

US Is an Oligarchy Not a Democracy, says Scientific Study - Shivetya
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/14

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notme_
Lessig and others have pointed out the US needs a constitutional amendment to
fix the problems with campaign finance that are the root cause of the problem.

This isn't hacker news unless you mention someone like Lessig in relation to
this.

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dragonwriter
There's considerable empirical evidence from cross-country studies of
democracy that limited input and poorly representative government are a
product of electoral structures that support duopoly, like the ones that US
has had since its founding.

The domination by elites is a result of an electoral process that prevents
effective choices (and thus, meaningful input) from coming through the
electoral process and drives most meaningful political input through processes
other than the formal electoral process.

Constitutional changes focussed on campaign _financing_ rather than
fundamental government and elctoral _structure_ are unlikely to seriously
change that, though they may redirect the _form_ through which elite
influences are directed outside of the electoral process.

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jon_black
Given how often democracy is raved about in the US, you'd expect this to be
taken seriously. Of course, the "raving" is really polispeak used to
manipulate the electorate.

I'm such a cynic.

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bfrog
Way to point out the obvious

