9 ms·

I’ll remind everyone of the Princeton study that proved our democracy is a sham. Policy outcomes are almost exclusively the product of the preferences of econom

I’ll remind everyone of the Princeton study that proved our democracy is a sham. Policy outcomes are almost exclusively the product of the preferences of economic elites, not of the People. If you do get a legislative outcome you wanted it’s a coincidence that some big power’s agenda accidentally aligned with your own.

0110101001 4y ago
The authors of that study started by filtering down a giant list of survey responses to those where there's a significant difference in responses between the "donor class" and everyone else. I forget exactly how often that happened, but it's a small number. So, just in the premise the study, by needing to throw away almost all the survey responses where everyone agrees and get the policies what they want, actually goes a far way to debunking the populist premise that "economic elites" and "the People" are opposing factions with inherently different political opinions. Further, the study considered the group as "disagreeing" if the margin in survey answers was at least 10%. So if 90% of one group wanted something and 80% of the other, that was considered as them disagreeing. When a follow-up study further filtered responses to questions where more that margin spans the 5% mark, i.e. most people in each group disagree, then the effect completely disappears and it's more or less a coin toss which way policy goes.
- tines 4y ago
  > The authors of that study started by filtering down a giant list of survey responses to those where there's a significant difference in responses between the "donor class" and everyone else. I forget exactly how often that happened, but it's a small number. > So, just in the premise the study, by needing to throw away almost all the survey responses where everyone agrees and get the policies what they want, actually goes a far way to debunking the populist premise that "economic elites" and "the People" are opposing factions with inherently different political opinions. Help me understand, it sounds like you're saying that "when the poor people agree with the rich people, everyone gets what they want and democracy is proved to be healthy, nevermind that when they disagree, the rich people get what they want anyway." > When a follow-up study further filtered responses to questions where more that margin spans the 5% mark, i.e. most people in each group disagree, then the effect completely disappears and it's more or less a coin toss which way policy goes. So you're saying that when like, 90% of the rich people wanted A and 90% of the poor people wanted B, then it was a coin toss? That would make a good argument if so. Can you link to the study? EDIT: Actually now that I think about it, it doesn't really make a good argument, because the donor class is so much smaller than the non- that if 90% of donors want A and 90% of the poor want B, B should prevail easily. So if it's a coin toss, that's extremely biased, no?
  - cabalamat 4y ago
    > Help me understand, it sounds like you're saying that "when the poor people agree with the rich people, everyone gets what they want and democracy is proved to be healthy, nevermind that when they disagree, the rich people get what they want anyway." That's how I read it too.
  - Aunche 4y ago
    >Help me understand, it sounds like you're saying that "when the poor people agree with the rich people, everyone gets what they want and democracy is proved to be healthy, nevermind that when they disagree, the rich people get what they want anyway." Not the GP, but I think that the interests of the general public are actually much more closely aligned with those of "the elite" far more than people would like to believe. If for 90% of the issues the elite are just as likely to disagree amongst themselves than with the general public, it would be absurd to conclude that "democracy is a sham." When Roe v. Wade got overturned, a lot of people on the internet were proclaiming this was an act by "the elite" who want cheap workers. In reality, virtually every billionaire who has a vocal opinion on abortion is pro-choice, and several have donated hundreds of millions towards the cause.
    - tines 4y ago
      > Not the GP, but I think that the interests of the general public are actually much more closely aligned with those of "the elite" far more than people would like to believe. If for 90% of the issues the elite are just as likely to disagree amongst themselves than with the general public, it would be absurd to conclude that "democracy is a sham." Sure, that may or may not be true, but we're discussing a study that claims that when the two groups disagree, the smaller one wins. > When Roe v. Wade got overturned, a lot of people on the internet were proclaiming this was an act by "the elite" who want cheap workers. In reality, virtually every billionaire who has a vocal opinion on abortion is pro-choice, and several have donated hundreds of millions towards the cause. RvW was overturned by the supreme court, but I think the effect we're discussing applies to laws enacted by the legislature. This article references the paper: https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/disturbing-data-rich-and-powerful-get-their-policies-adopted-even-if-opposed/ https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/disturbing-d...
bitsnbytes 4y ago
Unfortunately the majority are to easily distracted and manipulated to concentrate on all the WRONG issues.That goes for both parties. The CORRECT ISSUE and primary issue we need to be focused on is conflict of interest. It makes no sense to try to get a group of people such as congress that have conflict of interest to fix the problems they created and are benefiting from , hence the result of the Princeton study. The sad part is that BOTH individual republicans and democrats should want to reduce conflict of interest as it benefits both sides and everyone in general. However BOTH party are too successful in keeping them fighting with each other , blaming each other, and chasing their tails trying to fix the issues with the people that created them.
Xeoncross 4y ago
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...
carabiner 4y ago
But at least we can talk about it! /s
sleton38234234 4y ago
I would say consumers should organize, and target a few of the biggest companies supporting this bill and boycott their products until the bill gets changed. If nobody buys another iphone for 6 months, I don't think they'll have any choice but to get the bill undone. right?
astrange 4y ago
That study didn't prove anything and doesn't reproduce. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-... What it does show is that "the people" and "the elites" agree on almost everything, more than you'd expect them to. Pretty obvious, if you pay attention at all you'd notice most Americans don't vote for economic reasons!
themitigating 4y ago
And what do you want to do?
hayst4ck 4y ago
Political movement related to this study: https://represent.us/americas-corruption-problem/ https://represent.us/americas-corruption-problem/ A Ted Talk by Harvard Law professor and Copyright Law reform advocate Lawrence Lessig on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g
mupuff1234 4y ago
Nor there is a true rule by law.
tasubotadas 4y ago
Pls link
- dmw_ng 4y ago
  https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- user3939382 4y ago
  Here's the highlight https://i.imgur.com/NNpD9AR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/NNpD9AR.jpg 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...
christkv 4y ago
I'm more and more convinced that parliament or congress by lottery would be more representative and functional as well as the death of all political parties as they exist today.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  I used to joke that, but each day makes me think it may actually do some good even if it will introduce some chaos to the process.
  - tkanarsky 4y ago
    Stochastic democracy!
- gruez 4y ago
  How do you prevent the representatives, who are laymen with no political experience from being captured by career bureaucrats and/or lobbyists?
  - flangola7 4y ago
    You could get a few people who are immune to power seeking and thus would never end up holding office otherwise.
  - Barrin92 4y ago
    Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury. I mean if you really wanted to get futuristic about it you could even have a sort of crypto sortition where everyone is completely anonymous and representatives don't even know each others identity.
    - gruez 4y ago
      > Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury. A jury also gets to hear arguments from both the prosecution and the defense. For complex trials this can last weeks/months. Presumably for the "jury" legislature that you propose, you'd want lobbyists/bureaucrats to plead their case. How do you prevent them from being hoodwinked by the lobbyists/bureaucrats? If you think that they shouldn't be able to hear arguments from lobbyists/bureaucrats, how do you prevent them from coming up with absolutely braindead policies like "haha tax cuts/spending go brrr"?
stuckinhell 4y ago
Law and Enforcement of it requires the mandate of the people. The mandate of the people seems breaking apart from the left and right in America. At some point I suspect "jury nullification" or worse will go mainstream.
Aunche 4y ago
Democracy is working as intended. Voters prioritize how well politicians virtue signal about wedge issues, then short-term economic stimulus (e.g. bragging about jobs created by unnecessary tax incentives), then meaningful policy, and only then, do they care about technical details of this meaningful policy. It's no surprise that they outsource the last part of lobbyists.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
comte7092 4y ago
The Princeton study actually showed that when it comes to advancing policies, it was pretty much a wash. Their difference came in when looking at getting policies blocked. If a policy was unpopular with economic elites, they were effective at getting it shut down. It’s an important distinction, because there’s a clear way to see what causes this behavior. There are a myriad of ways that our systems make it easy to block things rather than get things done. And if people realized that, there’s a pretty clear path for reform.
- dfxm12 4y ago
  If a policy was unpopular with economic elites, they were effective at getting it shut down. The push for Federalism is a good example of this. If you hear a politician claiming "states' rights", this might just be why. One material example of this is the NRA funding lawsuits against the Brady Bill, despite the gun control measures being popular with non elites.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Won’t these economic elite just catch wind of and block said reforms?
- convolvatron 4y ago
  I was totally with you until the last sentence. please go on.
  - theptip 4y ago
    I think they are getting at "vetocracy". I like Vitalik on this subject: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/19/bullveto.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/19/bullveto.html
  - ndiddy 4y ago
    The people doing the blocking have names and addresses.
  - 0x262d 4y ago
    Right. It's like the argument that the 2 party system is an intentional brake on democracy, so we have to legislate reforms into being... with the permission of the 2 party system that determines whether legislation gets passed? The clear logical extension of the argument is that reform on the terms in which we have these problems is ultimately not very workable.
zmgsabst 4y ago
That’s why you need to get organized, not “vote alone”. > Our findings of substantial influence by interest groups is particularly striking because little or no previous research has been able to estimate the extent of group influence while controlling for the preferences of other key non- governmental actors. Our evidence clearly indicates that—controlling for the influence of both the average citizen and economic elites—organized interest groups have a very substantial independent impact upon public policy. Theories of interest-group pluralism gain a strong measure of empirical support. (Quote from your citation below.)
fear_and_coffee 4y ago
[dead]
twblalock 4y ago
If you're casting a populist distinction between "economic elites" and "the People" you've already fallen for an oversimplified, cynical, inflammatory framing of the issue that has always been used by demagogues throughout history.
- vivekd 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by that? Isn't there a pretty obvious distinction between the interest and desires of the mass of people vs the interests of powerful special interest groups like corporations and the very wealthy. I mean we have no problem looking at historical society and drawing a distinction between nobility and the masses. Why does that logic fall apart in modern day societies
  - twblalock 4y ago
    Populists would love to convince you that "the elites" and "the people" are distinct groups that are pitted against each other in an eternal struggle. They do this in many cases to convince "the people" to adopt radical fringe views. In the past (and present!) this false narrative has been used to push mostly bad things: nativism, xenophobia, and really dumb economic policy. By falling for this false distinction you are priming yourself to be susceptible to demagoguery and similar bad ideas. If you look at reality you'll find that most distinctions between "the elites" and "the people" collapse and there is substantial overlap between both groups, both in membership and in their political self-interest.
    - Xeoncross 4y ago
      this is a non-answer unfortunately
      - twblalock 4y ago
        No, it’s a very clear answer: the elite-people distinction is mostly false, therefore populism operates on a false premise.

0110101001 4y ago

The authors of that study started by filtering down a giant list of survey responses to those where there's a significant difference in responses between the "donor class" and everyone else. I forget exactly how often that happened, but it's a small number. So, just in the premise the study, by needing to throw away almost all the survey responses where everyone agrees and get the policies what they want, actually goes a far way to debunking the populist premise that "economic elites" and "the People" are opposing factions with inherently different political opinions. Further, the study considered the group as "disagreeing" if the margin in survey answers was at least 10%. So if 90% of one group wanted something and 80% of the other, that was considered as them disagreeing. When a follow-up study further filtered responses to questions where more that margin spans the 5% mark, i.e. most people in each group disagree, then the effect completely disappears and it's more or less a coin toss which way policy goes.

tines 4y ago
> The authors of that study started by filtering down a giant list of survey responses to those where there's a significant difference in responses between the "donor class" and everyone else. I forget exactly how often that happened, but it's a small number. > So, just in the premise the study, by needing to throw away almost all the survey responses where everyone agrees and get the policies what they want, actually goes a far way to debunking the populist premise that "economic elites" and "the People" are opposing factions with inherently different political opinions. Help me understand, it sounds like you're saying that "when the poor people agree with the rich people, everyone gets what they want and democracy is proved to be healthy, nevermind that when they disagree, the rich people get what they want anyway." > When a follow-up study further filtered responses to questions where more that margin spans the 5% mark, i.e. most people in each group disagree, then the effect completely disappears and it's more or less a coin toss which way policy goes. So you're saying that when like, 90% of the rich people wanted A and 90% of the poor people wanted B, then it was a coin toss? That would make a good argument if so. Can you link to the study? EDIT: Actually now that I think about it, it doesn't really make a good argument, because the donor class is so much smaller than the non- that if 90% of donors want A and 90% of the poor want B, B should prevail easily. So if it's a coin toss, that's extremely biased, no?
- cabalamat 4y ago
  > Help me understand, it sounds like you're saying that "when the poor people agree with the rich people, everyone gets what they want and democracy is proved to be healthy, nevermind that when they disagree, the rich people get what they want anyway." That's how I read it too.
- Aunche 4y ago
  >Help me understand, it sounds like you're saying that "when the poor people agree with the rich people, everyone gets what they want and democracy is proved to be healthy, nevermind that when they disagree, the rich people get what they want anyway." Not the GP, but I think that the interests of the general public are actually much more closely aligned with those of "the elite" far more than people would like to believe. If for 90% of the issues the elite are just as likely to disagree amongst themselves than with the general public, it would be absurd to conclude that "democracy is a sham." When Roe v. Wade got overturned, a lot of people on the internet were proclaiming this was an act by "the elite" who want cheap workers. In reality, virtually every billionaire who has a vocal opinion on abortion is pro-choice, and several have donated hundreds of millions towards the cause.
  - tines 4y ago
    > Not the GP, but I think that the interests of the general public are actually much more closely aligned with those of "the elite" far more than people would like to believe. If for 90% of the issues the elite are just as likely to disagree amongst themselves than with the general public, it would be absurd to conclude that "democracy is a sham." Sure, that may or may not be true, but we're discussing a study that claims that when the two groups disagree, the smaller one wins. > When Roe v. Wade got overturned, a lot of people on the internet were proclaiming this was an act by "the elite" who want cheap workers. In reality, virtually every billionaire who has a vocal opinion on abortion is pro-choice, and several have donated hundreds of millions towards the cause. RvW was overturned by the supreme court, but I think the effect we're discussing applies to laws enacted by the legislature. This article references the paper: https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/disturbing-data-rich-and-powerful-get-their-policies-adopted-even-if-opposed/ https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2015/05/disturbing-d...

bitsnbytes 4y ago

Unfortunately the majority are to easily distracted and manipulated to concentrate on all the WRONG issues.That goes for both parties. The CORRECT ISSUE and primary issue we need to be focused on is conflict of interest. It makes no sense to try to get a group of people such as congress that have conflict of interest to fix the problems they created and are benefiting from , hence the result of the Princeton study. The sad part is that BOTH individual republicans and democrats should want to reduce conflict of interest as it benefits both sides and everyone in general. However BOTH party are too successful in keeping them fighting with each other , blaming each other, and chasing their tails trying to fix the issues with the people that created them.

Xeoncross 4y ago

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...

carabiner 4y ago

But at least we can talk about it! /s

sleton38234234 4y ago

I would say consumers should organize, and target a few of the biggest companies supporting this bill and boycott their products until the bill gets changed. If nobody buys another iphone for 6 months, I don't think they'll have any choice but to get the bill undone. right?

astrange 4y ago

That study didn't prove anything and doesn't reproduce. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-... What it does show is that "the people" and "the elites" agree on almost everything, more than you'd expect them to. Pretty obvious, if you pay attention at all you'd notice most Americans don't vote for economic reasons!

themitigating 4y ago

And what do you want to do?

hayst4ck 4y ago

Political movement related to this study: https://represent.us/americas-corruption-problem/ https://represent.us/americas-corruption-problem/ A Ted Talk by Harvard Law professor and Copyright Law reform advocate Lawrence Lessig on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g

mupuff1234 4y ago

Nor there is a true rule by law.

tasubotadas 4y ago

Pls link

dmw_ng 4y ago
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
user3939382 4y ago
Here's the highlight https://i.imgur.com/NNpD9AR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/NNpD9AR.jpg 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...

christkv 4y ago

I'm more and more convinced that parliament or congress by lottery would be more representative and functional as well as the death of all political parties as they exist today.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
I used to joke that, but each day makes me think it may actually do some good even if it will introduce some chaos to the process.
- tkanarsky 4y ago
  Stochastic democracy!
gruez 4y ago
How do you prevent the representatives, who are laymen with no political experience from being captured by career bureaucrats and/or lobbyists?
- flangola7 4y ago
  You could get a few people who are immune to power seeking and thus would never end up holding office otherwise.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury. I mean if you really wanted to get futuristic about it you could even have a sort of crypto sortition where everyone is completely anonymous and representatives don't even know each others identity.
  - gruez 4y ago
    > Replace them frequently and have them assemble in a place without outside influence for the duration of decision making, essentially like a jury. A jury also gets to hear arguments from both the prosecution and the defense. For complex trials this can last weeks/months. Presumably for the "jury" legislature that you propose, you'd want lobbyists/bureaucrats to plead their case. How do you prevent them from being hoodwinked by the lobbyists/bureaucrats? If you think that they shouldn't be able to hear arguments from lobbyists/bureaucrats, how do you prevent them from coming up with absolutely braindead policies like "haha tax cuts/spending go brrr"?

stuckinhell 4y ago

Law and Enforcement of it requires the mandate of the people. The mandate of the people seems breaking apart from the left and right in America. At some point I suspect "jury nullification" or worse will go mainstream.

Aunche 4y ago

Democracy is working as intended. Voters prioritize how well politicians virtue signal about wedge issues, then short-term economic stimulus (e.g. bragging about jobs created by unnecessary tax incentives), then meaningful policy, and only then, do they care about technical details of this meaningful policy. It's no surprise that they outsource the last part of lobbyists.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

comte7092 4y ago

The Princeton study actually showed that when it comes to advancing policies, it was pretty much a wash. Their difference came in when looking at getting policies blocked. If a policy was unpopular with economic elites, they were effective at getting it shut down. It’s an important distinction, because there’s a clear way to see what causes this behavior. There are a myriad of ways that our systems make it easy to block things rather than get things done. And if people realized that, there’s a pretty clear path for reform.

dfxm12 4y ago
If a policy was unpopular with economic elites, they were effective at getting it shut down. The push for Federalism is a good example of this. If you hear a politician claiming "states' rights", this might just be why. One material example of this is the NRA funding lawsuits against the Brady Bill, despite the gun control measures being popular with non elites.
the_only_law 4y ago
Won’t these economic elite just catch wind of and block said reforms?
convolvatron 4y ago
I was totally with you until the last sentence. please go on.
- theptip 4y ago
  I think they are getting at "vetocracy". I like Vitalik on this subject: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/19/bullveto.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/19/bullveto.html
- ndiddy 4y ago
  The people doing the blocking have names and addresses.
- 0x262d 4y ago
  Right. It's like the argument that the 2 party system is an intentional brake on democracy, so we have to legislate reforms into being... with the permission of the 2 party system that determines whether legislation gets passed? The clear logical extension of the argument is that reform on the terms in which we have these problems is ultimately not very workable.

zmgsabst 4y ago

That’s why you need to get organized, not “vote alone”. > Our findings of substantial influence by interest groups is particularly striking because little or no previous research has been able to estimate the extent of group influence while controlling for the preferences of other key non- governmental actors. Our evidence clearly indicates that—controlling for the influence of both the average citizen and economic elites—organized interest groups have a very substantial independent impact upon public policy. Theories of interest-group pluralism gain a strong measure of empirical support. (Quote from your citation below.)

fear_and_coffee 4y ago

[dead]

twblalock 4y ago

If you're casting a populist distinction between "economic elites" and "the People" you've already fallen for an oversimplified, cynical, inflammatory framing of the issue that has always been used by demagogues throughout history.

vivekd 4y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by that? Isn't there a pretty obvious distinction between the interest and desires of the mass of people vs the interests of powerful special interest groups like corporations and the very wealthy. I mean we have no problem looking at historical society and drawing a distinction between nobility and the masses. Why does that logic fall apart in modern day societies
- twblalock 4y ago
  Populists would love to convince you that "the elites" and "the people" are distinct groups that are pitted against each other in an eternal struggle. They do this in many cases to convince "the people" to adopt radical fringe views. In the past (and present!) this false narrative has been used to push mostly bad things: nativism, xenophobia, and really dumb economic policy. By falling for this false distinction you are priming yourself to be susceptible to demagoguery and similar bad ideas. If you look at reality you'll find that most distinctions between "the elites" and "the people" collapse and there is substantial overlap between both groups, both in membership and in their political self-interest.
  - Xeoncross 4y ago
    this is a non-answer unfortunately
    - twblalock 4y ago
      No, it’s a very clear answer: the elite-people distinction is mostly false, therefore populism operates on a false premise.