... the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy
— Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page [study cited below]
There’s got to be a difference between these two men, or else we’re all part of a cruel, cruel joke
— Stephen Colbert, upon being asked whether anything meaningful separated Barack Obama from Mitt Romney
Some stories write themselves.
I'll quote from the Huffington Post's U.S. Policies Favor The Wealthy, Interest Groups, Study Shows.
U.S. government policies reflect the desires of the wealthy and interest groups more than the average citizen, according to researchers at Princeton University and Northwestern University.
"[W]e 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," write Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page in an April 9 article posted on the Princeton website (pdf) and scheduled for fall publication in the journal Perspectives on Politics.
Little Or No Influence At All
Gilens and Page analyzed 1,779 policy issues from 1981 to 2002 and compared changes to the preferences of median-income Americans, the top-earning 10 percent, and organized interest groups and industries.
"Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have little or no independent influence on policy at all," the researchers write in the article titled, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens"...
"The estimated impact of average citizens’ preferences drops precipitously, to a non-significant, near-zero level," the researchers write. "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."
Economic Elite Domination
Affluent Americans, however, "have a quite substantial, highly significant, independent impact on policy," Gilens and Page write.
Organized interest groups also "have a large, positive, highly significant impact upon public policy."
The research supports the theories of Economic Elite Domination, which says policy outcomes are influenced by those with wealth who often own businesses, and Biased Pluralism, which says policy outcomes "tend to tilt towards the wishes of corporations and business and professional associations."
Merely A Coincidence
The study found that average citizens and the wealthy often seek the same policy changes. As Gawker notes, the researchers say this is a mere coincidence, noting the average American's interests will be represented if they are in line with the interests of the wealthy...
Short Commentary
I am long past caring that a detailed and convincing study of "who governs the United States" reveals what thoughtful observers have known all along. The "influence" of this study will last one news cycle (today's) and that will be that. After all, the United States is an oligarchy, and the corporate-owned media are in on the deal
But lately, I have written extensively about the insoluble social problems this study highlights.
What is interesting to me is just how crazy life in the United States has become. As I mentioned in another context, a huge amount of mental energy is spent looking the other way when it comes to results like these. Indeed, the need to pretend that the happy stories Americans tell themselves are still true is so strong that there is a snowball's chance in Hell that acknowledgement of our sociopolitical realities will ever gain even a tenuous foothold.
Thus Americans (like people everywhere) delude themselves and each other, and are content to do so.
At a deeper level, we note that humans in all societies exhibit a strong preference for adhering to the status quo, regardless of how odious those arrangements are. Thus I recently wrote that Americans (like people everywhere) have a docility problem (not a stupidity problem). In the context of the astonishing wealth inequality in the United States, DOTE reader Robert wrote—
It is annoying at times being among the very few captives that haven't succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome, isn't it?
Well, yes, it is annoying. Americans do indeed seem to have Stockholm Syndrome.
But in my view, it is also inevitable that the vast majority of humans will gladly accept an inferior position in an apparently stable social order, and will thus endure all sorts of punishment before rebelling against it, as Thomas Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence.
As to the question of whether we live in a "democracy" here in the United States, that shibboleth should have been put to rest a long, long time ago.
Given all that, today's story is merely icing on the cake.
— Dave
Bonus Video — Give 'em hell, Bernie
Come on now Dave! I think you are seriously underestimating human beings. My observations clearly indicate that Americans (like people everywhere) very often have both a docility problem AND a stupidity problem. There's no need to arbitrarily limit human potential by labelling the species as being capable of having only one problem. We have the ability to have many, many, many problems... all at once.
Posted by: Brian | 04/16/2014 at 11:27 AM