Two new studies by political scientists offer compelling evidence that the rich use their wealth to control the political system and that the U.S. is a democratic republic in name only.
In a study of Senate voting patterns, Michael Jay Barber found that “senators’ preferences reflect the preferences of the average donor better than any other group.” In a similar study of the House of Representatives, Jesse H. Rhodes and Brian F. Schaffner found that, “millionaires receive about twice as much representation when they comprise about 5 percent of the district’s population than the poorest wealth group does when it makes up 50 percent of the district.” In fact, the increasing influence of the rich over Congress is the leading driver of polarization in modern politics, with the rich using the political system to entrench wealth by pushing for tax breaks and blocking redistributive policies.…
At the turn of the decade, political scientists Larry Bartels, Jacob Hacker and Martin Gilens wrote several incredibly influential important books arguing, persuasively, that the preferences of the rich were better represented in Congress than the poor. After the books were published, there was a flurry of research arguing that they had overstated their case.…
Recent research offers compelling answers to these criticisms. The new evidence adds credence to the Bartels-Gilens-Hacker view that money is corrupting American politics…More studies confirm what we already knew. The Citgroup plutonomy report told us. Cronyism and corruption are bipartisan.
Well not completely bipartisan.
By using a massive database of ideology that includes the super wealthy, Schaffner and Rhodes found that “members of Congress are much more responsive to the wealthy than to their poor constituents.” However, this difference is not equal between both parties; rather, Democrats are far more responsive to the poor than Republicans. (This is not surprising; other research supports this claim.) They find that both parties strongly favor the upper-middle class, those with $100,000 to $300,000 in wealth. But Republicans are not only more responsive to the rich, but particularly to rich donors. Schaffner and Rhodes argue that, “campaign donations, but not voter registration or participation in primary or general election, may help explain the disproportionate influence of the wealthy among Republican representatives.”There is no fix in an environment of campaign cycles that get shorter and increasingly expensive. Money talks and politicians walk.
Political scientists Walter J. Stone and Elizabeth N. Simas have found that challengers raise more money when they take extreme positions, which helps explain why incumbent representatives tend to be more partisan than departing representatives. It certainly explains the intransigence of the last two Congresses: Republicans, who are responding to their rich donor base, are incentivized to oppose any action, particularly those supporting Obama, lest they lose funding. Since Senators have to raise approximately $3,300 a day every year for six years to remain viable, they will inevitably have to succumb to the power of money if they wish to be reelected.The only lasting fix is thorough-going campaign finance reform and closing the revolving door.
Al Jazeera America
The rich own our democracy, new evidence suggests
Sam McElwee
"Turn of the century." That's half the life of a thirty year old.
6 comments:
Tom,
In order to fight any election, anywhere in the world, you pretty much have to belong to the monied class. Everybody else is too busy trying to survive, build a career etc.
Even if you look at the Aam Aadmi Party (Common Man's Party) that just won by an overwhelming majority in Delhi, 41 out of 67 legislator's that were elected are crorepati's (millionaires - 1 crore = 10 million)
41 Crorepati Aam Aadmi MLAs
Well, it seems that is no surprise for readers. I suppose we can congratulate ourselves in our cleverness.
Hopefully, kids going to school are every bit as clever, because this is what their teachers tell them:
"Democracy is a system of government in which ultimate political authority is vested in the people. Representatives elected by popular suffrage (voting) exercise the supreme authority. In democracies such as the United States, both the executive head of government (president) and the legislature (Senate and House of Representatives) are elected. The powers of government are based on the consent of the governed. Groups or institutions typically exercise the democratic theory in a complex system of interactions that involve compromises and bargaining in the decision process. The major features of a modern democracy include government only by the consent of the governed, individual freedom guaranteed by a constitution, equality before the law, which maintains that all persons are created equal with minority rights protected, universal suffrage, and education for all. Citizens are free to join any political party, union, or other legal group if they choose. Elected representatives may be supplanted by the electorate according to the legal procedures of recall and referendum, and they are, at least in principle, responsible to the electorate. Citizens retain the right to alter or abolish a government that becomes destructive and form a new government. There are no paramilitary organizations sanctioned by the government to suppress those citizens who voice opposition to the government. The cornerstones of democracy are freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion."
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-teachers/lesson-plans/pdfs/hitlers-fatal-gamble.pdf
Indeed, that's not just kiddies, but venerable and extremely influential economists, too:
"I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."
Well, let me add another quote from another economist:
"If Only Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Had Been Right...
… and the state were a committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie…
"Well, the big bourgeoisie--the bankers--are really annoyed at Boehner. Interestingly, they are not so annoyed at Obama: they understand that he has not created this mess.
"With any luck they will draw the lesson that, as Clive Crook put it in one of his few moments of courage, "the Republican Party… deserve[s] political annihilation" for this clown show, and shift their political weight over to supporting the Rubin wing of the Democratic Party."
Direct democracy without political parties and politicians sounds better to me.
Direct democracy without political parties and politicians sounds better to me.
That's what George Washington thought, too. He warned explicitly about the formation of factions and political parties in his Farewell Address of 1796
Here's his conclusion about factionalism:
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
Now we have the doctrine of the unity president, and "if the president does it, it is legal," as well as obstructed government.
The purpose of checks and balances is to prevent the majority from suppressing minorities, but the result is that a minority of wealth has replace the majority as the political determinant. That's plutonomy and oligarchy, not democracy.
Amen, Bob.
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