Rousseau actually has a serious answer to this question in On The Social Contract, if you are interested. The short version is that shaping people to consider the general will, roughly here meaning the real public interest, and not their private selfish interest, requires a highly special set of circumstances -- a very small society that has not got too much history of corruption or injustice or inequality, and where the siocial bond is not stretched to point where people in society relate only as strangers.
Modern advocates of the classical Republican (not GOP!) tradition like Cass Sunstein have tried to tell stories about why we might hope that a legislature would behave itself.
jks
--- Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
> Doug wrote:
> >
> "I think this was the guy on CNN last night, and he
> reminded me how
> excellent the jury system is. He was really
> thoughtful, serious, and
> articulate. When The System expects people to act
> that way, they
> really do."
>
> >
> "Mortals immortals, immortals mortals,
> living their deaths, dying their lives"
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 62
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