The US is an oligarchy, study concludes
Source: Telegraph
The US government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country's citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities has concluded.
The report, entitled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, used extensive policy data collected from between the years of 1981 and 2002 to empirically determine the state of the US political system
Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html
Not really news to anybody who has been watching the last 30 years of degradation.
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)billhicks76
(5,082 posts)Its gotten way worse since then
djean111
(14,255 posts)Yet we are constantly told that our votes count........
Response to djean111 (Reply #2)
Name removed Message auto-removed
djean111
(14,255 posts)I can't believe an academic would not be aware of this. On the other hand, academics needed a study.
I am sure the DNC and RNC and Washington DC are real up on this, though.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)and that in and of itself is unfortunate.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)VA_Jill
(9,995 posts)You needed a study to tell you this?
bleedinglib
(212 posts)If you watch faux news? then you believe this liberal propaganda!!!
Rider3
(919 posts)Auggie
(31,186 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)the decision just lets them do it in the open now. They are not even pretending anymore.
Brigid
(17,621 posts)They could have just asked us.
cabrona
(47 posts)The people who did the study? You're probably right about them. But there are plenty of other people who do need such a study. For example, liberal pluralists, who analyze society into a variety of "interest groups," e.g., Catholics, gays, women, African Americans, the poor, the elderly, and corporations (as if they were just one interest group among others, and not the ruling force in society). This idea is quite common among academics, especially political scientists, who hold it as a kind of dogma.
A study like this one might help cause some of these people to think twice about the way society is structured.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Brilliant deduction.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)where someone gives me a huge grant to write a paper stating the bloody obvious?
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)erronis
(15,328 posts)to acknowledge that they are the tricks in this poli/porn game?
Is there a Anti-Willful-Ignorance (AWI) 12 step program?
Just like the rest of us addicts, we first buy into the fact that we are "right" and justified in our self-destructive behavior.
We then DENY (you know about that river) any other viewpoint.
We congregate with others who have our same deficiencies and therefore self-reinforce.
Of course the industries (legit? and non) that make $$s off us promote their wares.
We sink to our own personal lows and either stay deep in the muck or find the way to enlightenment.
(Of course this could be used against people like me - Bernistas, too.)
Javaman
(62,534 posts)The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)Taxation with only token representation is tyranny. In this country only the ultra wealthy can buy real representation.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Then, through the Telecommunications Act, they consolidated the media. Now, differences between the networks editorial stances are only a facade. We are being buried.
daleo
(21,317 posts)Ours are just bankrolling the democratic process, out of their concern for democracy, or so they say.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)davidpdx
(22,000 posts)TBF
(32,090 posts)I was born in the 60s and have been watching this coup since 1980. The "Reagan Revolution" has taken it's toll.