A while back, Chapman University did a study to determine the prevalence of paranormal beliefs among Americans. Majorities professed belief in Atlantis and ghosts.
The unstated assumption behind the poll – and all polling – is that the majority’s opinion matters. Indeed, we’re often told that a majority supports democracy, which is the notion that a majority vote determines truth.
It’s fitting, because American democracy is even more of a spook than any fanciful phenomenon on Chapman U’s list.
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.
Who governs? Who really rules? To what extent is the broad body of U.S. citizens sovereign, semi-sovereign, or largely powerless? These questions have animated much important work in the study of American politics.
Whether we’re discussing politics, economics, or the entertainment industry, “Who?” is the question that matters most.
And in the case of American policymaking, “who” is not the people.
The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our 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.
Free market Conservatives struggle to understand why car makers are all switching to infeasible electric engines and why streaming services keep churning out multimillion-dollar insults to their audience.
When you realize there are no free markets in commerce or politics, it all makes sense.
But net interest-group stands are not substantially correlated with the preferences of average citizens. Taking all interest groups together, the index of net interest-group alignment correlates only a non-significant .04 with average citizens’ preferences! (Refer to table 2.) This casts grave doubt on David Truman’s and others’ argument that organized interest groups tend to do a good job of representing the population as a whole. Indeed, as table 2 indicates, 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.
Some particular U.S. membership organizations—especially the AARP and labor unions—do tend to favor the same policies as average citizens. But other membership groups take stands that are unrelated (pro-life and pro-choice groups) or negatively related (gun owners) to what the average American wants. Footnote40 Some membership groups may reflect the views of corporate backers or their most affluent constituents. Others focus on issues on which the public is fairly evenly divided. Whatever the reasons, all mass-based groups taken together simply do not add up, in aggregate, to good representatives of the citizenry as a whole. Business-oriented groups do even worse, with a modest negative over-all correlation of -.10.
… [W]hen all three independent variables are included in the multivariate Model 4 and are tested against each other … [t]he estimated impact of average citizens’ preferences drops precipitously, to a non-significant, near-zero level. Clearly the median citizen or “median voter” at the heart of theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy does not do well when put up against economic elites and organized interest groups. The chief predictions of pure theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy can be decisively rejected. Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have little or no independent influence on policy at all.
We do not live in a democracy. We don’t even have a democratic republic. Instead, we are ruled by an oligarchic plutocracy presided over by an alien economic elite.
If we the people ever get what we want, it’s only in the occasions when our interests align with the elites’.
This is why voting harder – with your ballot or your wallet – is a fool’s errand. Participating in corrupt systems only gives them a false veneer of legitimacy.
The reason not to pay money or attention to companies that hate you is to avoid cooperating with evil. The same goes for voting at the national level.
When you’re playing a rigged game, not playing is the only way to win.
