Academic study: America is an oligarchy

[Pointedstick]

I've been chomping at the bit to post this ever since the forum fell over a few days ago. An adademic study by stats professors at Princeton and Northwestern universities analyzed data on political lobbying, voting, donations, and observed outcomes, and concluded that America is an oligarchy:

https://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gile ... 3-7-14.pdf

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
[…]
[W]e have been able to produce some striking findings. One is the nearly total failure of “median voter”? and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories. 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.
[…]
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule -- at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.

[Bean]

I have always thought America is basically a Feudalism state, that is enforced by debt and inflation.  Of course, I also read all sorts of studies that America has the highest mobility between economic classes of any country in the world.

Perception doesn't always equal reality, I guess.

[moda0306]

I have always thought America is basically a Feudalism state, that is enforced by debt and inflation.  Of course, I also read all sorts of studies that America has the highest mobility between economic classes of any country in the world.

Perception doesn't always equal reality, I guess.

Where did you read that last part about mobility?  If you remember...

I'm sure many here will agree with the oligarchy claim. Where we may all disagree strongly is what caused I and how to get rid of it .

[Pointedstick]

I'm sure many here will agree with the oligarchy claim. Where we may all disagree strongly is what caused I and how to get rid of it .

My own position can be summed up thusly: You cannot use a system to change the very same system if that system is currently controlled by people who wish to prevent such a change. You need to work outside it.

That's a fancy way of saying that we can't vote, legislate, or regulate our way out of this problem.

[Tyler]

In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule -- at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.

Haven't read article; have opinion anyway.

I totally agree that the average citizen has basically zero impact on public policy, and that power players rule the field.  However, the power players do so (generally speaking) to protect their own economic interests.  So they're usually not inclined to directly cross their most profitable block of customers/voters unless it is to secure an even greater source of revenue (see immigration reform).

[Pointedstick]

I totally agree that the average citizen has basically zero impact on public policy, and that power players rule the field.  However, the power players do so (generally speaking) to protect their own economic interests.  So they're usually not inclined to directly cross their most profitable block of customers/voters unless it is to secure an even greater source of revenue (see immigration reform).

What the article says is that the interests of elites and "average people" actually tend to be quite congruent, which explains the persistent popularity of the idea that people get what they want. But it's not because they have any impact in the process; it's because their wants happen to frequently mirror those of the actual decision-makers!

If the near total political powerlessness of the average citizen were truly revealed because the elites started taking the country in a direction radically different from what most wanted, I truly believe the result would be a coup or revolution. Of course, the elites know this too which is probably why they don't do it! Or at least, why they do it veeeeeeery slowly, to habituate people to their favored changes.

[Bean]

I have always thought America is basically a Feudalism state, that is enforced by debt and inflation.  Of course, I also read all sorts of studies that America has the highest mobility between economic classes of any country in the world.

Perception doesn't always equal reality, I guess.

Where did you read that last part about mobility?  If you remember...

I'm sure many here will agree with the oligarchy claim. Where we may all disagree strongly is what caused I and how to get rid of it .

figures that I get asked this 

So I can find all sorts of studies that rank us actually quite low, for example:
http://ftp.iza.org/dp7520.pdf
http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/

and can't find the one that debunked these easily (thanks for not being of any help google!)

Basically the premise of debunking these finding that we are low or at the bottom of mobility is the limiting of sample size to developed countries, the gap between the countries analyzed is on your ranking by the percentile in the population when is should be some sort of fixed bands of $s, and finally most look at the lowest band moving to the highest band and not all the bands to other bands (which of course more socialistic countries will have an advantage in).

[MediumTex]

One of the really bizarre things about many modern bureaucracies is that they can suck up an enormous amount of resources, achieve almost nothing (and often make the problems they were designed to solve worse off than before the bureaucracies were created), and yet please almost no one as a result of their existence.

It's weird that social/political institutions like that would be allowed to exist, and yet these things have a way of hanging around like parasites, steadily pulling resources away from the host, but never to the point of endangering the host's survival.

It's almost like there is a corner of the human mind in which only pathological stupidity exists, and to the extent that all human institutions are a reflection and manifestation of some aspect of the human mind's mental model of the external world, the modern bureaucracy would be a reflection and manifestation of the part of the human mind that is stupid.

People talk about the "reptilian" part of the human mind that reacts to stimuli in a primitive and sometimes stupid way.  When I think about the modern bureaucracy, I visualize a part of the human mind that resembles the GEICO lizard after he has been run over by a car and is in a vegetative state in a lizard long-term care facility.

