity, 1877

The concept itself was popular with Friedrich Nietzsche and the phrase (in translation) is used at least once in the first sequel to Human, All Too Human (1879). Ayn Rand, Objectivist philosopher and novelist, wrote against such tyranny, saying that individual rights are not subject to a public vote, and that the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and that the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

In 1965, Herbert Marcuse argued the tyranny of the majority in his essay "Repressive Tolerance" on the idea of tolerance in advanced industrial society. He affirmed that "tolerance is extended to policies, conditions, and modes of behavior which should not be tolerated because they are impeding, if not destroying, the chances of creating an existence without fear and misery." and that "this sort of tolerance strengthens the tyranny of the majority against which authentic liberals protested."

In 1994, legal scholar Lani Guinier used the phrase as the title for a collection of law review articles.