7 ms·

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy (2014)

42 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

ddingus 11y ago
We know that. Well, a lot of us do. The real questions are: How do we educate those who don't understand this yet? Do enough of us, who do understand, care enough to act in a meaningful way?
- mkaziz 11y ago
  Is there a meaningful way in which we can act?
  - ddingus 11y ago
    Yes. If we can arrive at a place where a sufficient number of us want to impact this, we could get an amendment done. But, that takes a sustained civic effort, and there is the rub. Do we care enough to actually do that? I think I do. When I ask others, I get a wide range of commit potentials. I don't think enough of us care.
    - marcoperaza 11y ago
      I assume you mean an amendment to limit free speech so you can stop people from advocating for causes you don't agree with. That's what overruling Citizens United would be.
      - ddingus 11y ago
        Money isn't speech, nor are corporations people. Sorry. It has nothing to do with causes I do, or do not agree with, and everything to do with a healthy democracy. Let's just say ones bank account is no measure of character, nor qualification to speak above others in the democracy. A similar dynamic can be seen with land owners, who also consistently seek some advantage over their peers. Acres do not vote, nor do dollars. Additionally, it has nothing to do with stopping advocacy of any kind. Those of significant means have plenty of ways to get the word out. Non issue. Bribery is another matter altogether. That is precisely what an amendment would be about. Thomas Paine derived the justification for self governance, and the basis for its authority in his books. In particular, "Rights of Man", and "Age of Reason" contain most of this in easy to understand form. A core idea is we agree to governance so we may better exercise our liberty. A lack of governance actually diminishes that for large numbers of people. The government must then serve us if it's authority is just and true. Allowing for money as speech in politics renders the authority of the government corrupt, unjust and untrue. In a real sense, it only serves some of us, when the intent is for it to serve all of us. That we allow anonymous dollars is also troubling. The First Amendment does not include a shield. At the very least we should require complete and full disclosure of all funds. Some of us want to advocate for causes an awful lot of the rest of us think very poorly of. And that is fine, but allowing powerful people to speak with impunity is as corrupt as the bribery associated with said speech. What the two do is break the basic intent and trust necessary for the people to abide by and respect the government. And government is necessary, despite some who claim otherwise. Further, it is not possible to conduct a meaningful debate, which can form the basis for cause agreement or disagreement in an environment where money so obviously trumps votes as consistently as it does in the US at present. Finally, the idea that some of us deserve to call the shots, because money, for the rest of us is old world governance. You can lump that in with ideas like divine right, or nobility, etc... A claim that God says one should be king, or that winning the birth lottery means the same is as silly as the idea of a wealthy person being somehow entitled in like kind. The telling bit in all this is the strong and consistent pushback on disclosure. Any cause really worth persist does not require anonymonity. Sure, there will be naysayers, but the overall open discourse will bring merits to light, as intended. Many who do not want disclosure have also been linked to some pretty damn ugly policy advocacy too. That's a generalization, of course, but it's also indicative of why disclosure at a minimum is required to make any real sense out of the mess we have in money and politics today. Honestly, I do not believe you understand how and why the First Amendment works, nor why it exists. Full disclosure may actually prove good enough too. If we are to continue with the idea of money as speech and corporations as people, then we also need to insure the basic dynamics of those are true to the intent of the First Amendment. Vile people can hide behind their corporate proxy and act with anonymous dollars to ends that are not easily demonstrated to be worthy. At present they can avoid judgement from their fellow citizens as well as many liabilities. That is a step too far. Disclosure would bring that out, and it may be enough to be workable. I'm completely open to that. I am absolutely not open to the idea of such powerful actors able to do so with relative impunity. Meaningful checks and balances are a core idea we all live by, and that is by design and intent to form a more just governance than our founders saw in the past. Citizens United is nothing more than a call to return to the times of fiefdoms, kings, lords, nobility... and many other unAmerica ideas of just and true governance.
        marcoperaza 11y ago
        Given the current propensity for political witch-hunts in American politics, disclosure is clearly a trojan horse that is really intended to intimidate people over their opinions. Privacy for donors to non-profits is no different than a secret ballot, which America didn't always have. Look at what happened to Brendan Eich. The cause that he donated to was popular enough to win the election and even then, a $1000 donation was enough to undo him and force him out of his job. I don't agree with his opinions on that issue, but the precedent will clearly create a chilling effect on advocacy. Do you really think that's desirable? The freedom of advocacy is inseparable from the freedom of speech. It costs money to print pamphlets, buy air time, pay people to stand on the corner, conduct opinion polls, etc. The Citizens United case was about a non-profit organization that made a film critical of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary campaign. Their alleged violation was spending money against a politician within 30 days of a primary. Anyone who believes in free speech should have been appalled. Politicians want only politicians to be allowed to get their word out during an election. That wouldn't be a free society. The Supreme Court ruling was the only reasonable one. Say that you or I have a novel political idea that we want to advocate for. How do you propose that we do so? We'd probably form a non-profit, spend money contacting potential allies, convince them on the merits of our case and to donate to us, then spend that money on pamphlets, TV and radio ads, etc. That's freedom at work.
