"The US is an oligarchy, study concludes"

[berniepdx420]

By Zachary Davies Boren

Report by researchers from Princeton and Northwestern universities suggests that US political system serves special interest organisations, instead of voters

The US government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country's citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities has concluded.
The report, entitled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, used extensive policy data collected from between the years of 1981 and 2002 to empirically determine the state of the US political system.
After sifting through nearly 1,800 US policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile) and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the United States is dominated by its economic elite.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html


Noam Chomski with some related thoughts...

[Journeyman]

1. Huh. David Crosby & Graham Nash told me that in a KPFK interview in 1970 . . .

some things are so plain you don't need studies to tell you what's before your face.

Of course, C. Wright Mills had pointed to its elite power in the mid-'50s, and Herbert Marcuse detailed its one-dimensionality in the mid-'60s, so there were academic precedents for certain lines of thought. But somehow, the relentless pursuit of "Victory in Vietnam" in the face of everything that argued against any involvement whatsoever, proved a greater impetus to conclusions than any study then or since. And a cursory following of the news in the decades between has served only to solidify the knowledge.

Some things are so plain to those with eyes to see. . .

[Live and Learn]

2. K&R She makes some excellent points. nt

[raouldukelives]

3. Unless of course those voters are themselves owners of the corporations killing us.

In that case, we are all getting what they pay for.

More for me and less for thee, mums the word on climate change, the best education private prisons can provide and a tent big enough for Kissinger Democrats.

Some believe for every action there is a reaction, and some pour themselves into advancing corporate interests and then have the audacity to wonder why they are so powerful.