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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.
Benjamin Franklin chose his words well.
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.
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.
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
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.
"...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 !