According to “Publius” in The Federalist Papers, a faction is “A number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or a majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” These factions are adverse to the will of another group or the common good.

Factions are smaller than Interest Groups and are generally seeking more power or benefits, whereas Interest Groups focus on issues, and political Parties are organized to win elections and determine policy.

Publius identifies unequal distribution of property (wealth) as the main source of factions because he believes that people who don’t own property don’t have as big a stake in a stable, prosperous community – have no distinct interest in society. This is one of the reasons Publius saw direct democracy as a danger to individual rights, and instead advocated a Republic.

There are only two ways a faction can be controlled, according to Publius: remove them – eliminate them from society; or control them by making the Central Government a republic based on the principle of majority rule , thereby making the federal bureaucracy large enough so that no single faction can prevail.

Publius would be rightly appalled at the prevalence of what he would consider factions in control of our present system of government, including the undue influence of Citizens United on the creation of policy and the very existence of political parties. The question of whether these factions are adequately controlled is open to debate.

In many ways, these outside factions – corporate interests – are responsible for initiating and writing most of our laws, which can’t be a good thing – and Publius would agree.

These factions have little concern for the general well-being of the average citizen. Mega-corporations and wealthy foundations are able to pass legislation which will benefit their shareholders – increasing their profits to the detriment of everyone else – by controlling the politicians in charge of regulating those industries. It’s called lobbying, but it’s really just legalized bribery.

The average citizen obviously cannot afford this same kind of access.

The safeguards placed in the Constitution do not go far enough to protect the interests of The People in my opinion, and they should be restructured to eliminate the sort of revolving door politics which this activity encourages.