US is an oligarchy, not a democracy (2014)

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

by kushti • 8 years ago

89 59 8 years ago

We just have really good political theatre that gives the illusion of a lively democracy,:)

dmix2• 8 years ago

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

I bet most people's token solution to this will be to expand the size of the administrative state with new the levels "oversight", or new laws, new agencies, etc... which will proceed to be shaped and molded by these very same forces and only solidify these "elites" & special interest group's market positions and political influence over the regular person.

No one ever wants to reduce these group's power to influence their own position in the economy and policy by limiting government. Nor does anyone ever correlate the explosion in size of the administrative state in every western country since WW2 with the growth in power of the top end of the market and in general inequality (in both wealth/power). If this growth in scale has done little to help the average "little guy", who is it helping?

rafiki65• 8 years ago

You obviously have an agenda in your comment. Do you have any evidence that suggests the expansion of government correlates strongly to income inequality? Scandinavian countries are a great example of countries with large government and low inequality.

Supermancho4• 8 years ago

I bet most people's token solution...

That wasn't an assertion tied to an agenda. It was an assumption about the typical US citizen, as a preamble.

baragiola3• 8 years ago

How are you measuring the size of governments?

dmix2• 8 years ago

People always pretend the US government size is small and tiny countries in Scandinavia have giant ones. Yet few countries have the massive number of agencies and law the US does. The size of population certainly plays a role in this but ultimately it affects the average person operating in such a society.

I'm not talking about taxation. I'm talking about the size of the administrative state, ie. the amount of intervention the government engages in in the economy and socially.

acali2• 8 years ago

I think it has much more to do with population. Sweden, Norway, Denmark all have populations less than 10M. Size of government, including tax rates, I would argue, factor more into a country's overall cultural profile which taken as a whole likely correlates with inequality.

jryan492• 8 years ago

Maybe first start with laws to make lobbying illegal (corporate donations/favors), and axe corporate person-hood.

baragiola3• 8 years ago

Lobbying happens everywhere. Having it legalized makes it more transparent and helps you voting next elections. In my country it's illegal yet they do it behind the curtains

bilbo0s• 8 years ago

I bet most people's token solution to this will be to expand the size of government [...] which will [...] only solidify these "elites" & special interest group's market positions...

and:

No one ever wants to [...] limit government...

???

Um... but, um, won't limiting government "only solidify these 'elites' & special interest group's market positions"?

Right now they have to negotiate with the government to determine what they can take. Under your proposal, they would negotiate with no one to determine what they can take.

There is no outcome where the élites don't win. Only a spectrum along which we have varying degrees of control over them. Under the current regime, we have relatively little control over them. Under your proposal, we have even less.

One road leads to disease and despair, but the other leads to death and destruction.

pytyper2• 8 years ago

I think it would make more difference if we got rid of political action committees (PACs), it is this pattern that allows corporations and the rich to donate oversize amounts of money to their chosen corporate candidates. Without PACs each citizen can only donate a couple thousand dollars.

jacobolus• 8 years ago

Who is this “most people”?

The staring solutions are (1) get some of the money out of politics by ending SuperPACs and imposing real campaign finance reform with transparency down to the local level and possibly additional public funding for campaigns, (2) curtail the revolving door between industry and government and provide competitive salaries for civil service careers, (3) end partisan gerrymandering and ensure that voting rights are respected in every state and consider even more dramatic changes such as multi-member districts with proportional representation and STV voting, (4) increase taxes on capital gains and inheritances, add additional income tax brackets with higher top marginal rates, and consider wealth taxes or more dramatic tax changes like local land-value taxes instead of property taxes, work to eliminate tax loopholes such as the use of political campaigns or charities for tax evasion, (5) put more personal financial/criminal liability on corporate officers (e.g. at financial services firms) when their companies are involved in frauds, (6) provide the IRS and federal law enforcement agencies sufficient resources for more widespread enforcement of existing laws against fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, bribery, ...

JDiculous2• 8 years ago

Less Government -> Wealthy have more power.

Reagan/Thatcher reduced the government. How did that turn out?

airstrike• 8 years ago

I had written this in response to a child comment but I guess I'll reply to this parent and collectively offer my supportive stance.

I'm not the parent poster, but I would wager his view is that governments should exist to enforce free competition. That is the source of disruption to the elites. The current regime does not ensure free competition. It's crony capitalism, and the entrenched "elite" (NB: this is a ridiculously outdated term) has the government at their disposal to ensure that they remain in power. Exhibit A: Ajit Pai.

Reducing government is a reasonable proposal because it reduces the "attack surface" for corruption and crony capitalism. Surely that's got to be an analogy that resonates well with this audience...