[doodle]

One of the really bizarre things about many modern bureaucracies is that they can suck up an enormous amount of resources, achieve almost nothing (and often make the problems they were designed to solve worse off than before the bureaucracies were created), and yet please almost no one as a result of their existence.

It's weird that social/political institutions like that would be allowed to exist, and yet these things have a way of hanging around like parasites, steadily pulling resources away from the host, but never to the point of endangering the host's survival.

That alone would make me think that there was some necessary function that they performed that I was perhaps overlooking.

I don't necessarily love the idea of big brother either. I would love to be able to walk down the street smoking a big doobie without getting hassled, it just unfortunately isn't the world we live in......maybe one day

[MediumTex]

One of the really bizarre things about many modern bureaucracies is that they can suck up an enormous amount of resources, achieve almost nothing (and often make the problems they were designed to solve worse off than before the bureaucracies were created), and yet please almost no one as a result of their existence.

It's weird that social/political institutions like that would be allowed to exist, and yet these things have a way of hanging around like parasites, steadily pulling resources away from the host, but never to the point of endangering the host's survival.

That alone would make me think that there was some necessary function that they performed that I was perhaps overlooking.

I was being a little naive in my righteous indignation.  I understand that many bureaucracies are really just make work programs for different segments of society. 

People often think of make work programs as activities like hiring one guy to dig a hole and another guy to fill it in, but the actual mechanics of the modern make work bureaucracy are a lot more subtle and sophisticated.

Take the IRS, for example.  The IRS employees thousands of REALLY smart people who help create dumb rules that the private sector must hire even more smart people to try to understand.  It's just a big smart person make work program (and it's the one that I happen to be affiliated with). 

Take the criminal justice system as another example.  The criminal justice system creates laws that poor people won't follow, and then devotes a huge amount of resources to chasing those poor people around and locking them up for a while after they catch them.  After they have been locked up for a while they are released so that they can move through the system over and over, which provides a rationale for employing police, judges, probation officers, prosecutors, prison guards, etc., plus a whole bunch of other private sector people like defense attorneys, bail bondsmen, prison contractors, drug dealers, etc.  When you look at it from a distance, though, it's really just a human catch and release program designed to create economic activity.

Take the U.S. manufacturing sector as yet another example.  A large portion of this sector is dedicated to making bombs and accessories for those bombs like transportation, storage, tracking, and delivery devices.  For a person who was interested in creating a make work segment within the manufacturing sector, what could possibly be more appealing than building bombs?  When you needed to soak up some slack in other parts of the manufacturing sector, all you would need to do would be to identify a group of evildoers somewhere in the world and begin the process of creating demand for more bombs as you used up the ones you had on hand.

So yeah, the modern bureaucracy has many purposes, but solving the problems that it was created to solve is rarely one of those purposes (e.g., "War on Drugs", "War on Terrorism", War on Poverty", etc.), and this makes sense if you think about it: Who really wants to see some of these problems solved? 

What criminal court judge wants to see an end to crime?

What general wants to see an end to war?

What IRS commissioner wants to see a national sales tax in lieu of an income tax? 

What politician wants to see people come up with their own solutions to their own problems?

[MachineGhost]

In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule -- at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.

Well, doh!  I could have told you that! 

[MachineGhost]

That alone would make me think that there was some necessary function that they performed that I was perhaps overlooking.

It's called liberty, something you seem to have a problem with.

[MachineGhost]

So yeah, the modern bureaucracy has many purposes, but solving the problems that it was created to solve is rarely one of those purposes (e.g., "War on Drugs", "War on Terrorism", War on Poverty", etc.), and this makes sense if you think about it: Who really wants to see some of these problems solved? 

So you think make work triumphs the worship of the almighty dollar?

[doodle]

That alone would make me think that there was some necessary function that they performed that I was perhaps overlooking.

It's called liberty, something you seem to have a problem with.

Half the time I can't figure out what the hell you are talking about....your response to me makes absolutely no sense.

And in terms of necessary functions, I think you yourself clearly pointed one out in the morality thread:

I meant that within the context of social security/welfare.  Can you imagine how impossibly difficult it would be to organize social security/welfare to 260 million people if you had to deal with 50 individual state governments and several hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations rather than just doing an ACH transfer from the Treasury's checking account at the Fed?  Such transaction costs are one of the major reasons we evolved to a single currency from hundreds of competing currencies.  And what if there's a systemic market failure such as occured during the Great Depression?

Government excels at centralization, standardization and bringing parties together during market failures, but absolutely terrible at literally everything else.  This IS all a fact, which is why govenrment continues to endure in reality.  You didn't think it was all solely due to continous irrationality, did you?

[moda0306]

Bureaucracies need to exist to weed out some of the disadvantages of labor specialization.  Hell, even an individual needs bureaucracies within his business to ensure he's doing everything of material value is getting done.  They seem unpleasant, but in a world where our minds our divided between each other and even within ourselves, bureaucracy, at its best, helps give us processes and accountability that keeps us on track.

Obviously, like any tool, it can turn into a distraction, or, even worse, actually parasitic to its original purpose.

Obviously, the bigger a social machine is, the more bureaucracy it will need to function properly.  Understanding your "role" in an organization, and how productivity and power flows, is important (though some would say fundamentally immoral (anarcho-communists)).  The inefficiencies gained by the assembly line were "worth" the bureaucracies it took to make it work properly.  Some could argue that in some instances, government is no different.  Most people who believe in SOME government, believe in some form of military, and they understand that to keep the machine functioning properly to the end of "protecting our freedoms" (had to hold my lunch down a bit there), there will probably need to be maddening bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy, loosely defined, similar to any "support function" within a system that doesn't truly represent the fundamental, ultimate goal, can easily become toxic instead of contributory to that system.  Similarly:

Insuring improperly can actually increase risk (by lowering net income)

HR can actually make a company's relationship to its employees worse (by enacting policies that seem corporate and cold, or pointless)

Using tax-deferred accounts can actually increase the taxes you pay (by unnecessarily locking in your tax options in an uncertain future)

Having a gun can actually increase a risk to you and your family (due to improper storage, lack of education/respect)

Buying too large of a home can actually INCREASE your exposure to inflation (since you're trading "rent" for "utilities, taxes, maintenance and insurance" plus a fixed mortgage all against your cash-flow)


Bureaucracy is just another tool that can be completely mis/over-used to be either non-contributory or a detriment to its original purpose.

[MachineGhost]

That alone would make me think that there was some necessary function that they performed that I was perhaps overlooking.

It's called liberty, something you seem to have a problem with.

Half the time I can't figure out what the hell you are talking about....your response to me makes absolutely no sense.

Well its true then, you've got a mental block about the whole issue.  Think of it like this...  the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Or, whats good for the gander is good for the goose.

[MediumTex]

So yeah, the modern bureaucracy has many purposes, but solving the problems that it was created to solve is rarely one of those purposes (e.g., "War on Drugs", "War on Terrorism", War on Poverty", etc.), and this makes sense if you think about it: Who really wants to see some of these problems solved? 

So you think make work triumphs the worship of the almighty dollar?

Make work efforts are a way of worshiping the almighty dollar.

Doing an activity that doesn't need to be done just to generate economic activity is sort of the economic equivalent of doing penance in a religious order.  Think about a ditch digger who spends the first half of his career digging holes and the second half of his career filling in holes dug by the younger ditch diggers.  Doesn't that seem like a lifetime of wasted effort, even though it may have been considered essential because of the need to maintain "full employment"?

[doodle]

So yeah, the modern bureaucracy has many purposes, but solving the problems that it was created to solve is rarely one of those purposes (e.g., "War on Drugs", "War on Terrorism", War on Poverty", etc.), and this makes sense if you think about it: Who really wants to see some of these problems solved? 

So you think make work triumphs the worship of the almighty dollar?

Make work efforts are a way of worshiping the almighty dollar.

Doing an activity that doesn't need to be done just to generate economic activity is sort of the economic equivalent of doing penance in a religious order.  Think about a ditch digger who spends the first half of his career digging holes and the second half of his career filling in holes dug by the younger ditch diggers.  Doesn't that seem like a lifetime of wasted effort, even though it may have been considered essential because of the need to maintain "full employment"?

Most of what we do is wasted effort if you ask me. I encourage everyone to read the first chapter of Thoreaus Walden Pond in which even nearly 200 years ago he was saying that most of mans toil is a waste of time. Our society long ago secured the necessities of life, at this point we just trying to solve all of our age old spiritual and philosophical human problems with the religion of consumerism which drives us to work waaaaaaaayyyy more than any of us have to. Very respectable food clothing and shelter could be provided for everyone with no more than a few hours of work a week by each member of society. At that point we are free to pursue whatever we wish. We just choose to dedicate ourselves to an endless stream of mind numbingly boring pursuits that usually involve sitting behind computer screens or pushing pencils behind desks....

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book,(10) laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.

[MediumTex]

Most of what we do is wasted effort if you ask me. I encourage everyone to read the first chapter of Thoreaus Walden Pond in which even nearly 200 years ago he was saying that most of mans toil is a waste of time. Our society long ago secured the necessities of life, at this point we just trying to solve all of our age old spiritual and philosophical human problems with the religion of consumerism which drives us to work waaaaaaaayyyy more than any of us have to. Very respectable food clothing and shelter could be provided for everyone with no more than a few hours of work a week by each member of society. At that point we are free to pursue whatever we wish. We just choose to dedicate ourselves to an endless stream of mind numbingly boring pursuits that usually involve sitting behind computer screens or pushing pencils behind desks....

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book,(10) laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.

Walden can crawl into your mind like the eel that Khan put in Chekov's helmet in Star Trek II.  It can have a powerful effect, but when the effect wears off I think that a person often realizes that it isn't a sin to simply live according to the standards of your own time.  A day-to-day compromise of this sort can actually create a lot more free space in your mind for contemplation than the struggle to always be on the other side of materialism, to always make sure that you are the one who is "purer" than those around you.

Thoreau went to great lengths in Walden to demonize and trivialize the way other people lived, but he spent little time on the topic of how lonely the life he prescribed could be, and how tired people might grow of always being told that "they weren't doing it right" when it came to the way they lived.  Imagine trying to be married to someone like Thoreau.

***

Wife: "Honey, we need a new crib for the baby.  How are we going to pay for it?"

Thoreau: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”?

***

Wife: "Henry, why do you never pay attention to me?"

Thoreau: “I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.”?

***

Wife: "My mother asked if we would like to have lunch at her house on Sunday."

Thoreau: “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”?

***

Wife: "Henry, last night a raccoon crawled under that loose log in the wall of the cabin and bit me in the leg.  Is there any chance that you could fix that today?"

Thoreau:  “We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”?

***

Wife: "Honey, if you wake up before I do in the morning, would you wake me up as well?"

Thoreau: “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep."

***

Wife: "I'm starting to think that I might have married a self-absorbed elitist jackass."

Thoreau: “I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.”? 

***

There is something to be said for expressing love for another person in small ways by helping him or her get the things he or she wants in life.  If my son says he wants a new video game, I could give him a speech about how video games actually lead him away from the path to spiritual enlightenment, and thus I could never get him one because my standards would not permit me to play such a video game...OR I could help him get the video game and play it with him and we could share that experience together of just having fun, even though I know that he will quickly tire of the video game because he is on a hedonic treadmill that will leave him in a constant state of unfulfilled desire until he chooses to reorient himself at some point later in life.

The point is that I think there is value in taking people as they come without judgment and without trying to make them into the people I would like them to be.  For example, I would like for my sons to be like young monks who like to meditate when they are not cleaning their rooms or quoting lines from Kung Fu, but that's not who they are, and I can either adjust to that or try to force them to be who I want them to be. 

It's ironic that Thoreau made his famous comment about stepping to the beat of a different drummer without noticing the irony of making that statement in the middle of a book criticizing people who step to the beat of any drummer but his.

[doodle]

I get what you are saying, MT...but I think our society is bettered by those social critics such as Thoreau whose biting commentary on the habits of our day causes us to actually stop and consider what we are doing. I don't think Thoreau was saying it was sinful to live according to the standards of the time, rather than just saying that in his opinion it was a pitiful waste of time and effort and Walden was where he laid out his reasoning for that belief. Besides, I don't think that the transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson were trying to get anyone to think like they did, but simply encouraging people to think for themselves.

As grating as they can be, I think social critics are like the good bacteria that keep the host alive and flourishing. People like Ralph Nadar, Noam Chomsky, George Orwell, or Charles Dickens to name a few might be annoying at times, but they stir things up and shake us from our complacency.

I understand that social criticism can go to far, but we don't all have to be fat complacent sheep in order to find meaning, purpose and happiness in this life.

[doodle]

MT,

When I read what you write, I often get the picture that you are this guy:




Who has somehow gotten himself trapped inside of this guy:

[MachineGhost]

Speaking of Chevy Chase, it is shocking what an asshole the guy truly is.  He has no friends.  Read it and weep:

http://gawker.com/5899097/hes-not-chevy ... c-behavior

[Pointedstick]

The thing about minimalism is that you can take it too far in exactly the same way as hedonism or consumerism. The result is the same: you find yourself very unbalanced, and not as happy as you thought you were going to be.

I experienced this very personally and very painfully last year when I decided that minimalism in pursuit of ERE was the right thing for me and my family, and my extremely patient and accommodating wife dutifully went along with the plan as I sold off most of our possessions and moved the family into a 26-foot 5th wheel RV.

