US is an oligarchy, not a democracy (2014) | Hacker News Reader

US is an oligarchy, not a democracy (2014)

bbc.com

89 pointskushti81 comments

> The US, in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious 'electoral' 'democratic' countries. We weren't formerly, but we clearly are now.

These people never went to Russia.

Care to back up such a bold assertion?

"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 we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened."

I'm a Russian citizen. I can tell you firsthand that the US is as bad as Russia, with one exception: Russia is honest about what it is, while the US plays democracy games and pretends to be a "free" country.

Edit: The downvotes are a sign that I've stepped on your sore toe. Go ahead, I have karma to spare, but remember my words next time you vote in an imaginary election.

Dude, I mean... come on. After DJT was elected, you can call US elections whatever you want, but not imaginary. This shit is 100% real.

"real" is an interesting notion. when you're presented with two thoroughly awful options, and when the ability to select between the two said options is contingent on dodgy information, murky details and unanswered questions, is it really a proper choice? i almost feel like it's making important life decisions while one beer away from a blackout.

Wasn't some of the "dodgy" information allegedly supplied by Russian backed accounts on Facebook and other platforms.

Maybe instead of making the decisions one beer away from a blackout we should do what the Persians did.

“If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.” ― Herodotus

> when you're presented with two thoroughly awful options, and when the ability to select between the two said options is contingent on dodgy information, murky details and unanswered questions, is it really a proper choice?

It's a more "proper choice" than pretty much all of the alternatives.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

100% real including the election irregularities and voter suppression?

I agree. If Trump's shocking upset from the right isn't evidence enough, then consider the equally shocking defeat of a 10-term (10 term!) incumbent by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the left.

Few predicted either of those. I know of nobody who claims to have predicted both.

If you want a real working democracy, look at Switzerland. Or maybe at very local, neighborhood level in the US here and there, at the scale where people actually care and know.

To note: the entire Switzerland's population is 8.5M, about the size of 5 boroughs of New York City. They have twenty six cantons, all with severely different policies, and 2222 municipalities. Of course most voting occurs at municipal level, then cantonal level.

To my mind, nowhere in the world any larger state managed to get to the "level of democracy" which is possible and has been demonstrably achieved at smaller scales.

What additionally exacerbates the situation in the US is the two-party system that effectively polarizes people instead of nudging them to look for compromises.

The electoral college made sense in 1770s, with a much smaller population, and very slow communication. By now, it results in interesting side effects that probably could be avoided using different mechanisms. Still I think that no large nation has deployed any such mechanisms to successfully achieve "real democracy" and not some form of oligarchy. Mass media is a major factor in that; national scale being hard to comprehend and relate to for a voter is another.

I think this outlines the core issues more than most of the responses thus far.

Our system of governance hasn't scaled as effectively in distributing democratic decision making as many may wish, and the interconnectivity we're developing is making it more pronounced.

Your concision is inspirational.

> Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

I bet most people's token solution to this will be to expand the size of the administrative state with new the levels "oversight", or new laws, new agencies, etc... which will proceed to be shaped and molded by these very same forces and only solidify these "elites" & special interest group's market positions and political influence over the regular person.

No one ever wants to reduce these group's power to influence their own position in the economy and policy by limiting government. Nor does anyone ever correlate the explosion in size of the administrative state in every western country since WW2 with the growth in power of the top end of the market and in general inequality (in both wealth/power). If this growth in scale has done little to help the average "little guy", who is it helping?

You obviously have an agenda in your comment. Do you have any evidence that suggests the expansion of government correlates strongly to income inequality? Scandinavian countries are a great example of countries with large government and low inequality.

> I bet most people's token solution...

That wasn't an assertion tied to an agenda. It was an assumption about the typical US citizen, as a preamble.

I read the comment in whole, and it sets this up as a clear strawman. I bet on lots of things that end up being wrong. Why is the commenter so against big government when not a single soul proposed making the American government any bigger either in the comments or the article?