        ddingus 11y ago
        Yes. Challenges to opinion are normal, expected and required of every US citizen by design. If those opinions have merit, it will be found. All of us are subject to the law that a mere opinion could impose. Not only should that be challenged, we are required to do so. Like I said, disclosure may be enough. There is no, just try it here. Real people are impacted while living real lives. Disclosure is a reasonable check on what is significant advocacy power and access to legislators. As for your comments about the left... yes! The left cates about the little guy. No one else does. Brendan lost his job due to losing the respect of those he was supposed to lead. It would not work a day for him. I'll be frank, racism, bigotry and theocracy are completely unacceptable. Politics is a contact sport. Anyone advocating we treat others like lesser people can totally expect to be judged on it. At a minimum, those other prople are going to speak out, as they should. Hiding behind money and corporations means speech without accountability for said speech, and that is also unacceptable. There is no shield in the First Amendment, by design. The lesson here for Brendan is leading people requires you have the respect of those people. Maybe it's just not wise to classify some of those people as lesser, or wrong, or bad, undeserving people, if one wants their respect. I find avoidance of these basic dynamics very deeply offensive. Truth is, if the contact is a problem, maybe the speech is too. Go ask the people who have suffered a lot worse when speaking truth to power. Free Speech is not a license to say whatever one wants with no consequences, nor is it a license to be heard, or respected. You will see things like, "everyone has a right to their opinion", which is true. But everyone else also has a right to say what they think of that opinion too. All of that plays out as democracy and it provides checks and balances as well as the ability to challenge norms and advance the society. Out gay brothers and sisters all decided to speak up and out over how they were treated in society, and that treatment has been shown to be unjust and often for untrue reasons too. Good. Their supporters heard their story, found it compelling and acted on that. I personally won't have basic discrimination of this kind. I've walked from jobs where it was te norm, and did so long before we had the state of awareness we have today too. Everything costs something. I'm fine with disclosure as its a great check on bad idea advocacy just as its an enabler of good idea advocacy. I'm not OK at all with attempt to advance speech with impunity.
- puredemo 11y ago
  The oligarchs should mandate education camps
api 11y ago
Is there actually any such thing as a democracy, and if so would we want it? A pure democracy would actually be a nightmarish form of totalitarianism in which the majority was able to enforce its norms upon any minority without any checks or balance. The US is a constitutional republic in which democratic institutions act as one check upon power.
- disposition2 11y ago
  The US is a constitutional republic in which democratic institutions act according to the wishes of those with the biggest checkbook except for a few limited cases...and even when the populace can defeat that, often the checkbook eventually wins. See CISA as the most recent example.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    It's too easy to blame the billionaires' checkbooks. US elections can be bought, but only indirectly. Money buys advertising, but the people still have the power not to listen to advertising. Just ask Jeb! Bush. I still blame the individual voters who choose to remain so ignorant.
    - beerbajay 11y ago
      It is systems that allow for bad results. Blaming the individual is silly. If people are ignorant, there is a system keeping them so.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      In the big number game, you have half people dumber than average. In a system where the majority wins, that's self defeating.
    - disposition2 11y ago
      > Money buys advertising, but the people still have the power not to listen to advertising. Quite true. However, considering how the financier of these advertisements can be obfuscated or just not reported period, you're basically asking people to ignore all political advertising and be suspect about just about everything they read, hear or see.
eatonphil 11y ago
Could we get the date on the title? This is from 2014.
- puredemo 11y ago
  Wow a whole year
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Until tomorrow...
tokenadult 11y ago
This old claim gets resubmitted to Hacker News over and over and over, and there is never anything new here. The authors of the overly cited study don't represent a mainstream view in political science research. The more developed literature about Public Choice Theory[1] provides a lot more insight about how politics works--in every country in the world. Reading the BBC brief commentary kindly submitted here, which summarizes the "study" details that have been posted here many times before, I still have to ask, where is the comparison with other countries of the world? The United States continues to enjoy a high rate of net immigration with regard to essentially all other countries on the planet, and I know happy immigrants to the United States from China, India, Russia, Canada, Mexico, the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, Singapore, Somalia, Argentina, Ecuador, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Ghana, South Africa, Haiti, and plenty of other countries that aren't immediately coming to mind. Are there problems in the United States, including problems caused by poor governance? Sure there are. But, on the other hand, where is there somewhere that is a better democracy than the United States to the degree that local people there have to institute restrictive immigration measures to keep the United States citizens from migrating in? AFTER EDIT: I can see the silent downvotes for disagreement as well as anybody can, but meanwhile can you respond to what I have brought up substantively? Most of the other comments here also think that the authors overstated the problem they identified in their "study," and anyway how is one country any different from another country in this regard? [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Public+Choice+Theory&oq=Public+Choice+Theory https://www.google.com/search?q=Public+Choice+Theory&oq=Publ...
- jgh 11y ago
  The insanity and hypocracy in the American immigration system is infurating and will lead to fewer immigrants in the future. With the way the H1B system works it is extremely impractical to hire foreign workers who may be more qualified than domestic ones. Hardly any of the visas are dual intent. I know a Canadian who has been here for like 20 years and still doesnt have a green card. Most other countries give you permanent residency after you stay for a certain number of years. There is no startup visa. Want to come work at a company in the USA? There are a few (if bad) options. Want to start a company in the USA and employ Americans? Be prepared to bend the truth and risk getting deported. The United States has enjoyed its position of supremecy after Europe imploded from two world wars, and it is being taken for granted now.
fiatjaf 11y ago
Oh, US, US, US is the center of the world. Can't you see the entire world is exactly like the US in these matters? If the US is not a democracy, you can start blaming the mankind.
holmak 11y ago
I've been thinking about this lately, and there might be a great advantage to modern democracy even if it is a sham run by oligarchs. Unlike an old-fashioned monarchy or dictatorship, if you want to take over the country, you just have to pay a bunch of money to take control of legislative seats and/or the presidency. This is way less disruptive than having a civil war with armies rampaging about. It may be nowhere close to the popular ideal of democracy, but the reduced violence and destruction would probably make it a worthwhile innovation anyway.
- brownbat 11y ago
  Malcolm X would give several speeches about "the ballot or the bullet," talking about how history is full of violent revolutions, but he lived in a privileged time where revolutions can actually happen peacefully. I think there's a lot to be said for the idea of elections as a pressure valve, as well as a way to displace leadership once they cross certain lines. EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9BVEnEsn6Y&t=37m56s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9BVEnEsn6Y&t=37m56s Admittedly, he talks up the bullet as an inevitable fallback if the ballot didn't work, so maybe this isn't the perfect example...
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    He definitely got voted out of the 'Nation of Islam' by the bullet, not the ballot. So maybe the example is a better one than you think.
dudul 11y ago
This situation exists in most so-called "democracies".
marcoperaza 11y ago
Given how much policy-making is specific to particular industries, is there anything wrong with the players in those industries having a big say in policy? I'd love to see what the "1,779 policy issues" that the study considered are, but I bet the average person doesn't have much to say about most of them. The goal is not to pit people against corporations. Those corporations are just the economic vehicles through which people act. Fishing companies are clearly going to have a lot to say about fishing policy, and are going to provide better input to Congress than I ever could, since I know nothing about fishing other than a few sound bites like "we're overfishing the seas". I don't know what that means for particularly fisheries or whatever other considerations there are. Take a more controversial example, banking. Most people don't know a thing about banking. They've heard sound bites about "greedy bankers" and "inefficient regulators", but they probably don't even know what fractional reserve banking is, let alone what the effects of regulation on it would be. How is it a bad thing that bankers have a large amount of input into these policies? And it hasn't stopped the government from passing policies that they oppose. Look at the animosity toward Dodd-Frank on Wall Street. Social scientific research can be twisted to support any conclusion. It's typically dressed up in the legitimacy of statistical analysis, but the underlying data is usually weak and their conclusions involve a lot of narrative-writing on the part of the authors. Also, you have to consider what the goal of democratic institutions is. Is it accountability or representation? Representation means that Congressmen would mirror the opinions of the public. Accountability means that the peoples role is to vote out bad leadership. Both are important, but I think accountability is typically the better goal.
rayiner 11y ago
