4 ms·

The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

114 points by giov4 2mo ago

NiceWayToDoIT 2mo ago
Hm, so study discovered hot water, what is new ?
spacedcowboy 2mo ago
Hasn't this been obvious for a while ? The US is about 1/5 of the way down an ever-more-slippery slope towards a fascist state. Its much-vaunted "checks and balances" have been shown to be paper tigers, and the constitution it heralds far and wide doesn't seem to be worth the paper its written on. The US already has one of the weakest social safety nets in the Western world, it has military-spec weaponised police with little to no oversight, it has a political system ripe for abuse with the electoral college and gerrymandering running rife, and it has a political legacy of "it doesn't matter what you do to win, as long as you win", which allows racism to dictate voting rights. It's an attitude (along with a lot of the other political institutions) that hasn't been updated since Victorian times. There's a lot of things I would not agree with, with any of the political leadership of the UK, but I wouldn't expect any of them - even the worst in my eyes - to separate children from families, prevent them from taking their medicine, lock them up in desert camps where rape and abuse are rife, and then remove them to remote locations with no record of where they went. Human trafficking, organised by the US government, for the profit of the rich. Not content with legal slavery for the imprisoned, they implemented it for migrants too. Migrant children. I'm genuinely not sure if the US is capable of reversing its current course. I'm not even sure it's worth trying without a huge shift in opinion for the public who vote these rat-bastards in. Again. After the human-trafficking came to light...
- giov4 2mo ago
  yes kinda obvious now for many, but I've never seen it so nicely summarised and also from 2014! I always try to consider a possible biased view, but again seen it summarized it like this makes it extremely simple and clear.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  It's been obvious to anyone who pays attention to all the details and thinks hard about their meaning, but that is a small fraction of people.
  - tdeck 2mo ago
    I think that deep down many people often believe that they could have a say in policy if only they tried hard enough, so their lack of influence is a kind of personal failing. In reality these systems are designed to absorb your effort and direct it into time sinks that either serve those in power Want to change things? First "we" need to take back the house by phone-banking for this blue dog Chip in $5 today to help Chuck Schumer win back the Senate or avoid putting pressure on anyone We're going to "show Trump" with a big attendance at the next No Kings rally It's similar to how people are led to believe anyone could have a billion dollars if only they were smarter and/or worked harder.
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      These things do help but only very slightly, not sufficiently. The main function of a protest is not to effect change, but to help people who support a cause meet each other. Voting for one party can be better than voting for the other party even if both parties are bad in different ways.
      - tdeck 2mo ago
        > The main function of a protest is not to effect change, but to help people who support a cause meet each other. This is certainly the case with many protests in many contexts, but there are ways to protest that make the powerful worried and ways that reassure them they really have nothing to worry about. There have been many protest movements that were organized to effect change and succeeded in doing so. What's more, people aren't showing up to these events thinking "this will certainly not effect change but may help me meet people". Once they get a clue that there's no potential for change they'll stop showing up.
    - JKCalhoun 2mo ago
- OgsyedIE 2mo ago
  A reverse would violate three red lines that the current oligarchy will not budge on: * More sharing of political power with ethnic, class or cultural outgroups * Less revenues for the oligarchy from land ownership, investment in healthcare and investment in finance (other investment sectors would do better, however) * Greater civil and criminal penalties for civil or criminal wrongdoing by oligarchs, their loved ones and their class allies (e.g. the affluenza case) Even installing something like Juche and losing internationally to China in every way is preferable to having any one of these go forward, at least to their perspective.
- lapcat 2mo ago
  > Its much-vaunted "checks and balances" have been shown to be paper tigers, and the constitution it heralds far and wide doesn't seem to be worth the paper its written on. The Constitution was oligarchic by design of the founding oligarchs, who stated explicitly that the point of the "checks and balances" was actually to stop majoritarianism.
hunglee2 2mo ago
