Harvard study: America is an oligarchy
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, June 2, 2024 12:59
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Long is the way & hard that out of Feudalism leads up to Equality.
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
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Quote:We're back to robber barons, again. Literally. They really don't give a fuck. They'll be long dead when their equally psychotic kids inherit basically all their wealth.
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
Long is the way & hard that out of Feudalism leads up to Equality.
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
There was a time when inheritance laws prevented "royal families," but no more.
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Quote:Welcome to the New World (old world) Capitalism.
Originally posted by reaverfan:
We're back to robber barons, again. Literally. They really don't give a fuck. They'll be long dead when their equally psychotic kids inherit basically all their wealth.
There was a time when inheritance laws prevented "royal families," but no more.
It's good to be the King.
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Couple of things.
First, its a Princeton and Northwestern study.
Second, the folks at Princeton, Northwestern, and Harvard, when asked about the study's conclusion that America is an oligarchy, all responded, "Yes. And we like it that way."
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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Quote:We're back to robber barons, again. Literally. They really don't give a fuck. They'll be long dead when their equally psychotic kids inherit basically all their wealth.
Originally posted by reaverfan:Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
Long is the way & hard that out of Feudalism leads up to Equality.
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
There was a time when inheritance laws prevented "royal families," but no more.
Ah, inheritance laws. You, of course, mean the "death tax", as it's "Rightly" known, don't you?
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Cite?
Originally posted by Geezer:
Second, the folks at Princeton, Northwestern, and Harvard, when asked about the study's conclusion that America is an oligarchy, all responded, "Yes. And we like it that way."
To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. - Thomas Paine The American Crisis
OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.
"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."
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Oh, yeah- PRINCETON not Harvard. It's hard to keep those Ivy League schools straight! Those rich people and their institutions ... they all look alike to me. 
Those who read the paper title, roll their eyes and think "Yeah, yeah... tell me something I DON'T know" are missing some interesting points.
Who decides in America? has been the topic of many books, stories, theories, case studies and other papers. But none of them have had a large data set and looked comprehensively at one group's role versus another's.
According to this paper, the potential decision-makers fall into four categories/processes (according to previous work):
1) Majoritarian electoral democracy- where the majority of individuals decide on policy by electing politicians who represent their interests
2) Economic elite domination- where the very highest elites decide on policy, either because politicians tend to be from the economic elite themselves, or because of person-to-person gifts or influence. (This paper focuses on economic elites, not social elites or those in positions of "influence")
3) Majoritarian pluralism - where all kinds of people influence policy through interest groups and lobbyists: business groups, professional groups, think tanks, labor unions, AARP, NRA, pro-life groups, etc.
4) Biased pluralism- is like the above, but biased to favor the wealthier groups such as chambers of commerce, banking groups, etc.
This study used a total of 1799 policy changes, which were selected because they had national surveys which represented pro/con choices, were related to specific Federal action, and also had respondents' income breakdown. Looking at who influences policy...
Quote:
when all three independent variables are included in the multivariate Model 4 and tested against each other. The estimated impact of average citizens’ preferences drops precipitously, to a non-significant, near-zero level. Clearly the median citizen or “median voter” at the heart of theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy does not do well when put up against economic elites and organized interest groups.
So, average citizen bats ZERO.
Quote:
By contrast, economic elites are estimated to have a quite substantial, highly significant, independent impact on policy. This does not mean that theories of Economic Elite Domination are wholly upheld, since our results indicate that individual elites must share their policy influence with organized interest groups. Still, economic elites stand out as quite influential –more so than any other set of actors studied here – in the making of U.S. public policy.
Quote:
the system has a substantial status quo bias ... normative advocates of populistic democracy may not be enthusiastic about democracy by coincidence, in which ordinary citizens get what they want from government only when they happen to agree with elites or interest groups that are really calling the shots. When push comes to shove, actual influence matters.
and
Quote:
the predictions of Biased Pluralism theories fare substantially better than those of Majoritarian Pluralism theories... Relatively few mass-based interest groups are active, they do not (in the aggregate) represent the public very well, and they have less collective impact on policy than do business-oriented groups – whose stands tend to be negatively related to the preferences of average citizens. These business groups are far more numerous and active; they spend much more money; and they tend to get their way.
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There are a few follow-on conclusions
A voting democracy doesn't work to represent the average citizen's interests. That bears a lot of thought. That means that all of those groups who try to shape public opinion in order to influence "the vote" may be fighting the wrong battle, since policy is apparently made in a non-democratic fashion anyway, and public opinion never gains independent traction. This parallels the recently-voiced notion of the "deep state"... decision-makers you don't see are really pulling the strings.
The fact that the average public opinion tends to "go along" with the elite opinion tells me that the elites have an outsized influence on the media. Since public opinion doesn't influence policy anyway, the purpose of controlling public opinion is probably to prevent public action by other (non-voting) means.
IF we are, in essence, a voting but non-democratic nation, what is it, exactly, that we claim to be "exporting" to other nations?
On what basis do we claim any difference from those "oligarchic" nations of eastern Europe and elsewhere?
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Signy
I saved the pdf though I haven't read it all yet. And I appreciate the exacting confirmation of what I've suspected for a long time.
I guess my focus is a little different - or perhaps it might be answered if I read the whole paper.
I want to know how EXACTLY does money confer influence? Is it through access? Is it through consistency and volume of message? Is it because the people in government know that the average citizen doesn't have the wherewithal to influence their personal political and economic futures? And who EXACTLY makes the decisions that run our lives? And who relays it? A vast majority wanted the Canadian system...would have grudgingly settled for a public option - who EXACTLY made that decision and who EXACTLY relayed the message so that Obama pivoted away from both?
And - how does Europe get far better representation of its citizens through the same process? (I suspect it's their parliamentary system, but maybe not.)
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Bill Moyers on America’s Mad Dash Toward Oligarchy April 18, 2014
http://billmoyers.com/2014/04/18/bill-moyers-on-americas-mad-dash-towa
rd-oligarchy/
Economist Paul Krugman explains how the United States is becoming an oligarchy - the very system our founders revolted against.
http://billmoyers.com/episode/what-the-1-dont-want-you-to-know-2/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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