EDIT: and let's leave the discussion over whether Healthcare and Education should be universal and free (as in fully subsidized), otherwise we'll never get anywhere. I'm personally in favor of both, but you need not agree / disagree on that to discuss the broader point.

ABCLAW• 8 years ago

Ajit Pai's is not an example that institutions exist to further the interests of a small few, but rather that it is possible to ignore the duties of one's public office* to the benefit of a few.

*to be more precise, it is ignoring one's office. The office is not the position, it is the authority AND duties and responsibilities that come with a position. This brings into question if authority is legitimate in the event that it is granted with responsibilities which are ignored, but that's a separate question than whether or not the office itself exists to ignore it's own duties or whether the duties themselves are designed to favor the few.

kakwa_• 8 years ago

You could argue the opposite:

Since WWII, western countries have seen an incredible growth of wealth. This growth of wealth translated to a huge improvement of leaving condition for the masses, which means that said wealth was reasonably well distributed and government knowingly or unknowingly made this happen.

By contrast, the XIXth century, despite growth, the average life conditions worsened significantly for worker leading, This lead to ideologies like Anarchism and Communism.

Why did this wealth was somewhat correctly distributed? Basically the two World Wars and the Great Depression, In Europe, the cost of the 2 wars and the inflation after them basically destroyed a huge chunk of the wealthier classes living of their accumulated money (rentier). In the US, the Great Depression and WWII lead to decisions like a tax rate of more than 90% for the wealthier, which lead to keep in check inequalities during the 40ies, 50ies and 60ies.

All this happen because of strong government basically stating: the interest of the whole is not the sum of individual interests.

It also happened because at the same time, an incredible amount of "new wealth" was being created in such a short span, this kind of growth rate was unprecedented in human history, it was easy and even somewhat natural to distribute more in this situation. These two factors combined to reduce inequality and improve living condition significantly.

The issue is that inequalities in revenue were still occurring. Slowly capital was becoming concentrated again. Which lead to the slow reconstitution of a strong wealthy class concentrating capital. This strengthening happened progressively by buying media channels, donating to politicians or even becoming one and lobbying strongly for favorable laws. This lead to policies/laws in the interest of this smaller group reinforcing this concentration. Basically, it's stating the obvious: there is a correlation between wealth and political power.

Also, since the 70ies, there was a strong slowdown in radical technical improvements and deployments, leading to less "new" wealth being available.

Now we are basically returning to a repartition of wealth as seen the XIXth century (albeit with far more wealth available).

It's a slow process, almost organic, the wealthier classes are not an homogeneous core, they have different and conflicting interests, but as a whole it's able to push in a given direction. The general population is far bigger, and also have conflicting interests, is even less homogeneous and doesn't have wealth, so it's not able to push as efficiently for the common interest.

It has nothing to do directly with governments. Strong governments actually helped a lot in reducing inequalities. But there is a limit to their action.

Maybe, now, what we need is a more radical way to redistribute wealth by for example an exceptional and significant tax on capital, and do it from time to time to re-balance our societies. Otherwise, long term, it will happen in this form or another: Revolution (a common occurrence in revolutions is the burning of debt files and archives), but I'm not convinced it's the good way forward given all the Chaos it will entail.

pjmorris• 8 years ago

See also: 'The Quiet Coup' [0], Simon Johnson, 2009.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-qui...

EDIT: Fixed link per comment

aerophilic• 8 years ago

Corrected link (save you a google search): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-qui...

r721• 8 years ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819538

hartator• 8 years ago

The US, in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious 'electoral' 'democratic' countries. We weren't formerly, but we clearly are now.

These people never went to Russia.

mental18962• 8 years ago

Care to back up such a bold assertion?

thatguyagain• 8 years ago

"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 we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened."

sigfubar• 8 years ago

I'm a Russian citizen. I can tell you firsthand that the US is as bad as Russia, with one exception: Russia is honest about what it is, while the US plays democracy games and pretends to be a "free" country.

Edit: The downvotes are a sign that I've stepped on your sore toe. Go ahead, I have karma to spare, but remember my words next time you vote in an imaginary election.

nopriorarrests• 8 years ago

Dude, I mean... come on. After DJT was elected, you can call US elections whatever you want, but not imaginary. This shit is 100% real.

wslh• 8 years ago

I wonder why US politics has not been positively hacked yet. Not talking about the Russians using FB but something revolutionary but not violent.

samstave• 8 years ago

See mormons in the IC and Scientologists in the IRS/Treasury, and Verizon in the FCC....

I'd say it's been hacked pretty well - but only for cerrtain specific interests.

