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Study Finds US Is an Oligarchy, Not a Democracy
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from Princeton University and Northwestern University have concluded, after extensive analysis of 1,779 policy issues, that the U.S. is in fact an oligarchy and not a democracy. What this means is that, although 'Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance,' 'majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts.' Their study (PDF), to be published in Perspectives on Politics, found that 'When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.'"
You lift the limits on campaign spending, declare that corporations have the right of political speech and are now surprised that the rich people have all the say?
I have no sympathy. In fact, many of you cheered it as a sign of greatness and freedom that America was doing this. Your allies, however, were fucking appalled. Let
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
It took a study to figure that out?
Does this give us a free pass to revolt now?
I do believe the founding fathers would like it that way.. if the government isn't right, take up arms, overthrow it, and put it back the right way.
Australia? hardly. We exported Rupert, remember.
Try our neighbours across the Tasman Sea.
Benjamin Franklin chose his words well.
Even in our (Australia's) supposedly modern democracy, politicians can say anything at all to get elected and can't be held to it once they are. And once they're in they can hide behind things like parliamentary privelege and say anything they like without having to prove it's true.
There is NO true democracy anywhere in the world as far as I know.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
Countries that describe themselves as democratic republics generally aren't very good at either.
You think Australia is free? Hahahaha! As If!
We've got Bush 3.0 and some Tea Party rejects running the show down here, tearing everything positive and egalitarian down, selling off all of the public's assets, repealing racial discrimination laws, telling bald faced lies to the public and getting away with it because the media is complicit.
We're just a cheap copy of you guys now, the closest thing to freedom is in the Scandinavian countries I'd say.
The original paper is an interesting approach to studying power balances.
The summary is puerile flamebait.
The actual conclusion of the paper is simply that the power in government is not concentrated in massive grassroots organizations or in direct electoral representation, but rather it is concentrated in the small-but-vocal interest groups and economically influential individuals. In other words, causes, no matter how big, don't really get power until they can pay enough to be taken seriously. That might mean lobbying, marketing, or awareness campaigns, but it still takes money to look like your cause has merit.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Is that it's time to start killing our way through politicians until we find some who are properly terrified of the general populace enough to actually simulate honesty and do their job with minimal graft and corruption.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I learnt an interesting political lesson on my Commodore 64 back in the day.
There was this political sim called "Tyrant" (ancient descendant of Tropico, or civilisation), and you played as the dictator of a communist state.
It was a pretty hard game, as most times the state would collapse and there'd be a revolution.
Eventually, after playing it long enough I managed to find the one way to prevent that state from ever collapsing and have it eternally make money.
Firstly, you had to invade all the surrounding countries and smash external threats.
Then you convert to a democracy and install elections.
Then you generate lots and lots of jobs for people in the secret police
Then you brainwash the populace with masses spent on election funding.
With the population happy and brainwashed, you could raise the tax rate through the roof and no-one would care... also thanks to the huge secret police force they would turn on each other instead of resist the ridiculous taxation and the root cause of said taxation (thanks to election brainwashing)
Does this sound familiar?
It was kinda fun for a buggy BASIC program.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
In Sydney we just arrested the State Premier for corruption over a bottle of wine. The system works. The Prime minister is not above the law in Australia. Something that the USA has never managed to sort out with their corrupt system. Nixon should have been jailed, but really the rot had started to set in long before then. The Greens in Australia are a credible threat to the Liberal and Labor parties. Unlike America, where there is no alternative political movement that can ever get into office. The minor parties in Australia actually get to set policy and ensure that the average person retains a speaking voice in our government.
Try the Scandinavian countries instead.
Yes, we have elected a terrible government. However, there will be a massive voter backlash at the next election. Also, the government hasn't been able to pass all the legislation it wants because it is being blocked by minor parties in the senate. The fact is the majority of Australians voted for a shit government and that's what they're getting. They will however be stopped at the next election now that everyone realises just how terrible this government is. My sister is on $150k+ and even she hates the current government. The Liberal party is about to get smacked down for their arrogance and bad policy.
It is indeed a constitutional republic. It is also a representative democracy. Apparently you can be both.
You can have a meaningful election. In almost all cases there are more than two boxes to check. For a change do not check the first two. Changing America can be quite simple, the first step is to get out of the current gridlock by introducing more parties and actual politics. I america the entire political spectrum is concentrated in two parties. For example the Tea Party, that is not a party they are Republicans! Why?! I don't agree with them, fine but they could do the first step and found an actual party that would fracture the political spectrum. But alas, the average American is to narrow minded fore more than two parties.
You know, I think the surest way to keep politicians semi-honest is to have a multi-party system and its corollary, the minority government. Just in my own lifetime I've seen a prairie protest party (Social Credit by name, not nature) disappear, a major party on the right (Progressive Conservative) go from the largest parliamentary majority ever to extinction, a party that wants to break the country in two become the Official Opposition, another prairie protest party on the right (Reform) try to take national power, a socialist party (NDP) go from perennial third or fourth party status to being the Official Opposition, Canada's other major party, the Liberals, drop down to a poor third, the party on the right reconstitute itself, the Green Party get a member in parliament for the first time... And I'm simplifying. New parties are always bubbling up, and the three biggest parties go up and down and sometimes disappear.
Nothing keeps the rascals on their toes like fear of the electorate.
-Gareth
According to the Democracy Index which attempts to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, Norway comes up on top as the most democratic country in the world, followed by Sweden, Iceland and Denmark. Australia is in 6th place and the US comes in at 21. North Korea is (no surprise here) at the bottom and Russia was recently downgraded to an authoritarian regime.
The US structurally still remains a republic (not a democracy).
However - when people are too ignorant to cast an educated vote, the result can mirror one found with a structural oligarchy - but to imply then that the US is somehow thus structurally transformed to an oligarchy is wrong headed.
A consequence of truly free society is that you are free to give up your freedom to someone else - either explicitly or through complacency.
You can't fix stupid.
The US of A has NEVER been a Democracy, Our founding fathers knew that a Democracy was not the way to do proper government and framed what we are today called a Constitutional Republic. What we have now is a twisted mess of a government that is controlled by the money not the people that it was intended to be controlled by.
Oh crying out loud, not this shit again? No wonder your country is so messed up. You are confusing structure with whether your representatives are elected democratically or not. China is a constitutional Republic as are a bunch of other republics around the world. You are confusing the structure of a government with how it is elected. There are various types of forms of government such as Republics, Parliamentary Systems and Parliamentary Republics. Some are partially democratic, completely democratic or undemocratic.
See:
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Republics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
Finland is an example of a Parliamentary republic because it has an elected President as head of state and a unicameral parliament with a Prime Minister. Canada is an example of a Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy where the Queen is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the leader of the winning party of parliamentary elections.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
...most of the voters don't give a F, and therefore don't vote.
Rectification of this abomination may eventually take those millions of guns that exist in American society for exactly that purpose, although I'd like to think that there is some other way. The Article V constitutional convention that is being proposed by certain states may be able to tackle this, dunno. But the gov't doesn't do what's good for the people, that can be seen in our unemployment stats and so forth.
Carter was the last President; after him, it has been a complete sham. One reason he had it so bad is because he went up stream against a system that was near death.
You only have power in a corrupt system as long as you go with the flow; it's empty power but it is enough to still attract tools. Like a C or B movie villain's 2nd in command, the second he falls out of line all that power does nothing to stop a dramatic (and cliche) example from being made of them.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
As usual. It implies that the views of 'average Americans' are abrogated by the economic elite. As the PDF clearly states on page 14 "It turns out, in fact, that the preferences of average citizens are positively and fairly highly correlated, across issues, with the preferences of the economic elites." It also turns out that the paper defines 'average American' as someone at the 50% income level, and 'economic elite' as someone at the 90% income level or above, which works out to $146,000. The paper than argues that this 'elite' population fairly represents the truly elite (the top 2%) based on 13 policy preference questions--which aren't listed in the paper--with a correlation of r=0.91 vs a correlation of r=0.69 for the 'average' population.
Sorry. There ain't nothing in this paper about the Koch brothers, Soros, Oprah, Bill Gates, or any of your other favorite elites. This is all about Joe the Plumber vs your mid-level Google executive.
So how does the paper define the views of the 'average American'? Well, on page 15, there's this "Some particular U.S. membership organizations--especially the AARP and labor unions--do tend to favor the same policies as average citizens. But other membership groups take stands that are unrelated (pro-life and pro-choice groups) or negatively related (gun owners) to what the average American wants." A footnote 40 then directs you to another paper by one of the same authors, presumably for the corroborating data.
Finally, on page 18, we encounter this: "Because of the impediments to majority rule that were deliberately built into the U.S. political system--federalism, separation of powers, bicameralism--together with further impediments due to anti-majoritarian congressional rules and procedures, the system has a substantial status quo bias. Thus when popular majorities favor the status quo, opposing a given policy change, they are likely to get their way; but when a majority--even a very large majority--of the public favors change, it is not likely to get what it wants."
In other words, here's the real summary: "Elite academic researchers at elite universities have conducted a study in which they find that the constitutional system put in place by the founders of the republic to prevent mob rule is thwarting their elite progressive agenda by working as intended. Oh, and throwing a lot of money around and making noise tends to draw attention to your cause, particularly when it aligns with the majority view, which it does most of the time."