We hear a lot about what is or isn't a democracy but the reality is that very few countries today would ever be above the bar set. Even Athenian democracy wouldn't, as it was a demos of the male citizens only, supported by a large slave class. What is more important is: is it working? And if not, why not?
- giov4 2mo ago
  agree, but do you think are there any working examples? is it working somewhere someway? could we learn and take example from it? or is all chaos and corruption? I still think about the Bonobos a lot.
  - egeozcan 2mo ago
    To complete the circle: The definition of working is vastly different among humans, and that's why we have (or trying to have) democracy.
- Balinares 2mo ago
  Which is why, instead of "democracy", it's more useful to quantify democratic. One traditional measure of such is the degree to which political power can be gained through free elections. But the research in TFA instead uses a novel measure: the weight a population has in its country's policymaking. Which yields fascinating results. Because, per the linked research, in present-time USA that weight is ~zero. Which is especially interesting considering the USA's narratives about itself. And how, it seems to me, its population is so invested in said narratives that it will defend those even in the face of contrary research. You'd think a culture so invested in its self-determination would be angry about this result and endeavor to do something about it.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    The linked research was 12 years ago during the Obama regime. Have things changed since Obama?
    - 2mo ago
hn_submit 2mo ago
[flagged]
- giov4 2mo ago
  I see this written here as a good representation of the current media view imposed on people ( and apparently well received ) that is actually leading to things like trump or fascism.
  - hn_submit 2mo ago
    Trump is (mostly) not the problem. He's the canary in the coal mine. He does what his constituents want. Other politicians were simply too thick to hear what people's concerns were so they voted for someone else.
- sirtaj 2mo ago
  The article is about oligarchy. You've somehow redirected it towards immigration. How are you making this connection?
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Oligarchy is whenever you're free to travel, apparently.
  - hn_submit 2mo ago
    Trump is part of upper class oligarchy in the United States and his election is the direct result of the concerns of his constituents regarding immigration.
mnmnmn 2mo ago
[dead]
mertbio 2mo ago
How can a country be democratic with only two parties?
- tonyedgecombe 2mo ago
  I remember reading an economics paper that showed you need at least four suppliers in any market to get real competition. I can't see why politics is any different.
- hn_submit 2mo ago
  This is a direct outcrop of the winner-takes-all electoral district system which forces parties to merge to have a chance at winning. I personally find it an undemocratic, archaic and meritless system.
  - giov4 2mo ago
    electoral district system? this seems to be very specific and a subset of the topic/problem
    - hn_submit 2mo ago
      It relates to the two-party system, not whether the U.S. is an oligarchy. The article implies that the U.S. is not a democracy, but oligarchy and democracy aren't mutually exclusive. I'd say the U.S. (and most Western countries) is both and always has been. Voters certainly have influence in the U.S. but it's limited, just like everywhere else.
  - RobotToaster 2mo ago
    It was revolutionary and progressive, in the 13th century... Now, not so much.
  - lapcat 2mo ago
    > This is a direct outcrop of the winner-takes-all electoral district system which forces parties to merge to have a chance at winning. I'm not sure this is true. When the highest vote-getter wins, despite the lack of an absolute majority, that gives a better chance to third-party candidates in a multi-candidate election. The reason third parties fare so poorly in the US is that the two major parties have a duopoly on campaign fundraising and free news coverage, which is a vicious circle. The media covers only candidates who are "electable", and they judge who's electable based on their ability to raise money, but you can't raise any money if nobody knows about you, and nobody will know about you if you don't get media coverage or don't have the money to spread your message. This is why self-funded billionaire Ross Perot was the most successful third-party Presidential candidate in recent times.
t-3 2mo ago
Representative democracy is by nature oligachic. Practically, there was no other way to organize a large state until modern communications technology, so that's very understandable, the critical issue is that the US is becoming less and less democratic and more oligarchic over time while we are more and more capable of democracy (instantaneous communication across the world, very fast travel, universal education, etc). The end of proportional representation in favor of a fixed-size Congress was the beginning of the end, IMO.
- lapcat 2mo ago
