America ruled by wealthy elite

[drone]

A Princeton study (PDF warning) shows that the US is no longer a democracy, but an oligarchy.

[Fisherking]

That took deep thought. Did you get a headache?

I have nothing really against the rich, until they buy governments and want special rights and privileges that hurt the populations.

That is pretty much what I see happening. Everything is for the benefit of the huge interests in the background. They sit on national policy boards, provide money to favored politicians, and deliver the laws they want passed already written.

Something needs done because it is creating an underclass. Them vs. all the rest of us.

[Flavius Aetius]

A Princeton study (PDF warning) shows that the US is no longer a democracy, but an oligarchy.

This is an awful, misleading title. They don't say anywhere in that paper that the US is an oligarchy, they claim there is a correlation to opinions in the top 10th income percentile to policy decisions. That is about 10 million households, or over 20 million people, and only tests it against the median, not 80th or 70th percentile. In fact during a lecture given by one of the worlds top income inequality and poverty economists someone asked him about this exact study. He said, in short, that it had a lot of flaws and they tainted what could have been damning evidence with cruddy methodology.

[Montmorency]

It is not evident that you've actually read the paper...

[Flavius Aetius]

It is not evident that you've actually read the paper...

Oh really? Care to refute anything I said or are you just going to posture about something you likely didn't actually read.

I suspect your next argument will be, yeah they work at Princeton I'm pretty sure they know better than you do.

[Montmorency]

I suspect your next argument will be, yeah they work at Princeton I'm pretty sure they know better than you do.

You used an appeal to authority, not me.

Care to refute anything I said or are you just going to posture about something you likely didn't actually read.

You said only -

they claim there is a correlation to opinions in the top 10th income percentile to policy decisions. That is about 10 million households, or over 20 million people, and only tests it against the median, not 80th or 70th percentile.

Fortunately it is trivial to discredit this.

We believe that the preferences of “affluent” Americans at the 90th income percentile can
usefully be taken as proxies for the opinions of wealthy or very-high-income Americans, and can
be used to test the central predictions of Economic Elite theories. To be sure, people at the 90th
income percentile are neither very rich nor very elite; in 2012 dollars, Gilens’ “affluent”
respondents received only about $146,000 in annual household income. To the extent that their
policy preferences differ from those of average-income citizens, however, we would argue that
there are likely to be similar but bigger differences between average-income citizens and the
truly wealthy.

Some evidence for this proposition comes from the 2011 Cooperative Congressional
Election Study.34 Based on 13 policy preference questions asked on this survey, the preferences
of the top 2% of income earners (a group that might be thought “truly wealthy”) are much more
highly correlated with the preferences of the top 10% of earners than with the preferences of the
average survey respondent (r=.91 vs. .69).35 Thus, the views of our moderately high-income
“affluent” respondents appear to capture useful information about the views of the truly wealthy.

In any case, the imprecision that results from use of our “affluent” proxy is likely to
produce underestimates of the impact of economic elites on policy making. If we find
substantial effects upon policy even when using this imperfect measure, therefore, it will be
reasonable to infer that the impact upon policy of truly wealthy citizens is still greater.36

Rather often, average citizens and affluent citizens (our proxy for economic elites) want the same things from government

In 2012, the 10th percentile of household income was about $12,200, the 50th percentile about $51,000, and the 90th percentile about $146,000

You dispute that the interests of households with incomes of $50K-100K is going to be similar? That their clout is going to be similar? This group is the lower half of the middle class.

But really, even this much would be enough.

even the net alignments of the groups we have categorized as “mass-based” correlate with average citizens’ preferences only at the very modest (though statistically significant) level of .12.

A helpful way to assess the relative influence of each set of actors is to compare how the predicted probability of policy change alters when moving from one point to another on their distributions of policy dispositions, while holding other actors’ preferences constant at their neutral points (50 percent favorable for average citizens and for economic elites, and a net interest group alignment score of 0.)

What these results show is that what a 50th-percentiler thinks has no effect on whether or not some issue gets legislative support, while for the 90th-percentiler dislike means rejection and approval means, more likely than not, legislative support.

This is to say nothing of the data on interest groups.

That they used the 50th percentile as a baseline does not undermine their results at all. In fact, looking at as much as every single percentile would merely have turned this damning finding into a drinking game.

[Flavius Aetius]

Thus, the views of our moderately high-income
“affluent” respondents appear to capture useful information about the views of the truly wealthy.

Mindless extrapolation.

is likely to
produce underestimates of the impact of economic elites on policy making. If we find
substantial effects upon policy even when using this imperfect measure, therefore, it will be
reasonable to infer that the impact upon policy of truly wealthy citizens is still greater.

Not necessarily.

You dispute that the interests of households with incomes of $50K-100K is going to be similar? That their clout is going to be similar? This group is the lower half of the middle class.

Yes the interests of a 50k-150k household are incredibly familiar. At a household income of 100k a family does not have very much impact upon the political process beyond their own time. The fact is simply that those individuals tend to be more highly educated and thus more likely to involve themselves with politics.

Going from the 50%-90% is a massive gap. They are damned for extrapolating their results onto the other brackets without giving any evidence in support of that.

[Montmorency]

Mindless extrapolation.

I suppose you missed:

Based on 13 policy preference questions asked on this survey, the preferences
of the top 2% of income earners (a group that might be thought “truly wealthy”) are much more
highly correlated with the preferences of the top 10% of earners than with the preferences of the
average survey respondent (r=.91 vs. .69)

Not necessarily.

So you are essentially claiming that the upper-middle class may have more political clout than any other group, including the wealthy.

Yes the interests of a 50k-150k household are incredibly familiar.

No, they are not.

Based on 13 policy preference questions asked on this survey, the preferences
of the top 2% of income earners (a group that might be thought “truly wealthy”) are much more
highly correlated with the preferences of the top 10% of earners than with the preferences of the
average survey respondent (r=.91 vs. .69)

Going from the 50%-90% is a massive gap. They are damned for extrapolating their results onto the other brackets without giving any evidence in support of that.

As I said, That they used the 50th percentile as a baseline does not undermine their results at all. In fact, looking at as much as every single percentile would merely have turned this damning finding into a drinking game.

If they had done so, the finding would have been 'knock-down'. I cannot take seriously someone who thinks that if a finding is not knock-down, then it is trivial.

[Idaho]

The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.

So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.

This is not news, you say.

Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here's how they explain it:

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.

In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

In other news, the pope is said to have catholic leanings and bears are failing to defecate in custom built toilets, favouring their native habitat.

[Sarmatian]

And not just USA. It's becoming a global issue.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

And not just USA. It's becoming a global issue.

It's not "becoming" anything - it's always been an issue.

It's currently a bigger issue in the US because of the way that system works - and particularly because the majority of Americans DO NOT ENGAGE.

This is the real problem - summed up by "Our government sucks - which is why I don't vote."

as I recall, Idaho does not vote - so I blame Ben Bradshaw on him (we live in the same electoral district).

[Idaho]

as I recall, Idaho does not vote - so I blame Ben Bradshaw on him (we live in the same electoral district).

That's like blaming a teetotal for the price of booze.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

That's like blaming a teetotal for the price of booze.

More like blaming a teetotal for there still being booze for the drunks to buy.

But the fact stands - if everybody who was angry voted for an angry candidate - nobody currently sitting in parliament would keep their seat.

[Montmorency]

Thread-transfer of denialism in 3-2-1...

[Montmorency]

@Idaho @Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Which is to say, I was entirely happy with the MP we returned the last two elections - I like him.

[Idaho]

Bradshaw is a self serving, self satisfied Blairite careerist politician who would happily watch us be rendered down for tallow if he thought there was some power and prestige to had.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Bradshaw is a self serving, self satisfied Blairite careerist politician who would happily watch us be rendered down for tallow if he thought there was some power and prestige to had.

Oh, I agree, but I used to vote in my parents' constituency, I was talking about Geoffrey Cox.

Ben Bradshaw won his first election because his Tory opponent was an open homophobe (Bradshaw being Gay and all).

[HoreTore]

It's not "becoming" anything - it's always been an issue.

Ding ding ding ding ding

I always wonder which age the people who claim "it's becoming worse" refer to. Feudalism? Early industrialism? The Romans? January 1954?

If anything, I would say we are moving to less powerful elites. In the past, the elite could kill me if I displeased them, send me to war with a fork or bone my wife. Legally. They can't any more.

[Sarmatian]

Ding ding ding ding ding

I always wonder which age the people who claim "it's becoming worse" refer to. Feudalism? Early industrialism? The Romans? January 1954?

If anything, I would say we are moving to less powerful elites. In the past, the elite could kill me if I displeased them, send me to war with a fork or bone my wife. Legally. They can't any more.

It's very simple. If the gap between the wealthy elite and the middle class is stupendously big, that situation is "bad". If that gap is, over a reasonable amount of time, getting progressively bigger, that is "worse".

[HoreTore]

It's very simple. If the gap between the wealthy elite and the middle class is stupendously big, that situation is "bad". If that gap is, over a reasonable amount of time, getting progressively bigger, that is "worse".

So we were better off back in feudal times?

[Sarmatian]

So we were better off back in feudal times?

I guess we're worse off than we were cca 60 years ago.

Your way of looking at it is weird anyway. It's like saying global warming is no biggie because most of the world was extremely hot 250 million years ago.

[HoreTore]

I guess we're worse off than we were cca 60 years ago.

1950?

Back when women were housewives, minorities were routinely sterilized and being a nobleman still carried weight?

That's your golden age? Seriously?

[Sarmatian]

1950?

Back when women were housewives, minorities were routinely sterilized and being a nobleman still carried weight?

That's your golden age? Seriously?

Can't a person like one aspect but dislike other aspects of something, in this case a time period? Can I listen to 60's and 70's rock for the music itself, or I'm also implicitly suggesting we all get high, go to India and have group sex?

Why is it a bundle deal?

[HoreTore]

Can't a person like one aspect but dislike other asomething of something, in this case a time period? Can I listen to 60's and 70's rock for the music itself, or I'm also implicitly suggesting we all get high, go to India and have group sex?

Why is it a bundle deal?

....Because the three aspects I mentioned(oppression of the weak plus hereditary rule) are all signs of an entrenched elite in power, which you claimed there wasn't at that time.

[Montmorency]

In the past, the elite could kill me if I displeased them, send me to war with a fork or bone my wife

Not really...

[HoreTore]

Not really...

Slavery allowed murder in various cases, feudalism required me to follow my lord into battle, and the wife-thing is mostly for fun.

[Sarmatian]

....Because the three aspects I mentioned(oppression of the weak plus hereditary rule) are all signs of an entrenched elite in power, which you claimed there wasn't at that time.

When did I claim that?

My view is that the widening gap between the ultra rich and the middle class is a potential threat to democracy and rule of law. There are glimpses now and it will get worse as the gap gets bigger.

[HoreTore]

When did I claim that?

...when you said the 50's were better, in a thread concerned with the power of the elite...?

Further, I would claim the gap between the "middle class"* and the poor is much more important between the "middle class" and the rich when it comes to democracy and the rule of law. The rich haven't shown much interest in behaving like tyrants, while the ordinary citizen has shown a deep desire to whack everyone below him.

*gawd, how I hate that useless term.

[Montmorency]

Slavery allowed murder in various cases, feudalism required me to follow my lord into battle, and the wife-thing is mostly for fun.

I'd like to see the first corroborated - we're not talking about the ancient world, right?

The second is applied more to landed lords, and not so much peasants, who needed to be on the farm most of the time anyway. Also, the modern compulsory draft is much stronger than feudal obligation.