Welcome to the Oligarchy, Peasant

[brother_dour]

First, let's start with the article, and a few choice quotes:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/87719/princeton-concludes-what-kind-of-government-america-really-has-and-it-s-not-a-democracy

"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

Comments

[brother_dour]

It's getting harder and harder to, though. As was mentioned above, I think the powers that be have realized that if you can assure people of a minimum, acceptable standard of living they don't care about anything else. There's no problems in the Empire until the granaries are empty.

But in that case, maybe we should support the Tea Party. They are experts at destroying the livelihood of the people who can least afford it...

[underlankers]

The Founding Fathers would be celebrating, both Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians. Not a damned one of them felt that the American people in terms of the genuine masses was worth a wooden nickle insofar as the body politics is concerned. The Founders wanted a system run of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. There is a reason that the masses taking up guns to get a fair shake in Shay's Rebellion led to the Constitution, and that reason was not anything conciliatory to the mass of Americans.

[montecristo]

The only problem with Jefferson was that he wasn't enough of an anarchist. The Hamiltonians were unabashed monarchists. The thing is, given that anarchy was not really on the table at the time, monarchy can produce results that are better than "democracy." Democracy is only a virtue when it is used defensively. The problem was that people found out that it could be used offensively.

[underlankers]

You expected a slaveowner to be an anarchist? Too much anarchy and his slaves dash in his skulls.

[montecristo]

I expect people to be people. Jefferson personally abhorred slavery, but he could not figure any realistic way, in his mind, to get out of it. Note that I am not saying that there was no such way, merely that Jefferson couldn't figure out how to find a workable way out of it even in his own case, for whatever reasons he may have had, good or bad, practical or evasive. As you may know, Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence indicts the King and Parliament for supporting the slave trade and transporting slaves from Africa to the new world:He has waged cruel War against human Nature itself, violating its most sacred Rights of Life and Liberty in the Persons of a distant People who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into Slavery in another Hemisphere, or to incur miserable Death, in their Transportation thither. This piratical Warfare, the opprobrium of infidel Powers, is the Warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain

[mikeyxw]

Nobody should be surprised that the elites make decisions in the US, and pretty much every other country for that matter. The thing that the study points out that the article misses is:

It turns out, in fact, that the preferences of average citizens are positively and fairly highly correlated, across issues, with the preferences of economic elites

So yes, the decisions the government makes represent the elites, they also do a pretty good job of representing the average people. The only two groups that were more strongly correlated than the average voter and the elites are Business interest groups and general interest groups... which I'm a little surprised to find out are considered two different things.

Additionally, as was pointed out:

This evidence indicates that U.S. federal government policy is consistent with majority preferences roughly two-thirds of the time; that public policy changes in the same direction as collective preferences a similar two thirds of the time; that the liberalism or conservatism of citizens is

[mikeyxw]

Good point but I'd disagree for two reasons. First, the study defined the top 10% of Americans as the elite. It's the top 0.1% who own the media. My take is that the top 10% are closer to the average American than they are to the top 0.1%. They're a lot closer in terms of income and background after all.

Second, when you're talking about issues in which there is some debate, you can find mainstream media which is on every side of any given issue. I expect people are more likely to find a source that they tend to agree with than to be swayed by the media.

[montecristo]

So, the "Founding Fathers" were wrong? So what? The "Founding Fathers" won the political argument and got their Constitution ratified. That doesn't mean that winning the political argument won them the logical argument. History has more than vindicated the Anti-federalists (look them up!) beyond their wildest misgivings. You're right: no one needs a Princeton study to tell them that; they just need an informed appreciation for history and philosophy.

The problem is concentrated political power always serves power. It is always possible for the well-connected and wealthy to buy more power than the poor and not-so-well-connected. This is not an argument against wealth; it is an argument against concentrated political power. Concentrated power can always redistribute wealth, but wealth cannot buy power where there is no market for power. If people stopped believing in the religion of power and collectivism then much of the more egregious problems with politics would be solved.

[montecristo]

You're viewing it backwards. Wealth is not always tangible and is subject to subjective valuation. Property is a fact of material existence and can no more be wished away than gravity, or the human need to breathe air, can. Power is what is arbitrary and requires human support to exist. People are powerful only to the extent that other humans give them power and follow them. Contrariwise, Robinson Crusoe may enjoy enormous "wealth" on his island, depending upon his value system and his productivity. Wealth is produced. Wealth is a positive sum game: two people may trade and both may be better off for the trade because both have exchanged something of lesser value for something greater. Power, on the other hand, is a zero-sum game, either I have it, or you have it, or it is dispersed between us. If I have the power to choose what the two of us have for lunch then you do not.