1. Faction is a group of people united by the same economic interest. Based on everything we covered in the course, faction reminds me of the social class conflict, specifically the relationship between the owning class and the working class. The owning class, the people who own the means of production and live off of M-C-M’, have one set of interests. The working class, the people who sell their labor power just to survive and never see the surplus value they create, have the complete opposite interests.

2. According to James Madison in Federalist #10 the source of wealth and private property comes down to faculties, meaning the natural abilities and talents people are born with. He is saying that because people are born with different abilities some naturally end up owning more property than others and that explains why some people are wealthy and others are poor. This mindset shows how the authors of the Constitution thought about class differences. To them inequality between the owning class and the working class is not a product of their exploitation or the systems they created, but about one’s intelligence, genetics and race.

3. I completely disagree with this explanation of wealth and poverty. We now know that wealth comes from extracting surplus value from workers, not from being naturally more gifted. The working class is not poor because they lack talent, they are poor because the owning class keeps the extra value that workers create but never get paid for. James Madison’s explanation of faculties is essentially political rhetoric that makes the gap between the owning class and the working class look natural and inevitable instead of something that is manufactured and maintained through exploitation.

4. According to Federalist #10 the first object of government is to protect the unequal faculties of acquiring property, meaning the number one job of the government is to protect the owning class and their wealth. This is completely different from what we are taught today. It’s my belief that most white Americans grow up believing the government exists to serve them equally and act as a neutral referee, but not Black people. I believe Black people have always felt left out of the government’s protection and history proves that from slavery to Jim Crow to present day. But when you connect it back to everything we learned about social class it is not surprising at all. The people who wrote the Constitution were the owning class and they designed a government that would protect their ability to keep extracting surplus value from the working class. So it makes sense that the government was never meant to work for everyone, that is just the rhetoric. The first object was always protecting wealth and property and honestly it is evident that has not changed. Billionaires get tax cuts and bailouts while working class Americans drowning in debt get foreclosed homes and repossessed cars.

5. I am not surprised at all that Federalist #10 is not in favor of democracy, and supports a Republican form of government. Once you understand everything we have learned this semester it all connects. From the political rhetoric used to disguise class conflict and racism, to the relationship between the owning class and the working class, and present day wealth inequality, it all tells the same story. America was built on extracting the labor of others for cheap or free and the entire government system was designed to keep that going. A pure democracy would never work for the owning class because that would mean the working class majority actually gets an equal say. And if the working class majority had real power they would vote to cancel debts, redistribute wealth and create a fair playing field. That would completely dismantle the M-C-M’ cycle that keeps the owning class wealthy. So of course Federalist #10 was against pure democracy. Democracy meant the people they were exploiting could outvote them and take back what was taken from them. The republic they designed was never about fairness. It was about maintaining the appearance of fairness while making sure the owning class stayed in control. So to end, James Madison was in favor of a republic because he was a member of the owning class and it was in his best interest to protect his wealth, not look out for the poor, whom he conveniently blamed on their own faculties.