JDiculous2• 8 years ago

I think Trump and Bernie Sanders foreshadow the beginning of a new era of more revolutionary politics.

analyst74• 8 years ago

What I also find interesting, is that this research has been picked up by a couple major UK outlets, some other foreign outlets, but got very little coverage in US, despite it being an US issue.

maccio92• 8 years ago

Because it's not true

Supermancho4• 8 years ago

Bush, Obama, Trump. These are not religious figures. Past POTUS were public servants and they necessarily, do not represent America and arguably couldn't when they are elected. I'm sure glad the members of the political oligarchy of the last 50 years all came out to see Bush's body, but he served 1 term and did the job and he got older and died. No need for the Pharaoh worship week. Either POTUS is an elected position open to any qualified candidate or it's a big money elitist club G Carlin described where they like to engage in pomp and circumstance. While the truth may be fuzzy, I have my own opinion.

gshubert17• 8 years ago

Dated [2014]

Kinnard• 8 years ago

Did a research study need to be done to show this? The US Constitution sets up a federated oligarchic republic with slaves to boot. What's shocking is that it's shocking that the US has something like the government it was designed to have. . . .

Mikeb85• 8 years ago

Not exactly news. It's pretty to see the influence of various lobby groups on all levels of government. Most politicians, and especially those who have actual sway within the government, all come from a certain socio-economic background and have ultra-rich backers. Not to mention various entrenched political families (Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes, etc...), as well as close ties between politicians, rich political donors and the media.

csbartus• 8 years ago

US never had a democracy. Two parties assembly rather the bad cop / good cop scenario than a true democracy where people have control, built bottom up.

However this illusion worked well up until now when oligarchies started to rise by simply putting a mirror on the front of that so called democracy.

These new regimes have an easy job since the old system bleeds from all parts.

I’m a big fan of democracy and oligarchies are the way back, not the way forward.

However I’m skeptic if humanity is capable to invent a forward looking new system in the next years.

tbirrell• 8 years ago

Technically the US is a Rebuplic. Which, in a sense, means it is largely a Democracy of Aristocrats. Who, it should be noted, have done a stellar job in the last 200 some-odd years of convincing the masses that the Aristocracy no longer (truly) exists. And so the People feel they have the power. When in reality it's all Smoke and Mirrors. Political Theater is nothing more than Circuses that the People can take part in. But the fact remains that Panem et Circenses still exists.

Or to put that in technical terms. "Democracy" (as understood in the common vernacular) is a honeypot that the People got caught in, at which time they got sandboxed.

nine_k• 8 years ago

If you want a real working democracy, look at Switzerland. Or maybe at very local, neighborhood level in the US here and there, at the scale where people actually care and know.

To note: the entire Switzerland's population is 8.5M, about the size of 5 boroughs of New York City. They have twenty six cantons, all with severely different policies, and 2222 municipalities. Of course most voting occurs at municipal level, then cantonal level.

To my mind, nowhere in the world any larger state managed to get to the "level of democracy" which is possible and has been demonstrably achieved at smaller scales.

What additionally exacerbates the situation in the US is the two-party system that effectively polarizes people instead of nudging them to look for compromises.

The electoral college made sense in 1770s, with a much smaller population, and very slow communication. By now, it results in interesting side effects that probably could be avoided using different mechanisms. Still I think that no large nation has deployed any such mechanisms to successfully achieve "real democracy" and not some form of oligarchy. Mass media is a major factor in that; national scale being hard to comprehend and relate to for a voter is another.

LMYahooTFY• 8 years ago

I think this outlines the core issues more than most of the responses thus far.

Our system of governance hasn't scaled as effectively in distributing democratic decision making as many may wish, and the interconnectivity we're developing is making it more pronounced.

mental18962• 8 years ago

Your concision is inspirational.

scythe• 8 years ago

I continue to believe that proportional representation could really improve things. The two basic architectures of PR are multi-winner districts (incl. STV) and mixed-member systems, either of which could be implemented easily in the US. One major advantage is that the House hasn't been expanded in a long time and the citizen:legislator ratio in the US is much worse than in most European countries. That means PR could be implemented by only adding seats, so that nobody loses their Congressman.

The reason I support PR is that political parties are living entities that don't exist in a vacuum. It's basically impossible for small parties to grow on a national scale in the current environment. Previously when new parties formed and grew, they did so regionally, because US politics was much more local. But after the 17th Amendment and Medicaid, the states have much less power, and state politics is no longer an avenue to power on a national scale. It's like local stores competing with Wal-mart at this point: HQ will allocate extra resources to crush competition and then pull back afterwards. PR breaks that dynamic by giving small parties a voice in the national legislature. It forces the big guys to compete.

The way I think about it is: political parties exist in a jungle, and we just need to make sure some light reaches the forest floor.

US is an oligarchy, not a democracy (2014)

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