Nothing to see here. Move on.
I am feeling very privileged to live in a direct democracy, the country is very small and is called Switzerland. We do have 2 instruments to keep our Politicians behaving and represent the people:
1) Referendum: if we don't like what our policy makers have enacted, we can collect 50'000 signatures and the people have to vote on it
2) Initiative: Our policy makers don't want to take care of a certain topic? we, the poeple will vote on it after collecting 100'000 signatures.
It's not a perfect system and it might not work in larger countries on national level, because it is a somewhat slow process to find consensus. However, only the thought alone that politicians' decisions could be overthrown by the people helps keeping them thinking twice what to support and do.
Best
-S
Not just the USA. Pretty sure boring old Canada is as well. And Quebec, and Montreal, and my condo. Just the way it really is. Pane et Circem.
Mostly random stuff.
When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for,
I'm curious about what "organized interest groups" were "controlled for". Did that include things like the AARP and the NRA, the two largest public pressure groups in the country? How about the various organizations called The Tea Party?
When a lot of people at the grass roots level want to redirect the government, they often join together and form orgizations to lobby for their interests. These groups are generally what gets things done. If the study counts such organizations as "organized interest groups" and subtracts their policy impact from the impact of the "Average American", it's no wonder the latter's impact is measured as " minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant".
Also: What counts as the policy desires of the "Average American"? Are they averaging out people with opposing oppinions on government policy?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Not only is the president immune from prosecution given the Nixon example, but none of the bank managers, presidents or CEO's were ever jailed for causing the last financial disaster. That if nothing else proves that the US is an Oligarchy.
Ahhh America, Rome 2.0. Now I just wonder who will be our Marius to kickstart our whole no limitations on terms, and Augustus to finally rule on us as princeps and make the transition from republic to empire official...
I love to slaughter the english language.
Perhaps it's time for a constitutional amendment.
In times of past, when it took weeks and months to communicate between far away places (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles) it made sense to structure the political organization of this country as a railroad organization. Today, it does not.
What we need to do is simple: We need to define, in simple print, that corporate fictions are not in fact citizens, and as such, do not have political freedoms or civil rights as such.
The concept if a corporate fiction as a person is a bit ridiculous anyway. A corporation can engage in activities that kill people (against the law) but they cannot be imprisoned. Finding General Motors (say) criminally liable for something that they have done corporately is a joke. They are already immune from such prosecution and bringing criminal charges that stick against board members or management is a very difficult thing.
If corporate entities cannot participate in the democratic process; there is no proxy for voting in a general election. We should formalize this and extend it so that corporate fictions simply cannot make political contributions of any size whatsoever. If management has strong political feelings, let the members make a personal contribution in their own name and not from corporate funds. If a CEO wants to contribute millions to a political candidate, well, they're paid enough to write the check. If a corporation feels strongly about a political issue, they can encourage (but not require) that their employees write their own checks to whatever political cause is extant. A vote, and a political contribution, should only be permitted to come from someone who can be demonstrated to be a living, breathing person and not some vacuous entity dreamed up by invisible attorneys.
This moves us back to the "one man, one vote" ideal our forefathers envisioned. Right now, we're moving ever closer to merchantilism and "One Dollar, One Vote" -- which, in my humble opinion, is not a good thing at all.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
It would be nice to see some practical proposals that could be implemented to remedy this.
Anyone that has had any real American history education knows this. Back in the 80's when I was in college that was taught to us in the American history classes, it was intentionally built that way. Just like how the founding fathers did not do all that Independence stuff out of the goodness of their heart, all of there were filthy wealthy and were trying like hell to protect their wealth.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Do you really think Citizens United magically transformed the U.S.? Really?
The House of Representatives has been frozen in size since 1910.
Since 1913:
- The IRS has eminent domain over your wallet.
- Your state, as such, is essentially voiceless in DC, now that Senators represent their parties.
- The federal government just borrows it forward to inflate the stock market and bind future generations in debt.
Blame Progressivism? Darn right I do.
Folks, it's time for a http://conventionofstates.com/
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Given the choice, hung - any day of the week.
Oh, you meant hanged. Nevermind.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Another important frame: Pro Life! Abortion is bad, because it undermines the power of the father in the family. When a teenager becomes pregnant, it's her own fault, and she should live with the consequences. She didn't listen to her father, who is the moral authority and who decides what's good and what't wrong. When an adult woman decides to have an abortion because she wants to work on her career, she undermines this strict-father-morale as well. A career is not for women - they should stay at home and raise the children. Pro Life is not about life, it's about male dominance. Pro Life is not about the life of that baby - they don't care about that baby that probably would have little value to them. Pro Life is not about life, because it's OK to physically attack and occasionally kill people who work at abortion clinics. Casualties of war!
