Princeton study: U.S. is now an oligarchy, not a democracy

[KingOrfeo]

From commondreams.org:

Published on Monday, April 14, 2014 by Common Dreams

US Is an Oligarchy Not a Democracy, says Scientific Study

by Eric Zuesse

A study, to appear in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on Politics, finds that the U.S. is no democracy, but instead an oligarchy, meaning profoundly corrupt, so that the answer to the study’s opening question, "Who governs? Who really rules?" in this country, is:

"Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But, ..." and then they go on to say, it's not true, and that, "America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened" by the findings in this, the first-ever comprehensive scientific study of the subject, which shows that there is instead "the nearly total failure of 'median voter' and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories [of America]. 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."

To put it short: The United States is no democracy, but actually an oligarchy.

The authors of this historically important study are Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, and their article is titled "Testing Theories of American Politics." The authors clarify that the data available are probably under-representing the actual extent of control of the U.S. by the super-rich:

Economic Elite Domination theories do rather well in our analysis, even though our findings probably understate the political influence of elites. Our measure of the preferences of wealthy or elite Americans – though useful, and the best we could generate for a large set of policy cases – is probably less consistent with the relevant preferences than are our measures of the views of ordinary citizens or the alignments of engaged interest groups. Yet we found substantial estimated effects even when using this imperfect measure. The real-world impact of elites upon public policy may be still greater.

Nonetheless, this is the first-ever scientific study of the question of whether the U.S. is a democracy. "Until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions [that U.S. policymaking operates as a democracy, versus as an oligarchy, versus as some mixture of the two] against each other within a single statistical model. This paper reports on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues." That’s an enormous number of policy-issues studied.

What the authors are able to find, despite the deficiencies of the data, is important: the first-ever scientific analysis of whether the U.S. is a democracy, or is instead an oligarchy, or some combination of the two. The clear finding is that the U.S. is an oligarchy, no democratic country, at all. American democracy is a sham, no matter how much it's pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the nation's "news" media). The U.S., in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious "electoral" "democratic" countries. We weren't formerly, but we clearly are now. Today, after this exhaustive analysis of the data, “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” That's it, in a nutshell.

Text of study here, in pdf.


And, DailyKos, reporting on the same study:

In a previous diary penned by HoundDog, which I missed, he revealed the date range for the data set for this study was 1981-2002. Did you catch that, the set of data does not include study beyond 2002, yet the conclusion even then is that we've become an oligarchy. Consider all that's then missing in the equation:

The Iraq War, drones, the 2008 criminally-caused economy crash, the rise of the Kochs, the most obstructive Congress in history, OWS beat down by government proven collusive with the banks, Citizen's United, McCutcheon, Wikipedia's leaks & Manning's torture (arguably), Edward Snowden revelations. Even without the rigors of research, it would be obvious to conclude that 2002 compared to today was practically a majoritarian paradise. It boggles the mind and fuels the urgency of the issue.

 

[Ldy_Sea]

The US was never a Democracy...hence "I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America, AND TO THE REPUBLIC..."

Makes the whole study wrong when it misidentifies a republic as a democracy.

http://www.1215.org/lawnotes/lawnotes/repvsdem.htm

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

What do you think guys such as Byron and myself have been saying for the past several years...


Now the media that supports the Oligarchy is all fired up on the prospect of Clinton V Bush in 2016.





This is why the Founders wanted the power at the State and not the Federal level, but in the name of Progressive Altruism, one party in this country has worked ceaselessly to turn the Constitution into a Charter of Positive Liberties and with each and every gain via "Democracy" (that pernicious evil) they force the other party to play me-too so that they are not cast in the role of the party wanting to take the "rights" of the mob away from them. We keep telling you how it ends, but with each new "right," regulation and Tax, the beautiful people look around and proclaim, "It hasn't happened yet(i.e., you're wrong and we're right, we've evolved, you're still 20th Century)."

 

[oggbashan]

The US was always an oligarchy, from the time of the Founding Fathers. They weren't impoverished peons, but men of wealth - which meant influence.

They patterned the US Constitution on the best of the UK's - but the UK was also an oligarchy. It still is.

The democratic vote, and it doesn't matter whether that vote is in a republic or a constitutional monarchy, has very little influence on the particular group(s) of people who govern the country.

In the US, they might claim to be Republicans or Democrats, but they are just the elite, funded by, and protecting, other elites.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The US was always an oligarchy, from the time of the Founding Fathers. They weren't impoverished peons, but men of wealth - which meant influence.

They patterned the US Constitution on the best of the UK's - but the UK was also an oligarchy. It still is.

The democratic vote, and it doesn't matter whether that vote is in a republic or a constitutional monarchy, has very little influence on the particular group(s) of people who govern the country.

In the US, they might claim to be Republicans or Democrats, but they are just the elite, funded by, and protecting, other elites.

You might want to do a little study on what happened to the wealth of the men who engaged in the revolution...



For the most part, it was a revolution of the Middle Class, as most of them are; the rich tend to want to keep the status quo while the poor are absorbed with their quest for their daily bread. [As per Anatomy of Revolution]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/the_republic_if_we_can_keep_it.html

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Addendum: The Middle Class tends to revolt when it perceives a threat to its upward mobility, which should serve as a warning to Washington (as does Bundy), but in their magnificence and myopic omniscience, they will ignore and dismiss as being of no serious consequence, after all, like the British before, they control the army and best weapons..

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The mob or the aristocracy.

But theres a 3rd way: Steward your best interests.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The funny part is, Princeton is a feeder school for the Oligarchy...

 

[jeninflorida]

Clearly we must export the obama kind

 

[KingOrfeo]

The US was never a Democracy...hence "I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America, AND TO THE REPUBLIC..."

Yes, a democratic republic, that's what the U.S. is supposed to be. As opposed to an aristocratic republic, like the Roman Republic, or the old Venetian Republic where only the nobility of the Golden Book could vote, or, well, the U.S. as it is now.

 

[KingOrfeo]

The mob or the aristocracy.

But theres a 3rd way: Steward your best interests.

That is not a third way, it's just a way of getting along within either of the other two.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Funny thing, when American conservatives say "This is a republic, not a democracy!" they usually mean "This is a federal state, not a unitary state!" which is really a very different distinction. Usually they mean that, but not always, it can get confusing. Sometimes they seem to mean that universal equal suffrage is not essential to our republican system. Lurking on Free Republic I've actually seen proposals for reviving property qualifications to vote, and H.L. Hunt wanted your vote weighted in proportion to your income/assets.

 

[Skiddles2014]

I didn't know that oligarchy meant cesspool.

 

[dan_c00000]

Figure 1 on page 29 is a good example of how the elite's needs are being met while the average person gets nothing. Also below that is how interest groups often get their way as well.

I haven't read the whole thing yet but their paper points out a sad reality: this a self-perpetuating cycle. Decisions like Citizen's United lead to decisions like McCutcheon which leads to rich assholes like Sheldon Adelson deciding who gets to be the GOP nominee for President.

 

[eyer]

Yes, a democratic republic, that's what the U.S. is supposed to be. As opposed to an aristocratic republic, like the Roman Republic, or the old Venetian Republic where only the nobility of the Golden Book could vote, or, well, the U.S. as it is now.

As usual, your obsession with socialism blinds you to truth...

...the United States of America was succinctly created by Congress to be a constitutional republic - your "supposed" bullcrap aside.

When you and the rest of your fellow lemmings succeed in completely empowering government unconstitutionally...

...then you can toss your "democratic" crap against the wall all you want, with a hint of practical hope it may just stick.

Funny thing, when American conservatives say "This is a republic, not a democracy!" they usually mean "This is a federal state, not a unitary state!" which is really a very different distinction.

Chronic generalization is your manna from utopia...

...funny, isn't it, that instead of your "This is a federal state" crap, a bunch of who you amateurishly tag as "conservatives" today are clamoring for the upholding of the Constitution's clear separation of enumerated powers between your "federal state" and the States themselves.

That fact alone completely destroys your entire, erroneous, pop thesis...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

That is not a third way, it's just a way of getting along within either of the other two.

Its about who's driving your bus.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Its about who's driving your bus.

Oh, well, then, the answer to that question is, not you, ever, and there's nothing you can do about that.

 

[KingOrfeo]

...funny, isn't it, that instead of your "This is a federal state" crap, a bunch of who you amateurishly tag as "conservatives" today are clamoring for the upholding of the Constitution's clear separation of enumerated powers between your "federal state" and the States themselves.

You misunderstand. By "federal state" I did not mean the federal government, I meant the United States of America, which is a federal state, as opposed to a unitary state like France. And it is the conservatives, isn't it, who are most concerned with keeping it that way?

 

[KingOrfeo]

As usual, your obsession with socialism blinds you to truth...

...the United States of America was succinctly created by Congress to be a constitutional republic - your "supposed" bullcrap aside.

A constitutional republic can still be a democratic one, as opposed to an aristocratic one. No, the FFs might not have had a democratic republic in mind, but America made a collective decision on that point in the early 19th Century when property qualifications for voting were everywhere abolished, and America is "supposed to be" a democratic republic based on that history. The "one man, one vote" principle is now so firmly embedded in our system that it formed the basis of Baker v. Carr. Jeez, how can you be so ignorant of all this? I learned in high school!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It is nice to know that Princeton is now confirming that I was ahead of the curve.



Goodbye Mr. Spalding!






You don't know me but you make me so happy!
I know you'll think I'm like the others before
Who saw your name and number on the wall..

 

[KingOrfeo]

I didn't know that oligarchy meant cesspool.

Historically, it usually does.

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

Course, all of the above doesn't give you a right to the property owners property.

That would be a completely different discussion.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

What do you think guys such as Byron and myself have been saying for the past several years...


Now the media that supports the Oligarchy is all fired up on the prospect of Clinton V Bush in 2016.





This is why the Founders wanted the power at the State and not the Federal level, but in the name of Progressive Altruism, one party in this country has worked ceaselessly to turn the Constitution into a Charter of Positive Liberties and with each and every gain via "Democracy" (that pernicious evil) they force the other party to play me-too so that they are not cast in the role of the party wanting to take the "rights" of the mob away from them. We keep telling you how it ends, but with each new "right," regulation and Tax, the beautiful people look around and proclaim, "It hasn't happened yet(i.e., you're wrong and we're right, we've evolved, you're still 20th Century)."

Justa bump (on the 45).

 

[eyer]

You misunderstand. By "federal state" I did not mean the federal government, I meant the United States of America, which is a federal state, as opposed to a unitary state like France. And it is the conservatives, isn't it, who are most concerned with keeping it that way?

I misunderstand nothing, you socialist-wannabe piece of sh!t...

...only in a starving statist mind as your own can the United States of America be disingenuously termed "a federal state".

By the supreme law of the land - the Constitution for the United States of America - this great nation is constituted of one federal government, the individual governments of the varied states, and the People....

...each one of those individual entities' powers endowed by the Constitution (whether positively or negatively) are specifically enumerated therein, with Congress-then-assembled intentionally and greatly limiting the powers of the new federal government so as to reserve inalienable powers to the-then-not-yet states. And to specifically grant the People their unalienable right as liberty-loving individuals to overthrow that federal government when it is deemed by the People it no longer serves the principles of a free people.

No...

...your totalitarian "federal state" is simply what common criminals against individual liberty strive for under the banner of your United Socialist State of America.