  "All politics is local", which used to be true until perhaps 50 years ago, was the only thing that kept the oligarchs in check. Now the oligarchs can use modern communications technology to organize and consolidate power at the national and even international level. Consider how Rupert Murdoch for example was able to spread his political propaganda from Australia all the way to the US and the UK. Consider also how Jeffrey Epstein organized a global social network of oligarchs.
  - jmclnx 2mo ago
    I agree with this, when Reagan pushed through his tax cuts for the rich and Union Busting, the US started moving away from a republic. Since then, more policies were put in place to give the very rich more power and Citizens United was when the US became 100% a oligarchy. At this point, I think Nov 2026 and its aftermath will prove your vote does not matter at all. To me, this red vs blue are just 2 groups of very rich people fighting for control of the US. No matter who wins that fight, people of the US will still continue moving towards serfdom. But there is a big equalizer coming down the road, Climate Change. In 50 to 100 years, even if the rich creates walled gardens, the life style of their descendants will eventually become the same as everyone else. That is if they are lucky.
flr03 2mo ago
It doesn't look like it got any better since 2014.
- tistoon 2mo ago
  [flagged]
feverzsj 2mo ago
Democracy isn't absolute. I'd rate US style democracy 6 out of 10, while Russia is 2.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Why not 4 and 1 respectively?
  - sam_lowry_ 2mo ago
    Hah! Reading about the way democracy was done in Athens, both are at 0. In Athens, they had some 5000 people gathering together to vote every week on various matters out of the total population of around 20000 (the others were women, slaves and immigrants). The judicial system was organized into 10 courts of 500 randomly assigned people from the above 5000. They regularly forced the most prominent politicians to emigrate so that they do not become excessively influential. Once Sparta took over Athens, the decision-making was restricted to 500 people first, then to the 30 tyrants. P.S. IIRC, they had both secret and public voting. P.P.S. Most public jobs were assigned randomly, except those that required specialized skills.
    - lapcat 2mo ago
      > In Athens, they had some 5000 people gathering together to vote every week on various matters out of the total population of around 20000 (the others were women, slaves and immigrants). At its founding, the United States allowed widespread slavery and granted the vote only to white males, disenfranching women and black men. > They regularly forced the most prominent politicians to emigrate so that they do not become excessively influential. This sounds like a good idea to me.
      - Gander5739 2mo ago
        On the latter point, the GP is not entirely accurate. Any citizen could be expelled, so long as they had the greatest number of people vote to expel them. The practice was known as Ostracism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism).
Synaesthesia 2mo ago
One measure of democracy is how much say you have in issues which affect you, the running of your neighborhood, your government etc. If you look at decision making at high levels, the general population usually gets ignored. Instead, powerful special interests dominate the government. Particularly with regard to foreign affairs of the USA, the oil lobby and weapons manufacturers. And look who's benefiting from the current state of affairs in Ukraine, Iran and Venezuela: US arms manufacturers and oil companies. On the other hand in many ways people in the USA are extroardinarly free, there's pretty good protection of freedom of speech.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  If high levels are ignoring the general population and dominated by special interests, that's an oligarchy. You agree with the article.
- cucumber3732842 2mo ago
  >One measure of democracy is how much say you have in issues which affect you, the running of your neighborhood, your government etc. We've intentionally reduced everyone's say in everything around them with state/fed regulation and the whole "make it cost too much to be viable on its face but then give them a grant/tax break/other favorable treatment to make it work if they jump through the right hoops" paradigm that's permeated damn near everything.
- GJim 2mo ago
  > people in the USA are extroardinarly free, there's pretty good protection of freedom of speech. Unless you try criticising the president...... That is to say, anybody _in power_ or any in any position of authority is significantly curtailing their criticism of Trump. If you haven't noticed this by now, then I despair. Frankly it's unimportant what the little guy says about Trump. The little guys speech is 'free', but the moment the little guy is in a position of power, watch the US administration silence him. BTW: Being 'silenced' doesn't mean being carted off to prison. It means the Trump taking away your authority, reputation, career and/or livelihood. That is all that is required.
s_dev 2mo ago
https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy... The US has slid below Hungary in democracy, Hungary was also straight sliding towards dictatorship. Hungary did a 180 though by electing Peter Maygar. Hopefully the US can do a 180 in the midterms. Otherwise it will probably slide in to being a full Oligarchy like Russia. To me this crazy thing is the complete lack of alarm or sense of urgency from Americans on this. They seem very subdued and very complacent regarding this change.
- pu_pe 2mo ago
  > The US has slid below Hungary in democracy, Hungary was also straight sliding towards dictatorship. Hungary did a 180 though by electing Peter Maygar. Hopefully the US can do a 180 in the midterms. Considering TFA is from 2014 and knowing the Democratic Party, I think instead of a 180 you could at best expect a 20
- cmxch 2mo ago
  [dead]
- heresie-dabord 2mo ago
  > Hungary did a 180 [...] Hopefully the US can do a 180 in the midterms. One recent US poll (July 2026) reported that the Democratic Party has close to an 8 point lead over the Repuglican Party. 8 points — that's all! After all the crime, violence, war, corruption and offence to US democracy... No one observing this thinks that the US will do a 1.8, nevermind a 180.
Havoc 2mo ago
And starting to smell like a kleptocracy given the rampant insider trading and leveraging military to influence market outcomes
- burnt-resistor 2mo ago
  Klepo-pluto-ano-neo-krato-kakistocracy with a side of extra oligarchy.
  - penguin_booze 2mo ago
    All mixed up in a bucket for monsieur.
  - tsoukase 2mo ago
    Kakistos = worst. I am Greek and I have never heard such an accurate word for the modern political system.
thefz 2mo ago
Well private financing of political parties has the unwanted side effect of making politics cater to the interests of those with money.
1659447091 2mo ago
Their average vs elite: > "[...] the fiftieth income percentile—that is, [...] the preferences of the average citizen" > "[...] “affluent” Americans at the ninetieth income percentile can usefully be taken as proxies for the opinions of wealthy or very-high-income Americans [...] about $146,000 in annual household income" Their conclusion: > "This evidence indicates [...] policy is consistent with majority preferences roughly two-thirds of the time; that public policy changes in the same direction as collective preferences a similar two-thirds of the time [...]" > "Furthermore, the preferences of economic elites [...] have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do." They forgot to mention that income is a strong indicator of voter turn out[0]; "economic elites" vote in higher numbers with a gap of around 20-30% depending on source and year. Also, voter turnout is pretty low to start with at around 50-60%. So, now we have a better understanding of who actually votes instead of surveying the "average" citizen if they agree with policies as this study does compared to the policies favored by the "elite". The conclusion read with the added voter facts is: The higher the income the more likely to actually vote; Elected government officials work to create policies that favors the people who voted for them; People who turn out to vote in greater numbers have all the actual policy influence (they also currently have increasingly higher incomes than those who don't vote). Well no shit, they said it themselves "Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections [...]" sound like democracy is working. Therefore, if the "average" citizen surveyed here doesn't like the policy they are well within their rights to hold their representative responsible by getting themselves and 3 vote-eligible friends/family members to go vote. This especially includes the primaries. The "elite" do. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23780231251338441 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23780231251338441
- lapcat 2mo ago
  > getting themselves and 3 vote-eligible friends/family members to go vote Vote for whom? Political campaigns are self-funded. Financially, it's difficult for nonwealthy persons to run for office and to raise campaign contributions from other nonwealthy persons. And if a candidate happens to gain prominence who runs against the interests of the wealthy, the wealthy are especially eager to throw tons of money at an opponent of the candidate in order to crush them. So of course the wealthy are more enthusiastic about voting for candidates who represent their interests.
_DeadFred_ 2mo ago
Our system is an direct descendant of the Norman conquest system over England, with a conquering class sitting at the top, feeling no connection to those lower than them, extracting any and all value they can from them.
tsoukase 2mo ago
Any political system regresses to oligarchy. Both a single or all people cannot practically govern, so a few take over soon anyway. The question is, how are these few chosen?

