Selfishness rules

Democracies came to be based on a balanced view of human nature; people are by nature selfish but self-government is possible because we are wise enough to restrain and control that selfishness.

James Madison, one of the founding fathers of American democracy, saw the frailty which threatened but also the countervailing qualities which could prevent disaster: “As there is a degree of depravity in mankind, which requires a certain degree of circumspection