This doesn't seem right. I'm not familiar with pro-life rhetoric being about abortion undermining patriarchal power in the family, usually it seems to be a general attack on women, often no different than opposition to contraception. Usually it seems to be about undermining female sexuality by increasing pregnancy risk, which may affect patriarchal authority coincidentally but not specifically. The other angle seems to be a more general cultural conservatism that sees non-reproductive sexuality as a general contributor to moral decline -- with pregnancy as a non-risk (through contraception and abortion), there's no reason for marriage as a necessity for sexuality since there is no pregnancy.
I think it's even been argued that contraception and abortion actually contribute to male promiscuity since they also free men from the responsibility burden of pregnancy. It wouldn't surprise me if this doesn't tie into some radical feminist critiques of contraception/abortion as having an inherently patriarchal nature, since it eliminates any male responsibility for their sexuality and reduces women's value to that of merely a transactional sexual partner at best When the classist and gender discriminatory nature of economic relations is taken into account, women are further reduced to near-prostitute status, being obligated by both economy and lack of male sexual accountability. Of course I'm not advocating this as being true, but it's not hard to tie it together with this kind of rhetoric.
"...because the politicians do, as you say, simply have to FRAME a proposal in language which RESONATES with the worldview of the people being targeted..."
Sadly, you do not know the US of A.
The politicians inside the United States of America do not need to frame any proposal to the people, all the need to do to get anything done is to use their influence to rally a portion of semi-elites to his or her cause, and through the butterfly effect , it is done.
Case in point - United States attacking Iraq
When George Bush decides to attack Iraq, he did not need to get the approval from the Americans. All he did was to rally the world community (elites from different countries) to his cause, and when he got the support, off goes the Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
I was from China, and I still remember how hard the Chinese Communist Party had to rally their own people to support their decision to send troops into Korea to fight the Korean war.
In contrast to what George Bush did - the Chinese government, under Mao, almost tapped into all the resources it could muster, to get the people into the mood.
In a way, at least back in the time of the Korean War, the Communist government which rule China was more attuned to their own people, than George Bush, to the Americans.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
You should see a doctor about that.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I mostly agree, except this didn't start after World War I. The first things the founders did was restrict who could and couldn't vote. White male landowners. And in many places there was a wealth tax requirement to hold office. If you didn't have 1,000 pounds of wealth, you couldn't hold office in some states. Voting was effectively restricted to the top 10% of society, and holding office was for the 1%.
And there really was never a time when the working class wasn't being exploited. There were strikes and riots all through the 1800s, complete with harsh crackdowns by the national guard and private police forces. The robber barons of the gilded age were made fantastically wealthy on the backs of the poor. Things got briefly better thanks to the rise of unions in the first half of the 20th century, but we've been backsliding ever since Reagan.
Class warfare started the day one man said to another, "here's a boot, go stomp on that guy's face and I'll make things a little better for you," and it hasn't stopped yet. It will never stop until the last king and the last capitalist swing from a rope.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The Chinese are always, and have been, very concern to what is happening in China.
Even me, a Chinese, who ran away from China when I was very young, and ended up in America and stayed in America for a few decades, still in my spare time, check out what is going on in China.
The "nationalistic" phenomenon for the Chinese people ebbs and flows - it happened back in WW2, when the Japanese invaded China, it happened again during the Korean war, and for a while, in between the Korean war until recently, most Chinese prefer to focus their attention towards themselves.
At first it was for survival, as China under the tutelage of Mao, landed itself in a seemingly endless episodes of man-made disasters. Famines that took away the lives of millions happened. Cannibalism happened, cultural revolution happened, intellectuals were driven to madness and/or suicide happened, and so on...
When Deng took over in the late 1970's, economically speaking China became better. The Chinese people turned towards making money.
That lasted for almost 40 years, and the economy of China has started to flatline, people are getting laid off (and young university graduates couldn't find jobs).
To allay the pent-up anger, the CCP, under the Xi-Li pair, opted for the "nationalistic" approach.
And that coincides with the provocations from Japan. With more and more provocations from Japan, the fuel for the fire of nationalism multiplied.
You gotta understand that the Chinese people, until today, can *NOT* forgive what the Japanese did to them, back in the WW2. That is because, unlike the Germans who issued public apologies to their victims (particularly Jews and Gypsies), the Japanese refused to apologize for the carnage they had done in China.
That bad blood in between the Japanese and Chinese is now exposed in the open.
The CCP of course, ain't stupid. They fully utilize the follies from Japan to add fuel to the nationalism fervor.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !