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Princeton Study Confirms 'US Is An Oligarchy'

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. 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 organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.

 

- From a recent study titled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens by Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin I. Page of Northwestern University

In response to the publication of an academic study that essentially proves the United States is nothing more than an oligarchy, many commentators have quipped sentiments that go something like “so tell me something I don’t know.” While I agree that the conclusion is far from surprising to anyone paying attention, the study is significant for two main reasons.  

First, there is a certain influential segment of the population which has a disposition which requires empirical evidence and academic studies before they will take any theory seriously. Second, some of the conclusions can actually prove quite helpful to activists who want to have a greater impact in changing things. This shouldn’t be particularly difficult since their impact at the moment is next to zero.

What is most incredible to me is that the data under scrutiny in the study was from 1981-2002. One can only imagine how much worse things have gotten since the 2008 financial crisis. The study found that even when 80% of the population favored a particular public policy change, it was only instituted 43% of the time. We saw this first hand with the bankster bailout in 2008, when Americans across the board were opposed to it, but Congress passed TARP anyway (although they had to vote twice).

Even more importantly, several years of supposed “economic recovery” has not changed the public’s perception of the bankster bailouts. For example, a 2012 study showed that only 23% percent of Americans favored the bank bailouts and the disgust was completely bipartisan, as the Huffington Post points out. 

Personally, I think the banker bailouts will go down as one of the most significant turning points in American history. Despite widespread disapproval, Congress passed TARP and it was at that moment that many Americans “woke up” to the fact they are nothing more than economic slaves with no voice. That they are serfs. Even more importantly, once oligarchs saw what they could get away with they kept doubling down and doubling down until we find ourselves in the precarious position we are in today. A society filled with angst and resentment at the fact that the 0.01% have stolen everything.

Another thing that the study noted was that average citizens sometimes got what they wanted, but this is almost always when their preferences overlap with the oligarchs. When this occurs it is entirely coincidental, and in many cases may the result of public opinion being molded by the elite-controlled special interest groups themselves. How pathetic.

I read the entire 42 page study and have highlighted what I found to be the key excerpts below. Please share with others and enjoy:

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. 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.

Until very recently, however, it has been impossible to test the differing predictions of these theories against each other within a single statistical model that permits one to analyze the independent effects of each set of actors upon policy outcomes.

 

A major challenge to majoritarian pluralist theories, however, is posed by Mancur Olson’s argument that collective action by large, dispersed sets of individuals with individually small but collectively large interests tends to be prevented by the “free rider” problem. Barring special circumstances (selective incentives, byproducts, coercion), individuals who would benefit from collective action may have no incentive to personally form or join an organized group. If everyone thinks this way and lets George do it, the job is not likely to get done. This reasoning suggests that Truman’s “potential groups” may in fact be unlikely to form, even if millions of  peoples’ interests are neglected or harmed by government. Aware of the collective action problem, officials may feel free to ignore much of the population and act against the interests of the average citizen.

 

As to empirical evidence concerning interest groups, it is well established that organized groups regularly lobby and fraternize with public officials; move through revolving doors between public and private employment; provide self-serving information to officials; draft legislation; and spend a great deal of money on election campaigns. Moreover, in harmony with theories of biased pluralism, the evidence clearly indicates that most U.S. interest groups and lobbyists represent business firms or professionals. Relatively few represent the poor or even the economic interests of ordinary workers, particularly now that the U.S. labor movement has become so weak.

 

What makes possible an empirical effort of this sort is the existence of a unique data set, compiled over many years by one of us (Gilens) for a different but related purpose: for estimating the influence upon public policy of “affluent” citizens, poor citizens, and those in the middle of the income distribution.

 

Gilens and a small army of research assistants gathered data on a large, diverse set of policy cases: 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.

 

In any case, the imprecision that results from use of our “affluent” proxy is likely to produce underestimates of the impact of economic elites on policy making. If we find substantial effects upon policy even when using this imperfect measure, therefore, it will be reasonable to infer that the impact upon policy of truly wealthy citizens is still greater.

 

Some particular U.S. membership organizations – especially the AARP and labor unions– do tend to favor the same policies as average citizens. But other membership groups take stands that are unrelated (pro-life and pro-choice groups) or negatively related (gun owners) to what the average American wants. Some membership groups may reflect the views of corporate backers or their most affluent constituents. Others focus on issues on which the public is fairly evenly divided. Whatever the reasons, all mass-based groups taken together simply do not add up, in aggregate, to good representatives of the citizenry as a whole. Business-oriented groups do even worse, with a modest negative over-all correlation of -.10.

 

The estimated impact of average citizens’ preferences drops precipitously, to a non-significant, near-zero level. Clearly the median citizen or “median voter” at the heart of theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy does not do well when put up against economic elites and organized interest groups. The chief predictions of pure theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy can be decisively rejected. Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have little or no independent influence on policy at all.

 

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. Still, economic elites stand out as quite influential – more so than any other set of actors studied here – in the making of U.S. public policy.

The incredible thing here is that they use the 90th percentile to gauge the “economic elite,” when we well know that it is the “oligarchs” themselves and the businesses they run that call all the shots. It would have been interesting if they isolated the impact of the 0.01%.

These results suggest that reality is best captured by mixed theories in which both individual economic elites and organized interest groups (including corporations, largely owned and controlled by wealthy elites) play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence.

 

In our 1,779 policy cases, narrow pro-change majorities of the public got the policy changes they wanted only about 30% of the time. More strikingly, even overwhelmingly large pro-change majorities, with 80% of the public favoring a policy change, got that change only about 43% of the time.

Amidst all of the bad news in this study, there is one conclusion from which we can find a silver lining.

The importance of business groups’ numerical advantage is also revealed when we rescale our measures of business and mass-oriented interest group alignments to reflect the differing number of groups in each of these categories. Using this rescaled measure, a parallel analysis to that in table 4 shows that on a group-for-group basis the average individual business group and the average mass-oriented group appears to be about equally influential. The greater total influence of business groups in our analysis results chiefly from the fact that more of them are generally engaged on each issue (roughly twice as many, on average), not that a single business-oriented group has more clout on average than a single mass based group.

 

Relatively few mass-based interest groups are active, they do not (in the aggregate) represent the public very well, and they have less collective impact on policy than do business-oriented groups – whose stands tend to be negatively related to the preferences of average citizens. These business groups are far more numerous and active; they spend much more money; and they tend to get their way.

What the paragraphs above demonstrate is that the public has become very, very bad at organizing and that they aren’t even in the same ballpark as the the business groups. While mass-based interest groups will never be able to compete financially, we now live in a world of crowd-funding and a great deal of angst. Thus, there appears to be some low hanging fruit available for the activist community to pick at and become more organized.

Furthermore, the preferences of economic elites (as measured by our proxy, the preferences of “affluent” citizens) have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do. To be sure, this does not mean that ordinary citizens always lose out; they fairly often get the policies they favor, but only because those policies happen also to be preferred by the economically elite citizens who wield the actual influence.

But sure, keep chanting USA! USA! and keep sending your children to die overseas for no good reason.

Of course our findings speak most directly to the “first face” of power: the ability of actors to shape policy outcomes on contested issues. But they also reflect – to some degree, at least – the “second face” of power: the ability to shape the agenda of issues that policy makers consider. The set of policy alternatives that we analyze is considerably broader than the set discussed seriously by policy makers or brought to a vote in Congress, and our alternatives are (on average) more popular among the general public than among interest groups. Thus the fate of these policies can reflect policy makers’ refusing to consider them rather than considering but rejecting them. (From our data we cannot distinguish between the two.) Our results speak less clearly to the “third face” of power: the ability of elites to shape the public’s preferences. We know that interest groups and policy makers themselves often devote considerable effort to shaping opinion. If they are successful, this might help explain the high correlation we find between elite and mass preferences. But it cannot have greatly inflated our estimate of average citizens’ influence on policy making, which is near zero.

So what’s the conclusion? Well we aren’t a Democracy and we aren’t a Constitutional Republic. As I and many others have noted, we have descended into something far worse, an neo-fedualistic Oligarchy.

What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, 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.

 

A possible objection to populistic democracy is that average citizens are inattentive to politics and ignorant about public policy; why should we worry if their poorly informed preferences do not influence policy making? Perhaps economic elites and interest group leaders enjoy greater policy expertise than the average citizen does. 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. We believe instead that – collectively – ordinary citizens generally know their own values and interests pretty well, and that their expressed policy preferences are worthy of respect. Moreover, we are not so sure about the informational advantages of elites. Yes, detailed policy knowledge tends to rise with income and status. Surely wealthy Americans and corporate executives tend to know a lot about tax and regulatory policies that directly affect them. But how much do they know about the human impact of Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, or unemployment insurance, none of which is likely to be crucial to their own well-being? Most important, we see no reason to think that informational expertise is always accompanied by an inclination to transcend one’s own interests or a determination to work for the common good.

 

All in all, we believe that the public is likely to be a more certain guardian of its own interests than any feasible alternative.

 

Leaving aside the difficult issue of divergent interests and motives, we would urge that the superior wisdom of economic elites or organized interest groups should not simply be assumed. It should be put to empirical test. New empirical research will be needed to pin down precisely who knows how much, and what, about which public policies.

 

Our findings also point toward the need to learn more about exactly which economic elites (the “merely affluent”? the top 1%? the top 0.01%?) have how much impact upon public policy, and to what ends they wield their influence. Similar questions arise about the precise extent of influence of particular sets of organized interest groups. And we need to know more about the policy preferences and the political influence of various actors not considered here, including political party activists, government officials, and other non-economic elites. We hope that our work will encourage further exploration of these issues.

 

Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. 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 organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.

So when Sam Zell or any other oligarch prances around on television saying that the “poor should be more like the rich,” what he’s really saying is you need to sell your soul and attempt to become an oligarch. Otherwise, you’re fucked.

This is a truly excellent study and I suggest you read the entire thing here, if you have the time.

 

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Thu, 04/17/2014 - 21:32 | 4671719 homiegot
homiegot's picture

Future oligarchal class stating the obvious.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 21:26 | 4671682 buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture

Ironic Gilens, who decries welfare, gets grant money from the National Science Foundation, a gubbermint agency. Page no doubt would blow a horny goat for a grant. They should get together with Krugman, that would be quite the circle jerk.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 21:31 | 4671714 homiegot
homiegot's picture

These fucktards at Princeton just stated what some of us already know.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 21:31 | 4671716 MedicalQuack
MedicalQuack's picture

And how did they get all of this...of course modern technology...math models and algorithms and hiring folks smart enough to do the math for them.  Algo duping and the Attack of the Killer Algorithms...

http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/

 

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 21:35 | 4671727 Ancestor
Ancestor's picture

For good measure, an incisive few lines from Jack London's 1908 novel 'The Iron Heel' - well worth a read for a more American-flavoured speculation than the Huxley/Orwell dystopias...

“I know nothing that I may say can influence you," he said. "You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy.”

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 21:42 | 4671753 Yes_Questions
Yes_Questions's picture

 

 

Their names were Martin and Benjamin...

 

We in the US have a political season of mid-term elections upon us.  IF any team-blue or team-red candidates cite this study, then maybe it can be called relevant.

 

But, as with most things mainstream media, the shelf life is short for this mainstream thing.

 

just remember this:  

 

the Tea Party was met with money from the RNC,

 

Occupy was met with batons

Pepper spray

police brutality

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 03:10 | 4672309 Seer
Seer's picture

And both were stupid for just "asking."  And the notion of "speaking 'truth' to power?"  Ha!  Fucking POWER already knows the 'truth."

Remove your power from their game.  That is how you make them go away.  Of course, it would mean that one ought not aspire to be like "Them," which, well, that kind of kills the spirit of competion and having the "right" to aspire etc. ect... so, we'll bitch and whine and bend over until we die...

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 22:17 | 4671834 SHRAGS
SHRAGS's picture

Princeton obviously didn't get the memo: Citigroup Plutonomy memo Two bombshell documents that Citigroup's lawyers try to suppress, describing in detail the rule of the first 1%.

 

Both of the memo's are available on TPB: http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6884611/Citigroup_Plutonomy_Memos

 

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 22:04 | 4671836 Stockmonger
Stockmonger's picture

Paul Krugman got $10K a month for this study.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 22:25 | 4671887 Clint Liquor
Clint Liquor's picture

Now can we shove Buffet's ukulele up his ass?

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 22:34 | 4671904 franzpick
franzpick's picture

'US Is An O'ligarchy'...punctuation corrected.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 22:34 | 4671905 IrritableBowels
IrritableBowels's picture

Why hasn't Zerohedge ran a piece on the untimely passing of Michael C. Ruppert?????????????????????????????????

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 22:44 | 4671933 Yes_Questions
Yes_Questions's picture

 

 

RIP Michael Ruppert

 

to the wilderness and beyond

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 22:38 | 4671912 i_fly_me
i_fly_me's picture

It's been uninterrupted tyranny since the early 1600s.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 22:58 | 4671961 Tulpa
Tulpa's picture

"Some particular U.S. membership organizations – especially the AARP and labor unions– do tend to favor the same policies as average citizens. But other membership groups take stands that are unrelated (pro-life and pro-choice groups) or negatively related (gun owners) to what the average American wants."

 

LOL.  No bias there! AARP and labor unions supported Obamacare for God's sake. Note that the focus is on "economic elites" and "business interests" as opposed to political and cultural elites. Leftists have their own star system.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:07 | 4671986 Tulpa
Tulpa's picture

The US isn't supposed to be a direct democracy, it's a constitutional republic.  If 80% of the people want to kill the other 20% and take their property, that's SUPPOSED to be stopped by our system.  Yeah, I know there's nothing that extreme in the study, but pretty close -- several proposals to tax the top 10% into oblivion are always popular with the other 90%, even though they would wreck the economy.

The real reason Washington doesn't care about what people think is because incumbents in Congress have a 95% success rate when they run for reelection.  Why would they care what people think on particular issues when they don't vote according to it.

America is absolutely NOT an oligarchy -- it's a democratic republic where the people are apathetic and ignorant.  The results of course are not much different, but we do have the power to turn things around if we so desire.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:08 | 4671989 Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer's picture

I'd be more inclined to describe the US as a constitutional monarchy, by the supreme court.  Have any of us voted lately on anything those judges pass down as "laws of the land"?

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:08 | 4671990 Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer's picture

I'd be more inclined to describe the US as a constitutional monarchy, by the supreme court.  Have any of us voted lately on anything those judges pass down as "laws of the land"?

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:14 | 4671997 Flatchestynerdette
Flatchestynerdette's picture

1981-2002.

Those stats for that time period won't be called Oligarchy, it will be blamed on Ronald Reagan.

The following years (those of the democrat Presidents) will be called years of trying to fix the oligarchy.

Everything gets viewed through the prism of politics and the populace eats it up on both sides - its just the republicans are splitting into RINOs who like the status quo and Taxed Enough Already Independents who SEE the oligarchy and want it gone. The Democrats want more Oligarchy because they've become serfs to their feudal overlords.

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:25 | 4672014 Turin Turambar
Turin Turambar's picture

Thank you Captain Obvious.

 

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 23:49 | 4672069 reader2010
reader2010's picture

"Karl Marx, who knew quite a bit about the human tendency to fall down and worship our own creations, wrote Das Kapital in an attempt to demonstrate that, even if we start from the economists’ utopian vision, so long as we also allow some people to control productive capital, and, again, leave others with nothing to sell but their brains and bodies, the results will be in very many ways barely distinguishable from slavery, and the whole system will eventually destroy itself."

—David Graeber,

Debt: The First 5,000 Years, 2011

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 00:04 | 4672076 reader2010
reader2010's picture

 

Democracy? There ain't any since the fucking system is an inverted totalitarianism,  according to Princeton University 's Professor Wolin. 

http://youtu.be/K6HMQM7Lo58

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 00:03 | 4672088 I Write Code
I Write Code's picture

This seems silly.  Were things so different in 1981 compared to 1881?

The honking big changes came after 1991 when Greenspan first hijacked the fed in a big way, and then of course in 2001 and then 2008.  Whatever the problems in 1981, they are ten times worse now.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 00:55 | 4672178 q99x2
q99x2's picture

Just an opinion: Buy Maxcoin - .00023854 BTC

https://mcxnow.com/exchange/MAX

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 01:03 | 4672194 Frederic Bastiat
Frederic Bastiat's picture

whine whine whine.  So simple to fix this, raise taxes on capital gains and estates + require capital gains taxes every 5 years, then lower taxes on labor.  Do 80% of people support this? No.  

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 01:12 | 4672208 Manipuflation
Manipuflation's picture

Well, I would like to welcome Mr. Angus McHugepenis to Boating Accident News.  It should work out pretty welll if he doesn't crash the site.  We have been nothing but dickheads to each other for quite some time.  What an asshole McPenis is as he just rips the shit out of me.  I love him though and he might be right.  The guy can write so he is free and clear to express himself on my site.  We have the same sense of sarcasm.(lowest form of humor) and he is not an Merican.  McPenis likes hockey pucks to the face but that is OK.

When you meet another real asshole you have to give credit.  I am giving it now. 

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 01:15 | 4672212 Seek_Truth
Seek_Truth's picture

This is actually news to many in the USA.

Long live ZH!

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 01:21 | 4672224 Carl Popper
Carl Popper's picture

 

 

Please pass this to your congressperson

 

The BLM essentially acknowledged contract mercenaries when questioned.  Look up MSM reports.   Also our government has even acknowledged Greystone is in Ukraine.   Look it up.

 

Greystone is a way for the president and CIA to get around congressional oversight and legal restrictions of the executive branch established after the Frank Church commission.

 

The president cannot send CIA and military employees to Ukraine without Congressional oversight

 

A "private" company can, and Ukraine can "pay" for it with our loan guarantees and other aid we send Ukraine.

 

This circumvents legal restrictions and congressional oversight.

 

Greystone is the new Air America.

 

We have contractors.....um....private soldiers......um.......quasi government agents........in Ukraine......without congressional oversight, and this violates several laws established after the Frank Church commission hearings.

 

Even if the rumors of their capture is untrue, this is still potentially a huge scandal if some were to be captured.   Not only that, it is patently illegal.    Not only that, it is morally and ethically wrong.

That is also another reason that the BLM pulled out.   If there had been a shootout and Joe Blow died in a BLM uniform, then  his friends and family would say publicly "Joe Blow?   He didnt work for the BLM.   He worked for Blackwater and Greystone.   He was contract military."

 

Do you see the huge scandal?

 

For congressional oversight you have to ask the CIA and NSA and the president to respond to this.   Please.

 

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 02:08 | 4672270 Seer
Seer's picture

Yeah, and imagine that none of this shit was oging on before Obama became POTUS! </sarc>

Do you know how many years I've been listening to the list of "scandals" made up by various Party Pussies?

"For congressional oversight you have to ask the CIA and NSA and the president to respond to this.   Please."

Cowards "ASK."

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 01:26 | 4672230 no more banksters
no more banksters's picture

"The target of the middle class extinction in the West is to restrict the level of wages in developing economies and prevent current model to be expanded in those countries. The global economic elite is aiming now to create a more simple model which will be consisted basically of three main levels."

http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/02/a-more-simple-model-in-favor-...

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 01:31 | 4672236 Wait What
Wait What's picture

"regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise."

i couldn't keep from bursting out in laughter when i read this. then i parsed it for the truth (regular elections bought and paid for by oligarch money, speak freely but don't say anything implying violence or you're a terrorist, feel free to associate but you'll have to get a permit so we know how many riot police to send, and finally, you're free to vote, but the only guys who can win are a donkey or an elephant so vote for one of them) and I got really bummed. the America we've got is a Dorian Gray portrait of the America they tell us we live in.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 02:04 | 4672255 Seer
Seer's picture

"The study found that even when 80% of the population favored a particular public policy change, it was only instituted 43% of the time."

.430 is a pretty good number, for a batting average!

"A society filled with angst and resentment at the fact that the 0.01% have stolen everything."

A bit sensationalist, no?  News flash: they've never stolen it because they've ALWAYS HAD IT! (no death taxes helps them to keep pushing wealth toward their geen pool; whether you're for or against "death taxes" this is a factual reality)  Further, one could just view it as having a LOT more to LOSE; and, let's face it, most has been built on a house of cards, in which case do we all wish for MOAR of a house of cards?

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 04:03 | 4672355 nathan1234
nathan1234's picture

Either Princeton's study or report is incomplete.

Now just who are the American Oligarch's?

Maybe the researchers decided they needed more time on earth.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 08:18 | 4672540 Incubus
Incubus's picture

The first mistake you made was assuming that there are "American" Oligarchs.

 

The game of States and Corporations has two sets of rules.   The guys moving the pieces on the board don't identify themselves as any part of the gamepiece.