It's called a thought exercise, as HN is considered a good faith exchange. If you ask an American how to control a situation, the most common solution is an appeal to a government authority. That's not really a strawman, when it's demonstrably true. Relying on the economy, is typically the choice when there's propaganda money to convince them so (see most of the US West Coast states). I really don't understand why you would take this in bad faith, when there's a commercialization of mocking it (via youtube, merchandising) and the documented history of the USA litigiousness. shrug

I argue it's not demonstrably true, and as a matter of a fact, given how right leaning the entirety of the US is (even within the left leaning circles), and the prevalence of two dominant political parties that would be consider center of right and far right in any other country, it's clear Americans seem to favor less government. I'd be happy to find evidence presenting another view. The issue with the comment is it doesn't actually setup a thought exercise as it does a poor job of establishing the reality of that exercise and then negatively attacks a view point no one presented.

You could easily filter the media of your choice and find multiple stories similar to this:

>Americans Want To Regulate AI

>AT&T says it’ll stop selling your location data, amid calls for a federal investigation

Both right and left, in the USA, want regulation. Each one challenge that the other's regulation is unnecessary. That doesn't change the agenda over time.

> it's clear Americans seem to favor less government

And the sky is plaid? Some Americans pay lip service (it's easy to trust when you've never been a victim), but the media entertains with court room drama and mockery precisely because citizens, when harmed, expect regulation to prevail.

The history shows the exact opposite and the legal field is orchestrated to be layered (compare the housing code in any city from the 1800s to now, not to mention how land rights are judged). The federal government has dwarfed the local governments. It legally (and in practice) overrides it every day.

> It was an assumption about the typical US citizen, as a preamble.

Is it an assumption based in any way in reality, or based on the author's constructed strawman perception?

How are you measuring the size of governments?

relative to their tax base and populations

If you measure their tax base as percentage of their total GDP, you'll be surprised at how small government in those countries are. For instance, by that measure, France has the biggest government of the OECD: https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-revenue.htm

Your link indicates that in 2016 (most recent year with full data, although seems fairly constant since 2000) the tax revenue of Denmark (45.51% of GDP), Sweden (42.57%), Finland (42.68%) and Norway (41.46%) were almost double that of the US (24.07%).

(Although I don't like including Norway in such comparisons, as it's tiny population and huge oil wealth makes it a big outlier.)

People always pretend the US government size is small and tiny countries in Scandinavia have giant ones. Yet few countries have the massive number of agencies and law the US does. The size of population certainly plays a role in this but ultimately it affects the average person operating in such a society.

I'm not talking about taxation. I'm talking about the size of the administrative state, ie. the amount of intervention the government engages in in the economy and socially.

The size of the administrative state may not be a relevant metric in evaluating the extent of actions taken to equalize voice in decision making/policy based on economic power, or to limit economic inequality more generally. (In fact, one view of the large administrative state is that it's a moat designed precisely to the advantage of established actors.)

The US is 30 times larger than the largest Scandinavian country. It stands to reason that the US would have a government proportionally as large unless they somehow found a way to be more efficient. I can guarantee you they have not.

Does it still have a "massive number of agencies" compared to the EU and all its member states? I don't think so.

I think it has much more to do with population. Sweden, Norway, Denmark all have populations less than 10M. Size of government, including tax rates, I would argue, factor more into a country's overall cultural profile which taken as a whole likely correlates with inequality.

Compared with Sweden's left to right political spectrum the US has two firmly right-wing parties to choose from. I think that matters a lot more than a population number.

Maybe first start with laws to make lobbying illegal (corporate donations/favors), and axe corporate person-hood.

Lobbying happens everywhere. Having it legalized makes it more transparent and helps you voting next elections. In my country it's illegal yet they do it behind the curtains

Same with campaign funding laws. I'd rather there be almost no laws but full transparency. How do you measure the funding impact of constant press coverage?

Things are transparent now, and it's not working well enough. People don't have time to care or worry about who is funding whom.

>I bet most people's token solution to this will be to expand the size of government [...] which will [...] only solidify these "elites" & special interest group's market positions...

and:

>No one ever wants to [...] limit government...

???

Um... but, um, won't limiting government "only solidify these 'elites' & special interest group's market positions"?

Right now they have to negotiate with the government to determine what they can take. Under your proposal, they would negotiate with no one to determine what they can take.

There is no outcome where the élites don't win. Only a spectrum along which we have varying degrees of control over them. Under the current regime, we have relatively little control over them. Under your proposal, we have even less.

One road leads to disease and despair, but the other leads to death and destruction.

I think it would make more difference if we got rid of political action committees (PACs), it is this pattern that allows corporations and the rich to donate oversize amounts of money to their chosen corporate candidates. Without PACs each citizen can only donate a couple thousand dollars.