114 points by giov4 2mo ago

Hm, so study discovered hot water, what is new ?

Hasn't this been obvious for a while ? The US is about 1/5 of the way down an ever-more-slippery slope towards a fascist state. Its much-vaunted "checks and balances" have been shown to be paper tigers, and the constitution it heralds far and wide doesn't seem to be worth the paper its written on. The US already has one of the weakest social safety nets in the Western world, it has military-spec weaponised police with little to no oversight, it has a political system ripe for abuse with the electoral college and gerrymandering running rife, and it has a political legacy of "it doesn't matter what you do to win, as long as you win", which allows racism to dictate voting rights. It's an attitude (along with a lot of the other political institutions) that hasn't been updated since Victorian times. There's a lot of things I would not agree with, with any of the political leadership of the UK, but I wouldn't expect any of them - even the worst in my eyes - to separate children from families, prevent them from taking their medicine, lock them up in desert camps where rape and abuse are rife, and then remove them to remote locations with no record of where they went. Human trafficking, organised by the US government, for the profit of the rich. Not content with legal slavery for the imprisoned, they implemented it for migrants too. Migrant children. I'm genuinely not sure if the US is capable of reversing its current course. I'm not even sure it's worth trying without a huge shift in opinion for the public who vote these rat-bastards in. Again. After the human-trafficking came to light...

giov4 2mo ago
yes kinda obvious now for many, but I've never seen it so nicely summarised and also from 2014! I always try to consider a possible biased view, but again seen it summarized it like this makes it extremely simple and clear.
inigyou 2mo ago
It's been obvious to anyone who pays attention to all the details and thinks hard about their meaning, but that is a small fraction of people.
- tdeck 2mo ago
  I think that deep down many people often believe that they could have a say in policy if only they tried hard enough, so their lack of influence is a kind of personal failing. In reality these systems are designed to absorb your effort and direct it into time sinks that either serve those in power Want to change things? First "we" need to take back the house by phone-banking for this blue dog Chip in $5 today to help Chuck Schumer win back the Senate or avoid putting pressure on anyone We're going to "show Trump" with a big attendance at the next No Kings rally It's similar to how people are led to believe anyone could have a billion dollars if only they were smarter and/or worked harder.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    These things do help but only very slightly, not sufficiently. The main function of a protest is not to effect change, but to help people who support a cause meet each other. Voting for one party can be better than voting for the other party even if both parties are bad in different ways.
    - tdeck 2mo ago
      > The main function of a protest is not to effect change, but to help people who support a cause meet each other. This is certainly the case with many protests in many contexts, but there are ways to protest that make the powerful worried and ways that reassure them they really have nothing to worry about. There have been many protest movements that were organized to effect change and succeeded in doing so. What's more, people aren't showing up to these events thinking "this will certainly not effect change but may help me meet people". Once they get a clue that there's no potential for change they'll stop showing up.
  - JKCalhoun 2mo ago
OgsyedIE 2mo ago
A reverse would violate three red lines that the current oligarchy will not budge on: * More sharing of political power with ethnic, class or cultural outgroups * Less revenues for the oligarchy from land ownership, investment in healthcare and investment in finance (other investment sectors would do better, however) * Greater civil and criminal penalties for civil or criminal wrongdoing by oligarchs, their loved ones and their class allies (e.g. the affluenza case) Even installing something like Juche and losing internationally to China in every way is preferable to having any one of these go forward, at least to their perspective.
lapcat 2mo ago
> Its much-vaunted "checks and balances" have been shown to be paper tigers, and the constitution it heralds far and wide doesn't seem to be worth the paper its written on. The Constitution was oligarchic by design of the founding oligarchs, who stated explicitly that the point of the "checks and balances" was actually to stop majoritarianism.

hunglee2 2mo ago

We hear a lot about what is or isn't a democracy but the reality is that very few countries today would ever be above the bar set. Even Athenian democracy wouldn't, as it was a demos of the male citizens only, supported by a large slave class. What is more important is: is it working? And if not, why not?

