
Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy (2014) - coloneltcb
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
======
rayiner
Here is the underlying study:
[https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf).

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.

------
ddingus
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
Is there a meaningful way in which we can act?

~~~
ddingus
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
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
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
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
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.

~~~
marcoperaza
So why draw the line at disclosure? Why not abolish the secret ballot, if
politics should be a "contact sport" as you say. If anything, votes are even
more powerful and important than money.

~~~
ddingus
Oh, now I can reply. Must be a glitch. Let me make an edit and take care of a
few things..

This is a good topic, and your question warrants dome discussion.

~~~
marcoperaza
I've noticed this strange quirk of Hacker News. When a comment is new, you can
reply by going to its permalink (clicking the timestamp), but not in context.

(Awaiting your reply!)

~~~
ddingus
That is what happened. More in a bit.

------
holmak
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
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
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.

------
natrius
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
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.

------
tokenadult
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=Publ...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Public+Choice+Theory&oq=Public+Choice+Theory)

~~~
jgh
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.

~~~
tokenadult
Thanks for the substantive comment. I mentioned in my comment that I know many
first-generation immigrants to the United States, so evidently it is still
possible to immigrate here with various statuses. I have lived overseas in one
other country, for two three-year stays, once in the 1980s, and once spanning
the turn of the last century, and then it was harder to settle there to work
and MUCH harder to become a naturalized citizen there than it has ever been in
the United States, although I hear that now immigration is becoming more
liberalized there (Taiwan).

~~~
jgh
I think that the difficulty immigrating to the United States is a relatively
recent development (post-9/11). Lines for green cards have become very long
for a lot of people and for some there isn't an option to get a green card
(due to non-dual-intent status which is basically "Hey we want you to come
spend the best years of your life contributing to the American system and then
you have to leave!")

One of the bigger problems is that there isn't an entrepreneur visa in the US,
which basically means that you can't be on a visa and start a company in the
USA. At least in theory. With something like 50% or more of companies being
started by people who weren't born in the USA, it seems a bit problematic.

It's not impossible to immigrate here, it's just very difficult compared to
other developed nations such as Canada, the UK and the EU.

I feel like a big problem with tackling immigration in the US is it's so
tightly coupled with the partisan issue of illegal immigration from latin
america that it's basically impossible to have any sort of reform for legal
immigration.

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

------
api
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
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
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.

~~~
disposition2
> 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.

~~~
api
"The people" are sort of a non entity. A person can resist propaganda, but a
propagandist does not have to convince a person. A propagandist need only
convince enough people to sway an election-- and any subset of people of any
age or education will do. If the election is close it might only take a few
percent. This indeed places a lot of power in the hands of the media and
anyone who can buy it.

Democracy is sort of a plutocratic oligarchy system where ordinary people are
recruited to be intermediaries and are therefore given the illusion of power.

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

------
fiatjaf
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.

------
marcoperaza
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.