Who is this “most people”?

The staring solutions are (1) get some of the money out of politics by ending SuperPACs and imposing real campaign finance reform with transparency down to the local level and possibly additional public funding for campaigns, (2) curtail the revolving door between industry and government and provide competitive salaries for civil service careers, (3) end partisan gerrymandering and ensure that voting rights are respected in every state and consider even more dramatic changes such as multi-member districts with proportional representation and STV voting, (4) increase taxes on capital gains and inheritances, add additional income tax brackets with higher top marginal rates, and consider wealth taxes or more dramatic tax changes like local land-value taxes instead of property taxes, work to eliminate tax loopholes such as the use of political campaigns or charities for tax evasion, (5) put more personal financial/criminal liability on corporate officers (e.g. at financial services firms) when their companies are involved in frauds, (6) provide the IRS and federal law enforcement agencies sufficient resources for more widespread enforcement of existing laws against fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, bribery, ...

Less Government -> Wealthy have more power.

Reagan/Thatcher reduced the government. How did that turn out?

I had written this in response to a child comment but I guess I'll reply to this parent and collectively offer my supportive stance.

I'm not the parent poster, but I would wager his view is that governments should exist to enforce free competition. That is the source of disruption to the elites. The current regime does not ensure free competition. It's crony capitalism, and the entrenched "elite" (NB: this is a ridiculously outdated term) has the government at their disposal to ensure that they remain in power. Exhibit A: Ajit Pai.

Reducing government is a reasonable proposal because it reduces the "attack surface" for corruption and crony capitalism. Surely that's got to be an analogy that resonates well with this audience...

EDIT: and let's leave the discussion over whether Healthcare and Education should be universal and free (as in fully subsidized), otherwise we'll never get anywhere. I'm personally in favor of both, but you need not agree / disagree on that to discuss the broader point.

Ajit Pai's is not an example that institutions exist to further the interests of a small few, but rather that it is possible to ignore the duties of one's public office* to the benefit of a few.

*to be more precise, it is ignoring one's office. The office is not the position, it is the authority AND duties and responsibilities that come with a position. This brings into question if authority is legitimate in the event that it is granted with responsibilities which are ignored, but that's a separate question than whether or not the office itself exists to ignore it's own duties or whether the duties themselves are designed to favor the few.

You could argue the opposite:

Since WWII, western countries have seen an incredible growth of wealth. This growth of wealth translated to a huge improvement of leaving condition for the masses, which means that said wealth was reasonably well distributed and government knowingly or unknowingly made this happen.

By contrast, the XIXth century, despite growth, the average life conditions worsened significantly for worker leading, This lead to ideologies like Anarchism and Communism.

Why did this wealth was somewhat correctly distributed? Basically the two World Wars and the Great Depression, In Europe, the cost of the 2 wars and the inflation after them basically destroyed a huge chunk of the wealthier classes living of their accumulated money (rentier). In the US, the Great Depression and WWII lead to decisions like a tax rate of more than 90% for the wealthier, which lead to keep in check inequalities during the 40ies, 50ies and 60ies.

All this happen because of strong government basically stating: the interest of the whole is not the sum of individual interests.

It also happened because at the same time, an incredible amount of "new wealth" was being created in such a short span, this kind of growth rate was unprecedented in human history, it was easy and even somewhat natural to distribute more in this situation. These two factors combined to reduce inequality and improve living condition significantly.

The issue is that inequalities in revenue were still occurring. Slowly capital was becoming concentrated again. Which lead to the slow reconstitution of a strong wealthy class concentrating capital. This strengthening happened progressively by buying media channels, donating to politicians or even becoming one and lobbying strongly for favorable laws. This lead to policies/laws in the interest of this smaller group reinforcing this concentration. Basically, it's stating the obvious: there is a correlation between wealth and political power.

Also, since the 70ies, there was a strong slowdown in radical technical improvements and deployments, leading to less "new" wealth being available.

Now we are basically returning to a repartition of wealth as seen the XIXth century (albeit with far more wealth available).

It's a slow process, almost organic, the wealthier classes are not an homogeneous core, they have different and conflicting interests, but as a whole it's able to push in a given direction. The general population is far bigger, and also have conflicting interests, is even less homogeneous and doesn't have wealth, so it's not able to push as efficiently for the common interest.

It has nothing to do directly with governments. Strong governments actually helped a lot in reducing inequalities. But there is a limit to their action.