giov4 2mo ago
agree, but do you think are there any working examples? is it working somewhere someway? could we learn and take example from it? or is all chaos and corruption? I still think about the Bonobos a lot.
- egeozcan 2mo ago
  To complete the circle: The definition of working is vastly different among humans, and that's why we have (or trying to have) democracy.
Balinares 2mo ago
Which is why, instead of "democracy", it's more useful to quantify democratic. One traditional measure of such is the degree to which political power can be gained through free elections. But the research in TFA instead uses a novel measure: the weight a population has in its country's policymaking. Which yields fascinating results. Because, per the linked research, in present-time USA that weight is ~zero. Which is especially interesting considering the USA's narratives about itself. And how, it seems to me, its population is so invested in said narratives that it will defend those even in the face of contrary research. You'd think a culture so invested in its self-determination would be angry about this result and endeavor to do something about it.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  The linked research was 12 years ago during the Obama regime. Have things changed since Obama?
  - 2mo ago

hn_submit 2mo ago

[flagged]

giov4 2mo ago
I see this written here as a good representation of the current media view imposed on people ( and apparently well received ) that is actually leading to things like trump or fascism.
- hn_submit 2mo ago
  Trump is (mostly) not the problem. He's the canary in the coal mine. He does what his constituents want. Other politicians were simply too thick to hear what people's concerns were so they voted for someone else.
sirtaj 2mo ago
The article is about oligarchy. You've somehow redirected it towards immigration. How are you making this connection?
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Oligarchy is whenever you're free to travel, apparently.
- hn_submit 2mo ago
  Trump is part of upper class oligarchy in the United States and his election is the direct result of the concerns of his constituents regarding immigration.

mnmnmn 2mo ago

[dead]

mertbio 2mo ago

How can a country be democratic with only two parties?

tonyedgecombe 2mo ago
I remember reading an economics paper that showed you need at least four suppliers in any market to get real competition. I can't see why politics is any different.
hn_submit 2mo ago
This is a direct outcrop of the winner-takes-all electoral district system which forces parties to merge to have a chance at winning. I personally find it an undemocratic, archaic and meritless system.
- giov4 2mo ago
  electoral district system? this seems to be very specific and a subset of the topic/problem
  - hn_submit 2mo ago
    It relates to the two-party system, not whether the U.S. is an oligarchy. The article implies that the U.S. is not a democracy, but oligarchy and democracy aren't mutually exclusive. I'd say the U.S. (and most Western countries) is both and always has been. Voters certainly have influence in the U.S. but it's limited, just like everywhere else.
- RobotToaster 2mo ago
  It was revolutionary and progressive, in the 13th century... Now, not so much.
- lapcat 2mo ago
  > This is a direct outcrop of the winner-takes-all electoral district system which forces parties to merge to have a chance at winning. I'm not sure this is true. When the highest vote-getter wins, despite the lack of an absolute majority, that gives a better chance to third-party candidates in a multi-candidate election. The reason third parties fare so poorly in the US is that the two major parties have a duopoly on campaign fundraising and free news coverage, which is a vicious circle. The media covers only candidates who are "electable", and they judge who's electable based on their ability to raise money, but you can't raise any money if nobody knows about you, and nobody will know about you if you don't get media coverage or don't have the money to spread your message. This is why self-funded billionaire Ross Perot was the most successful third-party Presidential candidate in recent times.

t-3 2mo ago

Representative democracy is by nature oligachic. Practically, there was no other way to organize a large state until modern communications technology, so that's very understandable, the critical issue is that the US is becoming less and less democratic and more oligarchic over time while we are more and more capable of democracy (instantaneous communication across the world, very fast travel, universal education, etc). The end of proportional representation in favor of a fixed-size Congress was the beginning of the end, IMO.

