Tuesday, April 29, 2014

We are an oligarchy, not a democracy

A study entitled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens, by Martin Gilen of Princeton Univ and Benjamin Page of Northwestern Univ., to be published in the Fall issue of Perpectives in Politics, comes to the conclusion that despite the political rhetoric about how America is a democracy, in fact we are really now an oligarchy, in some respects not unlike Russia these days.

This is not surprising; we have known for a long time that wealth buys access and influence in politics (it always has throughout history), and big wealth buys big influence. As the authors say:
"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
It is pretty clear that as long as money is a key factor in political elections, this problem will just get worse (and recent Supreme Court decisions are no help here!). And it is equally clear that the very people who would have to enact campaign reform (politicians) are the very people who have a distinct interest in NOT enacting effective campaign reform. So it is not clear just how this situation can be resolved, short of the sort of mass street demonstrations and civil revolts that have plagued Eastern Europe and the Arab world lately. What would it take to get enough Americans riled up enough to make this happen?
 
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/study-u-s-is-oligarchy-not-republic/#QuT2ZrqEwztZUM6e.99
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/study-u-s-is-oligarchy-not-republic/#QuT2ZrqEwztZUM6e.99

Posted by at