Eric Zuesse
A study, to appear in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on Politics,
finds that the U.S. is no democracy, but instead an oligarchy, meaning
profoundly corrupt, so that the answer to the study’s opening question,
“Who governs? Who really rules?” in this country, is:
“Despite the seemingly strong
empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian
democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public
actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts.
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such
as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a
widespread (if still contested) franchise. But, …” and then they go on
to say, it’s not true, and that, “America’s claims to being a democratic
society are seriously threatened” by the findings in this, the
first-ever comprehensive scientific study of the subject, which shows
that there is instead “the nearly total failure of ‘median voter’ and
other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories [of America]. When the
preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest
groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American
appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically
non-significant impact upon public policy.”
To put it short: The United States is no democracy, but actually an oligarchy.