This paper discusses two specific issues relating to the United States political system. The first question relates to whether the United States is a representative democracy, a pluralist democracy, a hyperpluralist system, or in a state of anarchy. What is it about the political parties, the mass public, the mass media, special interest groups, the Congress, the bureaucracy, the domestic presidency, and the foreign affairs presidency that contributes to the creation and maintenance of such a system. The second question raises the issue of whether the United States' system of power is a just or unjust system, with a discussion of the definition of just versus unjust.
Democracy is a complicated and ancient concept. The idea of people participating equally in self-rule antedates recorded human history and may be as old as human society itself (Lewellen, 1983, pp. 18-29). The idea of democratic representation offered the mechanism to solve the dilemma of organizing democratic government over a large territory. The American and French revolutionaries intended to make democracy work through popularly elected assemblies: state legislatures in the United States and the National Assembly in France. The introduction of the concept of democratic representation in practice and theory opened the way for the modern conception of democracy (Cooke, 1967, pp. 56-65).
Along with the idea of representation, political ideas in the philosophy called liberalism were influential in the emergence of modern conceptions of democracy. Liberal theorists begin with two basic assumptions about human nature: humans are reasonable creatures who can use their reason to improve their social existence, and humans are concerned with their individual well-being. This social contract, the purpose of it, and the government that follows from it, was to maximize the opportunity for individual self-fulfillment.
Among these individual rights, liberals c...