Maybe, now, what we need is a more radical way to redistribute wealth by for example an exceptional and significant tax on capital, and do it from time to time to re-balance our societies. Otherwise, long term, it will happen in this form or another: Revolution (a common occurrence in revolutions is the burning of debt files and archives), but I'm not convinced it's the good way forward given all the Chaos it will entail.

I continue to believe that proportional representation could really improve things. The two basic architectures of PR are multi-winner districts (incl. STV) and mixed-member systems, either of which could be implemented easily in the US. One major advantage is that the House hasn't been expanded in a long time and the citizen:legislator ratio in the US is much worse than in most European countries. That means PR could be implemented by only adding seats, so that nobody loses their Congressman.

The reason I support PR is that political parties are living entities that don't exist in a vacuum. It's basically impossible for small parties to grow on a national scale in the current environment. Previously when new parties formed and grew, they did so regionally, because US politics was much more local. But after the 17th Amendment and Medicaid, the states have much less power, and state politics is no longer an avenue to power on a national scale. It's like local stores competing with Wal-mart at this point: HQ will allocate extra resources to crush competition and then pull back afterwards. PR breaks that dynamic by giving small parties a voice in the national legislature. It forces the big guys to compete.

The way I think about it is: political parties exist in a jungle, and we just need to make sure some light reaches the forest floor.

US never had a democracy. Two parties assembly rather the bad cop / good cop scenario than a true democracy where people have control, built bottom up.

However this illusion worked well up until now when oligarchies started to rise by simply putting a mirror on the front of that so called democracy.

These new regimes have an easy job since the old system bleeds from all parts.

I’m a big fan of democracy and oligarchies are the way back, not the way forward.

However I’m skeptic if humanity is capable to invent a forward looking new system in the next years.

See also: 'The Quiet Coup' [0], Simon Johnson, 2009.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-qui...

EDIT: Fixed link per comment

Corrected link (save you a google search): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-qui...

What I also find interesting, is that this research has been picked up by a couple major UK outlets, some other foreign outlets, but got very little coverage in US, despite it being an US issue.

Because it's not true

Bush, Obama, Trump. These are not religious figures. Past POTUS were public servants and they necessarily, do not represent America and arguably couldn't when they are elected. I'm sure glad the members of the political oligarchy of the last 50 years all came out to see Bush's body, but he served 1 term and did the job and he got older and died. No need for the Pharaoh worship week. Either POTUS is an elected position open to any qualified candidate or it's a big money elitist club G Carlin described where they like to engage in pomp and circumstance. While the truth may be fuzzy, I have my own opinion.

==I'm sure glad the members of the political oligarchy of the last 50 years all came out to see Bush's body, but he served 1 term and did the job and he got older and died.==

To be fair, Bush I also served the country as Vice President, UN Ambassador, Director of the CIA, US Representative, and Navy Lieutenant.

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819538

Not exactly news. It's pretty to see the influence of various lobby groups on all levels of government. Most politicians, and especially those who have actual sway within the government, all come from a certain socio-economic background and have ultra-rich backers. Not to mention various entrenched political families (Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes, etc...), as well as close ties between politicians, rich political donors and the media.

Did a research study need to be done to show this? The US Constitution sets up a federated oligarchic republic with slaves to boot. What's shocking is that it's shocking that the US has something like the government it was designed to have. . . .

Technically the US is a Rebuplic. Which, in a sense, means it is largely a Democracy of Aristocrats. Who, it should be noted, have done a stellar job in the last 200 some-odd years of convincing the masses that the Aristocracy no longer (truly) exists. And so the People feel they have the power. When in reality it's all Smoke and Mirrors. Political Theater is nothing more than Circuses that the People can take part in. But the fact remains that Panem et Circenses still exists.

Or to put that in technical terms. "Democracy" (as understood in the common vernacular) is a honeypot that the People got caught in, at which time they got sandboxed.

I wonder why US politics has not been positively hacked yet. Not talking about the Russians using FB but something revolutionary but not violent.

See mormons in the IC and Scientologists in the IRS/Treasury, and Verizon in the FCC....

I'd say it's been hacked pretty well - but only for cerrtain specific interests.

I think Trump and Bernie Sanders foreshadow the beginning of a new era of more revolutionary politics.

Dated [2014]

We just have really good political theatre that gives the illusion of a lively democracy,:)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com