Thread: Princeton Concludes What Kind of Government America Really Has & It's Not a Democracy

America is an Oligarchy, Not a Democratic Republic, University Study Finds

By Steve Straub On April 21, 2014 · 143 Comments · In US


It does seem that most of those in power only care about what we think around election time. After that they do pretty much whatever they want…

Via Washington Times:

America is no longer a democracy — never mind the democratic republic envisioned by Founding Fathers.
Rather, it has taken a turn down elitist lane and become a country led by a small dominant class comprised of powerful members who exert total control over the general population — an oligarchy, said a new study jointly conducted by Princeton and Northwestern universities.
One finding in the study: The U.S. government now represents the rich and powerful, not the average citizen, United Press International reported.
In the study, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens,” researchers compared 1,800 different U.S. policies that were put in place by politicians between 1981 and 2002 to the type of policies preferred by the average and wealthy American, or special interest groups.
Researchers then concluded that U.S. policies are formed more by special interest groups than by politicians properly representing the will of the general people, including the lower-income class.

Do you agree or disagree with the reports conclusion that America is now an oligarchy?

Related posts:

1. Why America is a Republic, not a Democracy (VIDEO)
2. Megyn Kelly DESTROYS atheist’s spin on World Trade Center cross appeal
3. Edward Snowden: I Saw the Constitution Being Violated on “Massive Scale”
4. Trey Gowdy: ‘How Does Going From A Senator To President Rewrite The Constitution?’

Tagged with: Constitution of the United States • democracy • oligarchy • republic • United States


http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/u...ty-study-finds

Princeton Researchers Conclude US Political System Has Been Almost Completely Usurped

Of the elite, by the elite, for the elite

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
April 21, 2014

A recent scientific study by Princeton and Northwestern universities, which has gone somewhat under reported in the mainstream media, concludes that the US is now a fully fledged oligarchy.
The paper, entitled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens, notes that America is no longer even a Democracy, which begs the question, how far removed is the country from being the Republic envisioned and painstakingly established by Benjamin Franklin and the founding fathers.
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence,” the study notes.



In other words, powerful elites have taken over the country and effectively run the government, it is official. Of the people, by the people, for the people is now a thing of the distant past.
The research undertaken by the universities included the study of close to two thousand government policies enacted over a 21 year period between 1981 and 2002.
Using a framework of political models – Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism – researchers found that the majority of those US policies were specifically designed to benefit wealthy elites.
Policy outcomes “tend to tilt towards the wishes of corporations and business and professional associations,” the research states, meaning the US falls into the category of Biased Pluralism.
Researchers concluded that the reason for the trend is that policies are made by special interest groups rather than by politicians acting on behalf of average Americans.
“When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.” the study also notes.
“In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes.”
“Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.” the study also notes.
The study points toward the conclusion that the US is nothing more than an illusion of democracy.
“Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association” the study notes, while warning “we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.”
The authors of the study, Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page concur that the will or opinion of the majority in the US has no effect on the way government is run.
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
“Perhaps economic elites and interest group leaders enjoy greater policy expertise than the average citizen does,” Gilens and Page write. “Perhaps they know better which policies will benefit everyone, and perhaps they seek the common good, rather than selfish ends, when deciding which policies to support.
“But we tend to doubt it” they add.
—————————————————————-
Steve Watson is a London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.

This article was posted: Monday, April 21, 2014 at 1:04 pm

http://www.infowars.com/princeton-re...etely-usurped/

Fed Chair Unsure If Capitalism or Oligarchy Describes the U.S.

Posted by Joe For America on May 9, 2014 in Economics, Politics, Uncategorized



(CNSNews.com) – “Are we still a capitalist democracy or have we gone over into an oligarchic form of society in which incredible economic and political power now rests with the billionaire class?” Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont socialist, asked that question of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen at a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Yellen said she’d “prefer not to give labels,” but she admitted to being very concerned about income inequality.

“So, all of the statistics on inequality that you’ve cited are ones that greatly concern me, and I think for the same reason that you’re concerned about them. They can shape the — determine the ability of different groups to participate equally in the democracy and have grave effects on social stability over time.”

And so I don’t know what to call our system or how to — I prefer not to give labels; but there’s no question that we’ve had a trend toward growing inequality and I personally find it very worrisome trend that deserves the attention of policy-makers.

Video at the Page Link:

Sanders told Yellen, “There comes a point, where the billionaire class has so much political power — where the Koch brothers are now, because of Citizens United, able to buy and sell politicians — they have so much political power — at what point is that reversible?” he asked.

Sanders also asked Yellen about repealing the estate tax: “Would it make sense to you to give enormous tax breaks to the families of the top one percent of people in this country.

Continue reading…


http://joeforamerica.com/2014/05/fed-chair-unsure-capitalism-oligarchy-describes-u-s/

17 April 2014 Last updated at 17:09 ET

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy



This man does not like to be disturbed while he's running the US
A review of the best commentary on and around the world...

Today's must-read

The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.

So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.
This is not news, you say.
Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here's how they explain it:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power.
The two professors came to this conclusion after reviewing answers to 1,779 survey questions asked between 1981 and 2002 on public policy issues. They broke the responses down by income level, and then determined how often certain income levels and organised interest groups saw their policy preferences enacted.
"A proposed policy change with low support among economically elite Americans (one-out-of-five in favour) 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.
They conclude:
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.
Eric Zuess, writing in Counterpunch, isn't surprised by the survey's results.
"American democracy is a sham, no matter how much it's pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the nation's "news" media)," he writes. "The US, in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious 'electoral' 'democratic' countries. We weren't formerly, but we clearly are now."
This is the "Duh Report", says Death and Taxes magazine's Robyn Pennacchia. Maybe, she writes, Americans should just accept their fate.
"Perhaps we ought to suck it up, admit we have a classist society and do like England where we have a House of Lords and a House of Commoners," she writes, "instead of pretending as though we all have some kind of equal opportunity here."
South Korea Ferry tragedy was a manmade disaster - The death toll from the sinking of the Sewol off the south-eastern tip of South Korea could have been greatly reduced if the passengers had been properly instructed in safety procedures and the crew hadn't been among the first to abandon the ship, write the editors of South Korea's Joongang Daily.
The South Korean government also shares blame, they write. "It failed to grasp the seriousness of the accident from the start and didn't know how many were rescued or missing."
The government, they continue, should conduct a thorough investigation and prepare a report on how to upgrade the nation's "safety systems and procedures".
Argentina Cristina Kirchner's sham populism - The government of Cristina Kirchner touts a populism that "redistributes wealth to benefit the poor", writes Luis Alberto Romero in Agentina's Clarin (translated by WorldCrunch).
In reality, he says, "the outcome has been greater wealth concentrations and more social polarisation, helped by subsidy policies".
The Kirchner regime, he argues, has been "built on two foundations: concentration of power and accumulation of wealth".
Algeria Presidential vote endorses status quo - It seems clear that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will win a fourth term in this week's election despite looking "more dead than alive", writes University of Houston Prof Robert Zaretsky in the Los Angeles Times.
Mr Bouteflika "is entrenched, propped up by generals and an uneasy status quo", he says.
"The question is," he writes, "how long will the government manage to impose scripted elections on a population ready for the risks and rewards of an unscripted future?"
Ukraine Nato football v Russian chess - The Ukrainian crisis has taken Nato planners by surprise, writes Prof David Murphy of National University of Ireland, Maynooth, in the Irish Times. This, he says, is because of "fundamental cultural, strategic and political differences" between Russia and the West.
"Nato operates at a huge disadvantage as it needs consensus and co-operation within its member states in order to act," he writes. "President Vladimir Putin and his political and military staffs do not face such limitations and have the freedom to act quickly."
Russia has formulated a plan and is executing it, he concludes. It is up to the members of Nato to work together to stop it.
BBC Monitoring's quotes of the day Ukrainian media respond to high-level meetings between officials from the US, EU, Ukraine and Russia in Geneva aimed resolving the crisis in Ukraine.
"There is an illusory hope for the conference in Geneva. Ukraine will be presented there as a pie which will be divided. Everything ... shows the signs of a grand plot, where big geopolitical players resolved their issues at Ukraine's expense. It will be like that this time around too." - Editorial in Glavkom.
"Today's meeting will show if the West can counter [Vladimir] Putin's plans to impose his 'world order'." - Editorial in Den.
"International talks will hardly improve the situation in Ukraine until people inside the country start talking. So the only thing the Geneva meeting could influence is to facilitate the beginning of talks inside the country between representatives of the east and the central authorities. If the meeting provides this impetus it will be a positive result." - Volodymyr Fesenko in Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine.
Have you found an interesting opinion piece about global issues that we missed? Share it with us via email at echochambers (at) bbc.co.uk.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

http://www.alipac.us/f19/chinese-professor-266454/

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

America is an Oligarchy, Not a Democratic Republic, University Study Finds

It does seem that most of those in power only care about what we think around election time. After that they do pretty much whatever they want…

'Bama has shown a particularly disdainful version of this by stating that he's just waiting for the mid-term elections to be over, before he issues a widespread amnesty for illegals.

'Bama knows that he can count on the fanboy press to not call him on this one. He also knows that there is no political party which is large enough to be any threat to the two-party system of dominance. So it's safe for him to tell people that he's going to screw them as soon as the elections are over.

I never thought that I would see this kind of openly disdainful disregard for the interests on Americans.
**********************************
Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade