Is America an Oligarchy or a Democracy?

We passed GO on being an oligarchy over a decade ago

It's a question that more and more of us have been asking: Is America an oligarchy? Have we crossed the Rubicon from democracy to oligarchy? Or...have our institutions provided us with a strong enough foundation to preserve democracy?

My gut feeling is that we passed GO on this issue over a decade ago. It is that fact that created the "new normal" of economic misery that we now live in. Trouble is, it took the Trump presidency to wake many of us up to that new reality. Full disclosure: I've been worried about the state of our democracy for almost 2 decades now. My view of our country's direction is definitely dystopian -  à la Hunger Games. That bias aside, it is hard for any rational person to believe that the state of our democracy is stable after nearly three years of Trump in the oval office.

But it didn't begin with Trump...We are a country of 350 million people. There were probably at least 150 million people technically eligible to run for the presidency in 2016. Yet somehow both major parties managed to vomit up two deeply unpopular lightning rods for our nation's highest office. A nation where both major parties manage to produce such inappropriate and corrupt candidates was in serious trouble long before the primary debates began in 2015. By the time 2016 rolled around we were already flirting with the abyss. 

The death of democracy? Symptoms of rot...

You can call Donald Trump a narcissist, a fool, a dangerous manic, whatever. He is all of that and much more. But even if Trump is only a symptom of democratic decline, the damage he is doing to our country and institutions while occupying the oval office is going to make restoring any kind of sanity to government a massive uphill climb. Even if Trump (and yes, Clinton) are symptoms of serious systemic problems, their presence as dominant figures in our system is making the clock is tick louder and louder. With each passing day, it is getting harder and harder to step back from the precipice. 

The wall of money corrupting our politics is a serious problem. Legislation can't get off the ground unless an army of lobbyists or several large doners with bags of money make their way into the picture. Even getting ridiculously sensible legislation passed is nearly impossible because average citizens are pitted against a wall of lobbyists and special interests. These special interests don't care about America, it's people or even the planet. But they have the ear of our representatives. And it will get worse and worse unless we change it. 

 

Jennifer Lawrence and a Princeton University Study on Oligarchy...

A few months ago, someone sent me a YouTube video featuring Jennifer Lawrence. At first, I thought it had to be about her latest movie (yes, I am a fan). But instead of promoting herself, she was talking about how our political system is failing us. Lawrence recently took a year off to promote political awareness to young people. She donated her talents to this video from the not-for-profit group RepresentUs. In the video, Ms. Lawrence sites a  2014 study from Princeton by Gilens and Page about how much public opinion actually influences what Congress passes into law. (For a more readable summary than the original paper, click here)  It probably doesn't come as much of a surprise that your opinion means virtually nothing to Congress or the President - unless you are a wealthy elite. 

You can watch the video below. The presentation is excellent and probably far easier to follow than my explanation at the bottom of the article. 

From a can-do nation to no can do...

Once upon a time, America used to...kind of...you know... DO STUFF.  Our nation started moving away from the gilded age stagnation that enriched the few at the expense of the many. In the early 20th Century Teddy Roosevelt  started making progressive tracks by breaking up monopolies, offering consumer protections and pushing for conservation efforts. In fact, he founded our National Park system. 

New reforms had to wait for the Great Depression. The fact is that that the market crash of 1929 response to the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. It started with FDR's "New Deal" and culminated with Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society". 

• Roosevelt's "New Deal" which included:
• Social Security
• WPA program which built a vast infrastructure
• The National Industrial Recovery Act
• The GI Bill following World War II where veterans could attend college free of charge
• Increased dedication to providing quality public education for all
• The Interstate program of the Eisenhower era
• Medicare and Medicaid 
• Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" including the War on Poverty 
• Even the Nixon era had some progressive legislation like the founding of the EPA 
• We put a man on the moon
• We actually tackled some environmental issues like ozone layer depletion 
• We became the unsurpassed leaders in biomedical research via funding from the NIH (National Institute of Health)

We had the beginnings of a true meritocracy where educational opportunities allowed poor children with talent and the ability to rise out of poverty. This encouraged true excellence and increased healthy competition in areas that used to be the sole province of the elite. There was more discovery, invention, and R&D during that era than ever in the history of the human race. The result was a golden age of prosperity and progress in science and engineering, and the United States led that charge. 

But gradually, over the last 40 years, we've pulled the threads out from under all that supported that prosperity. At first, it was barely noticeable. But bit by bit we unraveled almost everything. So much so that the 21st century is looking more like the robber baron era of the 19th century than anything we had for most of the 20th century. 

We no longer have our own manned space program. If American astronauts want to fly to the International Space Station, they have to hitch a ride.  The NIH and EPA have been slashed to ribbons through budget cuts and ideological pandering. The Great Society and the New Deal are being systematically torn to shreds. 

People with advanced scientific training are utilizing their skills in chemistry by making lattes at Starbucks. Even computer scientists are finding that sustaining long-term employment in their fields is an elusive dream. Like a will-o-the-wisp, you just can't catch it an hang onto it. And just when people are being laid off right and left, the unemployed find the safety net they thought they would never need in tatters. The very illusion of a safety net is nothing more than a cruel joke. 

One of the biggest bellwethers of a failing system is that "doing the right thing" becomes impossible...

Today, we seem paralyzed. The inability to get anything substantial done that would slow down our decline as a society seems fixed in stone. It's not as if we don't know what to do, it is that the politics of the system throws so much sand in the gears that nothing gets done. Unfortunately, this is not a bug but a feature.

Here are some glaring problems that our new "No can do" political system is content to allow to fester. Instead of the vibrant and proactive government that we had just a half-century ago, we now exist in an unrecognizable world of smoke and mirrors. Our government bears a closer resemblance to something out of Game Of Thrones than of a functioning democratic republic. 

• Gaping wealth inequality - which is making upward economic mobility near impossible
• Massive Income Inequality where CEO's and their boards make on average 300 times what the median employee salary
• Skyrocketing health care costs where up to 30,000 people/year die due to lack of medical coverage
• 500,000 families a year declaring bankruptcy over medical costs even WITH insurance
• With an average of over 15,000 deaths a year due to gun violence, we can't seem to legislate any sensible form of gun control on assault weapons. 
• An environmental emergency that could leave the planet uninhabitable if we don't convert to renewable energy
• Crumbling Infrastructure that is failing at every level. Roads, dams, bridges, sewer systems, water supply, not to mention an unstable power grid. 
• Wage stagnation to the point where full-time employees must rely on food stamps and government subsidies to survive
• Big banks and financial institutions fleecing American consumers while their boards and CEO's go unpunished
• A tax structure that allows someone worth billions to pay less in taxes proportionately than a $40,000/year secretary

Finally, at the heart of it all, we have a corrupt government and corporate elite whose only goal is to keep things just the way they are. And to those who think that corruption all rests with one of the political parties, you are sadly mistaken. We would never have gotten to this point if only one side had a premium on corruption. The rot runs clean through both major political parties. 

The question we have to ask ourselves is this: It's our country, do we have the will to take it back? It won't be easy because the odds are very much stacked against us. 

Post-Script: Summary of the described study in the video...

The authors (Gilens and Page) gathered 1800 public opinion polls on proposed policies and legislation over a 20 year period (1982-2002).

They plotted the popularity of all these proposals using two graphs with two distinct groups of Americans. The first group consisted of "average" Americans in the 50th percentile in terms of income. The second group represented the financial "elite". Their incomes were at or above the 90th percentile. 

The popularity of the polices was plotted against their chances of becoming law in two separate charts, one for each group of Americans. In the case of people with average incomes, there was a 30% chance that any proposed legislation would pass into law. It didn't matter how popular or unpopular it was. If there was 0% support for the legislation from people in the 50th percentile, there was a 30% chance of the bill passing. If there was 100% support the chance that the legislation would pass was also 30%. In other words, the average voter had ZERO influence over the fate of that legislation. 

Let that sink in for a minute. The United States is based on a foundation of self-governance through our representatives. "We the People" are supposed to be in charge. Yet our ability to influence our legislators is statistically insignificant. 

That all changes when you conduct the same experiment on financial elites. In this case, the chart has a curve. There was an 18% chance of the legislation being enacted if it was very unpopular and that probability rose to 45% chance if the bill was very popular among elites. 

These results may not seem that stunning on the surface, but they really are. You have to be in the top 10% to move the needle in any significant way in either direction. This is a serious problem for self-governance and democracy. 

It should be noted that there have been challenges to these findings and responses to those challenges. Any data of this nature is going to be controversial. If you want to get into the weeds on some of this, the objections are reviewed here. The response to those objections can be found here. 

Another note is that the time-frame (1982-2002) was at a time when inequality was not at the heights that it is today. It would be interesting to see this same study repeated in a more recent time-frame. Say 2008-2018. If the theory of elite influence holds, their influence would be significantly more pronounced today.