lapcat 2mo ago
"All politics is local", which used to be true until perhaps 50 years ago, was the only thing that kept the oligarchs in check. Now the oligarchs can use modern communications technology to organize and consolidate power at the national and even international level. Consider how Rupert Murdoch for example was able to spread his political propaganda from Australia all the way to the US and the UK. Consider also how Jeffrey Epstein organized a global social network of oligarchs.
- jmclnx 2mo ago
  I agree with this, when Reagan pushed through his tax cuts for the rich and Union Busting, the US started moving away from a republic. Since then, more policies were put in place to give the very rich more power and Citizens United was when the US became 100% a oligarchy. At this point, I think Nov 2026 and its aftermath will prove your vote does not matter at all. To me, this red vs blue are just 2 groups of very rich people fighting for control of the US. No matter who wins that fight, people of the US will still continue moving towards serfdom. But there is a big equalizer coming down the road, Climate Change. In 50 to 100 years, even if the rich creates walled gardens, the life style of their descendants will eventually become the same as everyone else. That is if they are lucky.

flr03 2mo ago

It doesn't look like it got any better since 2014.

tistoon 2mo ago
[flagged]

feverzsj 2mo ago

Democracy isn't absolute. I'd rate US style democracy 6 out of 10, while Russia is 2.

inigyou 2mo ago
Why not 4 and 1 respectively?
- sam_lowry_ 2mo ago
  Hah! Reading about the way democracy was done in Athens, both are at 0. In Athens, they had some 5000 people gathering together to vote every week on various matters out of the total population of around 20000 (the others were women, slaves and immigrants). The judicial system was organized into 10 courts of 500 randomly assigned people from the above 5000. They regularly forced the most prominent politicians to emigrate so that they do not become excessively influential. Once Sparta took over Athens, the decision-making was restricted to 500 people first, then to the 30 tyrants. P.S. IIRC, they had both secret and public voting. P.P.S. Most public jobs were assigned randomly, except those that required specialized skills.
  - lapcat 2mo ago
    > In Athens, they had some 5000 people gathering together to vote every week on various matters out of the total population of around 20000 (the others were women, slaves and immigrants). At its founding, the United States allowed widespread slavery and granted the vote only to white males, disenfranching women and black men. > They regularly forced the most prominent politicians to emigrate so that they do not become excessively influential. This sounds like a good idea to me.
    - Gander5739 2mo ago
      On the latter point, the GP is not entirely accurate. Any citizen could be expelled, so long as they had the greatest number of people vote to expel them. The practice was known as Ostracism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism).

Synaesthesia 2mo ago

One measure of democracy is how much say you have in issues which affect you, the running of your neighborhood, your government etc. If you look at decision making at high levels, the general population usually gets ignored. Instead, powerful special interests dominate the government. Particularly with regard to foreign affairs of the USA, the oil lobby and weapons manufacturers. And look who's benefiting from the current state of affairs in Ukraine, Iran and Venezuela: US arms manufacturers and oil companies. On the other hand in many ways people in the USA are extroardinarly free, there's pretty good protection of freedom of speech.

inigyou 2mo ago
If high levels are ignoring the general population and dominated by special interests, that's an oligarchy. You agree with the article.
cucumber3732842 2mo ago
>One measure of democracy is how much say you have in issues which affect you, the running of your neighborhood, your government etc. We've intentionally reduced everyone's say in everything around them with state/fed regulation and the whole "make it cost too much to be viable on its face but then give them a grant/tax break/other favorable treatment to make it work if they jump through the right hoops" paradigm that's permeated damn near everything.
GJim 2mo ago
> people in the USA are extroardinarly free, there's pretty good protection of freedom of speech. Unless you try criticising the president...... That is to say, anybody _in power_ or any in any position of authority is significantly curtailing their criticism of Trump. If you haven't noticed this by now, then I despair. Frankly it's unimportant what the little guy says about Trump. The little guys speech is 'free', but the moment the little guy is in a position of power, watch the US administration silence him. BTW: Being 'silenced' doesn't mean being carted off to prison. It means the Trump taking away your authority, reputation, career and/or livelihood. That is all that is required.

s_dev 2mo ago

https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy... The US has slid below Hungary in democracy, Hungary was also straight sliding towards dictatorship. Hungary did a 180 though by electing Peter Maygar. Hopefully the US can do a 180 in the midterms. Otherwise it will probably slide in to being a full Oligarchy like Russia. To me this crazy thing is the complete lack of alarm or sense of urgency from Americans on this. They seem very subdued and very complacent regarding this change.

pu_pe 2mo ago
> The US has slid below Hungary in democracy, Hungary was also straight sliding towards dictatorship. Hungary did a 180 though by electing Peter Maygar. Hopefully the US can do a 180 in the midterms. Considering TFA is from 2014 and knowing the Democratic Party, I think instead of a 180 you could at best expect a 20
cmxch 2mo ago
[dead]
heresie-dabord 2mo ago
> Hungary did a 180 [...] Hopefully the US can do a 180 in the midterms. One recent US poll (July 2026) reported that the Democratic Party has close to an 8 point lead over the Repuglican Party. 8 points — that's all! After all the crime, violence, war, corruption and offence to US democracy... No one observing this thinks that the US will do a 1.8, nevermind a 180.

Havoc 2mo ago

And starting to smell like a kleptocracy given the rampant insider trading and leveraging military to influence market outcomes

burnt-resistor 2mo ago
Klepo-pluto-ano-neo-krato-kakistocracy with a side of extra oligarchy.
- penguin_booze 2mo ago
  All mixed up in a bucket for monsieur.
- tsoukase 2mo ago
  Kakistos = worst. I am Greek and I have never heard such an accurate word for the modern political system.

thefz 2mo ago

Well private financing of political parties has the unwanted side effect of making politics cater to the interests of those with money.

1659447091 2mo ago

Their average vs elite: > "[...] the fiftieth income percentile—that is, [...] the preferences of the average citizen" > "[...] “affluent” Americans at the ninetieth income percentile can usefully be taken as proxies for the opinions of wealthy or very-high-income Americans [...] about $146,000 in annual household income" Their conclusion: > "This evidence indicates [...] policy is consistent with majority preferences roughly two-thirds of the time; that public policy changes in the same direction as collective preferences a similar two-thirds of the time [...]" > "Furthermore, the preferences of economic elites [...] have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do." They forgot to mention that income is a strong indicator of voter turn out[0]; "economic elites" vote in higher numbers with a gap of around 20-30% depending on source and year. Also, voter turnout is pretty low to start with at around 50-60%. So, now we have a better understanding of who actually votes instead of surveying the "average" citizen if they agree with policies as this study does compared to the policies favored by the "elite". The conclusion read with the added voter facts is: The higher the income the more likely to actually vote; Elected government officials work to create policies that favors the people who voted for them; People who turn out to vote in greater numbers have all the actual policy influence (they also currently have increasingly higher incomes than those who don't vote). Well no shit, they said it themselves "Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections [...]" sound like democracy is working. Therefore, if the "average" citizen surveyed here doesn't like the policy they are well within their rights to hold their representative responsible by getting themselves and 3 vote-eligible friends/family members to go vote. This especially includes the primaries. The "elite" do. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23780231251338441 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23780231251338441

lapcat 2mo ago
> getting themselves and 3 vote-eligible friends/family members to go vote Vote for whom? Political campaigns are self-funded. Financially, it's difficult for nonwealthy persons to run for office and to raise campaign contributions from other nonwealthy persons. And if a candidate happens to gain prominence who runs against the interests of the wealthy, the wealthy are especially eager to throw tons of money at an opponent of the candidate in order to crush them. So of course the wealthy are more enthusiastic about voting for candidates who represent their interests.

_DeadFred_ 2mo ago

Our system is an direct descendant of the Norman conquest system over England, with a conquering class sitting at the top, feeling no connection to those lower than them, extracting any and all value they can from them.

tsoukase 2mo ago

Any political system regresses to oligarchy. Both a single or all people cannot practically govern, so a few take over soon anyway. The question is, how are these few chosen?