 

You need to adjust your perspective if you want to change anything in this world, or else you're going to remain a pawn.

Our rules don't apply to them.  UNDERSTAND THAT.

Look at it from that perspective and you'll begin to understand what needs to be done. Free your mind.

 

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 04:04 | 4672356 foxenburg
foxenburg's picture

memo to cartoonist: white on right.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 06:50 | 4672380 NuYawkFrankie
NuYawkFrankie's picture

via Paul Craig Roberts (paulcraigroberts.org)

 

The Western World is the World of the Matrix protected by the Ministry of Propaganda. Western populations are removed from reality. They live in a world of propaganda and disinformation. The actual situation is far worse than the “Big Brother” reality described by George Orwell in his book, 1984

...

Despite the obvious threats that Washington poses (WW3), many do not recognize the threats because of Washington’s pose as “the greatest democracy.” However, scholars looking for this democracy cannot find it in the US. The evidence is that the US is an oligarchy, not a democracy.

An oligarchy is a country that is run for private interests. These private interests–Wall Street, the military/security complex, oil and natural gas, and agribusiness–seek domination, a goal well served by the neoconservative ideology of US hegemony

 ...

How much longer will dumbshit americans fall for the flag-waving deception?

- End Of Quote

 

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 05:37 | 4672390 befuddled
befuddled's picture

No mention, it seems, of unions, trial lawyers or teachers, or of the revolving door between academe and gov't. Nor any attempt to identify let alone measure the damage done by disengaged academics. Time to hang an assortment of ivory tower freeloaders from the lamp post, to encourage the others.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 06:28 | 4672413 Nimby
Nimby's picture

Um....democracy IS oligarchy!  Democracy isn't the rule of the majority; it is the rule of those that can control the sentiment of the majority.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 07:51 | 4672500 MickV
MickV's picture

 The US is (or was) not a "democracy" , but a Republic for exactly that reason.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 09:39 | 4672739 Nimby
Nimby's picture

It was a Republic, but we couldn't keep it.  And those that would control the sentiment of the majority are the same ones that led us from a Constitutional Republic into a Federal Democracy.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 11:22 | 4673071 gcjohns1971
gcjohns1971's picture

Yes, and we also had enumerated powers to which the Federal Government was to limit its activities.

The framers realized that the more powers they gave the Federal Government the more susceptible to influence and corruption it would be.  The fewer powers such a government has, the less reason to lobby it.  Moreover, it is vastly more expensive to lobby a large number of smaller governments than to lobby a single large one.   

The result was that the Constitution was specifically designed to PREVENT THE CONCENTRATION of powers both by limiting the scope of the Federal Government and then by balancing the powers of government in opposition to one another.

Clearly the Constitution failed miserably, and the first mortal failure was to abide by the limitations to its powers - specifically with regard to the levy of tarriffs generally, without preference to one or a collection of states - as represented by the Morill Act, which did so.

Without a devolution of political power away from Washington and into a greater number of hands, reform is impossible, and civil and political freedom are impossible.  The result will be that the empowered elites will drive the ship of state in the direction of their personal interests until they run it aground.

We're in the process of that right now.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 13:07 | 4673311 Nimby
Nimby's picture

I think the fatal flaw of the Constitution was the failure to abolish slavery.  I know that in the absence of a "grand bargain" between the states, the experiment was doomed to be short-lived, but all other things aside I would point to Johnson's (and to a lesser extent, Lincoln's) expensation of the federal government during - and more importanly, following - the Civil War as the turning point.  Reconstruction gave way to the Progressive Era, and it was all downhill from there.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 06:56 | 4672439 justsayin2u
justsayin2u's picture

Things are exactly like the progressives thought they should be.  We're  run by administrative agencies that are aligned with the democratic party who are even more overtly socialist big government supporters than the opposition.  The people running the agencies cycle from the public sector through government and back in an endless circle jerk. Brain dead americans put up with this because they dont want to side with those mean republicans that hate children and everyone else.  Instead, they love pelosi, obama, reid, and the rest of the lovely democratic do-gooders.  The beatings will continue until all freedom is lost in the spirit of niceness,

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 07:06 | 4672447 Nimby
Nimby's picture

Well, people put up with it so long as they think that the status quo will yield a better payoff than the alternative; kind of like a reverse normalcy bias

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 07:49 | 4672494 MickV
MickV's picture

Sigh.....Mike Kreiger, another idiot that totally misses the point. The US IS NOT A "DEMOCRACY", it is a REPUBLIC, based on a rule of law impervious to change simply by popular vote. If 90% of the populace voted for an unconstitutional provision, then that provision is not valid.

Even though Hussein Obama "won" the election, he is still not a legal President, because he was born a British subject of a British subject father (dual allegiance at birth voids the eligibility for President as a natural born Citizen). There is no "Republic" anymore because the "executor of the laws" (the POTUS) is not a legal entity. Thus the law is now what evil men say it is (note the inordinate amount of executive orders, no Bankers going to prison, Obamacare, NDAA, no budget, etc. etc.). Now the domestic enemy Usurper presides over the raping and pillaging of the corpse of America, and the pillargers are emboldened by the fact that there is no law. Cloward Piven is being accomplished while the media (useful idiot) cheers, and most Americans graze away in the fields...

 

Get a clue Kreiger. You don't even know the formation of the US government ("A Republic if you can keep it"== Ben Franklin). We didn't keep it very long.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 07:50 | 4672498 Pumpkin
Pumpkin's picture

Public policy and public law is a bit mis understood.  Are you public or private??

 

JUS PRIVATUM. Private law; the law regulating the rights, conduct, and affairs of individuals, as distinguished from "public" law, which relates to the constitution and functions of government and the administration of criminal justice.

 

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 08:12 | 4672534 jughead
jughead's picture

"More strikingly, even overwhelmingly large pro-change majorities, with 80% of the public favoring a policy change, got that change only about 43% of the time."

so what's the premise here...that if over 80% of the public favors killing babies and eating them, government  should pass a law making killing babies and eating them the national past time?  The job of government isn't to just blindly follow the wishes of the herd in every case...sometimes they need to be the adult in the room. 


Fri, 04/18/2014 - 08:32 | 4672577 shutupnsing
Fri, 04/18/2014 - 09:25 | 4672690 esum
esum's picture

"give me control of a country's central bank, and i dont care who holds office and runs the country" 

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 09:56 | 4672801 Winston Smith 2009
Winston Smith 2009's picture

"Second, some of the conclusions can actually prove quite helpful to activists who want to have a greater impact in changing things. This shouldn’t be particularly difficult since their impact at the moment is next to zero."

So, with many in this country not even able to comprehend the content of the Princeton report and too many of the rest not caring, those few who can and do may be able to raise their influence from, what, "next to zero" to zero point zero, zero, one on a scale of one to ten?

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 10:05 | 4672839 Chuck Knoblauch
Chuck Knoblauch's picture

No shit, Sherlock!

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 10:37 | 4672934 pupdog1
pupdog1's picture

Princeton is a temple of the oligarchs so, although obvious to everyone except our self-enriching congresswhores, this is quite a statement.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 10:59 | 4673008 Kilobar
Kilobar's picture

"Relatively few represent the poor or even the economic interests of ordinary workers, particularly now that the U.S. labor movement has become so weak."

Calling bullshit on this one. Unions have a huge political influence, particularly at the state level.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 11:08 | 4673035 gcjohns1971
gcjohns1971's picture

It would be interesting to see this study repeated on State and Local level policies.

 

My hunch is that average voter representation will rise with the nearness of government for the simple reason that business and economic elite influence over politics must follow economic laws.  They have to get something for their lobbying dollar.

The lower the level of government, the more numerous its instances, and the more expensive to duplicate lobbying efforts over a larger number of local governments rather than a smaller number of State Governments or a unitary National Government.

 

In short, I suspect that "Localism" in which most of the policy power is held locally makes large scale lobbying uneconomic.

 

The conclusion, if I am right in my hunch, is that without strictly enforced enumerated powers to higher levels of government, economic, civil, and political freedom and democracy is simply impossible.

Fri, 04/18/2014 - 12:27 | 4673227 silentboom
silentboom's picture

I would rather not make the false choice between oligarchy or democracy as they are both equally evil.  Democracy is just mob rule and should you be outside that mob, your rights will be exterminated.  The real problem is the funny money from the Fed that's skewing the whole process toward government and it's cronies.

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