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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)

#51

Post by cucumber3732842 »

lapcat wrote: post #32
DarkNova6 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to think that it's twice as good as a one-party system.

Not sure whether you're serious or joking, but in the realm of economics, I think that duopolies are actually worse than monopolies, because everyone recognizes that a monopoly needs to be strictly regulated and/or broken up, whereas when there's a duopoly, that's supposedly "competition" and thus the duopolies largely escape regulation or breakup, even if they implicitly or explicitly cooperate and coordinate to cru…

>because everyone recognizes that a monopoly needs to be strictly regulated and/or broken up

And who's gonna do that when the government has a monopoly?

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

#53

Post by cucumber3732842 »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #34

One measure of democracy is how much say you have in issues which affect you, the running of your neighborhood, your government etc. If you look at decision making at high levels, the general population usually gets ignored. Instead, powerful special interests dominate the government. Particularly with regard to foreign affairs of the USA, the oil lobby and weapons manufacturers. And look who's benefiting from the cu…

>One measure of democracy is how much say you have in issues which affect you, the running of your neighborhood, your government etc.

We've intentionally reduced everyone's say in everything around them with state/fed regulation and the whole "make it cost too much to be viable on its face but then give them a grant/tax break/other favorable treatment to make it work if they jump through the right hoops" paradigm that's permeated damn near everything.

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

#54

Post by inigyou »

gostsamo wrote: post #40
inigyou wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The research covered policies from 1981 to 2002.

Even better. Have things changed since the Bush regime? Any new wars, any new technology?

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

#56

Post by tdeck »

inigyou wrote: post #39
tdeck wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that deep down many people often believe that they could have a say in policy if only they tried hard enough, so their lack of influence is a kind of personal failing. In reality these systems are designed to absorb your effort and direct it into time sinks that either serve those in power Want to change things? First "we" need to take back the house by phone-banking for this blue dog Chip in $5 today to help…

These things do help but only very slightly, not sufficiently. The main function of a protest is not to effect change, but to help people who support a cause meet each other. Voting for one party can be better than voting for the other party even if both parties are bad in different ways.

> The main function of a protest is not to effect change, but to help people who support a cause meet each other.

This is certainly the case with many protests in many contexts, but there are ways to protest that make the powerful worried and ways that reassure them they really have nothing to worry about. There have been many protest movements that were organized to effect change and succeeded in doing so.

What's more, people aren't showing up to these events thinking "this will certainly not effect change but may help me meet people". Once they get a clue that there's no potential for change they'll stop showing up.

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

#57

Post by lapcat »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #51
lapcat wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure whether you're serious or joking, but in the realm of economics, I think that duopolies are actually worse than monopolies, because everyone recognizes that a monopoly needs to be strictly regulated and/or broken up, whereas when there's a duopoly, that's supposedly "competition" and thus the duopolies largely escape regulation or breakup, even if they implicitly or explicitly cooperate and coordinate to cru…

>because everyone recognizes that a monopoly needs to be strictly regulated and/or broken up And who's gonna do that when the government has a monopoly?

> the government has a monopoly

What do you mean exactly? This seems a little too vague.

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

#58

Post by GJim »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #34

One measure of democracy is how much say you have in issues which affect you, the running of your neighborhood, your government etc. If you look at decision making at high levels, the general population usually gets ignored. Instead, powerful special interests dominate the government. Particularly with regard to foreign affairs of the USA, the oil lobby and weapons manufacturers. And look who's benefiting from the cu…

> people in the USA are extroardinarly free, there's pretty good protection of freedom of speech.

Unless you try criticising the president......

That is to say, anybody _in power_ or any in any position of authority is significantly curtailing their criticism of Trump. If you haven't noticed this by now, then I despair. Frankly it's unimportant what the little guy says about Trump. The little guys speech is 'free', but the moment the little guy is in a position of power, watch the US administration silence him.

BTW: Being 'silenced' doesn't mean being carted off to prison. It means the Trump taking away your authority, reputation, career and/or livelihood. That is all that is required.

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

#59

Post by lapcat »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #46
inigyou wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not 4 and 1 respectively?

Hah! Reading about the way democracy was done in Athens, both are at 0. In Athens, they had some 5000 people gathering together to vote every week on various matters out of the total population of around 20000 (the others were women, slaves and immigrants). The judicial system was organized into 10 courts of 500 randomly assigned people from the above 5000. They regularly forced the most prominent politicians to emig…

> In Athens, they had some 5000 people gathering together to vote every week on various matters out of the total population of around 20000 (the others were women, slaves and immigrants).

At its founding, the United States allowed widespread slavery and granted the vote only to white males, disenfranching women and black men.

> They regularly forced the most prominent politicians to emigrate so that they do not become excessively influential.

This sounds like a good idea to me.

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

#60

Post by lapcat »

hn_submit wrote: post #23
mertbio wrote: post #15

How can a country be democratic with only two parties?

This is a direct outcrop of the winner-takes-all electoral district system which forces parties to merge to have a chance at winning. I personally find it an undemocratic, archaic and meritless system.

> This is a direct outcrop of the winner-takes-all electoral district system which forces parties to merge to have a chance at winning.

I'm not sure this is true. When the highest vote-getter wins, despite the lack of an absolute majority, that gives a better chance to third-party candidates in a multi-candidate election.

The reason third parties fare so poorly in the US is that the two major parties have a duopoly on campaign fundraising and free news coverage, which is a vicious circle. The media covers only candidates who are "electable", and they judge who's electable based on their ability to raise money, but you can't raise any money if nobody knows about you, and nobody will know about you if you don't get media coverage or don't have the money to spread your message.

This is why self-funded billionaire Ross Perot was the most successful third-party Presidential candidate in recent times.

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