Here is the underlying study: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi.... The actual conclusion of the study is rather different than the headline. To understand why you really need to break down the methodology and conclusions. First, the surveys of "public preference" are based not on voters, but general surveys. The authors studied: > 1,779 instances between 1981 and 2002 in which a national survey of the general public asked a favor/ oppose question about a proposed policy change. Because voters are wealthier, older, and more conservative than non-voters, public opinion is not the same thing as voter opinion. Second, they defined "economic elite" as people at the 90th percentile: > We believe that the preferences of “affluent” Americans at the ninetieth income percentile can usefully be taken as proxies for the opinions of wealthy or very-high-income Americans, and can be used to test the central predictions of Economic-Elite theories So the "economic elite" here are people with household incomes above $150,000. If you account for the fact that the median voter is about 45, that's a top 15% income or so. Third, there is a high correlation between the preferences of the public and those of the economic elite: > 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 (refer to table 2). Fourth, interest groups also have significant independent power: > 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. Thus, the real takeaway is something like: adopted policies generally reflect public opinion, except policies that have low support among the top ~15% of voters and/or interest groups are unlikely to get adopted: > When both interest groups and affluent Americans oppose a policy it has an even lower likelihood of being adopted (these proposed policies consist primarily of tax increases). That is a predictable outcome of representative democracy and does not imply that the U.S. is an oligarchy, or at least not the way one traditionally thinks of the term. When you define "economic elite" as the top 15%, you're roping in a big chunk of small business owners, professionals, property owners, etc. These are the people who employ other people, pay property taxes, serve on the PTA, and vote, especially in local elections. So 55% of the public may support say a hike on business taxes in a city, but if representatives worry that such an increase will make the city uncompetitive for jobs vis-a-vis other cities, the policy may not pass.
natrius 11y ago
Money is power. It always has been, and it always will be. Sure, votes are powerful, but voters can be influenced by money, so it's prohibitively difficult to get elected without the approval of capital. As a result, capital can band together as a class and purchase politicians to enact policies that are against the interests of people who have to produce for a living. Our political system is not democracy. Our political system is capitalism. It is occasionally tempered by the possibility of a popular uprising, so you can find democratic aspects if you look hard enough. How, then, do we prevent capital from ruling over labor? We must understand how exactly money works in making capital our kings. Money gives you the ability to compel almost anyone to produce for you. Producers agree because the money you pay them can be used to compel almost anyone to produce for them. In these terms, our goal is to eliminate the ability for capital to use money to compel individual producers to act against the interests of producers as a class. When capital attempts this, we want producers to refuse not out of principle, but because the incentive has been eliminated. If producers can't compel anyone to produce for them if their money has come from capital's attempt to rule as tyrants, then capital loses its ability to rule as tyrants. If this is the solution, then the problem is that money is anonymous. When someone compels me to produce for them, I have no idea where the money came from. If I did, I could refuse the tyrannical money while accepting any other money they attempt to pay with. Our money needs an auditable record of how it has flowed through the economy to allow people to exercise their inalienable right to reject the tyranny of capital. This requires sacrificing financial privacy, which sounds bad, but it's worth considering whether this 700 year-old concept should be as sacred as it seems. How do you build an auditable record of how money has flowed through an economy? Blockchains give us such records without needing to bestow power to any central authority to maintain the record. Blockchains will let us build a political system where capital still directs production, but the producing class has veto power. Capital alone isn't enough to rule; merit is also required. This is merit capitalism, and I think it could work better than not just the charade of democracy we have today, but also the ideal democracy that we thought we wanted.
brownbat 11y ago
The lack of open access academic work is incredibly frustrating. We're only guessing at the content of the article based on BBC's coverage. Consider this bit: A proposed policy change with low support among economically elite Americans…is adopted only about 18% of the time," they write, "while a proposed change with high support (four-out-of-five in favour) is adopted about 45% of the time… On the other hand[,] When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it. a) How much difference is there between "adopted about 45% of the time" and "generally do not get it?" That seems kind of important to the argument. b) I'm somewhat relieved to hear most groups never actually get their way. From what I remember of the Federalist Papers, gridlock was always the general idea. c) What policies are we talking about here? I feel one way when representatives overrule majorities that are trying to add accountability, but another way when majorities demand unconstitutional or unworkable policy changes. I'm really curious how many of the 1,779 policy issues inspire me towards majoritarianism. d) When are majorities and economic elites actually at odds? I'm not sure why, but it seems like some of the poorest people I know are the most supportive of tax relief for the rich. But really, at several income levels, I know both conservatives and liberals on various policy issues. The set of disagreements could tell us a lot about why one group's positions pass more often than the other. e) How often to policy implementations flip back and forth? Some tax cuts and educational policies just expired after a decade. Is that a win for people who fought to see them implemented? Or a win for people who opposed them? It's really a messy combination. There are landmark laws that stick around, but with most laws, there aren't clean victories on either side once you back up and see how they were amended or repealed over time. I'm sure the authors are very intelligent, so maybe they addressed all of these concerns in their paper. It's hard to know though when the default is gated, for-profit research.

42 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

We know that. Well, a lot of us do. The real questions are: How do we educate those who don't understand this yet? Do enough of us, who do understand, care enough to act in a meaningful way?

mkaziz 11y ago
Is there a meaningful way in which we can act?
- ddingus 11y ago
  Yes. If we can arrive at a place where a sufficient number of us want to impact this, we could get an amendment done. But, that takes a sustained civic effort, and there is the rub. Do we care enough to actually do that? I think I do. When I ask others, I get a wide range of commit potentials. I don't think enough of us care.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    I assume you mean an amendment to limit free speech so you can stop people from advocating for causes you don't agree with. That's what overruling Citizens United would be.
    - ddingus 11y ago
      Money isn't speech, nor are corporations people. Sorry. It has nothing to do with causes I do, or do not agree with, and everything to do with a healthy democracy. Let's just say ones bank account is no measure of character, nor qualification to speak above others in the democracy. A similar dynamic can be seen with land owners, who also consistently seek some advantage over their peers. Acres do not vote, nor do dollars. Additionally, it has nothing to do with stopping advocacy of any kind. Those of significant means have plenty of ways to get the word out. Non issue. Bribery is another matter altogether. That is precisely what an amendment would be about. Thomas Paine derived the justification for self governance, and the basis for its authority in his books. In particular, "Rights of Man", and "Age of Reason" contain most of this in easy to understand form. A core idea is we agree to governance so we may better exercise our liberty. A lack of governance actually diminishes that for large numbers of people. The government must then serve us if it's authority is just and true. Allowing for money as speech in politics renders the authority of the government corrupt, unjust and untrue. In a real sense, it only serves some of us, when the intent is for it to serve all of us. That we allow anonymous dollars is also troubling. The First Amendment does not include a shield. At the very least we should require complete and full disclosure of all funds. Some of us want to advocate for causes an awful lot of the rest of us think very poorly of. And that is fine, but allowing powerful people to speak with impunity is as corrupt as the bribery associated with said speech. What the two do is break the basic intent and trust necessary for the people to abide by and respect the government. And government is necessary, despite some who claim otherwise. Further, it is not possible to conduct a meaningful debate, which can form the basis for cause agreement or disagreement in an environment where money so obviously trumps votes as consistently as it does in the US at present. Finally, the idea that some of us deserve to call the shots, because money, for the rest of us is old world governance. You can lump that in with ideas like divine right, or nobility, etc... A claim that God says one should be king, or that winning the birth lottery means the same is as silly as the idea of a wealthy person being somehow entitled in like kind. The telling bit in all this is the strong and consistent pushback on disclosure. Any cause really worth persist does not require anonymonity. Sure, there will be naysayers, but the overall open discourse will bring merits to light, as intended. Many who do not want disclosure have also been linked to some pretty damn ugly policy advocacy too. That's a generalization, of course, but it's also indicative of why disclosure at a minimum is required to make any real sense out of the mess we have in money and politics today. Honestly, I do not believe you understand how and why the First Amendment works, nor why it exists. Full disclosure may actually prove good enough too. If we are to continue with the idea of money as speech and corporations as people, then we also need to insure the basic dynamics of those are true to the intent of the First Amendment. Vile people can hide behind their corporate proxy and act with anonymous dollars to ends that are not easily demonstrated to be worthy. At present they can avoid judgement from their fellow citizens as well as many liabilities. That is a step too far. Disclosure would bring that out, and it may be enough to be workable. I'm completely open to that. I am absolutely not open to the idea of such powerful actors able to do so with relative impunity. Meaningful checks and balances are a core idea we all live by, and that is by design and intent to form a more just governance than our founders saw in the past. Citizens United is nothing more than a call to return to the times of fiefdoms, kings, lords, nobility... and many other unAmerica ideas of just and true governance.
      - marcoperaza 11y ago
        Given the current propensity for political witch-hunts in American politics, disclosure is clearly a trojan horse that is really intended to intimidate people over their opinions. Privacy for donors to non-profits is no different than a secret ballot, which America didn't always have. Look at what happened to Brendan Eich. The cause that he donated to was popular enough to win the election and even then, a $1000 donation was enough to undo him and force him out of his job. I don't agree with his opinions on that issue, but the precedent will clearly create a chilling effect on advocacy. Do you really think that's desirable? The freedom of advocacy is inseparable from the freedom of speech. It costs money to print pamphlets, buy air time, pay people to stand on the corner, conduct opinion polls, etc. The Citizens United case was about a non-profit organization that made a film critical of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary campaign. Their alleged violation was spending money against a politician within 30 days of a primary. Anyone who believes in free speech should have been appalled. Politicians want only politicians to be allowed to get their word out during an election. That wouldn't be a free society. The Supreme Court ruling was the only reasonable one. Say that you or I have a novel political idea that we want to advocate for. How do you propose that we do so? We'd probably form a non-profit, spend money contacting potential allies, convince them on the merits of our case and to donate to us, then spend that money on pamphlets, TV and radio ads, etc. That's freedom at work.
        ddingus 11y ago
        Yes. Challenges to opinion are normal, expected and required of every US citizen by design. If those opinions have merit, it will be found. All of us are subject to the law that a mere opinion could impose. Not only should that be challenged, we are required to do so. Like I said, disclosure may be enough. There is no, just try it here. Real people are impacted while living real lives. Disclosure is a reasonable check on what is significant advocacy power and access to legislators. As for your comments about the left... yes! The left cates about the little guy. No one else does. Brendan lost his job due to losing the respect of those he was supposed to lead. It would not work a day for him. I'll be frank, racism, bigotry and theocracy are completely unacceptable. Politics is a contact sport. Anyone advocating we treat others like lesser people can totally expect to be judged on it. At a minimum, those other prople are going to speak out, as they should. Hiding behind money and corporations means speech without accountability for said speech, and that is also unacceptable. There is no shield in the First Amendment, by design. The lesson here for Brendan is leading people requires you have the respect of those people. Maybe it's just not wise to classify some of those people as lesser, or wrong, or bad, undeserving people, if one wants their respect. I find avoidance of these basic dynamics very deeply offensive. Truth is, if the contact is a problem, maybe the speech is too. Go ask the people who have suffered a lot worse when speaking truth to power. Free Speech is not a license to say whatever one wants with no consequences, nor is it a license to be heard, or respected. You will see things like, "everyone has a right to their opinion", which is true. But everyone else also has a right to say what they think of that opinion too. All of that plays out as democracy and it provides checks and balances as well as the ability to challenge norms and advance the society. Out gay brothers and sisters all decided to speak up and out over how they were treated in society, and that treatment has been shown to be unjust and often for untrue reasons too. Good. Their supporters heard their story, found it compelling and acted on that. I personally won't have basic discrimination of this kind. I've walked from jobs where it was te norm, and did so long before we had the state of awareness we have today too. Everything costs something. I'm fine with disclosure as its a great check on bad idea advocacy just as its an enabler of good idea advocacy. I'm not OK at all with attempt to advance speech with impunity.
puredemo 11y ago
The oligarchs should mandate education camps

api 11y ago

Is there actually any such thing as a democracy, and if so would we want it? A pure democracy would actually be a nightmarish form of totalitarianism in which the majority was able to enforce its norms upon any minority without any checks or balance. The US is a constitutional republic in which democratic institutions act as one check upon power.

disposition2 11y ago
The US is a constitutional republic in which democratic institutions act according to the wishes of those with the biggest checkbook except for a few limited cases...and even when the populace can defeat that, often the checkbook eventually wins. See CISA as the most recent example.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  It's too easy to blame the billionaires' checkbooks. US elections can be bought, but only indirectly. Money buys advertising, but the people still have the power not to listen to advertising. Just ask Jeb! Bush. I still blame the individual voters who choose to remain so ignorant.
  - beerbajay 11y ago
    It is systems that allow for bad results. Blaming the individual is silly. If people are ignorant, there is a system keeping them so.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    In the big number game, you have half people dumber than average. In a system where the majority wins, that's self defeating.
  - disposition2 11y ago
    > Money buys advertising, but the people still have the power not to listen to advertising. Quite true. However, considering how the financier of these advertisements can be obfuscated or just not reported period, you're basically asking people to ignore all political advertising and be suspect about just about everything they read, hear or see.

eatonphil 11y ago

Could we get the date on the title? This is from 2014.

puredemo 11y ago
Wow a whole year
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Until tomorrow...

