ECLECTIC RANT: America is an Oligarchy, University Study Finds
America is no longer a democracy, according to a new joint university study. Instead, it has evolved into an oligarchy dominated by moneyed special interests.
The study, entitled "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" by Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, concludes that ordinary citizens have effectively lost their say over public policy. Thus, America now resembles an “economic elite domination” or a form of government in which the wealthy economic elite (less than 1 percent of the population) has near exclusive control over policy-making decisions.
“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 authors state. “Our findings indicate, the majority does not rule – at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. 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.”
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