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| US is an oligarchy not a democracy, says scientific study |
| 2014-04-15 |
| [Iran Press TV] A study, to appear in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on Politics, finds that the US is no democracy, but instead an oligarchy ... derived from the Greek words oligos, a fewand the verb archo, to rule, to govern, to command. Oligarchies are invariably effectual rather than established, to whit, they disguise themselves as other systems, working as the real government behind the face of of democracy, fascism, socialism, monarchy, or what have you... , 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 US 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 US is a democracy. "Until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions [that US 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 US is a democracy, or is instead an oligarchy, or some combination of the two. The clear finding is that the US 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 US, in other words, is basically similar to 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. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #23 Comeon Ebbang - tell us how you really feel! I'm with you. And lets not forget the 49% of the population which pays No Federal Taxes at all - yet still get the right to spend the money of those who do - which usually means giving it to themselves. And the concept that Welfare and the like are 'Mandatory spending' - and it grows and grows each and every year. WTF is that? Why are they 'mandatory' so they get pushed ahead of things which really are the Federal Government's responsibility: Defense of our nation and our borders. Oh no - we can't spend money defending our borders becase we have this 'mandatory' spending to give to the illegal aliens who violate those same borders. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2014-04-15 17:26 |
| #22 ..doesn't have to. When was the last time you remember SCOTUS telling petitioners they had to go through the Article V process rather than put their action before the judiciary to change the Constitution? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-04-15 16:45 |
| #21 Two guys, an official sounding company, and opinion becomes fact. I may or may not agree with the opinion but it doesn't really sound scientific to me. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2014-04-15 15:42 |
| #20 Don't forget the gerrymandering of safe voting districts that disenfranchise 49% of the voters. You can't gerrymander based on race but you can sure do it by party affiliation. |
| Posted by: Craiger Grinter2039 2014-04-15 15:21 |
| #19 Science is an oligarchy. |
| Posted by: Snusort Spomose2148 2014-04-15 15:03 |
| #18 I'm with #9 Rob. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2014-04-15 14:40 |
| #17 ...but I'm still pissed. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2014-04-15 13:41 |
| #16 I needed a long walk and a stiff drink to cool off. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2014-04-15 13:40 |
| #15 Ebbang - Yes, I wake up with it on this date every year. Generally lasts no more than four hours. It was so bad in 2012, I drove up to my urologist at Emory. By the time I had the car parked, it was over. I just came back home and took a long nap :-( |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-04-15 12:58 |
| #14 http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q The American Dream George Carlin was right! |
| Posted by: Airandee 2014-04-15 11:59 |
| #13 Every time there's an election we get to choose between two crooks. Then they water down our votes with illegal aliens, dead people, cartoon characters and people who vote in one state and then drive to another state and vote there. I don't believe there is a single honest man in all of Washington DC, Sacramento or sitting on any of the city councils in any city in the country. All my life people have been telling me that it's still better than anywhere else. But I'm not sure anymore and even if it is, that's not good enough. Just because it's better than Libya, Russia or China doesn't mean it's acceptable. Social Security, MediCare, ObamaCare, Affirmative Action, Freddie Mac, Fanny Mae and Sallie Mae are all scams perpetrated by a kleptocracy that is dedicated to enriching themselves and maintaining power at the expense of the rest of us. They keep it all under wraps with a media that is just as corrupt as they are so we have to get the news from Iranians. They refuse to keep their spending within their means, they refuse to secure the border, they get us involved in foreign wars in which we have no interest and they tax the hell out of us. After paying my taxes this year I'm mad as hell. It's nothing more than armed robbery. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2014-04-15 11:59 |
| #12 Can't really argue against this or the comments here. A republic is nice... if you can keep it. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2014-04-15 11:40 |
| #11 We're a democracy the same way that Venezuela is. And we are no longer a constitutional anything. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2014-04-15 10:28 |
| #10 The correct term for the age of Obama is "autocratic collectivism". Which is also the way to describe Bolshevism (i.e. "Dictatorship of the Party"). Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2014-04-15 10:24 |
| #9 Who wants to live in a democracy? I want the Republic back. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2014-04-15 09:43 |
| #8 Disarm the federal bureaus. |
| Posted by: Bubba Graiting8281 2014-04-15 09:14 |
| #7 This is news? Yes, because the Permanent Party Propaganda Machine and it's Teachers Union agents refuse to teach this little fact in our schools in order to keep the subjects docile. Got to keep the rubes obedient to the decrees of people who sit for life and are unaccountable to the people. If it was a real republic, all elements of the government would be subject to the 'consent' of the governed. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-04-15 08:21 |
| #6 The correct term for the age of Obama is "autocratic collectivism". |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2014-04-15 05:22 |
| #5 This is news? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-04-15 03:48 |
| #4 To put it short: The United States is no democracy, but actually an oligarchy. And still they come. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-04-15 03:44 |
| #3 Lest we fergit, 1990's CLINTONISM = FASCISM IS THE NEW COMMUNISM. * Fascism = is merely "LIMITED COMMUNISM", * Authoritarianism = is merely "LIMITED TOTALITARIANISM. * Nationalism = "LIMITED GLOBALISM". * Liberalism/Libertarianism = "LIMITED CENTRALISM". And other... Everybody in DC likes to argue FASCISM-VS-COMMUNISM, but nobody wants to discuss or talk about SOCIALISM-GOVTISM [Statism, State Capitalism/Cronyism, etc]. I liked the way the post-Soviet Russians said it, i.e. COMMUNIST-CAPITALISM = "COMMPITALISM". But I digress ... |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2014-04-15 03:18 |
| #2 Id rather it be a Republic of laws, where the individual is sovereign. It was pretty close to that once upon a time. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2014-04-15 02:49 |
| #1 Yeah....I'd probably agree with that, it's gotten to that point. It takes a hundred ranchers in Nevada with guns to even get a local news station to cover the goings-on these days. I'm pretty sure I have been reduced to an inert wage slaving tax beast. I step out of line, they gut me; house, job, bank account, credit rating- gone. |
| Posted by: bigjim-CA 2014-04-15 02:37 |