tokenadult 11y ago

This old claim gets resubmitted to Hacker News over and over and over, and there is never anything new here. The authors of the overly cited study don't represent a mainstream view in political science research. The more developed literature about Public Choice Theory[1] provides a lot more insight about how politics works--in every country in the world. Reading the BBC brief commentary kindly submitted here, which summarizes the "study" details that have been posted here many times before, I still have to ask, where is the comparison with other countries of the world? The United States continues to enjoy a high rate of net immigration with regard to essentially all other countries on the planet, and I know happy immigrants to the United States from China, India, Russia, Canada, Mexico, the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, Singapore, Somalia, Argentina, Ecuador, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Ghana, South Africa, Haiti, and plenty of other countries that aren't immediately coming to mind. Are there problems in the United States, including problems caused by poor governance? Sure there are. But, on the other hand, where is there somewhere that is a better democracy than the United States to the degree that local people there have to institute restrictive immigration measures to keep the United States citizens from migrating in? AFTER EDIT: I can see the silent downvotes for disagreement as well as anybody can, but meanwhile can you respond to what I have brought up substantively? Most of the other comments here also think that the authors overstated the problem they identified in their "study," and anyway how is one country any different from another country in this regard? [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Public+Choice+Theory&oq=Public+Choice+Theory https://www.google.com/search?q=Public+Choice+Theory&oq=Publ...

jgh 11y ago
The insanity and hypocracy in the American immigration system is infurating and will lead to fewer immigrants in the future. With the way the H1B system works it is extremely impractical to hire foreign workers who may be more qualified than domestic ones. Hardly any of the visas are dual intent. I know a Canadian who has been here for like 20 years and still doesnt have a green card. Most other countries give you permanent residency after you stay for a certain number of years. There is no startup visa. Want to come work at a company in the USA? There are a few (if bad) options. Want to start a company in the USA and employ Americans? Be prepared to bend the truth and risk getting deported. The United States has enjoyed its position of supremecy after Europe imploded from two world wars, and it is being taken for granted now.

fiatjaf 11y ago

Oh, US, US, US is the center of the world. Can't you see the entire world is exactly like the US in these matters? If the US is not a democracy, you can start blaming the mankind.

holmak 11y ago

I've been thinking about this lately, and there might be a great advantage to modern democracy even if it is a sham run by oligarchs. Unlike an old-fashioned monarchy or dictatorship, if you want to take over the country, you just have to pay a bunch of money to take control of legislative seats and/or the presidency. This is way less disruptive than having a civil war with armies rampaging about. It may be nowhere close to the popular ideal of democracy, but the reduced violence and destruction would probably make it a worthwhile innovation anyway.

brownbat 11y ago
Malcolm X would give several speeches about "the ballot or the bullet," talking about how history is full of violent revolutions, but he lived in a privileged time where revolutions can actually happen peacefully. I think there's a lot to be said for the idea of elections as a pressure valve, as well as a way to displace leadership once they cross certain lines. EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9BVEnEsn6Y&t=37m56s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9BVEnEsn6Y&t=37m56s Admittedly, he talks up the bullet as an inevitable fallback if the ballot didn't work, so maybe this isn't the perfect example...
- jacquesm 11y ago
  He definitely got voted out of the 'Nation of Islam' by the bullet, not the ballot. So maybe the example is a better one than you think.

dudul 11y ago

This situation exists in most so-called "democracies".

marcoperaza 11y ago

Given how much policy-making is specific to particular industries, is there anything wrong with the players in those industries having a big say in policy? I'd love to see what the "1,779 policy issues" that the study considered are, but I bet the average person doesn't have much to say about most of them. The goal is not to pit people against corporations. Those corporations are just the economic vehicles through which people act. Fishing companies are clearly going to have a lot to say about fishing policy, and are going to provide better input to Congress than I ever could, since I know nothing about fishing other than a few sound bites like "we're overfishing the seas". I don't know what that means for particularly fisheries or whatever other considerations there are. Take a more controversial example, banking. Most people don't know a thing about banking. They've heard sound bites about "greedy bankers" and "inefficient regulators", but they probably don't even know what fractional reserve banking is, let alone what the effects of regulation on it would be. How is it a bad thing that bankers have a large amount of input into these policies? And it hasn't stopped the government from passing policies that they oppose. Look at the animosity toward Dodd-Frank on Wall Street. Social scientific research can be twisted to support any conclusion. It's typically dressed up in the legitimacy of statistical analysis, but the underlying data is usually weak and their conclusions involve a lot of narrative-writing on the part of the authors. Also, you have to consider what the goal of democratic institutions is. Is it accountability or representation? Representation means that Congressmen would mirror the opinions of the public. Accountability means that the peoples role is to vote out bad leadership. Both are important, but I think accountability is typically the better goal.

rayiner 11y ago

Here is the underlying study: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi.... The actual conclusion of the study is rather different than the headline. To understand why you really need to break down the methodology and conclusions. First, the surveys of "public preference" are based not on voters, but general surveys. The authors studied: > 1,779 instances between 1981 and 2002 in which a national survey of the general public asked a favor/ oppose question about a proposed policy change. Because voters are wealthier, older, and more conservative than non-voters, public opinion is not the same thing as voter opinion. Second, they defined "economic elite" as people at the 90th percentile: > We believe that the preferences of “affluent” Americans at the ninetieth income percentile can usefully be taken as proxies for the opinions of wealthy or very-high-income Americans, and can be used to test the central predictions of Economic-Elite theories So the "economic elite" here are people with household incomes above $150,000. If you account for the fact that the median voter is about 45, that's a top 15% income or so. Third, there is a high correlation between the preferences of the public and those of the economic elite: > 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 (refer to table 2). Fourth, interest groups also have significant independent power: > 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. Thus, the real takeaway is something like: adopted policies generally reflect public opinion, except policies that have low support among the top ~15% of voters and/or interest groups are unlikely to get adopted: > When both interest groups and affluent Americans oppose a policy it has an even lower likelihood of being adopted (these proposed policies consist primarily of tax increases). That is a predictable outcome of representative democracy and does not imply that the U.S. is an oligarchy, or at least not the way one traditionally thinks of the term. When you define "economic elite" as the top 15%, you're roping in a big chunk of small business owners, professionals, property owners, etc. These are the people who employ other people, pay property taxes, serve on the PTA, and vote, especially in local elections. So 55% of the public may support say a hike on business taxes in a city, but if representatives worry that such an increase will make the city uncompetitive for jobs vis-a-vis other cities, the policy may not pass.

natrius 11y ago

Money is power. It always has been, and it always will be. Sure, votes are powerful, but voters can be influenced by money, so it's prohibitively difficult to get elected without the approval of capital. As a result, capital can band together as a class and purchase politicians to enact policies that are against the interests of people who have to produce for a living. Our political system is not democracy. Our political system is capitalism. It is occasionally tempered by the possibility of a popular uprising, so you can find democratic aspects if you look hard enough. How, then, do we prevent capital from ruling over labor? We must understand how exactly money works in making capital our kings. Money gives you the ability to compel almost anyone to produce for you. Producers agree because the money you pay them can be used to compel almost anyone to produce for them. In these terms, our goal is to eliminate the ability for capital to use money to compel individual producers to act against the interests of producers as a class. When capital attempts this, we want producers to refuse not out of principle, but because the incentive has been eliminated. If producers can't compel anyone to produce for them if their money has come from capital's attempt to rule as tyrants, then capital loses its ability to rule as tyrants. If this is the solution, then the problem is that money is anonymous. When someone compels me to produce for them, I have no idea where the money came from. If I did, I could refuse the tyrannical money while accepting any other money they attempt to pay with. Our money needs an auditable record of how it has flowed through the economy to allow people to exercise their inalienable right to reject the tyranny of capital. This requires sacrificing financial privacy, which sounds bad, but it's worth considering whether this 700 year-old concept should be as sacred as it seems. How do you build an auditable record of how money has flowed through an economy? Blockchains give us such records without needing to bestow power to any central authority to maintain the record. Blockchains will let us build a political system where capital still directs production, but the producing class has veto power. Capital alone isn't enough to rule; merit is also required. This is merit capitalism, and I think it could work better than not just the charade of democracy we have today, but also the ideal democracy that we thought we wanted.

brownbat 11y ago

The lack of open access academic work is incredibly frustrating. We're only guessing at the content of the article based on BBC's coverage. Consider this bit: A proposed policy change with low support among economically elite Americans…is adopted only about 18% of the time," they write, "while a proposed change with high support (four-out-of-five in favour) is adopted about 45% of the time… On the other hand[,] When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it. a) How much difference is there between "adopted about 45% of the time" and "generally do not get it?" That seems kind of important to the argument. b) I'm somewhat relieved to hear most groups never actually get their way. From what I remember of the Federalist Papers, gridlock was always the general idea. c) What policies are we talking about here? I feel one way when representatives overrule majorities that are trying to add accountability, but another way when majorities demand unconstitutional or unworkable policy changes. I'm really curious how many of the 1,779 policy issues inspire me towards majoritarianism. d) When are majorities and economic elites actually at odds? I'm not sure why, but it seems like some of the poorest people I know are the most supportive of tax relief for the rich. But really, at several income levels, I know both conservatives and liberals on various policy issues. The set of disagreements could tell us a lot about why one group's positions pass more often than the other. e) How often to policy implementations flip back and forth? Some tax cuts and educational policies just expired after a decade. Is that a win for people who fought to see them implemented? Or a win for people who opposed them? It's really a messy combination. There are landmark laws that stick around, but with most laws, there aren't clean victories on either side once you back up and see how they were amended or repealed over time. I'm sure the authors are very intelligent, so maybe they addressed all of these concerns in their paper. It's hard to know though when the default is gated, for-profit research.