US Is an Oligarchy Not a Democracy

Started by josephpalazzo, April 15, 2014, 07:52:50 AM

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josephpalazzo

What many of us suspected for a long time has now been revealed in a new study:

QuoteA 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."

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/14



SGOS

Someone finally made a study, and what to ya know.  It's pretty much what many of us already knew.

Jmpty

It's actually more of a plutocracy, in my opinion.
???  ??

josephpalazzo

If only the mainstream media would devote time on this study as much as they have on Flight 370...

AllPurposeAtheist

Quote from: josephpalazzo on April 15, 2014, 08:54:28 AM
If only the mainstream media would devote time on this study as much as they have on Flight 370...
MSM is irrelevant and anyone who believes it to be so are like someone wiping their ass with the cardboard tube. Sure it scrapes a little shit off, but the important stuff is left behind.
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

Jason78

Winner of WitchSabrinas Best Advice Award 2012


We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real
tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. -Plato

Solitary

Quote from: Jmpty on April 15, 2014, 08:38:46 AM
It's actually more of a plutocracy, in my opinion.

That's what I was thinking. Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

stromboli


Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: SGOS on April 15, 2014, 08:11:03 AM
Someone finally made a study, and what to ya know.  It's pretty much what many of us already knew.
As a historian I am profoundly shocked! I shall protest this all the way to Tammany Hall!
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

josephpalazzo

Nit-picking

oligarchy = ruled and dominated by a small number of people.
plutocracy = ruled and dominated by the small minority of the wealthiest citizens.

PJS

Elitism- a theory of American democracy contending that an upper-class elite holds the power and makes policy, regardless of the formal governmental organization.

George W. Bush, Enron, 1% holding 1/3 of the nation's wealth, rising inequality for three decades, ...
The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs.
-John Dewey

Shol'va


Berati

The current Supreme Court has done everything in its power to ensure that an oligarchy/plutocracy is the only possible outcome.

Money = speech?
Corporation = person?
No one is dumb enough to buy this, not even the judges who supported it. It is a deliberate subversion of democracy carried out to ram one particular ideology down everyone's throat.
Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

Valigarmander

No shit.

Though I'm very interested in reading the full study when it's released to see just how they've scientifically arrived at this outcome.

josephpalazzo

Quote from: Berati on April 16, 2014, 12:40:11 AM
The current Supreme Court has done everything in its power to ensure that an oligarchy/plutocracy is the only possible outcome.

Money = speech?
Corporation = person?
No one is dumb enough to buy this, not even the judges who supported it. It is a deliberate subversion of democracy carried out to ram one particular ideology down everyone's throat.

Well, if you're a judge on SCOTUS and get to travel freely on luxurious airplanes (owned privately by some billionnaire), or go for a pleasant vacation on a luxurious cruiseboat (owned privately by some billionnaire), WTF would you care for ordinary folks?!?? :angry: