Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday April 17 2014, @10:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the Also:-Sky-is-Blue dept.

A study by Princeton and Northwestern universities shows that a small group of elite have control over the general population and the government only supports the rich and powerful while the masses have no say whatsoever. The 42 page report concludes "we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened."

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by gallondr00nk on Thursday April 17 2014, @01:41PM

    by gallondr00nk (392) on Thursday April 17 2014, @01:41PM (#32639)

    Whether the situation is as bad as the study suggests or not, you could certainly make a case that our current economic inequality is inherently undemocratic. In a society where your wallet determines your ability to influence, some will have more votes than others.

    Since we're essentially living in that society now, even if we were to nitpick over how bad, the question is how to reform it.

    Sticking within a democratic system, I'd start with:
    - Proportional representation.
    - Taxpayer funded elections with a strict ban on any outside donations.
    - A wholesale devolving of powers to local municipalities, states, regions etc. In my opinion centralized government is anything but democratic, and the only way to have any real representation is to allow decision making at a local / regional level.

    Before we could tackle anything, I'd suggest the most vital and important thing to do is to remove the influence of money. If money equals free speech, as the US supreme court decided, then money essentially equals votes.

    As someone else here pointed out, we the masses have won substantial victories in civil rights, gender equality and so on. We're also gradually stopping the drug war. Stopping the influence of money in the democratic process should be our next civil rights movement.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=3, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by DrMag on Thursday April 17 2014, @02:55PM

    by DrMag (1860) on Thursday April 17 2014, @02:55PM (#32690)

    - A wholesale devolving of powers to local municipalities, states, regions etc. In my opinion centralized government is anything but democratic, and the only way to have any real representation is to allow decision making at a local / regional level.

    This. Absolutely, this! Mountains aren't moved by poking at the top, but by pushing at the base. Local leaders will have far more (and better) impact on the actual lives of people than a central government, especially for a nation as large (in size, demographic, and population) as the United States. Government will always be broken as long as we keep viewing and treating local and state government as 'minor leagues'.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday April 17 2014, @03:13PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday April 17 2014, @03:13PM (#32696) Journal

    I was listening to one of my favorite political podcasts regarding the recent SCOTUS opinion on campaign finance reform ( http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/csarchive/Show- 273---Auctioning-the-Republic/corruption-money-pol itics [dancarlin.com] ).

    - Taxpayer funded elections with a strict ban on any outside donations.

    One potential alternative he suggests is instead of giving all candidates equal amounts from an election fund and limiting donations, make it so that all candidates get matching funds equal to their opponents' fundraising. This doesn't infringe on the idea that money is speech -- you can go out and get as many and as large donations as you want, and people can give you as much as they want. The only thing is, your opponent will then instantly get a check for a matching amount from a public election fund. Sort of kills the motivation to go out and get big money, but it infringes on no one's right to do it.

    More to the point though, he suggests that these kinds of reforms won't really mean much, because the people who are selected to run are all acceptable to oligarchy. They don't care who wins because they own both -- the elections are just a circus for our entertainment but they don't actually change anything of importance.

    • (Score: 1) by urza9814 on Thursday April 17 2014, @10:03PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday April 17 2014, @10:03PM (#32852) Journal

      One potential alternative he suggests is instead of giving all candidates equal amounts from an election fund and limiting donations, make it so that all candidates get matching funds equal to their opponents' fundraising.

      Not a bad idea, but Obama raised $220 million for his reelection campaign in 2011 alone. For Dems vs. GOP that might not take a ton of money since both will presumably get the same amount...but then you've gotta cut a check for a quarter of a BILLION dollars to every single third party on the ballot.

      More to the point though, he suggests that these kinds of reforms won't really mean much, because the people who are selected to run are all acceptable to oligarchy.

      Only true of the two major parties. And it's not so much that only those acceptable to the oligarchy get to run -- rather, only those acceptable get enough funding to win. If you give a Rocky Anderson or Jill Stein the exact same amount of funding as Barack Obama, they might stand a pretty good chance!

      • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday April 17 2014, @10:28PM

        by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday April 17 2014, @10:28PM (#32866) Journal

        Only true of the two major parties. And it's not so much that only those acceptable to the oligarchy get to run -- rather, only those acceptable get enough funding to win. If you give a Rocky Anderson or Jill Stein the exact same amount of funding as Barack Obama, they might stand a pretty good chance!

        Totally with you -- I voted for Jill Stein. In fact I won't vote for either a GOP or DNC candidate ever. I only vote third parties, or if there is none available, for my cat (*).

        By the same token, I totally understand that what I'm doing is protest voting. Which is a valid use of one's vote, certainly more valid than voting for a "lesser evil" candidate because the fact is, you are still voting for evil. It's also better than staying home and getting lumped in with the apathetic. So I don't consider it a waste to vote for my cat or a third party candidate while it certainly would be a waste to vote for someone I hate only because he or she has a chance of winning. Still, I also recognize that until at least a third of the vote shows up as a protest vote like mine, the DNC and GOP won't care. If protest votes hit 20-30% though, they might start to cater to protest voters.

        (*) If you want to vote for my cat, his name is "Boris" btw. "Boris the Cat" would be our best president ever -- he likes sleeping by a warm fire in the late fall/winter/early spring, and in a sunny spot during late spring/summer/early fall. That's about all he would do for 4 years besides eat and use the litter box.

  • (Score: 1) by anyanka on Thursday April 17 2014, @06:15PM

    by anyanka (1381) on Thursday April 17 2014, @06:15PM (#32772)

    Sticking within a democratic system, I'd start with:

    - Proportional representation.

    - Taxpayer funded elections with a strict ban on any outside donations.

    - A wholesale devolving of powers to local municipalities, states, regions etc. In my opinion centralized government is anything but democratic, and the only way to have any real representation is to allow decision making at a local / regional level.

    These are good points and they used to be the norm in Europe (with some counterexamples, like the UK). Unfortunately, we seem to be moving in the US direction on the latter two points lately.