America is No Longer a Democracy–
That Princeton study from last year claiming that America is an oligarchy is extremely frustrating.Or, rather, the popular response to it is frustrating.
The various takeaways I’ve seen include:
- America is an oligarchy
- America is no longer a democracy
- Voting doesn’t matter because the rich get what they want anyway
It’s the last notion that is particularly frustrating. Here’s why:
Most political organizations are and have always been oligarchies. That is nothing new. At America’s founding, it was an oligarchy and there’s a bunch of stuff written into the constitution to secure it (mostly in the form of indirect democratic rules like the Electoral College).
The Princeton study reveals nothing new, except a different way of measuring how oligarchical America actually is.
What the study doesn’t say anything about is how America’s oligarchy quotient (so to speak) has changed over time. And, that’s the real story.
The data set it draws on, if I understand correctly, spans roughly twenty years from ~1980-2002. Drawing conclusions about the directional strength of oligarchy (whether or not America is becoming more or less oligarchical over time) based on its conclusions is dumb. (And, the study authors make no such directional claim.) There’s no reason to believe, based on its conclusions, that America is more oligarchical now than in the past.
Consider that the voting franchise as recently as 1923 excluded half of whom we now consider to be eligible voters: women of majority age.
Consider also that the franchise extended to African American men only in the late 19th century.
Consider further that at least a third of eligible voters don’t vote.
Consider even further that many people are persuaded to vote against their interests for various (stupid) reasons.
All of that means that we have a polity that is essentially brand new to voting. We are new at this democracy thing in a political system that was designed explicitly to buffer political power from the will of voters.
My takeaway from this study is not that America is an oligarchy, but that voting is extremely important. Everyone who can vote should–and should vote for their own interests, rather than ideologically. We’ve only been able to do it for a short while. It will take a time and discipline as voters to have an impact.
Keep the faith.
Here’s a write up of the study of you want to read it for yourself: