http://www.policymic.com/articles/87719/princeton-concludes-what-kind-of-government-america-really-has-and-it-s-not-a-democracy
[links and images in on-line article]
Princeton Concludes What Kind of Government America Really Has, and It's
Not a Democracy
By Tom McKay 2014-04-16
The news: A new scientific study from Princeton researchers Martin
Gilens and Benjamin I. Page has finally put some science behind the
recently popular argument that the United States isn't a democracy any
more. And they've found that in fact, America is basically an oligarchy.
An oligarchy is a system where power is effectively wielded by a small
number of individuals defined by their status called oligarchs. Members
of the oligarchy are the rich, the well connected and the politically
powerful, as well as particularly well placed individuals in
institutions like banking and finance or the military.
For their study, Gilens and Page compiled data from roughly 1,800
different policy initiatives in the years between 1981 and 2002. They
then compared those policy changes with the expressed opinion of the
United State public. Comparing the preferences of the average American
at the 50th percentile of income to what those Americans at the 90th
percentile preferred, as well as the opinions of major lobbying or
business groups, the researchers found out that the government followed
the directives set forth by the latter two much more often.
It's beyond alarming. As Gilens and Page write, "the preferences of the
average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero,
statistically non-significant impact upon public policy." In other
words, their statistics say your opinion literally does not matter.
That might explain why mandatory background checks on gun sales
supported by 83% to 91% of Americans aren't in place, or why Congress
has taken no action on greenhouse gas emissions even when such
legislation is supported by the vast majority of citizens.
This problem has been steadily escalating for four decades. While there
are some limitations to their data set, economists Thomas Piketty and
Emmanuel Saez constructed income statistics based on IRS data that go
back to 1913. They found that the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the
rest of us is much bigger than you would think, as mapped by these
graphs from the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities:
Piketty and Saez also calculated that as of September 2013 the top 1% of
earners had captured 95% of all income gains since the Great Recession
ended. The other 99% saw a net 12% drop to their income. So not only is
oligarchy making the rich richer, it's driving policy that's made
everyone else poorer.
What kind of oligarchy? As Gawker's Hamilton Nolan explains, Gilens and
Page's findings provide support for two theories of governance: economic
elite domination and biased pluralism. The first is pretty
straightforward and states that the ultra-wealthy wield all the power in
a given system, though some argue that this system still allows elites
in corporations and the government to become powerful as well. Here,
power does not necessarily derive from wealth, but those in power almost
invariably come from the upper class. Biased pluralism on the other hand
argues that the entire system is a mess and interest groups ruled by
elites are fighting for dominance of the political process. Also,
because of their vast wealth of resources, interest groups of large
business tend to dominate a lot of the discourse. America, the findings
indicate, tends towards either of these much more than anything close to
what we call "democracy."
In either case, the result is the same: Big corporations, the
ultra-wealthy and special interests with a lot of money and power
essentially make all of the decisions. Citizens wield little to no
political power. America, the findings indicate, tends towards either of
these much more than anything close to what we call "democracy" —
systems such as majoritarian electoral democracy or majoritarian
pluralism, under which the policy choices pursued by the government
would reflect the opinions of the governed.
Nothing new: And no, this isn't a problem that's the result of any
recent Supreme Court cases — at least certainly not the likes FEC v.
Citizens United or FEC v. McCutcheon. The data is pretty clear that
America has been sliding steadily into oligarchy for decades, mirrored
in both the substantive effect on policy and in the distribution of
wealth throughout the U.S. But cases like those might indicate the
process is accelerating.
"Perhaps economic elites and interest group leaders enjoy greater policy
expertise than the average citizen does," Gilens and Page write.
"Perhaps they know better which policies will benefit everyone, and
perhaps they seek the common good, rather than selfish ends, when
deciding which policies to support.
"But we tend to doubt it."
_______________________________________________
Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list
Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
