Remember the myth of noble America exporting democracy to other countries? Like Iraq?
Well, it didn’t really work and almost certainly wasn’t meant to. Iraq was another glorious opportunity to shift the power in America from the American people (cannon fodder) to business interests (military-industrial complex) — better known now as the “oligarchy.”
It’s official, friend. You can read all about it in a study from Princeton.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. …Gilens,Page
In the abstract of their paper, they assure us that “the results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.”
Democracy is, you know, so yesterday.
Gawker (h/t PoliticalWire) notes our complicity with oligarchy or, to put it another way, our embrace of the Kansas described in Thomas Frank’s book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
The study notes that the position of the median American and the position of the affluent American are often the same; therefore, regular people tend to think that their political interests are being represented when they see the triumph of some political position that they agree with. In fact, the researchers say, this is a mere coincidence. Yes, the average American will see their interests represented—as long as their interests align with the interests of the wealthy. …Gawker