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The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

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Re: The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

#11

Post by inigyou »

Balinares wrote: post #8
hunglee2 wrote: post #4

We hear a lot about what is or isn't a democracy but the reality is that very few countries today would ever be above the bar set. Even Athenian democracy wouldn't, as it was a demos of the male citizens only, supported by a large slave class. What is more important is: is it working? And if not, why not?

Which is why, instead of "democracy", it's more useful to quantify democratic . One traditional measure of such is the degree to which political power can be gained through free elections. But the research in TFA instead uses a novel measure: the weight a population has in its country's policymaking. Which yields fascinating results. Because, per the linked research, in present-time USA that weight is ~zero. Which is…

The linked research was 12 years ago during the Obama regime. Have things changed since Obama?

Re: The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

#12

Post by inigyou »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #2

Hasn't this been obvious for a while ? The US is about 1/5 of the way down an ever-more-slippery slope towards a fascist state. Its much-vaunted "checks and balances" have been shown to be paper tigers, and the constitution it heralds far and wide doesn't seem to be worth the paper its written on. The US already has one of the weakest social safety nets in the Western world, it has military-spec weaponised police wit…

It's been obvious to anyone who pays attention to all the details and thinks hard about their meaning, but that is a small fraction of people.

Re: The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

#16

Post by hn_submit »

sirtaj wrote: post #10
hn_submit wrote: post #7

[flagged]

The article is about oligarchy. You've somehow redirected it towards immigration. How are you making this connection?

Trump is part of upper class oligarchy in the United States and his election is the direct result of the concerns of his constituents regarding immigration.

Re: The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

#17

Post by t-3 »

Representative democracy is by nature oligachic. Practically, there was no other way to organize a large state until modern communications technology, so that's very understandable, the critical issue is that the US is becoming less and less democratic and more oligarchic over time while we are more and more capable of democracy (instantaneous communication across the world, very fast travel, universal education, etc). The end of proportional representation in favor of a fixed-size Congress was the beginning of the end, IMO.

Re: The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

#18

Post by OgsyedIE »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #2

Hasn't this been obvious for a while ? The US is about 1/5 of the way down an ever-more-slippery slope towards a fascist state. Its much-vaunted "checks and balances" have been shown to be paper tigers, and the constitution it heralds far and wide doesn't seem to be worth the paper its written on. The US already has one of the weakest social safety nets in the Western world, it has military-spec weaponised police wit…

A reverse would violate three red lines that the current oligarchy will not budge on:

* More sharing of political power with ethnic, class or cultural outgroups

* Less revenues for the oligarchy from land ownership, investment in healthcare and investment in finance (other investment sectors would do better, however)

* Greater civil and criminal penalties for civil or criminal wrongdoing by oligarchs, their loved ones and their class allies (e.g. the affluenza case)

Even installing something like Juche and losing internationally to China in every way is preferable to having any one of these go forward, at least to their perspective.

Re: The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

#19

Post by tdeck »

hunglee2 wrote: post #4

We hear a lot about what is or isn't a democracy but the reality is that very few countries today would ever be above the bar set. Even Athenian democracy wouldn't, as it was a demos of the male citizens only, supported by a large slave class. What is more important is: is it working? And if not, why not?

When asking if it's "working", you need to ask "for whom?".

Re: The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

#20

Post by lapcat »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #2

Hasn't this been obvious for a while ? The US is about 1/5 of the way down an ever-more-slippery slope towards a fascist state. Its much-vaunted "checks and balances" have been shown to be paper tigers, and the constitution it heralds far and wide doesn't seem to be worth the paper its written on. The US already has one of the weakest social safety nets in the Western world, it has military-spec weaponised police wit…

> Its much-vaunted "checks and balances" have been shown to be paper tigers, and the constitution it heralds far and wide doesn't seem to be worth the paper its written on.

The Constitution was oligarchic by design of the founding oligarchs, who stated explicitly that the point of the "checks and balances" was actually to stop majoritarianism.

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