It took barely 24 hours to realize what a mistake I had made. I had made a number of financial blunders in the sale of my goods, the purchase of the RV and a truck to pull it, and the purchase of more space-efficient replacements. And it rapidly became clear that the full-time small RV lifestyle was simply not very compatible with having a wife, a child, a dog, and a 9 to 5 job, and if I wanted to really adopt it, I realized I would have to give up all of those other things. And I didn't want to because I love my wife and my son and my dog, and I love providing for them and earning enough money to periodically indulge in the enjoyable modern luxuries of playing video games, traveling in modern conveyances to see faraway family members, or paying other people to deliver delicious food-like poison straight to my house.


I totally get it, Doodle. I do. We work out butts off to make money to afford luxuries and aesthetically pleasing versions of necessities in order to make ourselves feel better about the fact that our work is a time sink that's mostly devoid of meaning prevents us from experiencing freedom/spiritual wholeness/solitude/whatever, and causes us to become estranged from society.

But you know what? You don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. You can fight against these modern trends in your own life without wholly rejecting the entire thing. Even the most devoted minimalist has modern luxuries that he enjoys and needs to pay for. For Jacob, it's sailing and martial arts training. For MMM it's home improvement (not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, believe me). I have mine and I'm sure you have yours.

[doodle]

The thing about minimalism is that you can take it too far in exactly the same way as hedonism or consumerism. The result in the same: you find yourself very unbalanced, and not as happy as you thought you were going to be.

I experienced this very personally and very painfully last year when I decided that minimalism in pursuit of ERE was the right thing for me and my family, and my extremely patient and accommodating wife dutifully went along with the plan as I sold off most of our possessions and moved the family into a 26-foot 5th wheel RV.

It took barely 24 hours to realize what a mistake I had made. I had made a number of financial blunders in the sale of my goods, the purchase of the RV and a truck to pull it, and the purchase of more space-efficient replacements. And it rapidly became clear that the full-time small RV lifestyle was simply not very compatible with having a wife, a child, a dog, and a 9 to 5 job, and if I wanted to really adopt it, I realized I would have to give up all of those other things. And I didn't want to because I love my wife and my son and my dog, and I love providing for them and earning enough money to periodically indulge in the enjoyable modern luxuries of playing video games, traveling in modern conveyances to see faraway family members, or paying other people to deliver delicious food-like poison straight to my house.


I totally get it, Doodle. I do. We work out butts off to make money to afford luxuries and aesthetically pleasing versions of necessities in order to make ourselves feel better about the fact that our work is a time sink that's mostly devoid of meaning prevents us from experiencing freedom/spiritual wholeness/solitude/whatever, and causes us to become estranged from society.

But you know what? You don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. You can fight against these modern trends in your own life without wholly rejecting the entire thing. Even the most devoted minimalist has modern luxuries that he enjoys and needs to pay for. For Jacob, it's sailing and martial arts training. For MMM it's home improvement (not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, believe me). I have mine and I'm sure you have yours.

I agree. Minimalism in one sense is the antithesis of materialism in the same way that atheism is the religion of non-religion.

Im just arguing for concious consumption...not the absence of it. I am arguing that people should think more deeply about their personal wants and needs instead of just going out shopping cause they are bored and need an outlet. And frankly, if there were not environmental consequences to massive overconsumption then I really wouldnt care at all if this is how people got their rocks off anymore than I would care if you liked to fart in a elevator. As long as Im not around and dont have to smell it, then go for it.

Now, I do freely express my personal opinion that material consumption will do very little to address the higher human needs in Maslows hierarchy. I feel that modern day capitalism is trying to make the human desire for self-esteem, confidence, or respect available through a consumable good and I am just arguing that it doesnt appear that that is really effective. Im just saying that once your basic material needs are fufilled then one should consider other pursuits perhaps rather than just the acquisition of more material goods.

[MediumTex]

The thing about minimalism is that you can take it too far in exactly the same way as hedonism or consumerism. The result is the same: you find yourself very unbalanced, and not as happy as you thought you were going to be.

I experienced this very personally and very painfully last year when I decided that minimalism in pursuit of ERE was the right thing for me and my family, and my extremely patient and accommodating wife dutifully went along with the plan as I sold off most of our possessions and moved the family into a 26-foot 5th wheel RV.

It took barely 24 hours to realize what a mistake I had made.

Sorry to out you, but you gave too much away.

Meet Mr. Pointedstick:



Seriously, congratulations on doing what many people only think about.  The fact that it turned out not to be the right thing will allow you to get back to figuring out what IS the right thing.

A 26 foot fifth wheel is tight even for one person over an extended period.  I lived in one off and on for a couple of years, and I learned that.  You also have to keep the guest list for parties very short, though I did enjoy having company.